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

The Niobe appeared as though by magic from the midst of the overlapping Hyres islands, tearing along under courses and topsails and throwing a fine white bow-​wave. She might be bringing something in the way of food, something in the way of prizes (all the frigates had agreed to share), and in any case she meant a break from this extreme monotony; she was heartily welcome. ‘And here’s the Weasel,’ piped the infant child.

The Weasel was a big cutter, the messenger that plied all too rarely from the fleet to the inshore frigates. She too would almost certainly be bringing stores, news of the outside world - what a happy combination!

The cutter was under a perfect cloud of sail, heeling over at forty-​five degrees; and the squadron, hove-​to off Giens, cheered as they saw her fetch the Niobe’s wake and then cross to windward, with the obvious intention of making a race of it. Topgallants and an outer jib broke out aboard the frigate, but the fore-​topgallant split as it was sheeted home, and before the agitated Niobes could blunt up the Weasel was on her starboard beam, wronging her cruelly, taking the wind right out of her sails. The Niobe’s bow-​wave diminished and the cutter shot past, cheering madly, to the delight of one and all. She had the Lively’s number flying - orders aboard for Lively - and she came down the line, rounding to under the frigate’s lee, her enormous mainsail flapping, cracking like a shooting-​gallery. But she made no motion towards launching a boat: lay there with her captain bawling through the wind for a line.

‘No stores?’ thought Jack in the top, frowning. ‘Damn this.’ He put a leg over the side, feeling for the futtock shrouds: but someone had seen a familiar purple bag handing up through the cutter’s main-​hatch, and there was a cry of ‘Post’. At this word Jack leant out for the backstay and shot down on deck like a midshipman, forgetting his dignity and laddering his fine white stockings. He stood within a yard of the quartermasters and the mate of the watch as the two bags came jerking across the water. ‘Bear a hand, bear a hand there,’ he called out; and when at last the bags were inboard he had to make a strong effort to control his impatience while the midshipman passed them solemnly to Mr Randall, and while Mr Randall brought them across the quarterdeck, took off his hat, and said, ‘Weasel from the flag, sir, if you please.’

‘Thank you, Mr Randall,’ said Jack, carrying them with a fair show of deliberation into his cabin. Here he raped the seals of the post-​bag with furious haste, whipped off the cord and riffled through the letters: three covers directed to Captain Aubrey, H.M.S. Lively, in Sophie’s round but decided hand, fat letters, triple at the very least. He thrust them into his pocket, and smiling he turned to the little official bag, or satchel, opened the tarred canvas, the oiled-​silk inner envelope and then the small cover containing his orders, read them, pursed his lips and read them again. ‘Hallows,’ he called. ‘Pass the word for Mr Randall and the master. Here, letters to the purser for distribution. Ab, Mr Randall, signal Naiad, if you please - permission to part company. Mr Norrey, be so good as to lay me a course for Calvette.’

For once there was no violent hurry; for once that ‘jading impression of haste, of losing not a minute, forsooth’ of which Stephen had complained so often, was absent. This was the season of almost uninterrupted northerly winds in the western Mediterranean, of the mistral, the gargoulenc and the tramontane, all standing fair for Minorca and the Lively’s rendezvous; but it was important not to arrive off the island too soon, not to stand off and on arousing suspicion; and as Jack’s orders, with their general instructions ‘to disturb the enemy’s shipping, installations and communications’ allowed him a great deal of latitude, the frigate was now stretching away across the Gulf of Lyons for the coast of Languedoc, with as much sail as she could bear and her lee rail vanishing from time to time under the racing white water. The morning’s gunnery practice - broadside after broadside into the unopposing sea - and now this glorious rushing speed in the brilliant sun had done away with the cross looks and murmurs of discontent of the day before - no stores and no cruise; these damned orders had cheated them of their little cruise at the very moment they had earned it, and they cursed the wretched Weasel for her ill-​timed antics, her silly cracking-​on, her passion for showing away, so typical of those unrated buggers. ‘Was she had come along like a Christian not a Turk, we should have been gone halfway to Elba,’ said Java Dick. But this was yesterday, and now brisk exercise, quick forgetfulness, the possibility of something charming over every fresh mile of the opening horizon, and above all the comfortable pervading sense of wealth tomorrow, had restored the Lively’s complacency. Hcr captain felt it as he took a last turn on deck before going into his cabin to receive his guests, and he felt it with a certain twinge of emotion, difficult to define: it was not envy, since he was wealthier than any group of them put together, wealthier in posse, he added, with a habitual crossing of his fingers. Yet it was envy, too: they had a ship, they were part of a tightly-​knit community. They had a ship and he had not. Yet not exactly envy, not as who should say envy- fine definitions fled down the wind, as the glass turned, the Marine went forward to strike four bells, and the midshipman of the watch heaved the log. He hurried into the great cabin, glanced at the long table laid athwartships, his silver plates blazing in the sun and sending up more suns to join the reflected ripple of the sea on the deckhead (how long would the solid metal withstand that degree of polishing?), glasses, plates, bowls, all fast and trim in their fiddles, the steward and his mates standing there by the decanters, looking wooden. ‘All a-​tanto, Killick?’ he said.

‘Stock and fluke, sir,’ said his steward, looking beyond him and signalling with an elegant jerk of his chin.

‘You are very welcome, gentlemen,’ said Jack, turning in the direction of the chin. ‘Mr Simmons, please to take the end of the table; Mr Carew, if you will sit - easy, easy.’ The chaplain, caught off his balance by a lee-​lurch, shot into his seat with such force as almost to drive it through the deck. ‘Lord Garron here; Mr Fielding and Mr Dashwood, pray be so good,’ - waving to their places. ‘Now even before we begin,’ he went on, as the soup made its perilous way across the cabin, ‘I apologise for this dinner. With the best will in the world - allow me, sir,’ - extracting the parson’s wig from the tureen and helping him to a ladle - ‘Killick, a nightcap for Mr Carew, swab this, and pass the word for the midshipman of the watch. Oh, Mr Butler, my compliments to Mr Norrey, and I believe we may brail up the spanker during dinner. With the best will in the world, I say, it can be but a Barmecide feast.’ That was pretty good, and he looked modestly down but it occurred to him that the Barmecides were not remarkable for serving fresh meat to their guests, and there, swimming in the chaplain’s bowl, was the unmistakable form of a bargeman, the larger of the reptiles that crawled from old biscuit, the smooth one with the black head and the oddly cold taste - the soup, of course, had been thickened with biscuit-​crumbs to counteract the roll. The chaplain had not been long at sea; he might not know that there was no harm in the bargeman, nothing of the common weevil’s bitterness; and it might put him off his food. ‘Killick, another plate for Mr Carew: there is a hair in his soup. Barmecide. . . But I particularly wished to invite you, since this is probably the last time I shall have the honour. We are bound for Gibraltar, by way of Minorca; and at Gibraltar Captain Hamond will return to the ship.’ Exclamations of surprise, pleasure, civilly mixed with regret. ‘And since my orders require me to harry the enemy installations along the coast, as well as his shipping, of course, I do not suppose we shall have much leisure for dining once we have raised Cape Gooseberry. How I hope we shall find something worthy of the Lively! I should be sorry to hand her over without at least a small sprig of laurel on her bows, or whatever is the proper place for laurels.’