The Golden Ocean

by Patrick O'Brian

  ‘Yes,’ said the Commodore, ‘I have often seen the Marines perform their exercise, with excellent results. But our intentions are different: for whereas the Army requires an annihilating volley to break up a cavalry charge, for instance, what I want is a body of sharpshooters, so that I always have plenty of hands in the tops, each one of whom can hit his mark on the enemy’s deck. Look, now,’ he cried, as a sly, long, gipsy-looking foretopman shattered the bottle, to the rapturous cheers of his mates and the watch below. Another bottle appeared, and the sly fellow hit it. A third bottle: the foretopman raised his musket, sighted it, lowered it to fan away the smoke, and then shot the bottle fair and clean, looking round with a secret leer while his mates clawed him on the back.

  ‘The fellow’s a poacher, I make no doubt of that,’ said the Colonel. ‘And anyway, sir, it would not do for the Army. Very wild and irregular, sir.’

  ‘It may not do for a soldier,’ said the Commodore, ‘but if he downs three enemies as he has downed those three bottles, it will do for a sailor, although he does not stand to attention or know his musketry drill.’

  Then it was the turn of the great guns, and Mr Randall, the gunner, came into his own: the gun-ports opened, the massive twenty-four pounders on the main deck were run out, and their crews stared out under the low port-lids. At the word of command the lanyard jerked, the gun roared with a vast crash, a great orange tongue of fire and the thunderous rumble of the carriage hurtling back: the gun-deck was filled with the acrid fighting smell of powder, and Peter, hurrying along behind Mr Randall, saw the second gun go off. He was less amazed by the shattering noise, and watched the gun with particular attention: in the very instant of firing the whole gun leapt, actually left the deck; it was quite fascinating. Soon the gun-deck was darkened by the heavy cloud of smoke that lay in a swathe upon the sea: the sun pierced in shafts through the open ports, and in the shafts the smoke swirled thick. The men were stripped to the waist, for it was hot, and the heavy work of loading, swabbing, running the guns up, made them gleam.

  ‘Mr Palafox,’ said the first lieutenant, pausing in his walk along the gun-deck, ‘what are you doing here?’

  Peter could not think of a reasonable answer.

  ‘Do you think this is a holiday? A raree-show? Bartholomew Fair? Go back to your station immediately. You will hear from me this evening.’

  But as Peter, in guilt-stricken haste, returned to his rightful position in the ship, eight bells sounded and the watch below took over with uncommon eagerness, ousting the reluctant larboard watch at the guns and the stands of arms. The cutter was lowering away, and Peter, with a boldness that surprised himself, asked Mr Brett if he might go in her.

  ‘Eh?’ said the lieutenant, and turned away to give an order.

  Peter wanted no more: in another moment he was in the cutter, explaining his presence to Mr Stapleton, the fifth lieutenant, by the somewhat disingenuous remark that, ‘Mr Brett had desired him to go.’ His land-conscience pricked him faintly, but his deep-sea-conscience instantly replied that Mr Brett would certainly desire him to take every opportunity of improving himself in his profession; and he tranquilly enjoyed the sight of the Centurion growing smaller in the cutter’s wake. It was a long time since he had seen her as a whole—had seen her from outside, that is—and he was struck again by her towering beauty. Her royals flapped now and then in the faint movement of the air, and she still had a very little way on her; but otherwise she was in suspended animation, alive, but in a trance. He looked back at her now with a very much more knowing eye, and his glance ran up and down the rigging—no longer an unmeaning bewilderment of rope, but a well-known and fascinating combination of counteracting forces in equipoise as well as a series of aerial paths. Her open gun-ports made her look strange, however: he noticed them particularly, and turning to the lieutenant he said, ‘Sir, how do they open the gun-ports in a wind, if you please? I mean, when the wind is on the other side, laying her over?’

  Mr Stapleton did not answer for a moment, because he was meditating the form of his reproof: but then he said, quite mildly, ‘They cannot. She is very deep-laden, and if we meet with the Spaniards in anything of a sea we shall have to fight with the upper tier alone. Do you know where the keel is, Mr Palafox?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Peter, amused.

  ‘And do you know what keel-hauling is?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir. But Mr Saunders has promised to show me this evening. Pray, what is it, sir?’

  ‘It is when they bend a line to your neck and another to your heels and pass you under the ship’s keel from the starboard main-chains to the larboard main-chains. It takes a long time, and when there is a good deal of marine growth on the bottom it is very uncomfortable. It is the usual punishment for midshipmen who speak to their betters without being spoken to. ’Vast that talking there,’ he cried. ‘Silence in the boat. Give way, you sons of—. Chattering like a floating hen-coop.’

  Somewhat appalled by this intelligence, Peter looked away from the Centurion and sat meekly with his eyes inboard. Almost at once his gaze met that of Sean, who for some time had been trying to attract his attention by sundry nods and becks.

  ‘Why, Sean, my dear,’ he cried, ‘and what are you doing here, at all?’

  ‘Sure, they wanted a real seaman, your honour,’ began Sean, with a beaming smile. ‘Will I tell you the way—’

  ‘Will you be quiet, Mr Palafox?’ roared Mr Stapleton. ‘You, O’Mara, stow your gob. Cox’n, let it go.’

  ‘It’ was a floating target: it splashed over the side, and the lieutenant turned the boat. ‘Pull now,’ he said, ‘if you value your hides.’

  ‘A few moments later there was a white puff in the Centurion’s waist, almost instantly followed by the deep note of one of the upper-deck nine-pounders, and the high splash of the ball fifty yards beyond the target. The ball leapt from the surface and went skittering on like a gigantic game of ducks and drakes: Peter was still staring after it when the second gun banged out.

  ‘Straddled it,’ said Mr Stapleton with satisfaction, as the ball pitched short of the target, but in the true line. ‘That must be Mr Randall pointing the guns.’

  After a few more shots, some of which fell very near the target, there was a long pause.

  ‘Give way,’ said Mr Stapleton, who knew what was coming. He took the cutter a good distance from the target, and his friends on the Centurion’s quarter-deck, smiled. ‘He is not going to linger,’ said Mr Norris, the fourth lieutenant.

  ‘I would go farther off still,’ said the master, ‘with the gun crews in their present—’ But his remaining words were utterly engulfed in the tremendous thunder of the broadside: the ship heeled from the blast, and the target vanished in the shattered sea. And not only the target; for a wide area all round it the water was lashed into a violent second’s life, bearing out Mr Stapleton’s judgment of the raw crew’s aim. In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Peter looked at the Centurion, and saw nothing but her topgallant-sails and royals rocking above the rising smoke.

  The cutter’s crew were lying on their oars close by the ship; the cloud of smoke had drifted half a mile down the light air. Two pensioners were leaning over the side, staring down and talking of the cannonade that had preceded the battle of Blenheim: the cutter was waiting for orders, and Peter was vaguely listening to the old men’s talk when he saw FitzGerald appear in the main-shrouds, immediately above the boat, and he heard an authoritative voice saying, ‘Up you go. Up and ride the main-royal. And you will find yourself at the mast-head every single day of your life until you learn that in the Navy you obey an order at the double and with no argument whatever.’

  ‘He has caught a Tartar this time,’ thought Peter, not without a certain satisfaction, ‘and has been mast-headed.’

  FitzGerald cast a haggard look downwards: but it was obvious that he did not see him, and with a sudden pang of anxiety Peter remembered his unaccountable behaviour in the foretop a little while ago.


  ‘He has never been mast-headed before,’ he reflected. ‘And I do not think I have ever seen him aloft.’ He remembered the early days in the Channel, when some wretched landsman had been flogged for refusing duty aloft, and how some of them had been driven almost mad with the terror of the height.

  FitzGerald was climbing slowly, with a strange, almost wooden motion. Peter watched him approach the futtock-shrouds, pause a long time, and then grip them for the outward climb to the top.

  ‘Oh, he’s all right, then,’ he thought. ‘Sure I was mistaken.’

  But looking down again his glance happened to fall on Sean, who was still looking fixedly upwards. Sean was in FitzGerald’s watch, and although his duty usually lay below, it suddenly occurred to Peter that Sean would know more about FitzGerald in this respect than he did himself.

  FitzGerald waited a long time in the maintop, and when he came into sight again in the topmast shrouds Peter noticed that he had kicked off his shoes, presumably to get a better hold.

  ‘But it is so absurd,’ said Peter to himself, trying to allay his anxiety; ‘the sea is as calm as a pond, and the ratlines are like a flight of stairs.’

  FitzGerald was going up and up, but more slowly now, and often he looked down. After every downward look there was a long pause before he recommenced his painfully clumsy and laboured ascent.

  When he reached the topmast futtocks he missed his footing and hung by his hands alone. Peter saw his white face, very small in the distance, looking down between his drawn-up shoulders: he sprang up in the boat.

  ‘Sit down at once,’ snapped the lieutenant, and, ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ he shouted in reply to an order from the quarter-deck. The cutter shot away from the side.

  ‘Mr Palafox,’ he said in a low tone, with real irritation, ‘you must learn how to behave yourself in a boat, or there will be serious trouble.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ said Peter. ‘I beg pardon.’ But he managed, by screwing himself round, to keep his eyes on the Centurion. FitzGerald had clawed his way up to the crosstrees, and he appeared to be crouching there in a queer, hunched attitude. Now he was moving again, climbing the topgallant shrouds; but even from the cutter his movements seemed all wrong, like the movements of a wounded animal. Once or twice he stopped for so long that Peter thought that he would go no higher: but he did; slowly and uncertainly he went up and up towards the topgallant mast-head. He seemed to be staring upwards now: it was too far away to see his face at all, but his head appeared to be thrown back:

  ‘He has still got to get on to the royal-yard,’ thought Peter, as FitzGerald reached the topgallant crosstrees. ‘Will he ever manage the royal? God be with him: will he manage the royal?’

  ‘Keep your eyes in the boat,’ cried Mr Stapleton, and Peter straightened himself with a jerk: but the order was addressed to Sean, whose stare at the main-royal was more obvious than Peter’s.

  Peter cautiously looked again, and to his surprise he saw that FitzGerald had gone on directly, and that he was well on his way to the yard, which the Centurion (like most men-of-war) carried on the pole of her topgallant mast, not far below the tuck. Peter saw him make the last few feet and settle himself, then, with a significant look and an imperceptible nod to Sean, he turned away.

  ‘Then I was wrong,’ he thought. ‘He was just going up slowly to put a mock on the first lieutenant.’ But he wished he felt a little more certain of the truth of the statement.

  ‘In oars,’ said Mr Stapleton. ‘Bowes, step the mast.’

  Peter had not noticed the breeze getting up, but it had, and there away to the east was the dark patch of ruffled sea that showed the shape of the little wind: behind it, and stretching away to the clouds on the horizon, there was more wind by far.

  The cutter ran straight down to do her errand aboard the Tryal; and that was very pleasant—the crew sat demurely and watched the sea go by, faster and faster as the breeze freshened. But the return was another thing again, a long, tiring pull into the wind. Half-way over Peter remembered, with a thrill of disagreeable anticipation, that his watch would have been called an hour ago, that he had not in fact obtained leave to absent himself, and that Mr Saunders had already a bone to pick with him in the evening. This occupied his mind enough to keep him silent during the rest of the pull; but it did not occupy him exclusively, and when the cutter hooked on he vanished up the side with such rapidity that the lieutenant, already busy, had only time to say, ‘Where’s that midshipman?’ before he was gone.

  Darting over to the windward shrouds in the hope that he might escape the notice of the officer of the watch, Peter raced up to the maintop, up again, up and up to the main-royal yard.

  ‘You are all right, an’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘Peter,’ whispered FitzGerald, ‘for God’s sake tie me on. I cannot hold much longer.’ His face was rigid and ghastly: it shocked Peter to the heart: and his voice was barely human. The ship was rolling now, and Peter had to move with care as he cut the pennant halliard in two places, made the loose ends fast, and passed three turns under FitzGerald’s arms.

  ‘Mr Palafox,’ came from the deck nearly two hundred feet below, for the second time. ‘Mast-head, there.’ It was impossible to ignore it now.

  ‘I’ll come back and get you down,’ said Peter hastily; ‘you’re quite all right now—firm as a rock.’

  ‘Don’t let them know,’ whispered FitzGerald; and Peter, with a reassuring nod, shot down towards the deck. As he went he noticed that the shrouds where FitzGerald had passed were red with blood.

  ‘Now, sir,’ said the incensed Mr Stapleton: and he treated Peter to a pretty long statement of his views. ‘Junior officers in first, out last. Do you understand that?’ he concluded.

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ said Peter, starting away.

  ‘Now, sir,’ said Mr Dennis, the officer of the watch, ‘what is the meaning of this?’

  Mr Dennis had finished at last, and Peter really thought it was over: he had almost reached the shrouds when a ship’s boy came running and said, ‘Mr Palafox, sir, Mr Saunders’ compliments and would like to see you directly.’

  Peter was running aft when he saw Ransome. ‘Ransome,’ he said, gripping him tight by the elbow and pouring the words into him at close range, ‘I’ve got to go to number one. FitzGerald’s riding the royal. In a horrible state. Can’t get down. And listen; I’ve cut the pennant-halliard, to lash him on.’

  There was no change of expression on Ransome’s big, heavy face, nothing except amazement that anybody could possibly cut the pennant-halliard. He was still staring as Peter left him, and Peter could not tell whether he had understood, or, having understood, would do anything about it.

  Mr Saunders, first of the Centurion, was a disciplinarian; and there was no man of his seniority in the Navy List who could be more unpleasant when he chose. He did choose, on this occasion: but Peter, with the image of his friend hanging up there, barely noticed anything but the pauses where he was to say ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ and ‘Aye-aye, sir’.

  FitzGerald was up there, gripped by some awful horror that Peter could see but could not entirely understand: he was physically helpless—there was no need for him to have held on with any force at all: he would have been perfectly safe without, but he had torn out his living nails—helpless and exhausted, yet his courage was not destroyed, nor his pride. Peter strained his ears in an absurd attempt to distinguish some noise that might mean that Ransome was going aloft. The first lieutenant spoke very grimly about the Articles of War, and Peter stood mute and submissive while his mind hovered in the rigging above.

  ‘Discipline, young man …’ said Mr Saunders, and at the same moment, high above their heads, Ransome said, ‘Nah then, cully. Handsomely does it. Just catch a hold rahnd my neck. And don’t ever you look down.’

  ‘Ransome,’ said FitzGerald, a little later, ‘please let me try the last stretch by myself. I’d give the world not to be disgraced.’

  ‘Try it, cully,’ said Ransome, doubt
fully, ‘but I’m afeard it’s no go. You’re all shook to pieces, like. It ain’t no disgrace, cock; anyone can have a spell of the topman’s horrors.’

  ‘… and if you reflect upon what I say,’ said the first lieutenant more kindly, feeling that he had been a little too hard, that his severity had cowed the poor boy’s spirit, ‘you may make a seaman yet. I believe you have the makings of one already. That will do, Mr Palafox.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  Peter regained the deck in time to see Ransome carrying FitzGerald like a child. ‘It was just that Mr FitzGerald was took with a cramp in his wounded leg,’ he was explaining to the officer of the watch, ‘so I give him a hand down the last bit, like.’

  ‘Very well. Help him below,’ said Mr Dennis. ‘Damned awkward place to have a cramp. Here, Mr Palafox, you can make yourself useful: his Majesty does not pay you for your beauty alone—take Winslow and Cheetham and see to the frappings of the number two quarter gun.’

  It was dinner-time on Sunday. The muster and the reading of the Articles of War, the high ceremony of the naval week, had passed off with creditable regularity; and indeed, the men were beginning to look something like a man-of-war’s crew, rather than the heterogeneous sweepings of the press-gang. Even the invalids, as the pensioners were rightly called, made a fairly alert and respectable appearance. Mr Walter had preached on being contented with one’s lot, and they had listened with becoming attention: at least they had not openly resented his remarks.

  The midshipmen’s berth was in a state of strong and pleasureable anticipation: Sunday always brought some change in their diet, and from early in the morning it had been rumoured that there was to be drowned baby after the junk.

  ‘How is that baby coming along, Jennings?’ asked Keppel, attacking his meat.

  ‘She’s nicely swole, sir,’ replied Jennings, ‘or at least she was a little while ago.’

  ‘If she bursts her cloth,’ said Hope, with his passion somewhat muffled by an intervening turnip, ‘I will haul the sailmaker before the Commodore myself.’