Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

She was a pretty young woman with a decided air, and with a hint not of boldness but rather of that freedom which a wedding-​ring and the protection of a child provides. Not that any of this was visible when Jack greeted her on the quarterdeck, however; all was demure gratitude and apologies for the intrusion. Little Brydges would be no trouble, she assured him - he was thoroughly accustomed to ships - had been to Gibraltar and back - was never sick, and never cried.

‘Why, ma’am,’ said Jack, ‘we are delighted to have the honour of your company, and wish it were for farther than Portsmouth. If a man cannot give a brother-​officer’s wife and sister a lift, things are in a sad way. Though I believe we may look forward to the pleasure of having you with us for quite a while, the wind is getting round into that God

- that bothersome southerly quarter.’

‘Uncle John,’ said young Brydges, ‘why are you nodding and winking at Mama? She has not talked to the Captain too much, yet; and I dare say she will stop directly. And I have said nothing at all.’

‘Stephen,’ said Jack, ‘may I come in? I hope I have not woken you - was you asleep?’

‘No,’ said Stephen. ‘Not at all.’

‘Well, the gun-​room is in rather a taking. It seems that a round million of your reptiles got into their cocoa-​pot this morning - immolated themselves by the hundred, crawling in at the spout. They say that the wear and anxiety of such another breakfast would make them give up the service.’

‘Did they note down the exact time?’

‘Oh, I am sure they did. I am sure that in the intervals of avoiding attack, eating their breakfast, and navigating the ship, they hurried off to check the precise moment by the master’s twin chronometers. Ha, ha.’

‘You speak ironically, no doubt. But this is a striking instance of sagacity in bees. I feed them with a syrup of cocoa and sugar. They connect the scent of cocoa with their nourishment. They discover a new source of cocoa-​scent; they busily communicate this discovery to their fellows, together with its location, and there you have the whole situation - as satisfactory a proof as you could wish to see. Tomorrow I hope the gun-​room will note down the time of their first appearance. I bet you a considerable sum of money that it will be within ten minutes either side of seven bells, the moment at which they were first fed.’

‘Do you mean that they will rush in again?’

‘So long as the gun-​room continues to drink heavily-​sugared cocoa, I see no reason why they should ever stop. It will be interesting to see whether this knowledge is passed on to all the subsequent generations of bees. I thank you, Jack, for telling me this: no discovery has given me so much satisfaction for years. Once it has been thoroughly tested - a sequence of some weeks or months - I shall communicate it to Monsieur Huber.’

His waxy, tormented face had such a glow of pleasure that Jack could not find it in his heart to fulfil his promise to the gun-​room. They might caulk their bulkheads, keyholes, skylights, drink tea or coffee, shroud themselves in mosquito netting for a day or so - what was a little discomfort, on active service? He said, ‘I have a treat for you today, Stephen - a pretty young woman for dinner ! Dashwood’s sister came aboard this morning, a very fine young woman indeed. A pleasure to look at, and very well behaved - went straight below and has never been seen since.’

‘Alas, I must beg to be excused. I am only waiting for my opiates to have their effect, and then I shall operate. Mr Floris is waiting for me, and his mates are sharpening the bistouries at this very moment. I should have preferred to wait until we reached Haslar, but with this wind I presume it will take a couple of days or so; and the patient cannot wait. They are eager to see the operation; I am equally eager to gratify them. That is why I am resting my limbs at present; it would never do to make a blunder in such a demonstration. Besides, we must consider our patient. Oh, certainly. He must feel assured of a steady hand, when we are groping in his vitals with our instrument, for it will be some little while before we tally and belay.’

The patient, the unhappy Wallace, might feel assured of a steady hand as he was led, or rather propelled, to the bench, stupefied with opium, dazed with rum, and buoyed up with accounts of the eminence of the hand that was going to deal with him; but he was assured of little else, to judge by his staring pallor. His messmates led him to his place and made him fast in a seamanlike manner: one seized his pigtail to a ring-​bolt, another gave him a bullet to bite upon, and a third told him he was saving at least a hundred guineas by being there - no physical gent with a gold-​headed stick would think of opening him for less.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Stephen, turning back his cuffs, ‘you will observe that I take my point of departure from the iliac crest; I traverse thus, and so find my point of incision.’

So, in the fore-​cabin, Jack held the point of his carver over a dimple in the venison pasty and said, ‘Allow me to cut you a little of this pasty, ma’am. It is one of the few things I can carve. When we have a joint, I usually call upon my friend Dr Maturin, whom I hope to introduce to you this afternoon. He is such a hand at carving.’

‘If you please, sir,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘It looks so very good. But I cannot quite believe what you say about carving. You cut out the Fanciulla only the other day, and surely that was a very pretty piece of carving.’

While these delights were going forward, the Lively stood across the Channel, close-​hauled to the freshening south-​west breeze with her starboard tacks aboard, under topgallants and a fine spread of staysails.

‘Now, Mr Simmons,’ said Jack, appearing upon deck, ‘this is very capital, is it not? How she does love to sail upon a bowline.’ It was a warm, bright afternoon, with patches of cloud moving across the sky, and her brilliant canvas, her white rigging, shone splendid against them as she. heeled to the wind. There was nothing. of the yacht about her; her paintwork was strictly utilitarian and even ugly;, but this one point of snowy cordage, the rare manilla she had brought back from the Philippines, raised her to an uncommon height of beauty - that, and of course, her lovely, supple command of the sea. There was a long, even swell from the south and a surface ripple that came lipping along her weather bow, sometimes sending a little shower of spray aft across the waist, with momentary rainbows in it. This would be a perfect afternoon and evening for gunnery.

‘Tell me, Mr Simmons,’ he said, ‘what has been your practice in exercising the great guns?’

‘Well, sir,’ said the first lieutenant, ‘we used to fire once a week at the beginning of the commission, but Captain Hamond was so checked by the Navy Board for expenditure of powder and ball that he grew discouraged.’ Jack nodded: he too had received those querulous, righteous, indignant letters that ended so strangely with ‘your affectionate friends’. ‘So now we only fire by divisions once a month. Though of course we run them in and out at least once a week at quarters.’

Jack paced the windward side of the quarterdeck. Rattling the guns in and out was very well, but it was not the same thing as firing them. Nothing like it at all. Yet a broadside from the Lively would cost ten guineas. He considered, turning it over in his mind; stepped into the master’s cabin to look at the charts, and sent for the gunner, who gave him a statement of cartridge filled, powder at hand, and an appreciation of each gun. The four long nine-​pounders were his darlings, and they did most of the firing in the Lively, worked by him, his mates and the quarter-​gunners.