Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

The Aimable Louise's ill wind had stirred up the shipping all over the western Mediterranean, driving it far from its intended courses; and not two hours after they had sent their prize away for Mahon, their first fine plump prize, they saw two more vessels, the one a barca-longa heading west and the other a brig to the north, apparently steering due south. The brig was the obvious choice and they set a course to cut her off, keeping closest watch upon her the while: she sailed on placidly enough under courses and topsails, while the Sophie set her royals and topgallants and hurried along on the larboard tack with the wind one point free, heeling so that her lee-channels were under the water; and as their courses converged the Sophies were astonished to see that the stranger was extraordinarily like their own vessel, even to the exaggerated steeve of her bowsprit.

'That would be a brig, no doubt,' said Stephen, standing at the rail next to Pullings, a big shy silent master's mate.

'Yes, sir, so she is; and more exactly like us nor ever you would credit, without you seen it. Do you please to look in my spy-glass, sir?' he asked, wiping it on his handkerchief.

'Thank you. An excellent glass – how clear. But I must venture to disagree. That ship, that brig, is a vile yellow, whereas we are black, with a white stripe.'

'Oh, that's nobbut paintwork, sir. Look at her quarterdeck, with its antic little break right aft, just like ourn -you don't see many of such, even in these waters. Look at the steeve of her bowsprit. And she must gauge the same as us, Thames measurement, within ten ton or less. They must have been off of the same draught, out of the same yard. But there are three rows of reefbands in her fore tops'l, so you can see she's only a merchantman, and not a man-of-war like we.'

'Are we going to take her?'

'I doubt that'd be too good to be true, sir: but maybe we shall.'

'The Spanish colours, Mr Babbington,' said Jack; and looking round Stephen saw the yellow and red break out at the peak.

'We are sailing under false colours,' whispered Stephen. 'Is not that very heinous?'

'Wicked, morally indefensible?'

'Bless you, sir, we always do that, at sea. But we'll show our own at the last minute, you may be sure, before ever we fire a gun. That's justice. Look at him, now – he's throwing out a Danish waft, and as like as not he's no more a Dane than my grandam.'

But the event proved Thomas Pullings wrong. 'Danish prig Clomer, sir,' said her master, an ancient bibulous Dane with pale, red-rimmed eyes, showing Jack his papers in the cabin. 'Captain Ole Bugge. Hides and peeswax from Dripoli to Parcelona.'

'Well, Captain,' said Jack, looking very sharply through the papers – the quite genuine papers – 'I'm sure you will forgive me for troubling you – we have to do it, as you know. Let me offer you a glass of this Priorato; they tell me it is good of its kind.'

'It is better than good, sir,' said the Dane, as the purple tide ran out, 'it is vonderful vine. Captain, may I ask you the favour of your positions?'

'You have come to the right shop for a position, Captain. We have the best navigator in the Mediterranean. Killick, pass the word for Mr Marshall. Mr Marshall, Captain B – the gentleman would like to know what we make our position.'

On deck the Clomers and the Sophies were gazing at one another's vessels with profound satisfaction, as at their own mirror-images: at first the Sophies had felt that the resemblance was something of a liberty on the part of the Danes, but they came round when their own yeoman of the sheets and their own shipmate Anderssen called out over the water to their fellow-countrymen, talking foreign as easy as kiss my hand, to the silent admiration of all beholders.

Jack saw Captain Bugge to the side with particular affability; a case of Priorato was handed down into the Danish boat; and leaning over the rail Jack called after him, 'I will let you know, next time we meet.'

Her captain had not reached the Clomer before the Sophie's yards were creaking round, to carry her as close-hauled as she would lie on her new course, north-east by north. 'Mr Watt,' observed Jack, gazing up, 'as soon as we have a moment to spare we must have cross-catharpings fore and aft; we are not pointing up as sharp as I could wish.'

'What's afoot?' asked the ship's company, when all sail was set and drawing just so, with everything on deck coiled down to Mr Dillon's satisfaction; and it was not long before the news passed along from the gun-room steward to the purser's steward and so to his mate, Jack-in-the-dust, who told the galley and thereby the rest of the brig – the news that the Dane, having a fellow-feeling for the Sophie because of her resemblance to his own vessel, and being gratified by

Jack's civility, had given word of a Frenchman no great way over the northern horizon, a deep-laden sloop with a patched mainsail that was bearing away for Agde.

Tack followed tack as the Sophie beat up into the freshening breeze, and on the fifth leg a scrap of white appeared in the north-north-east, too far and too steady for a distant gull. It was the French sloop, sure enough: from the Dane's description of her rig there was no doubt of that after the first half hour; but her behaviour was so strange that it was impossible to be wholly persuaded of it until she was lying tossing there under the Sophie's guns and the boats were going to and fro over the lane of sea, transferring the glum prisoners. In the first place she had apparently kept no look-out of any kind, and it was not until no more than a mile of water lay between them that she noticed her pursuer at all; and even then she hesitated, wavered, accepted the assurance of the tricolour flag and then rejected it, flying too slowly and too late, only to break out ten minutes later in a flurry of signals of surrender and waving them vehemently at the first warning shot.

The reasons for her behaviour were clear enough to James Dillon once he was aboard her, taking possession: the Citoyen Durand was laden with gunpowder – was so crammed with gunpowder that it overflowed her hold and stood in tarpaulined barrels on her deck; and her young master had taken his wife to sea. She was with child -her first – and the rough night, the chase and the dread of an explosion had brought on her labour. James was as stout-hearted as the next man, but the continuous groaning just behind the cabin-bulkhead and the awful hoarse, harsh, animal quality of the cries that broke out through the groaning, and their huge volume, terrified him; he gazed at the white-faced, distracted, tear-stained husband with a face as appalled as his.

Leaving Babbington in sole command he hurried back to the Sophie and explained the situation. At the word powder Jack's face lit up; but at the word baby he looked very blank.

'I am afraid the poor woman is dying,' said James.

'Well, I don't know, I'm sure,' said Jack hesitantly; and now that he could put a meaning to the remote, dreadful noise he heard it far more clearly. 'Ask the Doctor to come,' he said to a marine.

Now that the excitement of the chase was over, Stephen was at his usual post by the elm-tree pump, peering down its tube into the sunlit upper layers of the Mediterranean; and when they told him there was a woman in the prize, having a baby, he said, 'Aye? I dare say. I thought I recognized the sound,' and showed every sign of returning to his place.

'Surely you can do something about it?' said Jack.

'I am certain the poor woman is dying,' said James.

Stephen looked at them with his odd expressionless gaze and said, 'I will go across.' He went below, and Jack said, 'Well, that's in good hands, thank God. And you tell me all that deck cargo is powder too?'

'Yes, sir. The whole thing is mad.'

'Mr Day – Mr Day, there. Do you know the French marks, Mr Day?'