H.M.S. Surprise

by Patrick O'Brian

  The French frigates were cracking on: topgallant stay-sails appeared, outer jib, jib of jibs. They were throwing up a fine bow-wave, and the first was making perhaps eight knots, the second nine; but the distance was drawing out, and that would never do—his very first concern was to find out what he had to deal with.

  Below him the deck was like an ant-hill disturbed; and he could hear the crash of the carpenters' mallets below as the cabin bulkheads came down. It would be some minutes before the apparent confusion resolved itself into a trim, severe pattern, a clean sweep fore and aft, the guns cast loose, their crews standing by them, every man at his station, sentries at the hatchways, damp fearnought screens rigged over the magazines, wet sand strewn over the decks. The men had been through these motions hundreds of times, but never in earnest: how would they behave in action? Pretty well, no doubt: most men did, in this kind of action, if they were properly led: and the Surprises were a decent set of men; a little over-eager with their shot at first, perhaps, but that could be dealt with . . . how much powder was there filled? Twenty rounds apiece was yesterday's report, and plenty of wads: Hales was a good conscientious gunner. He would be as busy as a bee at this moment, down there in the powder-room.

  This drawing away would never do. He would give them another two minutes and then take his measures. The second frigate had passed the first. She was almost certainly the thirty-six gun Sémillante, with twelve-pounders on her maindeck: the Surprise could take her on. He moved out on to the yardarm for a better view, for they lay on his quarter and it was difficult to count the gun-ports. Yes, she was the Sémillante; and the heavy frigate behind her was the Belle Poule, 40, with eighteen-pounders—a very tough nut to crack, if she was well handled. He watched them dispassionately. Yes, they were well-handled: both somewhat crank, probably from want of stores; and both slow, of course; they must be trailing a great curtain of weed, after so many months in this milk-warm water, and they were making heavy weather of it. Beautiful ships, however, and their people obviously knew their duty—Sémillante sheeted home her foretopmast staysail in a flash. In his opinion Belle Poule would do better with less canvas abroad; her foretopgallant seemed to be pressing her down; but no doubt her captain knew her trim best.

  Braithwaite appeared, snorting. 'Mr Stourton's duty, sir, and the ship is cleared for action. Do you choose he should beat to quarters, sir?'

  'No, Mr Braithwaite,' said Jack, considering: there was no question of action yet awhile, and it would be a pity to keep the men standing about. 'No. But pray tell him I should like sail to be discreetly reduced. Come up the bowlines a trifle and give the sheets half a fathom or so—nothing obvious, you understand me. And the old number three foretopsail is to be bent to a hawser and veered out of the lee sternport.'

  'Aye, aye, sir,' said Braithwaite, and vanished. A few moments later the frigate's speed began to slacken; and as the strain came on to the drag-sail, opening like a parachute beneath the surface, it dropped further still.

  Stephen and the chaplain stood at the taffrail, staring over the larboard quarter. 'I am afraid they are coming closer,' said Mr White. 'I can distinctly see the men on the front of the nearer one: and even on the ship behind. See, they fire a gun! And a flag appears! Your glass, if you please. Why, it is the English flag! I congratulate you, Dr Maturin; I congratulate you on our deliverance: I confess I had apprehended a very real danger, a most unpleasant situation. Ha, ha, ha! They are our friends!'

  'Haud crede colori,' said Stephen. 'Cast your eyes aloft, my dear sir.'

  Mr White looked up at the mizzen-peak, where a tricolour streamed out bravely. 'It is the French flag,' he cried. 'No. The Dutch. We are sailing under false colours! Can such things be?'

  'So are they,' said Stephen. 'They seek to amuse us; we seek to amuse them. The iniquity is evenly divided. It is an accepted convention, I find, like bidding the servant—'A shot from the Sémillante's bow-chaser threw up a plume of water a little way from the frigate's stern, and the parson started back. '—say you are not at home, when in fact you are eating muffin by your fire and do not choose to be disturbed.'

  'I often did so,' said Mr White, whose face had grown strangely mottled. 'God forgive me. And now here I am in the midst of battle. I never thought such a thing could happen—I am a man of peace. However, I must not give a bad example.'

  A ball, striking the top of a wave, ricocheted on to the quarterdeck by way of the neatly piled hammocks. It fell with a harmless dump and two midshipmen darted for it, struggled briefly until the stronger wrested it away and wrapped it lovingly in his jacket. 'Good heavens,' cried Mr White. 'To fire great iron balls at people you have never even spoken to—barbarity is come again.'

  'Will you take a turn, sir?' asked Stephen.

  'Willingly, sir, if you do not think I should stand here, to show I do not care for those ruffians. But I bow to your superior knowledge of warfare. Will the Captain stay up there on the mast, in that exposed position?'

  'I dare say he will,' said Stephen. 'I dare say he is turning over the situation in his mind.'

  Certainly he was. It was clean that his first duty, having reconnoitred the enemy, was to reach the China fleet and do everything possible to preserve it: nor had he the least doubt that he could outsail the Frenchmen, with their foul bottoms—indeed, even if they had been clean he could no doubt have given them a good deal of canvas, fine ships though they were: for it was they who had built the Surprise and he who was sailing her—it stood to reason that an Englishman could handle a ship better than a Frenchman. Yet Linois was not to be underestimated, the fox. He had chased Jack in the Mediterranean through a long summer's day, and he had caught him.

  The two-decker, now so near that her identity was certain—the Marengo, 74, wearing a rear-admiral's flag—had worn, and now she was close-hauled on the larboard tack, followed by the fourth ship and the distant brig. The fourth ship must be the Berceau, a twenty-two-gun corvette: the brig he knew nothing about. Linois had worn: he had not tacked. That meant he was favouring his ship. Those three, the Marengo, Berceau and the brig, standing on the opposite tack, meant to cut him off, if the frigates managed to head him: that was obvious—greyhounds either side of a hare, turning her.

  The last shot came a little too close—excellent practice, at this extreme range. It would be a pity to have any ropes cut away. 'Mr Stourton,' he called, 'shake out a reef in the foretopsail, and haul the bowlines.'

  The Surprise leapt forward, in spite of her drag-sail. The Sémillante was leaving the Belle Poule far behind, and to leeward; he knew that he could draw her on and on, then bear up suddenly and bring her to close action—hammer her hard with his thirty-two-pounder carronades and perhaps sink or take her before her friends could come up. The temptation made his breath come short. Glory, and the only prize in the Indian Ocean . . . the pleasing image of billowing smoke, the flash of guns, masts falling, faded almost at once, and his heart returned to its dutiful calculating pace. He must not endanger a single spar; his frigate must join the China fleet at all costs, and intact.

  His present course was taking Linois straight towards the Indiamen, half a day's sail away to the east, strung out over miles of sea, quite unsuspecting. Clearly he must lead the Frenchmen away by some lame-duck ruse, even if it meant losing his comfortable weather-gauge—lead them away until nightfall and then beat up, trusting to the darkness and the Surprise's superior sailing to shake them off and reach the convoy in time.

  He could go about and head south-east until about ten o'clock: by then he should have fore-reached upon Linois so fan that he could bear up cross ahead of him in the darkness and so double back. Yet if he did so, on offered to do so, Linois, that deep old file, might order the pursuing frigates to hold on to their northerly course, stretching to windward of the Surprise and gaining the weather-gauge. That would be awkward in the morning; for fast though she was, she could not outrun Sémillante and Belle Poule if they were sailing large and she was beating up, as she would have t
o beat up, tack after tack, to warn the China fleet.

  But then again, if Linois did that, if he ordered his frigates northwards, a gap would appear in his dispositions after a quarter of an hour's sailing, a gap through which the Surprise could dart, bearing up suddenly and running before the wind with all the sail she could spread and passing between the Belle Poule and the Marengo, out of range of either; for Linois's dispositions were based upon the chase moving at nine on ten knots—no European ship in these waters could do better, and hitherto Surprise had not done as well. Berceau, the corvette, farther to leeward, might close the gap; but although she might knock away some of his spars, it was unlikely that she could hold him long enough for the Marengo to come up. If she had a commander so determined that he would let his ship be riddled, perhaps sunk—a man who would run him aboard—why then, that would be a different matter.

  He looked hard over the sea at the distant corvette: she vanished in a drift of rain, and he shifted his gaze to the two-decker. What was in Linois's mind? He was running east-south-east under easy sail: topsails, forecourse dewed up. One thing Jack was certain of was, that Linois was infinitely more concerned with catching the China fleet than with destroying a frigate.

  The moves, the answers to those moves on either side, the varying degrees of danger, and above all Linois's appreciation of the position . . . He came down on deck, and Stephen, looking attentively at him, saw that he had what might be called his battle-face: it was not the glowing blaze of immediate action, of boarding or cutting out, but a remoter expression altogether—cheerful, confident, but withdrawn—filled with natural authority. He did not speak, apart from giving an order to hitch the runners to the mastheads and to double the preventer-backstays, but paced the quarterdeck with his hands behind his back, his eyes running from the frigates to the line-of-battle ship. Stephen saw the first lieutenant approach, hesitate, and step back. 'On these occasions,' he reflected, my valuable friend appears to swell, actually to increase in his physical as well as his spiritual dimensions is it an optical illusion? How I should like to measure him. The penetrating intelligence in the eye, however, is not capable of measurement. He becomes a stranger: I, too, should hesitate to address him.'

  'Mr Stourton,' said Jack. 'We will go about.'

  'Yes, sir. Shall I cast off the drag-sail, sir?'

  'No: and we will not go about too fast, neither: space out the orders, if you please.'

  As the pipes screeched 'All hands about ship' he stood on the hammocks, fixing the Marengo with his glass, pivoting as the frigate turned up into the wind. Just after the cry of 'Mainsail haul' and the sharp cutting pipe of belay, he saw a signal run up aboard the flagship and the puff of a gun on her poop. The Sémillante and the Belle Poule had begun their turn in pursuit, but now the Sémillante paid off again and stood on. The Belle Poule was already past the eye of the wind when a second gun emphasised the order, the order to stand on northwards and gain the weather-gauge, and she had to wear right round to come up on to her former tack. 'Damn that,' murmured Jack: the blunder would narrow his precious gap by quarter of a mile. He glanced at the sun and at his watch. 'Mr Church,' he said, 'be so good as to fetch me a mango.'

  The minutes passed: the juice ran down his chin. The French frigates stood on to the north-north-west, growing smaller. First the Sémillante and then the Belle Poule crossed the wake of the Surprise, gaining the weathergauge: there was no changing his mind now. The Marengo, her two tiers of guns clearly to be seen, lay on the starboard beam, sailing a parallel course. There was no sound but the high steady note of the wind in the rigging and the beat of the sea on the frigate's larboard bow. The far-spaced ships scarcely seemed to move in relation to one another from one minute to the next—there seemed to be all the peaceful room in the world.

  The Marengo dropped her foresail: the angle widened half a degree. Jack checked all the positions yet again, looked at his watch, looked at the dog-vane, and said, 'Mr Stourton, the stuns'ls are in the tops, I believe?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Very well. In ten minutes we must cast off the drag-sail, bear up, set royals, stuns'ls aloft and alow if she will bear them, and bring the wind two points on the quarter. We must make sail as quick as ever sail was made, brailing up the driver and hauling down the staysails at the same time, of course. Send Clerk and Bonden to the wheel. Lower the starboard port-lids. Make all ready, and stand by to let go the drag-sail when I give the signal.'

  Still the minutes dropped by; the critical point was coming, but slowly, slowly. Jack, motionless upon that busy deck, began to whistle softly as he watched the far-off Linois: but then he checked himself—he wanted no more than a brisk top-gallant breeze. Anything more, or anything like a hollow sea, would favour the two-decker, the tall, far heavier ship; and he knew, to his cost, how fast these big French seventy-fours could move.

  A last glance to windward: the forces were exactly balanced: the moment had come. He drew a deep breath, tossed the hairy mango stone over the side, and shouted, 'Let go there.' An instant splash. 'Hard a-port.' The Surprise turned on her heel, her yards coming round to admiration, sails flashing out as others vanished, and there close on her starboard quarter was her foaming wake, showing a sweet tight curve. She leapt forward with a tremendous new impulse, her masts groaning, and settled on her new course, not deviating by a quarter of a point. She was heading exactly where he had wanted her to head, straight for the potential gap, and she was moving even faster than he had hoped. The higher spars were bending like coach-whips, just this side of carrying away Mr Stourton, that was prettily executed I am very pleased.'

  The Surprise was tearing through the water, moving faster and faster until she reached a steady eleven knots and the masts ceased their complaint. The backstays grew a shade less rigid, and leaning on one, gauging its tension as he stared at the Marengo, he said, 'Main and fore royal stuns'ls.'

  The Marengo was brisk in her motions—well-manned—but the move had caught her unawares. She did not begin her turn until the Surprise had set her royal studdingsails and her masts were complaining again as they drove her five hundred tons even faster through the sea her deck leaning sharply, her lee headrails buried in the foam, the sea roaring along her side, and the hands standing mute—never a sound fore and aft.

  Yet when the Marengo did turn she bore up hand to bring the wind on her starboard quarter, settling on a course that would give her beautiful deep-cut sails all possible thrust to intercept the Surprise at some point in the south-west—to cut her off, that is to say, if she could not find another knot or so. At the same time the flagship sent up hoist after hoist of signals, some directed, no doubt, at the still invisible corvette to leeward and others to bring the Sémillante and the Belle Poule pelting down after the Surprise.

  'They will never do it, my friend,' said Jack. 'They did not send up double preventer-stays half an hour ago. They cannot carry royals in this breeze.' But he touched a belaying pin as he said this: royals or no, the situation was tolerably delicate. The Marengo was moving faster than he had expected, and the Belle Poule, whose earlier mistake had set her well to leeward, was nearer than he could wish. The two-decker and the heavy frigate were the danger; he had no chance at all against the Marengo, very little against the Belle Poule, and both these ships were fast converging upon his course. Each came on surrounded by an invisible ring two miles and more in diameter—the range of their powerful guns. The Surprise had to keep well out of these rings, above all out of the area where they would soon overlap; and the lane was closing fast.

  He considered her trim with the most intense concentration: it was possible that he was pressing her down a trifle aft—that there was a little too much canvas abroad, driving her by force rather than by love. Haul up the weather-skirt of the maincourse,' he said. Just so: that was distinctly sweeter; a more airy motion altogether. The dear Surprise had always loved her headsails, 'Mr Babbington, jump forward and tell me whether the spritsail will stand.'

  'I dou
bt it, sir,' said Babbington, coming aft. 'She throws such an almighty bow-wave.'

  Jack nodded: he had thought as much. 'Spritsail-topsail, then,' he said, and thanked God for his new strong royal-mast, that would take the strain. How beautifully she answered! You could ask anything of her. Yet still the lane was narrow enough, in all conscience: the Marengo was crowding sail, and now the Surprise was racing into the zone of high danger. 'Mr Callow,' he said to the signal-midshipman, 'strike the Dutch colours. Hoist our own ensign and the pendant.' The ensign broke out at the mizzen-peak; a moment later the pendant, the mark of a man-of-war and no other, streamed from the main. The Surprise was particular about her pendant—had renewed it four times this commission, adding a yard or two each time—and now its slim tapering flame stretched out sixty feet, curving away beyond her starboard bow. At the sight there was a general hum of satisfaction along the deck, where the men stood tense, strongly moved by the tearing speed.

  Now he was almost within random-shot of the Marengo's bow guns. If he edged away the Belle Poule and the Sémillante would gain on him. Could he afford to hold on to this present course? 'Mr Braithwaite,' he said to the master's mate, 'be so good as to heave the log.'

  Braithwaite stepped forward, paused for a moment at the sloping lee-quarter to see where he could toss it into a calm patch outside the mill-race rushing along her side, flung the log wide through the flying spray, and shouted 'Turn!' The boy posted on the hammock-netting with the reel held it high; the line tore off, and a moment later there was a shriek. The quartermaster had the boy by one foot, dragging him inboard; and the reel, torn from his hand, raced away astern.

  'Fetch another log, Mr Braithwaite,' said Jack with intense satisfaction, 'and use a fourteen-second glass.' He had seen the whole line run off the reel only once in his life, when he was a midshipman homeward-bound in the packet from Nova Scotia: and the Flying Childers boasted of having done it too—the Childers also claimed to have lost their boy. But this was no time to be regretting the preservation of young puddinghead, Bent Larsen—for although it was clear that at this speed they would do it, that they would cross the Marengo and start to increase the distance within a few minutes, yet nevertheless they were running towards the nearest point of convergence, and it was always possible to mistake by a few hundred yards. And some French long brass eights threw a ball very far and true.