Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

'I don't know all the details,' said Jack, 'but this is the gist of it. That noble fellow Keats – you remember how we saw him shoot ahead? – came up with their rear, the two Spanish first-rates, just before midnight. He chose his moment, clapped his helm a lee and dashed between 'em firing both broadsides – a seventy-four taking on two first-rates! He shot straight on, leaving his smoke-cloud between 'em as thick as peasoup; and each, firing into it, hit the other; and so the Real Carlos and the Hermenegildo went for each other like fury in the dark. Someone, the Superb or the He nenegildo, had knocked away the Real

Carlos' foretopmast, and it was her topsail that fell over the guns and took fire. And after a while the Real Carios fell on board the Hermenegildo and fired her too. Those were the two explosions we saw, of course. But while they were burning Keats had pushed on to engage the San Antonio, who hauled her wind and fought back like a rare plucked 'un; but she had to strike in half an hour for, do you see, Superb was firing three broadsides to her two, and pointing

'em straight. So Keats took possession of her; and the rest of the squadron chased as hard as ever they could to the north-north-west in a gale of wind. They very nearly took the Formidable, but she just got into Cadiz; and we very nearly lost the Venerable, dismasted and aground; but they got her off and she is on her way back now, jury-rigged, with a stuns'l boom for a mizenmast, ha, ha, ha! – There's Dalziel and Marshall going by. Ahoy! Daiziel ahoy! Marshall! Ahoy there! Come and drink a glass to the victory!'

The flag broke out aboard the Pompйe; the gun boomed; the captains assembled for the court-martial.

It was a very grave occasion, and in spite of the brilliance of the day, the abounding cheerfulness on shore and the deep chuckling contentment aboard, each post-captain put away his gaiety and came up the side as solemn as a judge, to be greeted with all due ceremony and led into the great cabin by the first lieutenant.

Jack was already aboard, of course; but his was not the first case to be dealt with. Waiting there in the screened-off larboard part of the dining-cabin there was .a chaplain, a hunted-looking man who paced up and down, sometimes making private ejaculations and dashing his hands together. It was pitiful to see how carefully he was dressed, and how he had shaved until the blood came; for if half the general report of his conduct was true there was no hope for him at all.

The moment the next gun sounded the master-at-arms took the chaplain away, and there was a pause, one of those great lapses of time that presently come to have no flow at all, but grow stagnant or even circular in motion. The other officers talked in low voices – they, too, were dressed with particular attention, in the exact uniform regularity that plenty of prize-money and the best Gibraltar outfitters could provide. Was it respect for the court? For the occasion? A residual sense of guilt, a placating of fate? They spoke quietly, equably, glancing at Jack from time to time.

They had each received an official notification the day before, and for some reason each had brought it with him, folded or rolled. After a while Babbington and Ricketts took to changing all the words they could into obscenities, secretly in a corner, while Mowett wrote and scratched out on the back of his, counting syllables on his fingers and silently mouthing. Lucock stared straight ahead of him into vacancy. Stephen intently watched the busy unsatisfied questing of a shining dark-red rat-flea on the chequered sailcloth floor. -

The door opened. Jack returned abruptly to this world, picked up his laced hat and walked into the great cabin, ducking his head as he came in, with his officers filing in behind him. He came to a halt in the middle of the room, tucked his hat under his arm and made his bow to the court, first to the president, then to the captains to the right of him, then to the captains to the left of him. The president gave a slight inclination of his head and desired Captain Aubrey and his officers to sit down. A marine placed a chair for Jack a few paces in front of the rest, and there he sat, his hand going to hitch forward his non-existent sword, while the judge advocate read the document authorizing the court to assemble.

This took a considerable time, and Stephen looked steadily about him, examining the cabin from side to side: it was like a larger version of the Desaix's stateroom (how glad he was the Desaix was safe) and it, too, was singularly beautiful and full of light – the same range of curved stern-windows, the same inward-leaning side-walls (the ship's tumblehome, in fact) and the same close, massive white-painted beams overhead in extraordinarily long pure curves right across from one side to another: a room in which common domestic geometry had no say. At the far end from the door, parallel with the windows, ran a long table; and between the table – and the light sat the members of the court, the president in the middle, the black-coated judge-advocate at a desk in front and three post-captains on either side. There was a clerk at a small table on the left, and to the left again a roped-off space for bystanders.

The atmosphere was austere: all the heads above the blue and gold uniforms on the far side of the shining table were grave. The last trial and the sentence had been quite shockingly painful. – -

It was these heads, these faces, that had all Jack's attention. With the light behind them it was difficult to make them out exactly; but they were mostly overcast, and all were withdrawn. Keats, Hood, Brenton, Grenville he knew: was Grenville winking at him with his one eye, or was it an involuntary blink? Of course it was a blink: any signal would be grossly indecent. The president looked twenty years younger since the victory, but still his face was impassive and there was no distinguishing the expression of his eyes, behind those drooping lids. The other captains he knew only by name. One, a left-handed man, was drawing – scribbling. Jack's eyes grew dark with anger.

The judge-advocate's voice droned on. 'His Majesty's late Sloop Sophie having been ordered to proceed and whereas it is represented that in or about 40'W 370 40' N, Cape Roig bearing… 'he said, amidst universal indifference.

'That man loves his-trade,' thought Stephen. 'But what a wretched voice. It is almost impossible to be understood. Gabble, a professional deformation in lawyers.' And he was reflecting on industrial disease, on the corrosive effects of righteousness in judges, when he noticed that Jack had relaxed from his first rigid posture: and as the formalities went on and on this relaxation became more evident. He was looking sullen, oddly still and dangerous; the slight lowering of his head and the dogged way in which he stuck out his feet made a singular contrast with the perfection of his uniform, and Stephen had a strong premonition that disaster might be very close at hand. – The judge advocate had now reached '… to enquire into the conduct of John Aubrey, commander of His Majesty's late sloop the Sophie -and her officers and company for the loss of the said sloop by being captured on the third instant by a French squadron under the command of Admiral Linois', and Jack's head was lower still. 'How far is one entitled to manipulate one's friends?' asked Stephen, writing Nothing would give H greater pleasure than an outburst of indignation on your part at this moment on a corner of his paper: he passed it to the master, pointing to Jack. Marshall passed it on, by way of Daiziel. Jack read it, turned a lowering, grim face without much apparent understanding in it towards Stephen and gave a jerk of his head.

Almost immediately afterwards Charles Stirling, the senior captain and president of the court-martial, cleared his throat and said, 'Captain Aubrey, pray relate the circumstances of the loss of His Majesty's late sloop the Sophie.'