Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

'Hawser to, sir,' came the reply, after a moment's pause.

'Then heave away.'

The hawser had been made fast to the middle of the yard and then laid along it almost to its starboard extremity, being tied in half a dozen places from the slings to the yardarm with stoppers – bands of spun yarn; the hawser ran from the yardarm up to the top-block at the masthead and so down through another block on deck and thence to the capstan; so as the capstan turned the yard rose from the water, sloping more and more nearly to the vertical until it came aboard quite upright, steered carefully end-on through the rigging.

'Cut the outer stopper,' said Jack. The spun yarn dropped and the yard canted a little, held by the next: as it rose so the other stoppers were cut, and when the last went the yard swung square, neatly under the top.

'It will never do, Captain Aubrey,' called Mr Brown, hailing over the quiet evening air through his trumpet. 'It is far too large and will certainly carry away. You must saw off the yardarms and half the third quarter.'

Lying stark and bare like the arms of an immense pair of scales, the yard certainly did look somewhat over-large

'Hitch on the runners,' said Jack 'No, farther out Halfway to the second quarter. Surge the hawser and lower away.' The yard came down on deck and the carpenter hurried off for his tools 'Mr Watt,' said Jack to the bosun 'Just rig me the brace-pendants, will you" The bosun opened his mouth, shut it again and bent slowly to his work – anywhere outside Bedlam brace-pendants were rigged after the horses, after the stirrups, after the yard-tackle pendants (or a thimble for the tackle-hook, if preferred) and none of them, ever, until the stop-cleat, the narrow part for them all to rest upon, had been worked on the sawn-off end and provided with a collar to prevent them from drawing in towards the middle The carpenter reappeared with a saw and a rule 'Have you a plane there, Mr Lamb?' asked Jack 'Your mate will fetch you a plane Unship the stuns'l-boom iron and touch up the ends of the stop-cleats, Mr Lamb, if you please' Lamb, amazed until he grasped what Jack was about, slowly planed the tips of the yard, shaving off wafers until they showed new and white, a round the size of a halfpenny bun. 'That will do,' said Jack. 'Sway her up again, bracing her round easy all the time square with the quay. Mr Dillon, I must go ashore: return the guns to the ordnance-wharf and stand off and on for me in the channel. We must sail before the evening gun. Oh, and Mr Dillon, all the women ashore.'

'All the women without exception, sir?'

'All without their lines. All the trollops. Trollops are capital things in port, but they will not do at sea.' He paused, ran down to his cabin and came back two minutes later, stuffing an envelope into his pocket. 'Yard again,' he cried, dropping into the boat.

'You will be glad you took my advice,' said Mr Brown, receiving him at the steps. 'It would certainly have carried away with the first puff of wind.'

'May I take the duettoes now, sir?' asked Jack, with a certain pang. 'I am just about to fetch the friend I was speaking of – a great musician, sir. You must meet him, when next we are in Mahon: you must allow me to present him to Mrs Brown.'

'Should be honoured – most happy,' said Mr Brown.

'Crown steps now, and give way like heroes,' said Jack, returning at a shambling run with the book: like so many sailors he was rather fat, and he sweated easily on shore. 'Six minutes in hand,' he said, peering at his watch in the twilight as they came in to the landing. 'Why, there you are, Doctor. I do hope you will forgive me for ratting on you this afternoon. Shannahan, Bussell: you two come with me. The others stay in the boat. Mr Ricketts, you had better lie twenty yards off or so, and deliver them from temptation. Will you bear with me, sir, if I make a few purchases? I have had no time to send for anything, not so much as a sheep or a ham or a bottle of wine; so I am afraid it will be junk, salt horse and Old Weevil's wedding cake for most of the voyage, with four-water grog to wet it. However, we can refresh at Cagliari. Should you like the seamen to carry your dunnage down to the boat? By the way,' he added, as they walked along, with the sailors following some way behind, 'before I forget it, it is usual in the service to draw an advance upon one's pay upon appointment; so conceiving you would not choose to appear singular, I put up a few guineas in this envelope.'

'What a humane regulation,' said Stephen, looking pleased. 'Is it often taken advantage of?'

'Invariably,' said Jack. 'It is a universal custom, in the service.'

'In that case,' said Stephen, taking the envelope, 'I shall undoubtedly comply with it: I certainly should not wish to look singular: I am most obliged to you. May I indeed have one of your men? A violoncello is a bulky object: as for the rest there is only a small chest and some books.'

'Then let us meet again at a quarter past the hour at the steps,' said Jack. 'Lose not a moment, I beg, Doctor; for we are extremely pressed. Shannahan, you look after the Doctor and trundle his dunnage along smartly. Bussell, you come along with me.'

As the clock struck the quarter and the note hung up there unresolved, waiting for the half, Jack said, 'Stow the chest in the fore-sheets. Mr Ricketts, you stow yourself upon the chest. Doctor, you sit down there and nurse the 'cello. Capital. Shove off. Give way together, and row dry, now.'

They reached the Sophie, propelled Stephen and his belongings up the side – the larboard side, to avoid ceremony and to make sure they got him aboard: they had too low an opinion of landmen to allow him to venture upon even the Sophie's unaspiring height alone – and Jack led him to the cabin. 'Mind your head,' he said. 'That little den in there is yours: do what you can to make yourself comfortable, pray, and forgive my lack of ceremony. I must go on deck.

'Mr Dillon,' he said, 'is all well?'

'All's well, sir. The twelve merchantmen have made their signal.'

'Very good. Fire a gun for them and make sail, if you please. I believe we shall Just get down the harbour with topgallants, if this fag-end of a breeze still holds; and then, out of the lee of the cape, we may make a respectable offing. So make sail; and by then it will be time to set the watch. A long day, Mr Dillon?'

'A very long day, sir.'

At one time I thought it would never come to an end.'

Two bells in the morning watch found the Sophie sailing steadily eastward along the thirty-ninth parallel with the wind just abaft her beam; she was heeling no more than two strakes under her topgallantsails, and she could have set her royals, if the amorphous heap of merchantmen under her lee had not determined to travel very slowly until full daylight, no doubt for fear of tripping over the lines of longitude.

The sky was still grey and it was impossible to say whether it was clear or covered with very high cloud; but the sea itself already had a nacreous light that belonged more to the day than the darkness, and this light was reflected in the great convexities of the topsails, giving them the lustre of grey pearls

'Good morning,' said Jack to the marine sentry at the door.

'Good morning, sir,' said the sentry, springing to attention.

'Good morning, Mr Dillon.'

'Good morning, sir,' touching his hat.

Jack took in the state of the weather, the trim of the sails and the likelihood of a fair forenoon, he drew deep gusts of the clean air, after the dense fug of his cabin. He turned to the rail, unencumbered by hammocks at this time of day, and looked at the merchantmen they were all there, straggling over not too vast an area of sea, and what be had taken for a far stern lantern or an uncommonly big top-light was old Saturn, low on the horizon and tangled in their rigging To windward now, and he saw a sleepy line of gulls, squabbling languidly over a ripple on the sea – sardines or anchovies or maybe those little spiny mackerel The sound of the creaking blocks, the gently straining cordage and sailcloth, the angle of the living deck and the curved line of guns in front of him sent such a jet of happiness through his heart that he almost skipped where he stood.