Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

Still holding his coffee-cup, Jack writhed from behind the table and with a twist of his body out through the door Hooked on to the larboard main-chains there was the Genereux's boat, filled with seamen, looking up, laughing and exchanging witticisms or mere hoots and whistles with their former shipmates The Gйnйreux's midshipman saluted and said, 'Captain Harte's compliments, sir, and he finds the draft can be spared'

'God bless your heart, dear Molly,' said Jack and aloud, 'My compliments and best thanks to Captain Harte Be so good as to send them aboard.'

They were not much to look at, he reflected, as the whip from the yardarm hoisted up their meagre belongings: three or four were decidedly simple, and two others had that indefinable air of men of some parts whose cleverness sets them apart from their fellows, but not nearly so far as they imagine. Two of the boobies were quite horribly dirty, and one had managed to exchange his slops for a red garment with remains of tinsel upon it. Still, they all possessed two hands; they could all clap on to a rope; and it would be strange if the bosьn and his mates could not induce them to heave.

'Deck,' hailed the midshipman aloft. 'Deck. There is someone moving about on the wharf.'

'Very good, Mr Babbington. You may come down and have your breakfast now. Six hands 1 thought lost for good,' he said to James Dillon with intense satisfaction, turning back to the cabin. 'They may not be much to look at -indeed, I think we must rig a tub if we are not to have an itchy ship – but they will help us weigh. And I hope to weigh by half-past nine at the latest.' Jack rapped the brass-bound wood of the locker and went on, 'We will ship two long twelves as chase-pieces, if I can get them from Ordnance. But whether or no I am going to take the sloop out while this breeze lasts, to try her paces. We convoy a dozen merchant-men to Cagliari, sailing this evening if they are all here, and we must know how she handles. Yes, Mr… Mr… ?'

'Pullings, sir: master's mate. Burford's long-boat alongside with a draft.'

'A draft for us? How many?'

'Eighteen, sir.' And rum-looking cullies some of 'em are, he would have added, if he had dared.

'Do you know anything about them, Mr Dillon?' asked Jack.

'I knew the Burford had a good many of the Charlotte's people and some from the receiving ships as drafts for Mahon, sir; but I never heard of any being meant for the Sophie.'

Jack was on the point of saying, 'And there I was, worrying about being stripped bare,' but he contented himself with chuckling and wondering why this cornucopia should have poured itself out on him. 'Lady Warren,' came the reply, in a flash of revelation. He laughed again, and said, 'Now I am going across to the wharf, Mr Dillon. Mr Head is a businesslike man and he will tell me whether the guns are to be had or not within half an hour. If they are, I will break out my handkerchief and you can start carrying out the warps directly. What now, Mr Richards?' 'Sir,' said the pale clerk, 'Mr Purser says I should bring you the receipts and letters to sign this time every day, and the fair-copied book to read.'

'Quite right,' said Jack mildly. 'Every ordinary day. Presently you will learn which is ordinary and which is not.' He glanced at his watch. 'Here are the receipts for the men.

Show me the rest another time.'

The scene on deck was not unlike Cheapside with roadwork going on: two parties under the carpenter and his crew were making ready the places for the hypothetical bow- and stern-chasers, and parcels of assorted landmen and boobies stood about with their baggage, some watching the work with an interested air, offering comments, others gaping vacantly about, gazing into the sky as though they had never seen it before. One or two had even edged on to the holy quarter-deck. 'What in God's name is this infernal confusion?' cried jack. 'Mr Watt, this is a King's ship, not the Margate hoy. You, sir, get away for'ard.'

For a moment, until his unaffected blaze of indignation galvanized them into activity, the Sophie's warrant officers gazed at him sadly he caught the words 'all these people am going ashore,' he went on 'By the time I come back this deck will present a very different appearance'. He was still red in the face as he went down into the boat after the midshipman. 'Do they really imagine I shall leave an able-bodied man on shore if I can cram him aboard?' he said to himself. 'Of course, their precious three watches will have to go. And even so, fourteen inches will be hard to find.'

The three-watch system was a humane arrangement that allowed the men to sleep a whole night through from time to time, whereas with two watches four hours was the most they could ever hope for; but on the other hand it did mean that half the men had the whole of the available space to sling their hammocks, since the other half was on deck. 'Eighteen and six is twenty-four,' said jack, 'and fifty or thereabout, say seventy-five. And of those how many shall I watch?' He worked out this figure in order to multiply it by fourteen, for fourteen inches was the space the regulations allowed for each hammock: and it seemed to him very doubtful whether the Sophie possessed anything like that amount of room, whatever her official complement might be. He was still working at it when the midshipman called, 'Unrow. Boat your oars,' and they kissed gently against the wharf.

'Go back to the ship now, Mr Ricketts,' said Jack on an impulse. 'I do not suppose I shall be long, and it may save a few minutes.'

But with the Burford's draft he had missed his chance: other captains were there before him now and he had to wait his turn. He walked up and down in the brilliant morning sun with one whose epaulette matched his own – Middleton, whose greater pull had enabled him to snap up the command of the Vertueuse, the charming French privateer that would have been Jack's had there been any justice in the world. When they had exchanged the naval gossip of the Mediterranean, Jack remarked that he had come for a couple of twelve-pounders.

'Do you think she'll bear them?' asked Middleton.

'I hope so. Your four-pounder is a pitiful thing: though I must confess I feel anxious for her knees.'

'Well, I hope so, too,' said Middleton, shaking his head. 'At all events you have come on the right day: it seems that Head is to be placed under Brown, and he has taken such a at it that he is selling off his stock like a fishwife at the end of the fair.'

Jack had already heard something of this development in the long, long squabble between the Ordnance Board and the Navy Board, and he longed to hear more; but at this moment Captain Halliwell came out, smiling all over his face, and Middleton, who had some faint remains of concience, said, 'You take my turn. I shall be an age, with my carronades to explain.'

'Good morning, sir,' said Jack. 'I am Aubrey, of the Sophie, and I should like to try a couple of long twelves, you please.'

With no change in his melancholy expression, Mr Head said, 'You know what they weigh?'

'Something in the nature of thirty-three hundredweight, 1 believe.'

'Thirty-three hundredweight, three pounds, three ounces, three pennyweight. Have a dozen, Captain, if you feel she will bear them.'

'Thank you: two will be plenty,' said Jack, looking sharply to see whether he were being made game of.

'They are yours, then, and upon your own head be it,' said Mr Head with a sigh, making secret marks upon a worn, curling parchment slip 'Give it to the master-parker and he will troll you out as pretty a pair as ever the heart of man could desire. I have some neat mortars, if you have room.'

'I am extremely obliged to you, Mr Head,' said Jack, laughing with pleasure. 'I wish the rest of the service were run so'

'So do I, Captain, so do I,' cried Mr Head, his face growing suddenly dark with passion. 'There are some slack-arsed, bloody-minded men – flute-playing, fiddle-scraping, present-seeking, tale-bearing, double-poxed hounds that would keep you waiting about for a month; but I am not one of them. Captain Middleton, sir: carronades for you, I presume?'