Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

He found Jack on deck in his nightshirt. ‘She means business,’ he said, over the high beating of the eastern drum. The privateer had put up her helm. Her yards were braced round and she was entering a long smooth curve that would cut the Lord Nelson’s present course in perhaps a quarter of an hour; her main and fore sails were dewed up, and it was clear that she meant to bear down under topsails alone - could do so with ease, a greyhound after a badger. ‘But I have time to put my breeches on.’

Breeches, a pair of pistols. Stephen methodically laying out his instruments by the light of a farthing dip.

‘What do you make of her, Jack?’ he asked.

‘Corvette or a damned big privateer: she means business.’

Up on deck. Much more daylight already, and a scene of less disorder than he had feared, a far better state of things. Captain Spottiswood had put the Indiaman before the wind to gain a few minutes’ preparation, the French ship was still half a mile away, still under her topsails, still a little dubious, choosing to probe the Lord Nelson’s strength rather than make a dash for it.

Captain Spottiswood might lack decision, but his officers did not, nor the most part of his crew: they were used to the pirates of the South China Sea, to the wicked Malays of the Straits, to the Arabs of the Persian Gulf, and they had the boarding-​netting rigged out taut and trim, the arms chest open, and at least half the guns run out.

On the crowded quarterdeck Jack snapped in between two sets of orders, said, ‘I am at your disposition, sir.’ The drawn, hesitant, elderly face turned towards him. ‘Shall I take command of the for’ard division?’

‘Do, sir. Do.’

‘Come with me,’ he said to Major Hill, hovering there at the fringe of the group. They ran along the gangway to the forward eighteen-​pounders, two under the forecastle, two bare to the thin rain. Pullings had the waist division; the first officer the twelve-​pounders on the quarterdeck; Mr Wand the maindeck eighteen-​pounders aft, all encumbered in the stateroom and the cabins; and overhead a tall thin midshipman, looking desperately ill, stood shouting weakly at the bow-​gun’s crew.

The forward division on the larboard side, guns one, three, five and seven, were fine modern flintlock pieces; two were already run out - primed, cocked and waiting. Number one’s port-​lid was jammed, its crew prising with their crows and handspikes in the confined space, thumping it with shot, hauling on the port-​tackle, all smelling of brown men in violent emotion. Jack bent low under the beams, straddled the gun: with his hands hard on the carnage he lashed out backwards with all his might. Splinters and flakes of paint dropped from the port: it did not budge - seemed built into the ship. Three times. He slipped off, hobbled round to check the breeching, cried ‘Bowse her up’ and as the gun’s muzzle came hard against the port, ‘Stand by, stand by.’ He pulled the laniard. A spark, a great sullen crash (damp powder, by God), and the gun leapt back under him. The acrid smoke tore out of the shattered port, and as it thinned Jack saw the sponger already at work, his swab right down the barrel of the gun, while the rest of the crew clapped on to the train-​tackle. ‘They know their business’ he thought with pleasure, leaning out and tearing the wreckage from its hooks. ‘Crucify that God-​damned gunner!’ But this was no time for reflection. Number three was still inboard. Jack and Major Hill tailed on to the side-​tackles, and with ‘One - two - three’ they ran it up, the carriage crashing against the port-​sill and the muzzle as far out as it could go. Number five had no more than four Lascars and a midshipman to serve it, an empty shot-​rack and only three wads: it must have run itself out on the roll when they cast loose. ‘Where are your men?’ he asked the boy, taking his dirk and cutting the seizing within the clinch.

‘Sick, sir, all sick. Kalim is nearly dead - can’t speak.’

‘Tell the gunner we must have shot and a cheese of wads. Cut along. Now, sir?’ to another midshipman.

‘Captain asks what did you fire for, sir,’ panted the young man.

‘To open the port,’ said Jack, smiling into his round-​eyed, anxious face. ‘Tell him, with my compliments, there is nothing like enough eighteen-​pound shot on deck. Cut along now.’ The boy shut his mouth on the rest of his message and vanished.

Number seven was in good shape: seven men to its crew, powder-​boy standing over to starboard with a cartridge in his hands, gun levelled, tackle-​falls neatly faked down; all ship-​shape. Its captain, a grizzled European, only replied with a nervous chuckle, keeping his head bent away, feigning to look along the sights. A run seaman, no doubt, a man who had served with him in some commission, who had deserted, and who was afraid of being recognized. Once a quarter-​gunner, to judge from the trimness of the gear. ‘I hope he can point his piece as well as he. .

Jack straightened from his inspection of the flint and pan and glanced right and left. The hammocks were coming up in relays, piling into the netting. Half a dozen very sick men flogged on deck by the serang’s mates, were creeping about with shot, and he was standing behind them, obviously in full control; there was still some confusion on the quarterdeck, but the air of frantic haste had gone. This was a breathing-​space, and lucky they were to have it. Fore and aft the Indiaman looked like a fighting-​ship: thinly manned, decks still encumbered, but a fighting-​ship. He looked out over the sea: light enough to see the red of the tricolour five hundred yards away - a severe cold light now the rain had stopped, and a grey, grey sea. Wind steady in the west; high cloud except on the horizon; a long even swell. The Bellone still had her larboard tacks aboard:

she was hanging off to see what weight of metal the Lord Nelson carried. And the Lord Nelson was still before the wind, moving heavily - this was one of her many bad points of sailing. If Captain Spottiswood continued to run it was likely that the Frenchman would bear up, and moving two miles for the Lord Nelson’s one, cross under her stern and rake her. That was his business: for the moment Jack’s world was confined to his guns: there was a comfort in subordination, in small responsibility, no decisions…

Seven, five and three were well enough: number one was still too cluttered for a full team to work it fast, and a full team it must have. A last sharp look at the privateer - how beautifully she breasted the swell - and he dived under the forecastle.

Hard, fast, dogged, mechanical work, shifting heavy lumps, bales, casks: he found that what he was whistling under his breath was the adagio from Hummel’s piece -Sophia’s inept playing of it - Diana’s rough splendid dash - a jet of intense feeling for Sophia - loving, protective -a clear image of her on the steps of that house. Some fool, Stephen of all people, had said you could not be both busy and unhappy, sad.

The Bellone’s opening gun cut short these reflections. Her starboard bow eight-​pounder sent a ball skipping along the Lord Nelson’s larboard side; and as though he had needed this to set him going, Captain Spottiswood called out his orders. The yards braced round, the seascape turned, and the privateer came into view through the number one gun-​port, framed there, bright against the darkness of the low crowded forecastle. The Lord Nelson fell off a little, steadied on her new course with the Bellone on her larboard quarter, so that now Jack saw no more than her head-​sails, four hundred yards away, long musket-​shot. And as the Indiaman steadied, so her after guns went off, a six-​fold crash, a thin high-​pitched cheering, and the word came forward. ‘Fire as they bear.’