Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

he was not the real owner, he was not going to play King Log. He must move with care, and at the same time with decision. . . a difficult passage. An awkward first lieutenant could prove the very devil. By the grace of God he had a little money in hand: he would be able to entertain them decently for the present, although he could not keep Hamond’s table, with half a dozen to dinner every day. He must hope for another advance from his agent soon, but for the moment he would not look poverty-​stricken. There was a Latin tag about poverty and ridicule - elusive: no hand at Latin. He must not be ridiculous; no captain could afford to be ridiculous. ‘Stephen, oh my dear fellow,’ he said to the tell-​tale compass over his cot (for he was in his sleeping-​cabin), ‘what induced you to put on that vile thing? What a singular genius you have for hiding your talent under a bushel - a bushel that no one could possibly have foreseen.’

In the gun-​room, however, another sound of things was heard. ‘No, gentlemen,’ said Mr Floris, the surgeon. ‘I do assure you he is a great man. I have read his book until it is dog-​eared - a most luminous exposition, full of pregnant reflections, a mine of nervous expressions. When the Physician of the Fleet came to inspect us, he asked me whether I had read it, and I was happy to show him my copy, interleaved and annotated, and to tell him that I required my assistants to get whole passages by heart. I tell you, I long to be introduced to him. I long for his opinion on poor Wallace.’

The gun-​room was impressed; it had a deep respect for learning, and but for that unfortunate remark about East Indiamen it would have been ready to accept the wool garment as a philosopher’s vagary, a knitted Diogenes’ tub.

‘Yet if he has been in the service,’ said Mr Simmons, ‘what are we to make of his remark about the East Indiaman? It was very like a direct affront, and it was delivered with a strangely knowing leer.’

Mr Floris looked at his plate, but found no justification there. The chaplain coughed, and said that perhaps they should not judge by appearances - perhaps the gentleman had had a momentary absence - perhaps he meant that the Indiaman was the very type of sea-​going luxury, which indeed it was; a well-​appointed Indiaman was to be preferred, in point of comfort, to a first-​rate.

‘That makes it worse,’ observed the third lieutenant, an ascetic young man so tall and thin that it was difficult to see where he could sleep at length, if not in the cable-​tier.

‘Well, for my part,’ said the senior Marine, the caterer to the mess, ‘I shall drink to his health and eternal happiness in a glass of this excellent Margaux, as sound as a nut, whatever the parson may say. Such an example of courage as coming aboard like Badger-​Bag, with a narwhal-​horn in one hand and a green umbrella in the other, has never come under my observation. Bless him.’

The gun-​room blessed him, but without much conviction, except for Mr Floris; and they went on to discuss the health of Cassandra, the last of the Lively’s gibbons, the last of that numerous menagerie which she had borne away from Java and the remoter islands of the eastern seas. They did not discuss their acting-​captain at all: he had come with the reputation of a seaman and a fighter; of a rake and of a protégé of Lord Melville. Captain Hamond was a supporter of Lord St Vincent; and he had gone to Parliament to vote with St Vincent’s friends; and Lord St Vincent, who hated Pitt and his administration, was working to impeach Lord Melville for malversation of the secret funds and to get him out of the Admiralty. The Lively’s officers all shared their captain’s views - strong Whigs to a man.

Breakfast was something of a disappointment. Captain Hamond had always drunk cocoa, originally to encourage the crew to do the same and then because he liked it, whereas Jack and Stephen were neither of them human until the first pot of coffee was down, hot and strong.

‘Killick,’ said Jack, ‘toss this hog’s wash over the side and bring coffee at once.’

‘Ax pardon, sir,’ said Killick, seriously alarmed. ‘I forgot the beans, and the cook’s got none.’

‘Then jump to the purser’s steward, the gun-​room cook, the sick-​bay, anywhere, and get some, or your name will not be Preserved much longer, I can tell you. Cut along. God-​damned lubber, to forget our coffee,’ he said to Stephen, with warm indignation.

‘A little pause will make it all the more welcome when it comes, sure,’ said Stephen, and to divert his friend’s mind he took up a bee and said, ‘Be so good as to watch my honey-​bee.’ He put it down on the edge of a saucer in which he had made a syrup of cocoa and sugar; the bee tasted to the syrup, pumped a reasonable quantity, took to the air, hovered before the saucer, and returned to the hive. ‘Now, sir,’ said Stephen, noting the time on his watch, ‘now you will behold a prodigy.’

In twenty-​five seconds two bees appeared, questing over the saucer with a particular high shrill buzz. They pitched, pumped syrup, and went home. After the same interval four bees came, then sixteen, then two hundred and fifty-​six; but when four minutes had elapsed this simple progression was obscured by earlier bees who knew the way and who no longer had to fix either their hive or the syrup.

‘Now,’ cried Stephen, from out of the cloud, ‘have you any doubt of their power to communicate a locus? How do they do it? What is their signal? Is it a compass-​bearing? Jack, do not offer to molest that bee, I beg. For shame. It is only resting.’

‘Beg pardon, sir, but there ain’t a drop of coffee in the barky. Oh God almighty,’ said Killick.

‘Stephen, I am going to take a turn,’ said Jack, withdrawing from the table in a sly undulatory motion and darting through the door with hunched shoulders.

‘Why they call this a crack frigate,’ he said, swilling down a glass of water in his sleeping-​cabin, ‘I cannot for the life of me imagine: not a drop of coffee among two hundred and sixty men.’

The reason became apparent to him some two hours later, when the port-​admiral signalled Lively proceed to sea. ‘Acknowledge,’ said Jack, this news being brought to him. ‘Mr Simmons, we will unmoor, if you please.’

The unmooring was a pleasure to watch. At the pipe of All hands to unmoor ship the men flowed rather than ran to their stations; there was no stampede along the gangways, no stream of men blundering into one another in their haste to escape the rope’s end; as far as he could see there was no starting, and there was certainly very little noise. The capstan-​bars were pinned and swifted, the Marines and afterguard manned them, the piercing fife struck up Drops of Brandy, and one cable came in while the other went out. A midshipman from the forecastle reported the best bower catted; the first lieutenant relayed this to Jack, who said, ‘Carry on, Mr Simmons.’

Now the Lively was at single anchor, and as the capstan turned again so she crept across the sea until she was immediately over it. ‘Up and down, sir,’ called the bosun.

‘Up and down, sir,’ said the first lieutenant to Jack.

‘Carry on, Mr Simmons,’ said Jack. This was the crucial moment: the crew had both to clap on fresh nippers - the bands that attached the great cable to the messenger, the rope that actually turned on the capstan - for a firmer hold, and to loose the topsails so as to sail the anchor out of the ground. In even the best-​managed ships there was a good deal of hullabaloo at such a time, and in this case, with the tide running across the wind - an awkward cast in which split-​second timing was called for - he expected a rapid volley, a broadside of orders.