Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

Some days later the diary continued: ‘Since Wednesday JA has been his own master; and I believe he is abusing his position. As I understand it, the convoy was complete yesterday, if not before: the masters came aboard for their instructions, the wind was fair and the tide served; but the sailing was put off. He takes insensate risks, going ashore, and any observation of mine has the appearance of bad faith. This morning the devil suggested to me that I should have him laid by the heels; I could so with no difficulty at all. He presented the suggestion with a wealth of good reasons, mostly of an altruistic nature, and mentioned both honour and duty; I wonder he did not add patriotism. To some extent JA is aware of my feelings, and when he brought her renewed invitation to dinner he spoke of “happening to run into her again”, and expatiated on the coincidence in a way that made me feel a surge of affection for him in spite of my animal jealousy. He is the most inept liar and the most penetrable, with his deep, involved, long-​winded policy, that I have ever met. The dinner was agreeable; I find that given warning I can support more than I had supposed. We spoke companion-​ably of former times, ate very well, and played - the cousin is one of the most accomplished flautists I have heard. I know little of DV, but it appears to me that her sense of hospitality (she is wonderfully generous) overcame all her more turbid feelings; I also think she has a kind of affection for the both of us; although in that case, how she can ask so much of JA passes my understanding. She showed at her best; it was a delightful evening; but how I long for tomorrow and a fair wind. If it comes round into the south - if he is windbound for a week or ten days, he is lost: he must be taken.’

The Polychrest left her convoy in 38° 30′ N., ll°W., with the wind at south-​west and the Rock of Lisbon bearing S87E., 47 leagues. She fired a gun, exchanged signals with the merchantmen, and wore laboriously round until the wind was on her larboard quarter and her head was pointing north.

The signals were polite, but brief; they wished one another a prosperous voyage and so parted company, with none of those long, often inaccurate hoists that some grateful convoys would keep flying until they were hidden by the convexity of the earthly sphere. And although the previous day had been fine and calm, with an easy swell and warm variable airs from the west and south, the merchant captains had not invited the King’s officers to dinner: it was not a grateful convoy, and in fact it had nothing to be grateful for. The Polychrest had delayed their departure, so that they had missed their tide and the best part of a favourable breeze, and had held them back in their sailing all the way, not only by her slowness, but by her inveterate sagging to leeward, so that they were all perpetually having to bear up for her, they being a weatherly set of ships. She had fallen aboard the Trade’s Increase by night, when they were lying-​to off the Lizard, and had carried away her bowsprit; and when they met with a strong south-​wester in the Bay of Biscay she rolled her mizenmast out. Her maintopmast had gone with it and they had been obliged to stand by while she set up a jury-​rig. Nothing had appeared to threaten their security, not so much as a lugger on the horizon, and the Polychrest had had no occasion to protect them or to show what teeth she might possess. They turned from her with

loathing, and pursued their voyage at their own far brisker pace, setting topgallants and royals at last.

But the Polychrest had little time for attending to the convoy as it disappeared, for this was Thursday, and the people were to be mustered. Scarcely had she steadied on her new course before five bells in the forenoon watch struck and the drum began to beat: the crew came hurrying aft and stood in a cluster abaft the mainmast on the larboard side. They had all been aboard some time now, and they had been mustered again and again; but some were still so stupid that they had to be shoved into place by their mates. However, by this time they were all decently dressed in the purser’s blue shirts and white trousers; none showed the ghastly pallor of gaol or sea-​sickness any more, and indeed the enforced cleanliness, the sea-​air and the recent sun had given most the appearance of health. The food might have done something, too, for it was at least as good as that which many of them had been eating, and more plentiful.

The first part of the alphabet happened to contain most of the Polychrest’s seamen. There were some awkward brutes among them, such as that gap-​toothed Bolton, but most were the right strong-​faced long-​armed bow-​legged pigtailed sort; they called out ‘Here, sir’ to their names, touching their foreheads and walking cheerfully past their captain to the starboard gangway. They gave that part of the ship something of the air of the Sophie, an efficient, happy ship, if ever there was one, where even the waisters could hand, reef and steer. . . how fortunate he had been in his lieutenant. But Lord, how few the seamen were! After the letter G there were hardly more than two among all the names that were called. Poor meagre little creatures for the most part little stouter than the boys. And either surly or apprehensive or both: not a smile as they answered their names and crossed over. There had been too much flogging, too much starting: but what else could you do in an emergency? Oldfield, Parsons, Pond, Quayle . . . sad little objects; the last much given to informing; had been turned out of his mess twice already. And they were not the bottom of the barrel.

Eighty-​seven men and boys, no more, for he was still thirty-​three short of his complement. Perhaps thirty of them knew their duty, and some were learning; indeed, most had learnt a little, and there were no longer the scenes of total incompetence that had made a nightmare of the earliest days. He knew all these faces now; some had improved almost out of recognition; some had deteriorated

- too much unfamiliar misery; dull minds unused to learning yet forced to learn a difficult trade in a driving hurry. Three categories: a top quarter of good sound able hands; then the vague middle half that might go up or might go down, according to the atmosphere of the ship and how they were handled; and then the bottom quarter, with some hard cases among them, brutal, or stupid, or even downright wicked. As the last names were called his heart sank farther: Wright, Wilson and Young were the very bottom. Men like them were to be found aboard most men-​of-​war in a time of hot press, and an established ship’s company could wear a certain number without much harm. But the Polychrest’s was not an established ship’s company; and in any case the proportion was far too high.

The clerk closed the book, the first lieutenant reported the muster complete, and Jack gave them a last look before sending them to their tasks: a thoughtful look, for these were the men he might have to lead on to the deck of a French man-​of-​war tomorrow. How many would follow him?

‘Well, well,’ he thought, ‘one thing at a time,’ and he turned with relief to the problem in hand, to the new-​rigging of the Polychrest. It would be complicated enough in all conscience, with her strange hull and the calculation of the forces acting upon it, but in comparison with the task of making a crew of man-​of-​war’s men out of the rag, tag, and bobtail from G to Y it was as simple and direct as kiss my hand. And here he was seconded by good officers: Mr Gray, the carpenter, knew his trade thoroughly; the bosun, though still too free with his cane, was active, willing and competent where rigging was concerned; and the master had a fine sense of a ship’s nature. In theory, Admiralty regulations forbade Jack to shift so much as his backstays, but Biscay had shifted them for him, and a good deal more besides; he had a free hand, fine calm weather, a long day before him, and he meant to make the most of it.