Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

‘You have the Gaelic, sir?’ cried Macdonald.

‘No, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘and that is what is so curious. I no longer speak it; I thought I no longer understood it. And yet there at once, with no volition on my part, there was complete understanding. I had no idea the Erse and the Irish were so close; I had imagined the dialects had moved far apart. Pray, is there a mutual understanding between your Hebrideans and the Highlanders on the one, and let us say the native Ulstermen on the other?’

‘Why, yes, sir; there is. They converse tolerably well, on general subjects, on boats, fishing, and bawdy. There are some different words, to be sure, and great differences of intonation, but with perseverance and repetition they can make themselves understood very well - a tolerably free communication. There are some Irishmen among the pressed hands, and I have heard them and my marines speaking together.’

‘If I had heard them, they would be on the defaulters’ list,’ said Parker, who had come below, dripping like a Newfoundland dog.

‘Why is this?’ asked Stephen.

‘Irish is forbidden in the Navy,’ said Parker. ‘It is prejudicial to discipline; a secret language is calculated to foment mutiny.’

‘Another roll like that, and we shall have no masts,’ said Pullings, as the remaining crockery, the glasses and the inhabitants of the gun-​room all shot over to the lee. ‘We’ll lose the mizen first, Doctor,’ - picking Stephen tenderly out of the wreckage - ‘and so we’ll be a brig; then we’ll lose the foremast, so we’ll be a right little old sloop; then we’ll lose the main, and we’ll be a raft, which is what we ought to have begun as.’

By some miracle of dexterity Macdonald had seized, and preserved, the decanter; holding it up he said, ‘If you can find a whole glass, Doctor, I should be happy to drink a wee doodly of wine with you, and to lead your mind back to the subject of Ossian. From the obliging way in which you spoke of my ancestor, it is clear that you have a fine delicate notion of the sublime; and sublimity, sir, is the greatest internal evidence of Ossian’s authenticity. Allow me to recite you a short description of the dawn.’

Once again the blue light shone down on the deck of the Polychrest and the uplifted faces of the watch; but this time it drifted off to the north-​east, for the wind had come right round, bringing a thin rain and the promise of more, and this time it was almost instantly answered by musketry on the shore - red points of flame and a remote pop-​pop-​pop.

‘Boat pulling off, sir,’ called the man in the top. And two minutes later, ‘On deck, on deck there! Another boat, sir. Firing on the first one.’

‘All hands to make sail,’ cried Jack, and the Polychrest woke to urgent life. ‘Fo’c’sle, there; cast loose two and four. Mr Rolfe, fire on the second boat as I run inshore. Fire the moment they bear - full elevation. Mr Parker, tops’ls and courses.’ They were half a mile off, well out of range of his carronades, but if only he could get under way he would soon shorten it. Oh, for just one long gun, a chaser.

The supplementary orders came thick and fast, a continuous, repetitive, exasperated clamour. ‘Lay aloft, jump to it, trice up, lay out, lay out - will you lay out there on the maintops’ yard? Let fall, God damn your - eyes, let fall, mizen tops’l. Sheet home. Hoist with a will, now, hoist away.’

Christ, it was agony: it might have been an undermanned merchantman, a dung-​scow in pandemonium: he clasped his hands behind his back and stepped to the rail to prevent himself running forward to sort out the confused bellowing on the fo’c’sle. The boats were coming straight for him, the second firing two or three muskets and a spatter of pistols.

At last the bosun piped belay and the Polychrest began to surge forward, lying over to the wind. Keeping his eye on the advancing boats he said, ‘Mr Goodridge, lay her in to give the gunner a clear shot. Mr Macdonald, your marksmen into the top - fire at the second boat.’

Now the sloop was really moving, opening the angle between the two boats: but at the same time the first boat began to turn towards her, shielding its pursuer from his fire. ‘The boat ahoy,’ he roared. ‘Steer clear of my stern -pull a-​starboard.’

Whether they heard, whether they understood or no, a gap appeared between the boats. The forward carronades went off - a deep crash and a long tongue of flame. He did not see the fall of the shot, but it had no effect on the following boat, which kept up its excited fire. Again, and this time he caught it, a split-​second plume in the grey, well short, but in the right direction. The first musket cracked out overhead, followed by three or four together. A carronade again, and this time the ball was pitched well up to the second boat, for the Polychrest had moved two or three hundred yards: it must have ricocheted over their heads, for it damped their ardour. They came on still, but at the next shot the pursuing boat spun round, fired a last wanton musket and pulled fast out of range.

‘Heave her to, Mr Goodridge,’ said Jack. ‘Back the mizen tops’l. The boat, ahoy! What boat?’ There was a gabbling out there on the water, fifty yards away. ‘What boat?’ he hailed again, leaning far over the rail, the rain driving in on his face.

‘Bourbon,’ came a faint cry, followed by a strong shout, ‘Bourbon’ again.

‘Pull under my lee,’ said Jack. The way was off the Polychrest, and she lay there pitching and groaning. The boat touched alongside, hooked to the mainchains, and in the glow of the battle-​lanterns he saw a body crumpled in the stern-​sheets.

‘Le monsieur est touché,’ said the man with the boat-​hook.

‘Is he badly hurt - mauvaisement blessay?’

‘Sais pas, commandant. Il parle plus: je crois bien que c’est un macchabée a present. Y a du sang partout. Vous voulez pas me faire passer une élingue, commandant?’

‘Eh? Parlez - pass the word for the Doctor.’

It was not until they had got his patient into Jack’s cabin that Stephen saw his face. Jean Anquetil, a nervous, timid-​brave, procrastinating, unlucky young man: and he was bleeding to death. The bullet had nicked his aorta, and there was nothing, nothing he could do: the blood was pumping out in great throbs.

‘It will be over in a few minutes,’ he said, turning to Jack.

‘And so, sir, he died within minutes of being brought aboard,’ said Jack.

Admiral Harte grunted. He said, ‘That is everything he had on him?’

‘Yes, sir. Greatcoat, boots, clothes and papers: they are very bloody, I am afraid.’

‘Well, that is a matter for the Admiralty. But what about this death-​or-​money boat?’

So that was the reason for his ill-​humour. ‘I sighted the boat when I was on my station, sir; there were fifty-​three minutes to go before the rendezvous, and if I had borne down I must necessarily have been late - I could never have beaten back in time. You know what the Polychrest is on a bowline, sir.’

‘And you know the tag about workmen and their tools, Captain Aubrey. Anyhow, there is such a thing as being too scrupulous by half The fellow was never at the rendezvous at all: these foreigners never are. And in any case, half an hour or so. . . and it positively could not have been more, even with a crew of old women. Are you aware, sir, that Amethyst’s boats picked up that Deal bugger as he was running into Ambleteuse with eleven hundred guineas aboard? It makes me mad to think of it. . . made a cock of the whole thing.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. The Amethyst was cruising under Admiralty orders, Jack reflected; the flag-​officer had no share in her prize-​money; Harte had lost about a hundred and fifty pounds, he was not pleased ‘However,’ went on the admiral, ‘it is no use crying over spilt milk. As. soon as the wind gets out of the south I am taking the convoy down. You will wait here for the Guinea men to join, and the ships in the list Spalding will give you: you are to escort them as far as the Rock of Lisbon, and I have no doubt on your way back you will make good this little mess. Spalding will give you your orders you will find no cast-​iron rigid rendezvous’.