Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

'Huzzay, huzzay!' roared the men on the fo'c'sle. It was no more than a hole in the galley's mainsail, about half-way up, but it was the first blow they had managed to get home. Three more shots; and they heard one strike something metallic in the galley's stern.

'Carry on, Mr Dillon,' said Jack, straightening. 'Light along my glass, there.'

The sun was so low now that it was difficult to see as he stood balancing to the sea, shading his object-glass with his far hand and concentrating with all his power on two red-turbanned figures behind the galley's stern-chaser. A musketoon-ball struck the Sophie's starboard knighthead and he heard a seaman rip out a string of furious obscenity. 'John Lakey copped it something cruel,' said a low voice close behind him. 'In the ballocks.' The gun went off at his side, but before its smoke hid the galley from him he had made up his mind. The Algerine was, in fact, spilling his wind – starting his sheets so that his sails, apparently full, were not really drawing with their whole force: that was why the poor old fat heavy dirty-bottomed Sophie, labouring furiously and on the very edge of carrying everything away, was gaining slightly on the slim, deadly, fine-cut galley. The Algerine was leading him on – could, in fact, run away at any moment. Why? To draw him far to the leeward of the cat, that was why: together with the real possibility of dismasting him, raking him at leisure (being independent of the wind) and making a prize of the Sophie as well. To draw him to the leeward of the convoy, too, so that the sail to windward might snap up half a dozen of them. He glanced over his left shoulder at the cat. Even if she were to go about they would still fetch her in one board, close-hauled, for she was a very slow creature – no topgallants and, of course, no royals – far slower than the Sophie. But in a very little while, on this course and at this pace, he would never be able to reach her except by beating up, tack upon tack, with the darkness coming fast. It would not do. His duty was clear enough: the unwelcome choice, as usual. And this was the time for decision.

''Vast firing,' he said as the gun ran in. 'Starboard broadside: ready, now. Sergeant Quinn, look to the small-arms men. When he have her dead on the beam, aim for her cabin abaft the rowers' benches, right low. Fire at the word of command.' As he turned and ran back to the quarter-deck he caught a look from James Dillon's powder-blackened face, a look if not of anger or something worse, then at least of bitter contrariety. 'Hands to the braces,' he called, mentally dismissing that as something for another day. 'Mr Marshall, lay her for the cat.' He heard the men's groan – a universal exhalation of disappointment – and said, 'Hard over.'

'We'll catch him unaware and give him something to remember the Sophie by,' he added, to himself, standing directly behind the starboard brass four-pounder. At this speed the Sophie came round very fast: he crouched, half-bent, not breathing, all his being focused along the central gleam of brass and the turning seascape beyond it. The Sophie turned, turned; the galley's oars started into furious motion, churning up the sea, but it was too late. A tenth of a second before he had the galley dead on the beam and just before the Sophie reached the middle of her downward roll he cried 'Fire!' and the Sophie's broadside went off as crisply as a ship of the line's, together with every musket aboard. The smoke cleared and a cheer went up, for there was a gaping hole in the galley's side and the Moors were running to and fro in disorder and dismay In his glass Jack could see the stern-chaser dismounted and several bodies lying on the deck: but the miracle had not happened – he had neither knocked her rudder away nor holed her disastrously below the water-line. However, there was no further trouble to be expected from her, he reflected, turning his attention from the galley to the cat.

'Well, Doctor,' he said, appearing in the cockpit, 'how are you getting along?'

'Tolerably well, I thank you. Has the battle begun again?'

'Oh, no. That was only a shot across the cat's bows. The galley is hull-down in the south-south-west and Dillon has just taken a boat across to set the Norwegians free – the Moors have hung out a white shirt and called for quarter. The damned rogues.'

'I am happy to hear it. It is really impossible to sew one's flaps neatly with the jarring of the guns. May I see your ear?'

'It was only a passing flick. How are your patients?'

'I believe I may answer for four or five of them. The man with the terrible incision in his thigh – they tell me it was a splinter of wood: can this be true?'

'Yes, indeed. A great piece of hard sharp-edged oak flying through the air will cut you up amazingly. It often happens.'

'- has responded remarkably well; and I have patched up the poor fellow with the burn. Do you know that the rammer was actually thrust right through between the head of the biceps, just missing the ulnar nerve? But I cannot deal with the gunner down here – not in this light.'

'The gunner? What's amiss with the gunner? I thought you had cured him?'

'So I had. Of the grossest self-induced costiveness it has ever been my privilege to see, caused by a frantic indulgence in Peruvian bark – self-administered Peruvian bark. But this is a depressed cranial fracture, sir, and I must use the trephine: here he lies – you notice the characteristic stertor? -and I think he is safe until the mornings But as soon as the sun is up I must have off the top of his skull with my little saw. You will see the gunner's brain, my dear sir,' he added with a smile. 'Or at least his dura mater.'

'Oh dear, oh dear,' murmured Jack. Deep depression was settling on him – anticlimax – such a bloody little engagement for so little – two good men killed – the gunner almost certainly dead – no man could survive having his brain opened, that stood to reason – and the others might easily die too – they so often did. If it had not been for that damned convoy he might have had the galley – two could play at that game. 'Now what's to do?' he cried, as a clamour broke out on deck.

'They're carrying on very old-fashioned aboard the cat, sir,' said the master as Jack reached the quarter-deck in the twilight. The master came from some far northern part – Orkney, ShetLand – and either that or a natural defect in his speech caused him to pronounce er as ar; a peculiarity that grew more marked in time of stress. 'It looks as though those infernal buggars were cutting their capars again, sir.'

'Put her alongside, Mr Marshall. Boarders, come along with me.'

The Sophie braced round her yards to avoid any more damage, backed her fore-topsail and glided evenly along the cat's side. Jack reached out for the main channels on the Norwegian's high side and swung himself up through the wrecked boarding netting, followed by a grim and savage-looking band. Blood on the deck: three bodies: five ashy Moors pressed against the roundhouse bulkhead under the protection of James Dillon: the dumb Negro Alfred King with a boarder's axe in his hand.

'Get those prisoners across,' said Jack. 'Stow them in the forehold. What's to do, Mr Dillon?'

'I can't quite make him out, sir, but I think the prisoners must have attacked King between decks.'

'Is that what happened, King?'

The Negro was still glaring about – his mates held his arms – and his answer might have meant anything.

'Is that what happened, Williams?' asked Jack.

'Don't know, sir,' said Williams, touching his hat and looking glassy.

'Is that what happened, Kelly?'

'Don't know, sir,' said Kelly, with a knuckle to his forehead and the same look to a hairsbreadth.

'Where's the cat's master, Mr Dillon?'

'Sir, it seems the Moors tossed them all overboard.'