Patrick O'Brian - H.M.S. Surprise

The ceremony of reception - Mr Stanhope never came aboard incognito - the clash of the Marines presenting arms, the long-​expected order ‘Up anchor’, the bosun’s pipe, and the crunch of the soldiers’ boots as they ran to their places at the capstan bars.

The spell on land, prolonged to the last possible minute, had restored Mr Stanhope’s spirits; but, thought Stephen, looking into his face, it had not done a great deal for his health: it had also taken away his sea-​legs. He and Stephen were discussing the official letters that had reached him from England and from India when the tide turned against the wind, and the Surprise, heading out to sea, began to caper like a rocking-​horse.

‘You will forgive me, Dr Maturin,’ he said. ‘I think I will lie down. I have little hope of its doing any good. I know that in an hour’s time this cold salivation will reach its paroxysm and that I shall become an inhuman being, unfit for decent company for how long, oh Lord, how long?’ Stephen stayed with him as long as human comfort was supportable, then left him to his valet and a bucket, observing, ‘You will be better soon, very soon; you will grow accustomed to the motion far sooner than you did in the Channel, off Gibraltar, off Madeira; your sufferings will soon be at an end.’

Little did he believe it, however: he had read books of voyages, he had conversed with Pullings, who, sailing with the China-​bound East-​Indiamen, had made this trip several times; and he knew the reputation of the high southern latitudes. For this was not an ordinary passage to India; the Cape of Good Hope had been handed back to the Dutch with bows and smiles in the year two - clearly it would have to be taken from them again, but in the meantime the Surprise must run down far to the south of Africa, to the roaring forties, make her casting, and so northwards to the waters where the summer monsoon blew.

The frigate ran down the trades as though she were determined to make up for lost time; the difference in her sailing was apparent to everyone aboard - easier, faster, more stylish by far. Jack was charmed; he explained to Stephen that she was very like a thoroughbred mare -needed a Light careful hand - had to be steered small- had beautiful manners on a wind and stayed like a cutter - but a captious fellow might fault her going large: a very slight tendency to steer wild, that called for great attention at the helm, to prevent her being pooped. ‘I should be sorry indeed to see her pooped,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Was she to broach to, I should not like to answer for that damned foremast yard; nor yet for the mast itself, the only thing I could not replace. You remember the partners, for example?’ Stephen had a vague recollection of Jack striking a marlinspike into wood, and soft splinters flying; he, too, shook his head, looking grave; and in decency he paused a moment before asking ‘when he might reasonably hope to see an albatross?’

‘Poor dear,’ said Jack, his mind still with his ship, ‘I am afraid she is growing old: all the spirit in the world, but anno domini can’t be beat. Albatross? Why, I dare say we may sight one before we reach the height of the Cape. I will put it in orders that you are to be told the moment an albatross is seen.’

Day after day the figure of the noon altitude rose:

26¡16′, 29¡47′, 30 58′; every day the air grew colder -guernsey frocks and fur hats were seen, pitiably reduced by their passage through the tropics, and the officers’ uniforms were no longer a torment to them; and every day, several times every day, Stephen was called on deck to see mollyhawks, Cape pigeons, petrels, for now they were in the rich waters of the south Atlantic, waters that could and did support Leviathan, who might often be seen sporting in the distance - once indeed a bump in the night, a momentary check in the frigate’s way, showed that they had come into immediate contact with him.

South and south for ever, beyond the zone where the trades were born, boring steadily through uncertain variable airs - cold, cold airs - towards the roaring forties,

where the west wind, sweeping without a pause round the whole watery globe, would carry them eastwards beyond the tip of Africa. Week after week of determined sailing, with the sun lower at every noon, lower and as it were smaller: brilliant, but with no warmth in it: while at the same time the moon seemed to grow.

It was strange to see how quickly this progress took on the nature of ordinary existence: the Surprise had not run off a thousand miles before the unvarying routine of the ship’s day, from the piping up of the hammocks to the drumbeat of ‘Heart of Oak’ for the gunroom dinner, thence to quarters and the incessantly-​repeated exercising of the guns, and so to the setting of the watch, obliterated both the beginning of the voyage and its end, it obliterated even time, so that it seemed normal to all hands that they should travel endlessly over this infinite and wholly empty sea, watching the sun diminish and the moon increase.

Both were in the pale sky on a memorable Thursday when Stephen and Bonden resumed their customary places in the mizentop, dismissing its ordinary inhabitants and settling down upon the folded studdingsails. Bonden had graduated from pot-​hooks and hangers far north of the line; he had skimmed his ignoble slate overboard in 3¡S; now he was yardarm to yardarm with pen and ink, and as the southern latitude mounted, so his neat hand grew smaller and smaller and smaller.

‘Verse,’ said Stephen. It was an inexpressible satisfaction to Bonden to write in metre: with a huge childish grin he opened his inkhorn and poised his attentive pen

- a booby’s quill.

‘Verse,’ said Stephen again, gazing at the illimitable blue-​grey sea and the lop-​sided moon above it. ‘Verse:

‘Then we upon our globe’s last verge shall go.

And view the ocean leaning on the sky;

From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,

And on the lunar world securely pry

-by God I believe I see the albatross.’

believe I see the albatross,’ said Bonden’s lips silently. ‘It don’t rhyme. Another line, sir, maybe?’ But receiving no answer from his rigid teacher he looked up, followed his gaze, and said, ‘Why so you do, sir. I dare say he will fetch our wake directly, and overhaul us. Wonderful great birds they are, though something fishy, without you skin ‘em. There are some old-​fashioned coves that has a spite against them, which they say they bring ill winds.’

The albatross came nearer and nearer, following the ship’s wake in a sinuous path, never moving its wings but coming up at such a pace that what was a remote fleck when Stephen first saw it was an enormous presence by the time Bonden had finished his receipt for albatross pie. An enormous white presence with black wing-​tips, thirteen feet across, poised just astern: then it banked, shot along the side, vanished behind the cloud of sails, and reappeared fifty yards behind the ship.

Messenger after messenger ran into the mizentop. ‘Sir, there’s your albatross, two points on the larboard quarter.’ Achmet reported it in Urdu, and immediately afterwards his dull blue face was thrust aside by a ship’s boy from the quarterdeck with ‘Captain’s compliments, sir, and he believes he has seen the bird you was asking after.’ ‘Maturin, I say, Maturin, here’s your albatross!’ This was Bowes, the purser, clambering up by the power of his hands, trailing his game leg.

At last Bonden said, ‘My watch is called, sir. I must be going, asking your pardon, or Mr Rattray will give me the rub. May I send up a pea-​jacket, sir? ‘Tis mortal cold.’

‘Ay, ay. Do, do,’ murmured Stephen, unhearing, rapt in admiration.

The bell struck, the watch changed. One bell, two bells, three; the drum for quarters, the beating of retreat- no guns for once, thank God; and still he gazed and still in the fading light the albatross wheeled, dropped astern, occasionally alighting for some object thrown overboard, ran up in a long series of curves, the perfection of smooth gliding ease.