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

The sun was no more than a handsbreadth above the horizon, and in the innumerable ravines the shadow reached from rim to rim, almost as dark as night. ‘To get down -that will be a problem,’ he said aloud. ‘Any man can go up - oh, almost indefinitely - but to go down and down surefooted, that is another thing entirely.’ It was his duty to read the letter, of course, and in the last gleam of day he took it from his pocket: the tearing of the paper - a cruel sound. He read it with a hard, cruel severity; yet he could not prevent a kind of desperate tenderness creeping over his face at the end. But it would not do - weakness would never do - and with the same appearance of indifference he looked about for a hollow in the rocks where he could lie.

Toward the setting of the moon his twitching exhausted body relaxed and sank into the darkness at last: some hours of dead sleep - a total absence. The circling sun, having lit Calcutta and then Bombay, came up on the other side of the world and blazed full on his upturned face, bringing him back into himself by force. He was still dazed with sleep when he sat up and although he was conscious of an extreme pain he could not immediately name it. The dislocated elements of memory fell back into place: he nodded, buried the ancient small iron ring that he had still clasped in his hand - the letter had blown away -and found a last patch of snow to rub his face.

He was at the foot of the mountain by the afternoon, and as he was walking through Funchal he met Jack in the cathedral square.

‘I hope I have not kept you?’ he said.

‘No. Not at all,’ said Jack, taking him by the elbow. ‘We are watering. Come and drink a glass of wine.’

They sat down, too heavy and stupid to be embarrassed. Stephen said, ‘I must tell you this: Diana has gone to America with a Mr Johnstone, of Virginia: they are to be married. She was under no engagement to me - it was only her kindness to mc in Calcutta that let my mind run too far: my wits were astray. I am in no way aggrieved; I drink to her.’

They finished their bottle, and another; but it had no effect of any kind, and they rowed back to the ship as silently as they had come.

tier water completed and fresh provision brought a-​board, the Surprise weighed and stood out to sea, going east about the island and heading into a dirty night. The gaiety forward contrasted strangely with the silence farther aft: as Bonden remarked, the ship ’seemed by the stern’. The men knew that something was amiss with the skipper, they had not sailed so long with him without being able to interpret the look on his face, the captain of a man-​of-​war being an absolute monarch at sea, dispensing sunshine or rain. And they were concerned for the Doctor, too, who looked but palely; yet the general opinion was that they had both eaten some foreign mess ashore - that they would be better in a day or two, with a thundering dose of rhubarb - and seeing that no rough words came from the quarterdeck they sang and laughed as they won the anchor and made sail, in tearing high spirits; for this was the last leg and they had a fair wind for the Lizard. Wives and sweethearts and paying off - Fiddler’s Green in sight at last!

The heaviness in the cabin was not a gloom, but rather a weary turning back to common life, to a commonplace life without much meaning in it - certainly no brilliant colour. Stephen checked the sick-​bay and had a long session with M’Allister over their books; in a week or so the ship would be paid off, and they would have to pass their accounts, justifying upon oath the expenditure of every drachm and scruple of their drugs and comforts for the last eighteen months, and M’Alister had a morbidly tender conscience. Left to himself, Stephen looked at his private stock of laudanum, his bottled fortitude: at one time he had made great use of it, up to four thousand drops a day, but now he did not even draw the cork. There was no longer any need for fortitude: he felt nothing at present and there was no point in artificial ataraxy. He went to sleep sitting in his chair, slept through the exercising of the guns and far into the middle watch. Waking abruptly he found light coming under his door from the great cabin, and there he found Jack, still up, reading over his remarks for the Admiralty hydrographer: innumerable soundings, draughts of the coastline, cross-​bearings; valuable, conscientious observations. He had become a scientific sailor.

‘Jack,’ he said abruptly, ‘I have been thinking about Sophie. I thought about her on the mountain. And it occurs to me - the simplest thing: why did we not think of it before? - that there is no certainty whatsoever about the courier. So many, many miles overland, through wild countries and desert; and in any case the news of Canning’s death must have travelled fast. It may have overtaken the courier; it must certainly have affected Canning’s associates and their designs; there is every reason to believe that your message never reached her.’

‘It is kind of you to say that, Stephen,’ said Jack,

looking at him affectionately, ‘and it is capital reasoning. But I know the news reached India House six weeks ago.

Brenton told me. No. They used to call me Lucky Jack Aubrey, you remember; and so I was, in my time. But I am not as lucky as all that. Lord Keith told mc luck has its end, and mine is out. I set my sights too high, that’s all. What do you say to a tune?’

‘With all my heart.’

With the rain coming down outside and the hanging lamp swinging wide as the sea got up, they soared away through their Corelli, through their Hummel, and Jack had his bow poised for Boccherini when he brought it screeching down on the strings and said, ‘That was a gun.’

They sat motionless, their heads up, and a dripping midshipman knocked and burst in. ‘Mr Pullings’s compliments, sir,’ he said, ‘and he believes there is a sail to leeward.’

‘Thank you, Mr Lee. I shall be on deck directly.’ He snatched up his cloak and said, ‘God send it is a Frenchman. I had rather meet a Frenchman now than - ‘ He vanished, and Stephen put the instruments away.

On deck the cold rain and the freshening south-​wester took his breath away after the air of the cabin, where the tropical heat, stored up under the line, still seeped from the hold, He came up behind Pullings, who was crouched at the rail with his glass. ‘Where away, Tom?’ he said.

‘Right on the quarter, sir, I reckon, in that patch of half moonlight. I caught the flash, and just for a moment I thought I saw her putting about. Will you take a look, sir?’

Pullings could see her tolerably well, a ship under top-​sails three miles off, standing from them on the starboard tack - a ship that had signalled to some unseen consort or convoy that she was going about; but he was attached to his captain, he was distressed by his unhappiness, and he wished to offer him this small triumph.

‘By God, Pullings, you are right. A ship. On the starboard tack, close-​hauled. Wear, clew up topsails, fetch her wake, and see how near she will let us come. There is no hurry now,’ he muttered. Then raising his voice, ‘All hands wear ship.’

The pipes and the roaring bosun’s mate roused the sleeping watch below, and some minutes later the Surprise was running down to cross the stranger’s wake under courses alone, almost certainly invisible in this darkness. She had the wind two points free and she gained steadily, creeping up on the stranger, guns run out, shielded battle-​lanterns faintly glowing along the main-​deck, bell silenced, orders given in an undertone. Jack and Pullings stood on the forecastle, staring through the rain: there was no need for a glass now, none at all; and a break in the cloud had shown them she was a frigate.