The Golden Ocean

by Patrick O'Brian

  The light was fading, and the wind, though still tremendous, was declining with it: yet still squalls hurled out of the darkening sky, from different directions now, and often the high scream reached its intolerable topmost pitch for minutes at a time—blasts that would lift a crouching man into the air. And now the sea that the hurricane had raised caught up with the wind, an enormous hollow sea, racing, scooped into wild irregularities by the squalls, so that the labouring ships had no even motion but ran in mad, jarring lurches—ran straight for the land, a race-horse speed under bare poles and a lee-shore white with five miles’ breadth of murderous surf an unknown length of time away: half an hour, an hour perhaps; not more with this unrelenting wind.

  He was by the fife-rails of the mainmast going aft when he saw it, and for a second he did not believe that what he saw racing towards him high over the starboard quarter could be a wave. It was impossible—at that height it was impossible. But his body believed it, and in the sickening moment of grace before the sea struck the ship his hands had clenched round two belaying-pins.

  There was a blow, a shuddering blow like a broadside, and then he was holding on while the deep water poured over his head. She was right down on her beam ends; he could tell that, because he was clinging upwards to the ring round the mast, which was now almost flat. Would she ever get up, he wondered, or was this the end? He had time to find that he was not afraid—it did not matter very much.

  With a great long roll the Centurion righted herself, water pouring from her in shining streams; righted herself, but not altogether, for her ballast and her stores had shifted, and she lay over a good two streaks to port.

  ‘Mr Palafox,’ said a voice close at hand, ‘report on the foreshrouds at once, if you please.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ said Peter, automatically hurrying forward.

  ‘Six parted, sir,’ he shouted, a few moments later, ‘one dead-eye broke, and two lanyards, to starboard: three shrouds broke to larboard.’

  ‘Very good,’ said the Commodore, ‘Mr Bailey?’

  ‘Five starboard shrouds gone, sir; only one to lee.’

  ‘Mr Ransome?’

  ‘All but one, sir, with their lanyards.’

  ‘You know what to do,’ said the Commodore, smiling at them.

  They knew what to do. In this sea, with the ship rolling gunwale and gunwale, the masts could not live long, nor could any sail be set until the shrouds were stirruped and new lanyards rove. There was not a second to lose, and although they were driving furiously towards a desolate shore they flung themselves on the work, each with a party as strong as could be spared.

  Peter forgot the lee-shore in five minutes: the work called for every last degree of concentration and power and skill. But as they hauled on the lanyards with the roll of the ship and the shrouds tightened steadily he felt the wind on his left side instead of his back, and looking aft he saw the mainsail rise ghostly and fill. The wind had backed into the south and they were standing clear of the land.

  The next few hours saw a strange scene on the Centurion’s deck. The chaplain and the master stood to the wheel, while every man who could move knotted rigging and bent sails—soldiers, cooks, sailors, the surgeon, the stewards, the commander himself. By dawn she was far out to sea, sailing easily, though still with a considerable list, with a stiff south-easterly breeze.

  ‘Thank God for some sea-room,’ said Ransome. ‘It makes me nervous to feel the loom of the land.’

  ‘North-west and a half north it is,’ repeated the quartermaster at the wheel. They were heading for Juan Fernandez, patching, repairing, pumping, splicing and making good as well as they might while the wind and the sea were kind. The hurricane, in its final turn, had blasted them northwards on their way, and they lived on the hope of seeing that green paradise rise out of the sea ahead.

  They had little else to live on, except incessant toil, for the shifting in the hold had staved seven of the very few remaining casks of biscuit and the bilge had destroyed it: most of the water, green, thick, but just drinkable, had gone the same way.

  ‘Did he keep it down?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Yes. So far,’ said Ransome softly, looking over his shoulder. ‘It should do him a power of good: he shall have the rest in the night.’ He spoke softly, for it would not do to let it be known that there was fresh meat in the ship, although it was no more than cat. In the cavernous holds there was not a rat left alive, and they had not been drowned but hunted down by desperately hungry men, grown more cunning and fierce than the rats. The most spectacular scar on Peter’s face, the one the other side from the lightning burn, was caused by his running full tilt against a standard as he finally cornered a rat in the forepeak. And as for cats—the galley cat had gone, the various ship’s cats of the hold; the kittens that Ransome had indeed hidden abaft the well had been found long ago by some of the after-guard; and it had required all his uncommon ingenuity and knowledge of hungry crews to keep Agamemnon alive until this time.

  ‘You could do with some for yourself,’ said Peter, looking at Ransome’s swollen legs. Ransome grunted, but made no reply: The scurvy had begun on him at last: they knew it perfectly well in all its many forms, and there was no mistaking the swollen legs, the dull, ugly patches on Ransome’s arms and the reopening of the old cutless wound on his shoulder.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Peter, in a louder voice, ‘the line over the peck-brail, if you please; and then serve it.’ He moved over to guide Mr Walter’s hands through the intricacies of the repair.

  ‘That is better,’ said the Chaplain, picking up his prayerbook. ‘Now I am afraid I must leave you: but tell me quickly, Peter, how are you?’ He looked anxiously into Peter’s face: it was a thin face, drawn and grey; no longer a boy’s. ‘Very well, sir,’ said Peter at once. ‘Capital, I thank you.’

  ‘Your gums? It always starts there.’

  ‘Sound as a bell. And yourself, sir?’

  ‘Well, I thank God. How I wish I could say as much for the men I must go to. Peter, I pray that we may see this island, or—’ He broke off and hurried below, clinging to any handhold as he went, though the sea was calm. Peter shook his head as he looked after him.

  ‘Peter, your honour,’ said Sean, just behind him. ‘Do you know with your learning where this island will be?’

  ‘Certainly, Sean,’ said Peter, ‘sure it’s no way ahead. We shall raise it tomorrow.’

  ‘We shall raise it tomorrow in the evening maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Tomorrow, Sean, you will see it green like a jewel in the sea,’ he said, trying to smile.

  ‘Listen, Peter a gradh, will you not lie out of kindness to me? They all do be saying we are too far to the west. Let me know the truth of it for all love, my dear.’

  ‘Wait just a little while longer, now Sean, will you then?’

  ‘There was himself in the masthead from two bells to six.’

  ‘I know.’ Peter had seen Mr Anson come down. ‘We will wait on his word, for sure he knows best.’

  There was a conference of the officers going on in the stateroom at that moment, as Peter knew very well, and he knew very well what they were discussing. Their longitude was uncertain: the longitude of Juan Fernandez was uncertain. They were trying to hit on the meridian, but still they were borne westward, and by the majority of their reckonings they should have reached it before. There was a strong feeling among the officers that they had already run too far to the west, that Juan Fernandez lay behind them, and that every day’s sailing bore them away from their one hope of safety. The Commodore was of another opinion: he was almost sure that he had seen land still farther to the west, although every officer maintained it was cloud: and now every hour counted.

  The conference had broken up. With grave faces the officers came on the quarter-deck, the Commodore last.

  ‘Mast-head,’ hailed the Commodore.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What do you make out to leeward?’

  A long pause. ‘Nothing, sir,’ cam
e down the slow cry. ‘Open sea and no cloud.’

  ‘Mr Saumarez,’ said the Commodore, ‘you will make the course due east, if you please.’

  His face was expressionless. Mr Saumarez betrayed a want of ease, and Peter thought he detected a hesitation as the first lieutenant repeated the order.

  ‘Tomorrow, Sean, at the latest. For you must understand that we are running on the parallel now, and the latitude is as sure as the sun. You will keep the men in good heart: I know you will.’

  ‘I will that, what there are of them; but the Dear knows they are dying like bees with no winter honey.’

  ‘Mr Palafox, relieve the mast-head. Take my glass,’ said Mr Norris, leaning heavily against the conning binnacle, drumming his weak fingers with an agitation that he tried to conceal. ‘You are all right aloft, are you not?’ he asked privately as Peter came for the glass.

  ‘Yes, sir. Aye-aye, sir,’ said Peter, the first to the question, the second to the order, as he ran up past the foretop. It was true that he felt perfectly well, apart from an enormous tiredness—they were never far from the edge of exhaustion—and a perpetual hunger that sometimes drove him nearly mad.

  ‘Nothing?’ he asked, settling in the crosstrees.

  ‘No,’ said Preston, sliding his leg over with an old man’s caution and grasping nervously for a double handhold. ‘I saw a whale blow. Nothing more.’

  ‘Here,’ said Peter, feeling in his pocket, ‘eat this in the top on your way down.’

  ‘You are a good chap, Palafox,’ said Preston, snatching the biscuit. ‘Thank you very much. It’s a whole one,’ he said incredulously, with a corner already stuffed into his mouth.

  Peter sighed and began to sweep the horizon with the telescope. It was not one he was used to, and it took him some minutes to focus and manage with ease. He stared and stared again. How could Preston possibly have missed it? A clear landfall straight ahead perhaps twelve leagues away. His hands trembled so that for a moment the objective was lost: but he steadied again: he must be trebly certain before he hailed the deck, and anxiously, with expectation hot in his throat, he scanned the far landfall. Two points it stretched on the starboard bow, two points on the larboard. No, three points, four points—it stretched north and south in one unbroken line, and that high brilliance was the snow of the mountains.

  With death in his heart he hailed the deck. ‘Land ho. High mountains from six points on the starboard bow to six on the larboard. Snow and high land.’

  He could feel the cruel disappointment well up from the silent deck, as bitter as his own. The Commodore had been right and the officers wrong: they had missed Juan Fernandez, and this was the mainland, more than two hundred miles to the east. This was the Cordillera that sent back the sun, huge mountains of eternal snow; not the pleasant hills of Juan Fernandez. They had been wrong: they had missed by perhaps no more than an hour of sailing: and now they must beat back into a settled westerly wind, with men dying six and seven a day for want of a handful of greenstuff. How many would pay for the mistake with their lives? The ship and her whole company, in all likelihood.

  ‘Port your helm.’ He heard the order on deck, and below his sadly dangling feet the yard braced very slowly round as the Centurion came up into the wind.

  The 30th of May; the 31st, seven men each. The 1st of June, five. The 2nd, only three. June 3rd, five, of whom one was Norman, a bo’sun’s mate, fit up until a few days before. The 4th, five. The 6th, the last man of all the pensioners, and six other men. The 7th, no less than twelve; and sixteen on the 8th.

  ‘How many men can you count in your watch, Mr Brett?’ asked the Commodore.

  ‘Ten, sir. And six can still go aloft.’

  There was a howling scream at the mast-head, piercing words rushing one on the other.

  ‘What does this mean?’ cried the Commodore, with a flash in his eye.

  ‘I beg pardon, sir,’ said Peter, touching his hat. ‘It is Sean O’Mara, sir. He means he sees land. A green island aswim in the sunrise, he says.’

  For the first time he saw Mr Anson moved out of himself. The Commodore flung down his hat, clasped his hands for a moment, and then ran for the shrouds.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘MR PALAFOX, WHAT THE DEVIL DO YOU MEAN, SIR? HOW CAN you presume to answer me with, “I came as fast as I could”? Here have I been waiting six mortal minutes while you stroll about the island taking your ease in the shade. What do you mean by it? I wish you may not be growing sullen, as well as grossly obese and idle.’

  ‘I did run, sir.’

  ‘Don’t you presume to answer me, sir,’ cried the lieutenant. ‘I saw you. Do you call that gasping waddle a run? Look at you—a great, blubbery, slab-sided hulk that can’t reach the maintop without stopping to pant five times on the way. Oh, what a horrible greasy sight. More like one of these sea-calves than a King’s officer. You have been fooling about in the cabbage palms. I know it as well as if I had seen you, so don’t you dare to deny it, for I will not bear it. Get into that boat directly. It is always the same with these midshipmen—let them on shore for five minutes, and they come back disgustingly bloated and wanton.’

  ‘My dear boy,’ said Mr Walter, ‘I hope you may not be taking to dissolute ways. I heard you and Keppel and Ransome hallooing and singing until three in the morning, and this is not the first time, by a very long way. The Commodore has taken notice of it more than once. He said, “How can anyone get any sleep with this infernal din going on?” Surely, this is very inconsiderate in you, Peter?’

  ‘I am very sorry, sir. We were hunting a goat.’

  ‘What, in the middle of the night?’

  ‘We thought it more sporting, sir, for it was the very old billy we always shoot on Fridays: he is getting very slow in his pins.’

  ‘Poor creature. No wonder he is getting old and nervous and slow, the way you harry him. It is a shame, I declare; and I think it but right to put you in mind of the fate of the Children of Israel, when they waxed fat and kicked.’

  ‘Where is that—midshipman? Oh, there you are at last, Mr Palafox. You will find yourself confined to the ship if you go on like this. You are sailing pretty near the wind, I can tell you, my friend: only this morning Mr Saumarez said, “I wonder what has come into that young fellow. He was a quiet, sober, well-conducted midshipman a few months ago, apart from talking too much by half; but if he goes on at this gait he will soon have corrupted half the crew with his example.”’

  ‘Who put this goat into my bed?’ asked the master, with awful quietness. ‘What depraved wretch—Mr Palafox, come here. Mr Palafox. Mr Palafox—is the boy deaf?’

  Mr Palafox lay on his back in the boat, his noble brow shaded by a palm-leaf hat, while Sean fished over the side. There was already a mound of fish between the thwarts, but he fished on with the fanatic intensity of one who cannot possibly pull in enough.

  ‘There’th a thea-calf,’ said Keppel, nodding lazily over the bows. He had not a tooth left in his head, and this obliged him to lisp.

  ‘The thea-calf ho

  The thea-calf hee

  The thea-calf thwimming in the Thouthern Thea,’ he chanted.

  ‘Garrh,’ cried Sean, furiously shaking his fist at his rival. ‘The confident thief.’ The sea-lion slid backwards under a wave and popped up on the other side, staring with unwearied curiosity.

  ‘Your soul to the devil,’ growled Sean, jealously switching his line over to the starboard gunwale.

  ‘There are enough fish in the sea for everybody,’ said Peter, closing his eyes.

  ‘There are not,’ said Sean. ‘There are never enough fish in the sea. Those outrageous beasts eat more than is right. I have him,’ he cried, jerking the line. ‘Oh, if it is not the codfish of the world.’

  ‘Then put it back. We don’t want any of your common old cod. Wait for a chimney-sweeper—that’s worth eating. Or else try for a crayfish. I could fancy a crayfish, I think.’ Peter had grown delicate in his eating: he had a proud stomach now,
very unlike the stomach that had shrieked for a weevily biscuit or the leg of a toasted rat. But it had taken some time to become so difficult: for weeks on end he had eaten everything and anything that was put before him, and had then gone out hungrily looking for more in the woods.

  He had changed. Changed very much, imperceptibly day by day: but if one had looked through his journal, flicked over the pages, one would have seen the difference. The first entries dated at Juan Fernandez were concise, dry statements of position, wind and weather, anchorage, memoranda of work to be done. ‘Wind at WSW½S. Warp to be carried out tomorrow. Remember foul ground extends at least 1 cable, the Spout bearing WNW by long-boat compass, West Bay and Sugarloaf points in a line. Variation 9° 53’ E by my reading, 10° 1’ by the master’s. Keppel took 3 bowls of soup. Number 3, 7, 9, 10 and 11 to be trained round and looked to.’ This referred to guns: they had found fresh traces of men on shore—broken pots, Spanish filth, fish yet undecayed—and although they had then but thirty men to fight a 60-gun ship, they had to make what preparations they could.

  This kind of entry continually recurred, with the names of the men they buried—for the effects of the scurvy still killed the sickest men for three weeks after they landed. There was a happier note very early, however, when the little Tryal came in on June 12, sailed somehow by Captain Saunders, his second lieutenant and three men, who were all who could stand on their feet, apart from the reinforcement of Centurions who were sent as soon as the Tryal made her signal. But then there was the long agony of the Gloucester, who plied for a month and two days off the island, sometimes clearly in sight, sometimes gone for a week of unceasingly contrary winds, unable to beat up, she was so short of hands—and that in spite of the men sent from shore with fresh victuals. At length the crew of the longboat did bring her in: and in August Peter made the sombre calculation—‘Centurion 506: 292 dead, 214 alive. Gloucester 374: 292 dead, 82 alive. Tryal 81: 42 dead, 39 alive. 961 men sailed from St Helen’s in these three. 626 of them are dead. Is there any hope for Wager, Severn, and Pearl now? We could not have lasted another week at sea.’ And, writing that, he remembered how they crept in towards the land; how they had let go their anchor in order not to run to the lee, and how they had not had the strength to bring it home when the wind came fair, but were held there in sight of salvation, unable to move, until the Commodore, risking all, sailed the anchor out of its bed.