Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

He glanced forward, then astern, and understood the position he pursed his lips and retired to the taffrail The lightened Sophie gathered speed minute by minute, and as all this weight had gone from well above the water-line she swam more upright – stiffer to the wind

The first of the Desaix's shot whipped through the topgallantsail, but the next two pitched short. There was still time for manoeuvre – for plenty of manoeuvre. For one thing, reflected Jack, he would be very much surprised if the Sophie could not come about twice as quickly as the seventy-four 'Mr Dalziel,' he said, 'we will go about and back again. Mr Marshall, let her have plenty of way on her.' It would be quite disastrous if the Sophie were tO miss stays on her second turn: and these light airs were not what she liked – she never gave of her best until there was something of a sea running and at least one reef in her topsails.

'Ready about… 'The pipe twittered, the sloop luffed up, came into the wind, stayed beautifully and filled on the larboard tack: her bowlines were as taut as harpstrings before the big seventy-four had even begun her turn.

The swing began, however; the Desaix was in stays; her yards were coming round; her checkered side began to show; and Jack, seeing the first hint of her broadside in his glass, called out, 'You had better go below, Doctor.' Stephen went, but no farther than the cabin; and there, craning from the stern-window, he saw the Desaix's hull vanish in smoke from stem to stern, perhaps a quarter of a minute after the Sophie had begun her reverse turn. The massive broadside, nine hundred and twenty-eight pounds of iron, plunged into a wide area of sea away on the starboard beam and rather short, all except for the two thirty-six pound balls, which hummed ominously through the rigging, leaving a trail of limp, dangling cordage. For a moment it seemed that the Sophie might not stay – that she would fall impotently off, lose all her advantage and expose herself to another such salute, more exactly aimed. But a sweet puff of air in her backed headsails pushed her round and there she was on her former tack, gathering way before the Desaix's heavy yards were firmly braced – before her first manoeuvre was complete at all.

The sloop had gained perhaps a quarter of a mile. 'But he will not let me do that again,' reflected Jack.

The Desaix was round on the starboard tack again, making good her loss; and all the while she fired steadily with her bowchasers, throwing her shot with remarkable accuracy as the range narrowed, just missing, or else clipping the sails, compelling the sloop to jig every few minutes, slightly losing speed each time. The Formidable was lying on the other tack to prevent the Sophie slipping through, and the Indomptable was running westwards, to haul her wind in half a mile or so for the same purpose. The Sophie's pursuers were roughly in line abreast behind her and coming up fast as she ran sloping across their front. Already the eighty-gun flagship had yawed to fire one broadside at no unlikely distance; and the grim Desaix, making short boards, had done so on each turn. The bosun and his party were busy knotting, and there were some sad holes in the sails; but so far nothing essential had been struck, nor any man wounded.

'Mr Dalziel,' said Jack, 'start the stores over the side, if you please.'

The hatch-covers came off, the holds emptied into the sea – barrels of salt beef, barrels of pork, biscuit by the ton, peas, oatmeal, butter, cheese, vinegar. Powder, shot. They started their water and pumped it overboard. A twenty-four pounder hulled the Sophie low under the counter, and at once the pumps began gushing sea as well as fresh water.

'See how the carpenter is doing, Mr Ricketts,' said Jack.

'Stores overboard, sir,' reported the lieutenant.

'Very good, Mr Dalziel. Anchors away now, and spars. Keep only the kedge.'

'Mr Lamb says two foot and a half in the well,' said the midshipman, panting. 'But he has a comfortable plug in the shot-hole.'

Jack nodded, glancing back at the French squadron. There was no longer any hope of getting away from them close-hauled. But if he were to bear up, turning quickly and unexpectedly, he might be able to double back through their line; and then, with this breeze one or two points on her quarter, and with the help of the slight following sea her lightness and her liveliness, why, she might live to see Gibraltar yet She was so light now – a cockleshell – she might outrun them before the wind, and with any luck, turning briskly, she would gain a mile before the line-of-battle ships could gather way on the new tack To be sure, she would have to survive a couple of broadsides as she passed through… But it was the only hope; and surprise was everything

'Mr Dalziel,' he said, 'we will bear up in two minutes' time, set stuns'ls and run between the flagship and the seventy-four. We must do it smartly, before they are aware.' He addressed these words to the lieutenant, but they were instantly understood by all hands, and the topmen hurried to their places, ready to race up and rig out the studdingsail booms. The whole crowded deck was intensely alive, poised. 'Wait… wait,' murmured Jack, watching the Desaix coming up wide on the starboard beam. She was the one to beware of: she was terribly alert, and he longed to see her beginning to engage in some manoeuvre before he gave the word. To port lay the Formidable, overcrowded, no doubt, as flagships always were, and therefore less efficient in an emergency. 'Wait… wait,' he said again, his eyes fixed On the Desaix. But her steady approach never varied and when he had counted twenty he cried 'Right!'

The wheel span, the buoyant Sophie turned like a weathercock, swinging towards the Formidable. The flagship instantly let fly, but her gunnery was not up to the Desaix's, and the hurried broadside lashed the sea where the sloop had been rather than where she was: the Desaix's more deliberate offering was hampered by the fear of ricochets skipping as far as the admiral, and only half a dozen of her balls did any harm – the rest fell short.

The Sophie was through the line, not too badly mauled – certainly not disabled; her studdingsails were set and she was running fast, with the wind where she liked it best. The surprise had been complete, and now the two sides were drawing away from one another fast – a mile in the first five minutes. The Desaix's second broadside, delivered at well over a thousand yards, showed the effects of irritation and precipitancy; a splintering crash forward marked the utter destruction of the elm-tree pump, but that was all. The flagship had obviously countermanded her second discharge, and for a while she kept to her course, close-hauled, as though the Sophie did not exist.

'We may have done it,' said Jack inwardly, leaning his hands on the taffrail and staring back along the Sophie's lengthening wake. His heart was still beating with the tension of waiting for those broadsides, with the dread of what they might do to his Sophie; but now its beat had a different urgency. 'We may have done it,' he said again. Yet the words were scarcely formed in his mind before he saw a signal break out aboard the admiral, and the Desaix began to turn into the wind.

The seventy-four came about as nimbly as a frigate: her yards traversed as though by clockwork, and it was clear that everything was tallied and belayed with the perfect regularity of a numerous and thoroughly well trained crew. The Sophie had an excellent ship's company too, as attentive to their duty and as highly-skilled as Jack could wish; but nothing that they could do would make her move through the water at more than seven knots with this breeze, whereas in another quarter of an hour the Desaix was running at well over eight without her studdingsails. She was not going to trouble herself with setting them: when they saw that -when the minutes went by and it was clear that she had not the least intention of setting them – then the Sophies' hearts died within them.