Master & Commander a-1

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Then we will pipe the hands to breakfast and knot and splice afterwards. Mr Lamb, what damage do you find?'

  'Nothing below the water-line, sir. Four right ugly holes amidships and two and four gun-ports well-nigh beat into one: that's the worst. Nothing to what we give her (the sodomite),' he added, under his breath.

  Jack went forward to the dismounted gun. A ball from the Gloire had shattered the bulwark where the aft ring-bolts were fastened, just as number four was on the recoil. The gun, partly checked on the other side, had slewed round, jamming its run-out neighbour and oversetting. By wonderful good luck the two men who should have been crushed between them were not there – one washing the blood from a graze off his face in the fire-bucket, the other hurrying for more slow-match – and by wonderful good luck the gun had gone over, rather than running murderously about the deck.

  'Well, Mr Day,' he said, 'we were in luck one way, if not the other. The gun may go into the bows until Mr Lamb gives us fresh ring-bolts.'

  As he walked aft, taking off his coat as he went – the heat was suddenly unbearable – he ran his eye along the south-western horizon. No sign of Cape Nao in the rising haze: not a sail to be seen. He had never noticed the rising of the sun, but there it was, well up into the sky; they must have run a surprising long way. 'By God, I could do with my coffee,' he said, coming abruptly back into a present in which ordinary time flowed steadily once more and appetite mattered. 'But, however,' he reflected, 'I must go below.' This was the ugly side: this was where you saw what happened when a man's face and an iron ball met.

  'Captain Aubrey,' said Stephen, clapping his book to the moment he saw Jack in the cockpit. 'I have a grave complaint to make.'

  'I am concerned to hear it,' said Jack, peering about in the gloom for what he dreaded to see.

  'They have been at my asp. I tell you, sir, they have been at my asp. I stepped into my cabin for a book not three minutes ago, and what did I see? My asp drained -drained, I say.'

  'Tell me the butcher's bill; then I will attend to your asp.'

  'Bah – a few scratches, a man with his forearm moderately scored, a couple of splinters to draw – nothing of consequence – mere bandaging. All you will find in the sick-bay is an obstinate gleet with low fever and a reduced inguinal hernia: and that forearm. Now my asp -,

  'No dead? No wounded?' cried Jack, his heart leaping up.

  'No, no, no. Now my asp -' He had brought it aboard in its spirits of wine; and at some point in very recent time a criminal hand had taken the jar, drunk up all the alcohol and left the asp dry, stranded, parched.

  'I am truly sorry for it,' said Jack. 'But will not the fellow die? Must he not have an emetic?'

  'He will not: that is what is so vexing. The bloody man, the more than Hun, the sottish rapparee, he will not die. It was the best double-refined spirits of wine. 'Pray come and breakfast with me in the cabin; a pint of coffee and a well-broiled chop between you and the asp will take away the sting – will appease…' In his gaiety of heart, Jack was very near a witticism; he felt it floating there, almost within reach; but somehow it escaped and he confined himself to laughing as cheerfully as Stephen's vexation would with decency allow and observing, 'The damned

  Villain ran clean away from us; and I am afraid we shall have but a tedious time making our way back.! wonder, I wonder whether Dillon managed to pick up the settee, or whether she ran for it, too.'

  It was a natural curiosity, a curiosity shared by every man aboard the Sophie, apart from Stephen; but it was not to be satisfied that forenoon, nor yet for a great while after the sun had crossed the meridian. Towards noon the wind fell to something very near a calm; the newly-bent sails flapped, hanging in flaccid bulges from their yards, and the men working on the tattered set had to be protected by an awning. It was one of those intensely humid days when the air has no nourishment in it, and it was so hot that even with all his restless eagerness to recover his boarders, secure his prize and move on up the coast, Jack could not find it in his heart to order out the sweeps. The men had fought the ship tolerably well (though the guns were still too slow by far) and they had been very active repairing what damage the Gloire had inflicted. 'I will let them be at least until the dog-watch,' he reflected.

  The heat pressed down upon the sea; the smoke from the galley funnel hung along the deck, together with the smell of grog and the hundredweight or so of salt beef the Sophies had devoured at dinner-time: the regular tang-tang of the bell came at such long intervals that long before the snow was seen it appeared to Jack that this morning's sharp encounter must belong to another age, another life or, indeed (had it not been for a lingering smell of powder in the cushion under his head), to another kind of experience – to a tale he had read. Stretched out on the locker under his stern window, Jack revolved this in his mind, revolved it again more slowly, and again, and so sank far down and away.

  He woke suddenly, refreshed, cool and perfectly aware that the Sophie had been running easily for a considerable time, with a breeze that leant her over a couple of strakes, bringing her heels higher than his head.

  'I am afraid those damned youngsters woke you, sir,' said Mr Marshall with solicitous vexation. 'I sent 'em aloft, but I fear it was too late Calling out and hallooing like a pack of baboons. Damn their capars.'

  Although he was singularly open and truthful, upon the whole, Jack at once replied, 'Oh, I was not asleep.' On deck he glanced up at the two mastheads, where the midshipmen were peering anxiously down to see whether their offence was reported. Meeting his eye, they at once stared away, with a great demonstration of earnest duty, in the direction of the snow and her accompanying settee, rapidly closing with the Sophie on the easterly breeze.

  'There she is,' said Jack inwardly, with intense satisfaction. 'And he picked up the settee. Good, active fellow capital seaman.' His heart warmed to Dillon – it would have been so easy to let that second prize slip away while be was making sure of the crew of the snow. Indeed, it must have called for extraordinary exertions on his part to pin the two of them, for the settee would never have respected her surrender for a moment.

  'Well done, Mr Dillon,' he cried, as James came aboard, guiding a figure in a tattered, unknown uniform over the side. 'Did she try to run?'

  'She tried, sir,' said James. 'Allow me to present Captain La Hire, of the French royal artillery.' They took off their hats, bowed and shook hands. La Hire said, 'Appy,' in a low, pйnйtrй tone: and Jack said, 'Domestique, monsieur.'

  'The snow was a Neapolitan prize, sir: Captain La Hire was good enough to take command of the French royalist passengers and the Italian seamen, keeping the prize-crew under control while we pulled across to take possession of the settee. I am sorry to say the tartan and the other settee were too far to windward by the time we had secured her,

  and they have run down the coast – they are lying under the guns of the battery at Almoraira.'

  'Ah? We will look into the bay when we have the prisoners across. Many prisoners, Mr Dillon?'

  'Only about twenty, sir, since the snow's people are allies. They were on their way to Gibraltar.'

  'When were they taken?'

  'Oh, she's a fair prize, sir – a good eight days since.'

  'So much the better. Tell me, was there any trouble?'

  'No, sir. Or very little. We knocked two of the prize-crew on the head, and there was a foolish scuffle aboard the settee – a man pistolled. I hope all was well with you, sir?'

  'Yes, yes – no one killed, no serious wounds. She ran away from us too fast to do much damage: sailed four miles to our three, even without her royals. A most prodigious fine sailer.'

  Jack had a notion that some fleeting reserve passed across James Dillon's face, or perhaps showed in his voice; but in the hurry of things to be done, prizes to survey, prisoners to be dealt with, he could not tell why it affected him so unpleasantly until some two or three hours later, when the impression was reinforced and at least half defined.

  H
e was in his cabin: spread out on the table was the chart of Cape Nao, with Cape Almoraira and Cape Ifach jutting out from its massive under-side, and the little village of Almoraira at the bottom of the bay between them: on his right sat James, on his left Stephen, and opposite him Mr Marshall. what is more,' he was saying, 'the Doctor tells me the Spaniard says that the other settee has a cargo of quicksilver hidden in sacks of flour, so we must handle her with great care.'

  'Oh, of course,' said James Dillon. Jack looked at him sharply, then down at the chart and at Stephen's drawing: it showed a little bay with a village and a square tower at the bottom of it: a low mole ran twenty or thirty yards out into the sea, turned left-handed for another fifty and ended in a rocky knob, thus enclosing a harbour sheltered from all but the south-west wind. Steep-to cliffs ran from the village right round to the north-east point of the bay. On the other side there was a sandy beach all the way from the tower to the south-west point, where the cliffs reared up again. 'Could the fellow possibly think I am shy?' he thought.

  'That I left off chasing because I did not choose to get hurt and hurried back for a prize?' The tower commanded the entrance to the harbour; it stood some twenty yards to the south of the village and the gravel beach, where the fishing-boats were hauled out. 'Now this knob at the end of the jetty,' he said aloud, 'would you say it was ten foot high?'

  'Probably more. It is eight or nine years since I was there,' said Stephen, 'so I will not be absolute; but the chapel on it withstands the tall waves in the winter storms.'

  'Then it will certainly protect our hull. Now, with the sloop anchored with a spring on her cable so' – running his finger in a line from the battery to the rock and so to the spot – 'she should be tolerably safe. She opens as heavy a fire as she can, playing on the mole and over the tower. The boats from the snow and the settee land at the Doctor's cove' – pointing to a little indentation just round the south-west point – 'and we run as fast as ever we can along the shore and so take the tower from behind. Twenty yards short of it we fire the rocket and you turn your guns well away from the battery, but blaze away without stopping.'

  'Me, sir?' cried James.

  'Yes, you, sir; I am going ashore.' There was no answering the decision of this statement, and after a pause he went on to the detailed arrangements. 'Let us say ten minutes to run from the cove to the tower, and…'

  'Allow twenty, if you please,' said Stephen. 'You portly men of a sanguine complexion often die suddenly, from un considered exertion in the heat. Apoplexy – congestion.'

  'I wish, I wish you would not say things like that, Doctor,' said Jack, in a low tone: they all looked at Stephen with some reproach and Jack added, 'Besides, I am not portly.'

  'The captain has an uncommon genteel figgar,' said Mr Marshall.

  The conditions were perfect for the attack. The remains of the easterly wind would carry the Sophie in, and the breeze that would spring up off the land at about moon-rise would carry her into the offing, together with anything they managed to cut out. In his long survey from the masthead, Jack had made out the settee and a number of other vessels moored to the inner wall of the mole, as well as a row of fishing-boats hauled up along the shore: the settee was at the chapel end of the mole, directly opposite the guns of the tower, a hundred yards on the other side of the harbour.

  'I may not be perfect,' he reflected, 'but by God I am not shy; and if we cannot bring her out, then by God I shall burn her where she lies.' But these reflexions did not last long. From the deck of the Neapolitan snow he watched the Sophie round Cape Almoraira in the three-quarter darkness and stand into the bay, while the two prizes, with the boats in tow, bore away for the point on the other side. With the settee already in the port there was no possibility of surprise for the Sophie, and before she anchored she would have to undergo the fire of the battery. If there was to be a surprise it would lie with the boats: the night was almost certainly too dark now for the prizes to be seen crossing outside the bay to land the boats in Stephen's cove beyond the point -'one of the few I know where the white-bellied swift builds her nest'. Jack watched her going with a tender and extreme anxiety, torn with longing to be in both places at once: the possibilities of hideous failure flooded into his mind – the shore guns (how big were they? Stephen had been unable to tell) hulling the Sophie again and again, the heavy shot passing through both sides – the wind falling, or getting up to blow dead on shore – not enough hands left aboard to sweep her out of range – the boats all astray. It was a foolhardy attempt, absurdly rash. 'Silence fore and aft,' he cried harshly. 'Do you want to wake the whole coast?'

  He had had no idea how deeply he felt about his sloop: he knew exactly how she would be moving in – the particular creak of her mainyard in its parrel, the whisper of her rudder magnified by the sounding-board of her stern; and the passage across the bay seemed to him intolerably long.

  'Sir,' said Pullings. 'I think we have the point on our beam now.'

  'You are right, Mr Pullings,' said Jack, studying it through his night-glass. 'See the lights of the village going, one after the other. Port your helm, Algren. Mr Pullings,

  send a good man into the chains: we should have twenty fathom directly.' He walked to the taffrail and called over dark water, 'Mr Marshall, we are standing in.' The high black bar of the land, sharp against the less solid darkness of the starry sky: it came nearer and nearer, silently eclipsing Arcturus, then the whole of Corona: eclipsing even Vega, high up in the sky. The regular splash of the lead, the steady chant of the man in the weather chains: 'By the deep nine; by the deep nine; by the mark seven; and a quarter five; a quarter less five…

  Ahead lay the pallor of the cove beneath the cliff, and a faint white edge of lapping wave. 'Right,' said Jack, and the snow came up into the wind, her foresail backing like a sentient creature. 'Mr Pullings, your party into the launch.'

  Fourteen men filed fast by him and silently over the side into the creaking boat: each had his white arm-band on.

  'Sergeant Quinn.' The marines followed, muskets faintly gleaming, their boots loud on the deck. Someone was grasping at his stomach. It was Captain La Hire, a volunteer attached to the soldiers, looking for his hand. 'Good lucky,' he said, shaking it.

  'Merci very much,' said Jack, adding, 'Mon captain,' over the side; and at that moment a flash lit the sky, followed by the deep thump of a heavy gun.

  'Is that cutter alongside?' said Jack, his night-eyes half blinded by the flash.

  'Here, sir,' said the voice of his coxswain just beneath him. Jack swung over, dropped down. 'Mr Ricketts, where is the dark lantern?'

  'Under my jacket, sir.'

  'Show it over the stern. Give way.' The gun spoke again, followed almost immediately by two together: they were trying for the range, that was sure: but it was a damned roaring great note for a gun. A thirty-six pounder? Peering round he could see the four boats behind him, a vague line against the loom of the snow and the settee. Mechanically he patted his pistols and his sword: he had rarely felt more nervous, and his whole being was concentrated in his right ear for the sound of the Sophie's broadside.

  The cutter was racing through the water, the oars creaking as the men heaved, and the men themselves grunting deep with the effort – ugh, ugh. 'Rowed-off all,' said the coxswain quietly, and a few seconds later the boat shot hissing up the gravel. The men were out and had hauled it up before the launch grounded, followed by the snow's boat with Mowett, the jolly-boat with the bosun and the settee's launch with Marshall.

  The little beach was crowded with men. 'The line, Mr Watt?' said Jack.

  'There she goes,' said a voice, and seven guns went off, thin and faint behind the cliff.

  'Here we are, sir,' cried the bosun, heaving two coils of one-inch line off his shoulder.

  Jack seized the end of one, saying, 'Mr Marshall, clap on to yours, and each man to his knot.' As orderly as though they had been mustering by divisions aboard the Sophie, the men fell into place. 'Ready? Ready there? The
n tear away.'

  He set off for the point, where the beach narrowed to a few feet under the cliff, and behind him, fast to the knotted line, ran his half of the landing-party. There was a bubbling furious excitement rising in his chest the waiting was over this was the now itself. They came round the point and at once there were blinding fireworks before them and the noise increased tenfold: the tower firing with three, four deep red lances very low over the ground, the Sophie, her brailed-up topsails clear in the irregular flashes that lit up the whole sky, hammering away with a fine, busy, rolling fire, playing on the jetty to send stone splinters flying and discourage any attempt at warping the settee ashore. As far as he could judge from this angle, she was in exactly the position they had laid down on the chart, with the dark mass of the chapel rock on her port beam. But the tower was farther than he had expected. Beneath his delight – indeed, his something near a rapture – he could feel his body labouring, his legs heaving him slowly along as his boots sank into the soft sand. He must not, must not fall, he thought, after a stumble; and then again at the sound of a man going down on Marshall's rope. He shaded his eyes from the flashes, looked with an unbelievably violent effort away from the battle, ploughed on and on and on, – the pounding of his heart almost choking his mind, hardly progressing at all. But now suddenly it was harder ground, and as though he had dropped a ten-stone load he flew along, running, really running. This was packed, noiseless sand, and all along behind him he could hear the hoarse, gasping, catching breath of the landing-party. The battery was hurrying towards them at last, and through the gaps in the parapet he could see busy figures working the Spanish guns. A shot from the Sophie, glancing off the chapel rock, howled over their heads; and now an eddy in the breeze brought a choking gust of the tower's powder-smoke.

  Was it time for the rocket? The fort was very close -they could hear the voices loud and the rumble of trucks. But the Spaniards were wholly engrossed with answering the Sophie's fire: they could get a little closer, a little closer, closer still. They were all creeping now, by one accord, all clearly visible to one another in the flashes and the general glow. 'The rocket, Bonden,' murmured Jack. 'Mr Watt, the grapnels. Check your arms, all.'