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

‘Drop the forecourse. Fill foretopsail,’ he cried with the full force of his lungs: and down the tube, ‘Two points off.’ He must at all costs keep on the Marengo’s bows and keep hitting her - she was a slaughter-​house forward, but nothing vital had yet carried away. The Surprise forged on in a sluggish, heavy turn, and the two-​decker’s side came into view. They were opening their lower ports, running out the great thirty-​six-​pounders in spite of the sea. One shift of her helm to bring them to bear and the Surprise would have the whole shattering broadside within pistol-​shot. Then they could clap the lower ports to, for she would be sunk.

Etherege, with four muskets and his servant to load them, was firing steadily at the Marengo’s foretop, picking off any man who showed. Half a mile astern, the British van opened fire on the SŽmillante and Belle Poule, who had been reaching them this last five minutes: smoke everywhere, and the thunder of the broadsides deadened the breeze.

‘Port, port, hard a-​port,’ he called down the tube; and straightening, ‘Maincourse, there.’ Where was her speed, poor dear Surprise? She could just keep ahead of the Marengo, but only by falling away from the wind so far that her guns could not bear and her stern was pointing at the Marengo’s bows. Fire slackened, died away, and the men stared aft at the Marengo: two spokes of her wheel would bring the Frenchman’s broadside round - already they could see the double line of muzzles projecting from their ports. Why did she not yaw? Why was she signalling?

A great bellowing of guns to starboard told them why. The Royal George, followed by the two ships astern of her, had left the line, the holy line, and they were coming up fast to engage the Marengo on the other side while the van was closing in from the west, threatening to envelop him -the one manoeuvre that Linois dreaded.

The Marengo hauled her wind, and her swing brought the frigate’s guns into play again. They blazed out, and the two-​decker instantly replied with a ragged burst from her upper starboard guns so close that her shot went high over the frigate’s deck and the burning wads came aboard - so close that they could see the faces glaring from the ports, a biscuit-​toss away. For a moment the two ships lay broadside to broadside. Through a gap torn in the Marengo’s quarterdeck bulwark Jack saw the Admiral sitting on a chair; there was a grave expression on his face, and he was pointing at something aloft. Jack had often sat at his table and he instantly recognised the characteristic sideways lift of his head. Now the Marengo’s turn carried her farther still. Another burst from her poop carronades and she was round, close-​hauled, presenting her stern to a raking fire from the frigate’s remaining guns - two more were dismounted and one had burst - a fire that smashed in her stern gallery. Another broadside as she moved away, gathering speed, and a prodigious cheer as her cross-​jack yard came down, followed by her mizen and topgallantmast. Then she was out of range, and the Surprise, though desperately willing, could not come round nor move fast enough through the sea to bring her into reach again.

The whole French line had worn together: they hauled close to the wind, passed between the converging lines of Indiamen, and stood on.

‘Mr Lee,’ said Jack. ‘General chase.’

It would not do. The Indiamen chased, cracking on until their skysails carried away, but still the French squadron had the heels of them; and when Linois tacked to the eastward, Jack recalled them.

The Lushington was the first to reach him, and Captain Muffit came aboard. His red face, glorious with triumph, came up the side like a rising sun; but as he stepped on to the bloody quarterdeck his look changed to shocked astonishment. ‘Oh my God,’ he cried, looking at the wreckage fore and aft - seven guns dismantled, four ports beat into one, the boats on the booms utterly destroyed, shattered spars everywhere, water pouring from her lee-​scuppers as the pumps brought it gushing up from below, tangled rope, splinters knee-​deep in the waist, gaping holes in the bulwarks, fore and mainmast cut almost through in several places, 24 lb balls lodged deep. ‘My God, you have suffered terribly. I give you the joy of victory,’ he said, taking Jack’s hand in both of his, ‘but you have suffered most terribly. Your losses must be shocking, I am afraid.’

Jack was worn now, and very tired: his foot hurt him abominably, swollen inside his boot. ‘Thank you, Captain,’ he said. ‘He handled us roughly, and but for the George coming up so nobly, I believe he must have sunk us. But we lost very few men. Mr Harrowby, alas, and two others, with a long score of wounded: but a light bill for such warm work. And we paid him back. Yes, yes: we paid him back, by God.’

‘Eight foot three inches of water in the well, if you please, sir,’ said the carpenter. ‘And it gains on us.’

‘Can I be of any use, sir?’ cried Muffit. ‘Our carpenters, bosuns, hands to pump?’

‘I should take it kindly if I might have my officers and men back, and any help you can spare. She will not swim another hour.’

‘Instantly, sir, instantly,’ cried Muffit, starting to the side, now very near the water. ‘Lord, what a battering,’ he said, pausing for a last look.

‘Ay,’ said Jack. ‘And where I shall replace all my gear this side of Bombay I do not know - not a spar in the ship. My comfort is, that Linois is even worse.’

‘Oh, as for masts, spars, boats, cordage, stores, the Company will be delighted - oh, they will think the world of you, sir, in Calcutta - nothing too much, I do assure you. Your splendid action has certainly preserved the fleet, as I shall tell ‘em. Yardarm to yardarm with a seventy-​four! May I give you a tow?’

Jack’s foot gave him a monstrous twinge. ‘No, sir,’ he said sharply. ‘I will escort you to Calcutta, if you choose, since I presume you will not remain at sea with Linois abroad; but I will not be towed, not while I have a mast standing.’

The Company did think the world of him, indeed. Fireworks; prodigious banquets, treasures of naval stores poured out; such kind attentions to the crew while the Surprise was repairing that scarcely a man was sober or single from the day they dropped anchor to the day they weighed it, a sullen, brutal, debauched and dissipated band.

This was gratitude expressed in food, in entertainment on the most lavish scale in oriental splendour, and in many, many speeches, all couched in terms of unmixed praise; and it brought Jack into immediate contact with Richard Canning. At the very first official dinner he found Canning at his right - a Canning filled with affectionate admiration, who eagerly claimed acquaintance. Jack was astonished: he had scarcely thought twice about Canning since Bombay, and since the engagement with Linois not at all. He had been perpetually busy, nursing the poor shattered fainting Surprise across the sea, even with a favourable wind and the devoted help of every Indiaman whose people could find footing aboard her; and Stephen, with a sick-​bay full, and some delicate operations, including poor Bowes’s head, had barely exchanged a dozen unofficial words with him that might have brought Diana or Canning to his mind.

But here was the man at his side, friendly, unreserved and apparently unconscious of any call for reserve on either part, present to do him honour and indeed to propose his health in a well-​turned, knowledgeable and really gratifying speech, a speech in which Sophia hovered, decently veiled, together with Captain Aubrey’s imminent, lasting, and glorious happiness. After the first stiffness and embarrassment Jack found it impossible-​to dislike him, and he made little effort to do so, particularly as Stephen and he seemed so well together. Besides, any distance, any coldness on a public occasion would have been so marked, so graceless and so churlish that he could not have brought himself to it, even if the offence had been even greater and far more recent. It occurred to him that in all probability Canning had not the least notion of having cut him out long ago - oh so long ago: in another world.