Book 7 - The Surgeon's Mate

by Patrick O'Brian

  The hawsers were not to the mastheads before the last dog-watch, nor anything like it. Squall after squall of very heavy rain swept down on the sloop, rain so thick that fresh water gushed from the lee scuppers and the hands could hardly tell what they were at, while at the same time the turning gusts within the squalls knocked her about most brutally, taking her aback three times, and making it impossible to keep her steady on her course. The French ship and the Jason vanished entirely for the best part of an hour.

  'Should I feel better if I were to vomit?' asked Jagiello.

  'I doubt it,' said Stephen. 'It has done nothing for the Colonel.'

  They pursued and the pursuer were still there, in their expected positions, when the last squall passed away into the dark north-east, blotting out the horizon to leeward but leaving the sea clear to starboard. The Frenchman was still reaching as far south as ever he could, veering from the imaginary danger—he had not yet discovered the cheat—but he had set a forestaysail, he had let out his remaining reefs, and he had gained perceptibly on the Jason. On the other hand his course and the Ariel's were converging, although the sloop kept the wind a whole point free for greater speed; the chase was nearer by half a mile, and clearer by far.

  'She is the Méduse,' said Hyde.

  'Then let us hope we may trim her locks, with Jason's help,' said Jack at once, and he laughed aloud. His spirits were at a fine tearing pitch; he felt extremely well; even if it had been remembered, nothing on land had the least importance: yet beneath the glow of well-being his mind continually worked upon the changing factors, upon the three visible moving points of the triangle and the unseen variables that would affect them. And beneath the eagerness there was a clear-headed realization of the danger of his present course: although he intended no more than a hit-and-run delaying action, it meant bringing his stumpy carronades well within the reach of the Frenchman's far-reaching long guns, with a broadside of at least 840 pounds as opposed to his 265. In moderate weather, with her lower tier of gun-ports open, the Méduse would certainly sink the Ariel at a mile, destroying her before she could open an effectual fire: even in these circumstances there was a fair possibility that none of these cheerful young men around him would live until tomorrow. Everything depended upon speed.

  'Hawsers to the mastheads, sir,' said the bosun.

  'Very good, Mr Graves,' said Jack. 'You have done very well.' A rapid survey, and back to the quarterdeck. 'Hands to make sail,' he called. 'Away aloft. Lay out: let fall.' And raising his voice to carry half a mile, wind or no wind, 'Foretopgallant halliards, there. Handsomely now, handsomely. A fathom. And a fathom. Up she rises: tally and belay.'

  One after another the sails rose slowly up on their yards, each ballooning wildly to leeward at first and each gradually brought to a fine taut curve; smoothly and evenly the full strain of the far greater thrust came to the powerful hawsers; and as each sail filled the Ariel took on a greater heel, so that with the third her deck was at the slope of a moderately high-pitched roof, while her larboard cathead and much of her lee rail vanished under a smother of white foam.

  Jack hooked himself on to a weather backstay and reached aft for the hawser that trebled its power—taut, but not iron taut: nowhere near its breaking-strain. 'Mr Hyde,' he said, smiling at his lieutenant's anxious face, 'Let us try the log: we may be making close on eleven knots.'

  'Eleven knots and two fathoms, sir,' came the reply, delivered by a delighted midshipman, his red face shining as he scrambled up the slope from the leeward side.

  Eleven knots was very well, but the Méduse was a new ship, a beautiful sailer like so many of the Frenchmen, and well handled; and once she brought the wind a point free she would move even faster. He would probably cross her path by sunset at the present rate, but he would be far happier with something more, with the time in hand to lie on her bow, cross her stem and wear, hitting her twice before he ran. 'I believe we may venture upon a maintopmast staysail,' he said.

  The staysail was sheeted home—it took thirty men to bring the sheet right aft—and the Ariel heeled another seven degrees.

  'How strangely the floor is sloping,' said Jagiello. 'I can hardly sit in my chair. What do you suppose they are doing?'

  'I cannot tell,' said Stephen. 'It is a melancholy reflection, that the passenger is a mere helpless, unhelpful parcel when the tempest roars.'

  'Does not the Captain seek your advice, sir?'

  'Not always,' said Stephen.

  The rain had stopped. The Captain and the gunner had made a tour of the sloop's armament. Returning to the quarterdeck Jack said, The rain has stopped for the moment. Perhaps the Doctor would like to see how the sloop is coming along. Mr Rowbotham, pray jump below and tell him, with my compliments, that we are making twelve knots, and that if he would like to see, now is the time. It may come on to blow presently.'

  'The Captain's compliments, sir,' said Rowbotham, 'and we are making twelve knots. Twelve knots, sir!'

  'Why?' asked Stephen.

  'To catch the Méduse, sir. She is on our starboard beam,' said Rowbotham. 'A French seventy-four, sir,' he added, seeing incomprehension before him, 'and we hope to trim her locks directly, with Jason's help. Jason is only two miles astern, and coming down like thunder.'

  'Dear me, is there to be a battle?' cried Stephen. 'I had no idea at all.'

  'A battle?' cried Jagiello, his torpor vanishing. 'May I come too?'

  After a first wild flurry that would have flung them into the leescuppers, if not into the Atlantic, but for the powerful arm of the quartermaster at the con, they were made fast to stanchions on the. weather quarter, well out of the way.

  'I thought you would like to see the position,' said Jack, and he outlined it in a mild roar. 'And I thought you would like to see what the ship can do when she is put to her shifts.'

  'Sure this is speed itself,' cried Stephen, the foam flying past his face, 'the racing exhilaration of—' He had been going to say 'of Icarus before his fall', but he checked himself, preferring 'a swooping elegance—an appearance of extreme danger just averted—a falcon's flight, so it is.'

  'She is a sweet creature,' said Jack. 'I am glad you have seen her at her best. Now is the time, because we shall be busy in half an hour; and,'—nodding into the black, tormented west, a darkness shot through and through with hidden lightning—'it will come on to blow tonight: Pellworm's blow, I dare say. We are forereaching on her, as you see, and we mean to haul our wind, shoot up, cross her stem, rake her, wear and rake her again, and fly for our lives before she can yaw: we are twice as nimble, you know, and with our carronades we can fire twice as fast.' He moved off to measure the angles with his sextant, and Jagiello said into Stephen's ear, 'That ship looks three times as large as the Ariel.'

  'It is as I understand four times the size,' said Stephen. 'But the disproportion is not as great as you might suppose, since as you perceive their lower range of guns on this side are buried beneath the waves, because of her lean, or list; whereas ours are all raised well above the surface. I have known Captain Aubrey attack at even greater odds and succeed.'

  'When will the battle begin?'

  'In about half an hour, I am told.'

  'I shall fetch my sword and my pistols.'

  In fact it began far sooner. The Méduse suddenly bore up, as though to pass under the Ariel's stern and destroy her. Jack at once hauled his wind and the ships converged at a shocking speed under the low grey racing sky. He would still have just time to cross the Frenchman's stem if he were not knocked out first. Nearer, nearer, fine on the Méduse's larboard bow: nearer still, almost within reach of the carronades.

  'Fire at the word. Fire high. Aim at her tops,' he called again down the tense line of waiting gun-crews.

  The Méduse yawed to port at last and let fly with her upper-deck guns, a well-grouped broadside but a trifle high—they heard the scream of iron overhead, shriller than the wind, and then the huge thunder.

  Nearer still. 'Fire,' said Jack and th
e Ariel's starboard carronades replied at the limit of their range: a staysail ripped loose aboard the Frenchman and tore to pieces, flapping down the wind: the Ariels cheered as they reloaded with furious speed. But now the Méduse's lower ports were opening and the great guns running out, free of the water on the upward roll as she came tearing down on the Ariel's beam.

  'Fire,' cried Jack again. The two broadsides bawled out at the same moment and the Ariel's foretopmast went by the board, cut clean away. Her foreyard parted at the slings and she shot up into the wind, spinning fast on her heel.

  'Larboard guns,' roared Jack, ignoring the chaos, the wild confusion of sailcloth and rigging and spars, and leaping for the nearest carronade himself: the quicker-witted men were with him and as the Méduse swept past they shattered her spanker-boom and blasted five cloths from her maincourse. Two minutes later and close on a mile away she answered with a careful, studied discharge from her after guns that sent solid water over the Ariel's deck and shattered the boats on the beams; then she was out of her range, still running fast, but by no means as fast as before.

  They had only just managed to clear away the chief of the wreckage and get her head before the wind when the Jason came hurtling down in the Méduse's wake; she was already trying long shots with her bow-chasers, and she flew the signal Do you require assistance?

  'Negative,' said Jack, and they cheered one another as she went by.

  There followed a period of the most intense and strenuous work before the Ariel could haul to the wind again and stand on after the ships of the line, still visible in the south-east, and now steadily engaging at the extremity of their range. She had a spare main topgallant mast at the fore, swayed up by main force and the grace of God in an impossible sea, a crossjack yard for her forecourse, and her knotted rigging was an ugly sight; her speed of course was much reduced, but she held a good wind and she limped after the great ships with a fair chance of joining the action after they had mauled each other for a while. The Jason had already lost her spritsail yard—shot away or carried away they could not tell—and they knew what they had done to the Méduse: both the ships of the line were travelling far more slowly.

  'We are well out of that,' said Jack, when at last he could come below in the twilight and drink a pot of tea. 'I never thought we should come off so easy. No killed or wounded, never a shot in the hull, only a few spars knocked away apart from the boats, and we clipped her locks finely. I thought she would blow us out of the water without so much as a by your leave, ha, ha, ha! If she had had a moment to spare she would certainly have done so. I have rarely been so pleased in my life as when I saw her run out of range, with her boom gone in the jaws.'

  'What is your present intention, tell?' asked Stephen.

  'Why, we must hang on their skirts as well as ever we can through the night, and if we cannot join in ourselves—which I don't despair of—we must try to bring down any ship within sight or hearing by blue lights and rockets and gunfire. There is a very fair chance of meeting with some of our cruisers, if not the Brest team itself.'

  'And what of Pellworm's blow?'

  'Oh damn Pellworm and his blow: we must cross that bridge when we come to it. For the moment our duty is to follow; but first I am going to have a bite. Will you join me in a cold leg of mutton?'

  Following was easy enough in the first part of the night; not only did the Jason carry an unusually powerful toplight, but even when it was hidden by the rain and the low racing clouds, the gun-flashes showed where they were. The Ariel followed after them in an effulgence of blue lights, with frequent guns, and rockets twice at every bell, and at one time she was certainly gaining on them; this was at the beginning of the middle watch, when the whole south-eastern sky was lit not by the single flash of chasers but by the blaze of full broadsides, six times repeated, broadsides whose thunder reached them over the howling of the gale and reached them within two heartbeats of the blaze.

  But then no more, no gleam, no flash, all swallowed up in a driving pelting rain so thick that men ducked their heads to breathe, rain borne almost flat across the deck by a wind whose voice in the rigging and over the torn sea rose to such a pitch that it would have drowned any broadside beyond half a mile. At first they thought it was a squall, but it lasted, all night it lasted; and they were obliged to admit they had utterly lost sight of the Jason and her chase.

  'Never mind,' said Jack. 'We shall see them to windward at break of day.' Always providing the Méduse had not put before the wind for Cherbourg, he added to himself; for by his reckoning, based on Jason's position some hours before, she should have reached the best point for a run up mid-channel, with no great risk of interception on a night as dirty as this.

  'Should you not turn in, sir?' suggested Hyde diffidently. 'You have been on deck since the beginning, as well as most of last night. There is nothing we can do, with the sky as dark as pitch; and we have two hundred miles under our lee.'

  'I believe I shall, Hyde,' said Jack. 'Keep her just so,'—the ship was under lower staysails, reefed forecourse and mizzen, heading south-east, plunging along through a very heavy sea, the wind steady in the west-south-west—'and let me be called at daylight, or if anything should happen before.' It was dirty weather, very dirty weather, but the Ariel was a fine tight weatherly little ship, a good sea-boat, and she could deal with worse than this in spite of her jury foretopmast.

  Rarely had he slept so deep. He had hardly thrown off his jacket before his eyes were closing: as he lay down he could hear himself breathing, perhaps snoring, for a moment and then he was gone, gone into a strangely vivid dream in which some fool was shaking him and bawling into his ear 'Breakers under the lee.'

  'Breakers under the lee, sir,' shouted Hyde again.

  'Christ,' said Jack, instantly awake. He leapt from his cot and sprang up on deck, Hyde following with his jacket. There in the greyness, neither night nor yet day, white water showed broad on the larboard beam, an enormous sea breaking on a vast shoal of rocks, two cables' lengths away.

  The ship was still close hauled on the starboard tack: although she was making a fair headway the wind, the swell and the making tide were all heaving her in towards the reef, broadside on. She would never stay out against such a wind even if her foretopmast were sound; he could not tack; but there was still just room to wear. 'Hands about ship. Hard a-port,' he said, and no more. The officers and men flew to their duty, the after sails vanished, the ship paid off to leeward, faster and faster towards the reef, turned on its very edge, turned through twenty points, and came up beautifully on the larboard tack heading north-north-west.

  'Luff and touch her,' Jack said to the man at the wheel. 'Shiver the maincourse.' He wanted no strong headway until he knew where he was: they were either right on Ushant or the French mainland—in either case his reckoning had set him fifty miles north of his true position and far to the east—but it was essential to know which. Staring to leeward he could scarcely make out more than the dark loom of land through the rain: yet at least he did see that Hyde had done all that was proper aboard—the carpenter and his crew stood by with axes to cut away the masts; in the bows the anchors were cleared away and ready a-cockbill; the lead was going in the mainchains, rapid casts, no chant, the depth instantly given 'Six. A quarter less five . . . '

  'Breakers ahead,' roared the forecastle lookout.

  Jack ran forward, surveyed the long line of fast appearing white, a second reef that barred their path to the west and the north, their way to the open sea: an unbroken line that seemed to end in a dim headland away to starboard. The reef grew clearer, and he saw rollers breaking far out into the offing, a great breadth of mortal surf. 'Fill the maincourse,' he called. 'One point to starboard.' The Ariel ran on straight for the white water. As he gauged the distance and the force of the wind, listening intently to the leadsman, the hands on the forecastle turned their anxious faces to his with total reliance in his judgment. Fifty yards from the turmoil he called 'Hard a-weather.' The Ariel sho
t up into the wind, paused in four fathoms, and he said 'Let go the best bower' just as sternway came on her. The anchor held. She gently veered out a cable and rode there between the two reefs, bowing the sea and the tide, a strong tide near the top of the flood. It was a respite: but if they were where he suspected it could not last long. He sent to rouse Stephen, Jagiello and the Colonel; called for a double guard on the spirit-room, for seamen loved to die drunk; ordered the galley fires to be lit. Some of the Ariel's people were badly frightened, as well they might be, and an appearance of order would comfort them, to say nothing of hot burgoo in their bellies.

  Already the day was coming, with light over the land: the rain stopped abruptly, the thick haze swept off the sea, and he knew where he was. It was worse than he had thought. They were in what the Navy called Gripes Bay, deep in Gripes Bay: the Ariel had somehow contrived to make her way between the two main reefs in the night, never touching any of the countless rocks that lay scattered between them. It was a vile bay, open to the south-west, never frequented by the ships of the inshore squadron—bad holding ground for anchors, ugly sharp rocks to cut cables, reefs wherever you looked. But he knew its watejrs well from fishing expeditions in small craft during calm weather when he was on the Brest blockade; and as a seventeen-year-old master's mate he had commanded the Resolution's yawl when the boats of the squadron stormed the Camaret battery. He looked over the taff-rail, and there was the battery itself, a short mile away, a fort high-perched above the north end of the reef; it had been repaired of course, and presently the soldiers would wake up and open fire. Beyond Camaret lay Brest: at the bottom of the bay the village of Trégonnec with its little half-moon jetty round the fishermen's harbour at the mouth of the stream, and another strong fort. No lying there between two fires, although the shore was calm enough, protected as it was by such massive reefs; no great surf on the beach, even with such an enormous sea beating outside. But southwards there was the other horn of the bay, Gripes Point; and round Gripes Point lay salvation, the beautiful great bight of Douarnenez, where a whole squadron could lie, sheltered from the south and west and laughing at the French batteries, too far off to do any harm.