Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

‘Did they carry powder?’ cried Jack. ‘Dr Maturin said trousers, or something of that kind, but I -.

‘Oh, you horrid two-​faced thing!’ cried Miss Susan. ‘You saw her! You shouted out the most dreadful things to Lucy, the most dreadful things I ever heard in my life. You swore at my sister, sir; you know you did. Oh, Captain Aubrey, fie!’

‘Captain Aubrey?’ observed Azéma, adding the head-​money for an English officer to his share of the prize -a very handsome sum.

‘She’s blown the gaff - I’m brought by the lee,’ thought Jack. ‘They carried powder - What an amazing spirited thing to do.’ ‘Dear Miss Lambs,’ he said most humbly, ‘I beg you to forgive me. The last half-​hour of the action - a damned warm action too - is a perfect blank to me. I fell on my head; and it is a perfect blank. But to carry powder was the most amazing spirited thing to do: I honour you, my dears. Please forgive me. The smoke - the trousers -what did I say, so that I may unsay it at once?’

‘You said,’ began Miss Susan, and paused. ‘Well, I forget; but it was monstrous.

The sound of a gun made the whole group jerk, an absurd, simultaneous, galvanic leap: they had all been speaking very loud, being still half deafened from the roar of battle, but a gun touched their innermost ears and they all pivoted at once, mechanical toys pointing directly at the Bellone.

She had been under double-​reefed topsails all this time, to allow the Lord Nelson to keep company, but now men were already laying out on the yard to shake out the reefs, and Captain Dumanoir hailed loud and clear, telling his second to make straight for Corunna, ‘all sails outside’. He added a good deal that neither Jack nor Pullings could understand, but the general upshot was plain: his look-​out had seen a sail to windward; he was not going to take the slightest risk with so valuable a prize; and he meant to beat up to reconnoitre, and as the case fell out, to salute a friend or neutral, to fight an enemy, or, trusting to the Bellone’s magnificent sailing qualities, to lead the strange sail astray.

The Lord Nelson, trailing a curtain of dark-​brown weed, leaking steadily (her pumps had never stopped since the action), and still short of sails, spars and rigging, could only make four knots, even with her topgallantsails set; but the Bellone, now a triple pyramid of white, was at her best close-​hauled, and in ten minutes they were two miles away from one another. Jack asked permission to go into the top; Captain Azéma not only entreated him to go anywhere he chose, but lent him Stephen’s telescope as well.

‘Good day,’ said the privateersman in the top. Jack had given him a terrible blow with his bar, but he bore no grudge. ‘That is one of thy frigates down there.’

‘Oh wee?’ said Jack, settling his back against the mast. The distant ship sprang close in his objective-​glass. Thirty-​six guns; no, thirty-​eight. Red pennant. Naiad? Minerve? She had been going large under easy sail when first she sighted the Bellone; then studdingsails had appeared - the last were being sheeted home when first jack had her steadily under view - as she altered course to close the privateer; then she saw the Indiaman and altered course again to know more about her. Upon this the Bellone tacked, tacked clumsily, taking an age over what Jack had seen her do in five minutes from ‘helm’s a-​lee’ to ‘let go and haul’; he heard them laughing, clowning down there on deck. She stood on this tack until

she was within a mile of the frigate, steadily beating up against the swell, white water sweeping across her forecastle. A white puff showed at the frigate’s bows, and shifting his gaze he saw the red ensign break out at her mizen-​peak: he frowned: he would at least have tried the tricolour or, with the big American frigates in those waters, the Stars and Stripes; it might not have worked, but it was worth the attempt. For her part, the Bellone was perfectly capable of showing French colours without any distinction, to pass for a national ship and lead the frigate away.

She had done so. She had done just that thing; and the seaman, who had borrowed the glass, licking it with his garlic tongue, chuckled to himself. Jack knew what was passing through the frigate-​captain’s head; far to leeward a ship, probably a merchantship, possibly a prize, but what sort of prize he could not tell: crossing his bows three-​quarters of a mile away there was a French corvette, not very well handled, not very fast, peppering him at random-​shot. A simple mind would find no great difficulty about this decision and soon Jack saw the frigate haul her wind. Her studdingsails disappeared, and she turned to pursue the Bellone, setting a press of staysails. She would deal with the Frenchman and then come back to see about this hypothetical prize.

‘Surely to God you must see she’s spilling her wind,’ cried Jack within himself. ‘Surely to God you’ve seen that old trick before?’ They slipped away and away across the distant sea, the frigate with a fine bold bow-​wave at her stern and the Bellone keeping just beyond the reach of her chasers; and when they were no more than flecks of white, hull down to the north-​north-​east, Jack climbed heavily out of the top. The seaman gave him a compassionate yet philosophic nod; this had happened to him before; it was happening to Jack now; it was one of the little miseries of life.

After dark Captain Azéma altered course according to his instructions, and the Indiaman headed into a lonely sea, drawing her slow furrow a hundred miles in the four and twenty hours, never to be seen by the frigate again.

At the far end of that furrow lay Corunna; he had no doubt of Captain Azéma’s making his landfall to within a mile or so, for not only was Azéma a thorough-​going seaman, but this clear weather continued day after day - perfect weather for observation, for fixing his position.

Corunna: Spain. But now that Jack was known for an officer they would never let him ashore. Unless he gave his parole, Azéma would put him in irons, there to lie until the Bellone or some chasse-​marée carried him to France -his was a valuable carcass.

The next day was a total void: the unbroken round of the sea, the dome of the sky, thin cloud lightening to blue above. And the next was the same, distinguished only by what Jack thought to be the beginnings of the influenza, and a certain skittishness observed in the Misses Lamb, pursued by Azéma’s lieutenant and a sixteen-​year old volunteer with flashing eyes.

But Friday’s sea was all alive with sails - the ocean was speckled with the sober drab of a fleet of bankers, coming home with codfish from Newfoundland; they could be smelt a mile downwind. And among the bankers a bean-​cod, a double-​lateen with a host of odd, haphazard-​looking sails, a strange vessel with an archaic prow; and a disagreeable reminder that the coast was near - your bean-​cod was no ocean crosser. But though the bean-​cod was of absorbing interest to a sailor, the plain cutter far down to leeward wiped it entirely from their attention.

‘You see the cutter, sir?’ said Pullings.

Jack nodded. The cutter was a rig more favoured by the English than the French; it was used by the Navy and by privateers, by smugglers and by those who pursued smugglers, being fast, nimble and weatherly, lying very close to the wind; it was of no great use to merchants. And this particular little vessel was no merchantman: what merchantman would steer that erratic course among the bankers? She did not belong to the Navy, either, for as soon as she sighted the Lord Nelson a gaff-​topsail appeared above her mainsail, a modern sail not countenanced in the service. She was a privateer.

This was Captain Azéma’s opinion too. He had the guns drawn, reloaded and run out on both sides; he was in no particular hurry, because the cutter had to work straight up into the eye of the wind. Furthermore, as she came nearer, tacking and tacking again, it was clear that she had had a rough time of it not long ago - her mainsail was double-​reefed, presumably from some recent damage; there were strangely-​patched holes all over it and more in her foresail and ragged jib; her upper works had a chewed appearance; and one of her seven little gun-​ports on the starboard side had been hastily repaired. There was not much danger to be feared from her, but still he was going to take no risks: he had new boarding-​netting rigged out, a great deal of cartridge filled, and shot brought up; and his acting-​bosun, helped by all the Lascars who were capable of work, secured the yards.