Master and Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

  At the beginning of the middle watch the sky clouded over, and towards two bells a shower came weeping across, the drops hissing on the binnacles. The moon rose, a faint, lopsided object scarcely to be made out at all: Jack's stomach was pinched and wrung with hunger, but he paced on and on, looking mechanically out over the leeward darkness at every turn.

  Three bells. The quiet voice of the ship's corporal reporting all's well. Four bells. There were so many other possibilities, so many things the chase could have done other than bearing up and then hauling her wind for Cette: hundreds of other things . . .

  'What, what's this? Walking about in the rain in your shirt? This is madness,' said Stephen's voice just behind him.

  'Hush!' cried Mowett, the officer of the watch, who had failed to intercept him.

  'Madness. Think of the night air—the falling damos—the fluxion of the humours. If your duty requires you to walk about in the night air, you must wear a woollen garment. A woollen garment, there, for the captain! I will fetch it myself.'

  Five bells, and another soft shower of rain. The relieving of the helm, and the whispered repetition of the course, the routine reports. Six bells, and a hint of thinner darkness in the east. The spell of silence seemed as strong as ever; men tiptoed to trim the yards, and a little before seven bells the look-out coughed, hailing almost apologetically, only just loud enough to be heard. 'Upon deck. Deck, sir. I think him vos there, starboard beam. I think . . .'

  Jack stuffed his glass into the pocket of the grego Stephen had brought him, ran up to the masthead, twined himself firmly into the rigging and trained the telescope in the direction of the pointing arm. The first grey forerunners of the dawn were straggling through the drifting showers and low torn cloud to leeward; and there, her lateens faintly gleaming, lay a polacre, not half a mile away. Then the rain had hidden her again, but not before Jack had seen that she was indeed his quarry and that she had lost her maintopmast at the cap.

  'You're a capital fellow, Anderssen,' he said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  To the concentrated mute inquiry from young Mowett and the whole of the watch on deck he replied with a smile that he tried to keep within bounds and the words, 'She is just under our lee. East by south. You may light up the sloop, Mr Mowett, and show her our force: I don't want her to do anything foolish, such as firing a gun—perhaps hurting some of our people. Let me know when you have laid her aboard.' With this he retired, calling for a light and something hot to drink; and from his cabin he heard Mowett's voice, cracked and squeaking with the excitement of this prodigious command (he would happily have died for Jack), as under his orders the Sophie bore up and spread her wings.

  Jack leant back against the curved run of the stern-window and let Killick's version of coffee down by gulps into his grateful stomach; and at the same time that its warmth spread through him, so there ran a lively tide of settled, pure, unfevered happiness—a happiness that another commander (remembering his own first prize) might have discerned from the log-entry, although it was not specifically mentioned there: ½ past 10 tacked, 11 in courses, reefed topsail. AM cloudy and rain. ½ past 4 chase observed E by S, distance ½ mile. Bore up and took possession off, which proved to be L'Aimable Louise, French polacre laden with corn and general merchandise for Cette, of about 200 tons, 6 guns and 19 men. Sent her with an officer and eight men to Mahon.

  'Allow me to fill your glass,' said Jack, with the utmost benevolence. 'This is rather better than our ordinary, I believe?'

  'Better, dear joy, and very, very much stronger—a healthy, roborative beverage,' said Stephen Maturin. ' 'Tis a neat Priorato. Priorato, from behind Tarragona.'

  'Neat it is—most uncommon neat. But to go back to the prize: the main reason why I am so very happy about it is that it bloods the men, as one might say; and it gives me room to spread my elbows a little. We have a capital prize agent—is obliged to me—and I am persuaded he will advance us a hundred guineas. I can distribute sixty or seventy to the crew, and buy some powder at last. There could be nothing better for these men than kicking up a dust on shore, and for that they must have money.'

  'But will they not run away? You have often spoken of desertion—the great evil of desertion'

  'When they have prize-money due to them and a strong notion of more to come they will not desert. Not in Mahon, at all events And then again, do you see, they will turn to exercising the great guns with a much better heart do not suppose I do not know how they have been muttering, for indeed I have driven them precious hard. But now they will feel there is some point in it If I can get some powder (I dare not use up much more of the issue) we will shoot larbowlines against starbowhnes and watch against watch for a handsome prize; and what with that and what with emulation, I don't despair of making our gunnery at least as dangerous to others as it is to ourselves. And then—God, how sleepy I am—we can set about our cruising in earnest. I have a plan for nightwork, lying close inshore but first I should tell you how I think to divide up our time. A week off Cape Creus, then back to Mahon for stores and water, particularly water. Then the approaches to Barcelona, and coastwise . . . coastwise . . .' He yawned prodigiously: two sleepless nights and a pint of the Aimable Louise's Priorato were bearing him down with an irresistible warm soft delicious weight. 'Where was I? Oh, Barcelona. Then off Tarragona, Valencia . . . Valencia . . . water's the great trouble, of course.' He sat there blinking at the light, musing comfortably; and he heard Stephen's distant voice discoursing upon the coast of Spain—knew it well as far as Denia, could show him many an interesting remnant of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Visigothic, Arabian occupation; the certainty of both kinds of egret in the marshes by Valencia; the odd dialect and bloody nature of the Valencianos; the very real possibility of flamingoes . . .

  The Aimable Louise's ill wind had stirred up the shipping all over the western Mediterranean, driving it far from its intended courses; and not two hours after they had sent their prize away for Mahon, their first fine plump prize, they saw two more vessels, the one a barca-longa heading west and the other a brig to the north, apparently steering due south. The brig was the obvious choice and they set a course to cut her off, keeping closest watch upon her the while: she sailed on placidly enough under courses and topsails, while the Sophie set her royals and topgallants and hurried along on the larboard tack with the wind one point free, heeling so that her lee-channels were under the water; and as their courses converged the Sophies were astonished to see that the stranger was extraordinarily like their own vessel, even to the exaggerated steeve of her bowsprit.

  'That would be a brig, no doubt,' said Stephen, standing at the rail next to Pullings, a big shy silent master's mate.

  'Yes, sir, so she is; and more exactly like us nor ever you would credit, without you seen it. Do you please to look in my spy-glass, sir?' he asked, wiping it on his handkerchief.

  'Thank you. An excellent glass—how clear. But I must venture to disagree. That ship, that brig, is a vile yellow, whereas we are black, with a white stripe.'

  'Oh, that's nobbut paintwork, sir. Look at her quarterdeck, with its antic little break right aft, just like ourn—you don't see many of such, even in these waters. Look at the steeve of her bowsprit. And she must gauge the same as us, Thames measurement, within ten ton or less. They must have been off of the same draught, out of the same yard. But there are three rows of reefbands in her fore tops'l, so you can see she's only a merchantman, and not a man-of-war like we.'

  'Are we going to take her?'

  'I doubt that'd be too good to be true, sir: but maybe we shall.'

  'The Spanish colours, Mr Babbington,' said Jack; and looking round Stephen saw the yellow and red break out at the peak.

  'We are sailing under false colours,' whispered Stephen. 'Is not that very heinous?'

  'Eh?'

  'Wicked, morally indefensible?'

  'Bless you, sir, we always do that, at sea. But we'll show our own at the last minute, you may be sure, before ever we fi
re a gun. That's justice. Look at him, now—he's throwing out a Danish waft, and as like as not he's no more a Dane than my grandam.'

  But the event proved Thomas Pullings wrong. 'Danish prig Clomer, sir,' said her master, an ancient bibulous Dane with pale, red-rimmed eyes, showing Jack his papers in the cabin. 'Captain Ole Bugge. Hides and peeswax from Dripoli to Parcelona.'

  'Well, Captain,' said Jack, looking very sharply through the papers—the quite genuine papers—'I'm sure you will forgive me for troubling you—we have to do it, as you know. Let me offer you a glass of this Priorato; they tell me it is good of its kind.'

  'It is better than good, sir,' said the Dane, as the purple tide ran out, 'it is vonderful vine. Captain, may I ask you the favour of your positions?'

  'You have come to the right shop for a position, Captain. We have the best navigator in the Mediterranean. Killick, pass the word for Mr Marshall. Mr Marshall, Captain B . . .—the gentleman would like to know what we make our position.'

  On deck the Clomers and the Sophies were gazing at one another's vessels with profound satisfaction, as at their own mirror-images: at first the Sophies had felt that the resemblance was something of a liberty on the part of the Danes, but they came round when their own yeoman of the sheets and their own shipmate Anderssen called out over the water to their fellow-countrymen, talking foreign as easy as kiss my hand, to the silent admiration of all beholders.

  Jack saw Captain Bugge to the side with particular affability; a case of Priorato was handed down into the Danish boat; and leaning over the rail Jack called after him, 'I will let you know, next time we meet.'

  Her captain had not reached the Clomer before the Sophie's yards were creaking round, to carry her as close-hauled as she would lie on her new course, north-east by north. 'Mr Watt,' observed Jack, gazing up, 'as soon as we have a moment to spare we must have cross-catharpings fore and aft; we are not pointing up as sharp as I could wish.'

  'What's afoot?' asked the ship's company, when all sail was set and drawing just so, with everything on deck coiled down to Mr Dillon's satisfaction; and it was not long before the news passed along from the gun-room steward to the purser's steward and so to his mate, Jack-in-the-dust, who told the galley and thereby the rest of the brig—the news that the Dane, having a fellow-feeling for the Sophie because of her resemblance to his own vessel, and being gratified by Jack's civility, had given word of a Frenchman no great way over the northern horizon, a deep-laden sloop with a patched mainsail that was bearing away for Agde.

  Tack followed tack as the Sophie beat up into the freshening breeze, and on the fifth leg a scrap of white appeared in the north-north-east, too far and too steady for a distant gull. It was the French sloop, sure enough: from the Dane's description of her rig there was no doubt of that after the first half hour; but her behaviour was so strange that it was impossible to be wholly persuaded of it until she was lying tossing there under the Sophie's guns and the boats were going to and fro over the lane of sea, transferring the glum prisoners. In the first place she had apparently kept no look-out of any kind, and it was not until no more than a mile of water lay between them that she noticed her pursuer at all; and even then she hesitated, wavered, accepted the assurance of the tricolour flag and then rejected it, flying too slowly and too late, only to break out ten minutes later in a flurry of signals of surrender and waving them vehemently at the first warning shot.

  The reasons for her behaviour were clear enough to James Dillon once he was aboard her, taking possession: the Citoyen Durand was laden with gunpowder—was so crammed with gunpowder that it overflowed her hold and stood in tarpaulined barrels on her deck; and her young master had taken his wife to sea. She was with child—her first—and the rough night, the chase and the dread of an explosion had brought on her labour. James was as stout-hearted as the next man, but the continuous groaning just behind the cabin-bulkhead and the awful hoarse, harsh, animal quality of the cries that broke out through the groaning, and their huge volume, terrified him; he gazed at the white-faced, distracted, tear-stained husband with a face as appalled as his.

  Leaving Babbington in sole command he hurried back to the Sophie and explained the situation. At the word powder Jack's face lit up; but at the word baby he looked very blank.

  'I am afraid the poor woman is dying,' said James.

  'Well, I don't know, I'm sure,' said Jack hesitantly; and now that he could put a meaning to the remote, dreadful noise he heard it far more clearly. 'Ask the Doctor to come,' he said to a marine.

  Now that the excitement of the chase was over, Stephen was at his usual post by the elm-tree pump, peering down its tube into the sunlit upper layers of the Mediterranean; and when they told him there was a woman in the prize, having a baby, he said, 'Aye? I dare say. I thought I recognized the sound,' and showed every sign of returning to his place.

  'Surely you can do something about it?' said Jack.

  'I am certain the poor woman is dying,' said James.

  Stephen looked at them with his odd expressionless gaze and said, 'I will go across.' He went below, and Jack said, 'Well, that's in good hands, thank God. And you tell me all that deck cargo is powder too?'

  'Yes, sir. The whole thing is mad.'

  'Mr Day—Mr Day, there. Do you know the French marks, Mr Day?'

  'Why, yes, sir. They are much the same as ours, only their best cylinder large grain has a white ring round the red: and their halves weigh but thirty-five pound.'

  'How much have you room for, Mr Day?'

  The gunner considered. 'Squeezing my bottom tier up tight, I might stow thirty-five or six, sir.'

  'Make it so, then, Mr Day. There is a lot of damaged stuff aboard that sloop—I can see it from here—that we shall have to take away to prevent further spoiling. So you had better go across and set your hand upon the best. And we can do with her launch, too. Mr Dillon, we cannot entrust this floating magazine to a midshipman; you will have to take her into Mahon as soon as the powder is across. Take what men you think fit, and be so good as to send Dr Maturin back in her launch—we need one badly. God love us, what a terrible cry! I am truly sorry to inflict this upon you, Dillon, but you see how it is.'

  'Just so, sir. I am to take the master of the sloop along with me, I presume? It would be inhuman to move him.'

  'Oh, by all means, by all means. The poor fellow. What a—what a pretty kettle of fish.'

  The little deadly barrels travelled across the intervening sea, rose up and vanished into the Sophie's maw; so did half a dozen melancholy Frenchmen, with their bags or sea-chests; but the usual festive atmosphere was lacking—the Sophies, even the family men, looked guilty, concerned, apprehensive; the dreadful unremitting shrieks went on and on; and when Stephen appeared at the rail to call out that he must stay aboard, Jack bowed to the obscure justice of this deprivation.

  The Citoyen Durand ran smoothly through the darkness down towards Minorca, a steady breeze behind her; now that the screaming had stopped Dillon posted a reliable man at the helm, visited the little watch below in the galley and came down into the cabin. Stephen was washing, and the husband, shattered and destroyed, held the towel in his drooping hands.

  'I hope . . . ' said James.

  'Oh, yes: yes,' said Stephen deliberately, looking round at him. 'A perfectly straightforward delivery: just a little long, perhaps; but nothing out of the way. Now, my friend'—to the captain—'these buckets would be best over the side; and then I recommend you to lie down for a while. Monsieur has a son,' he added.

  'My best congratulations, sir,' said James. 'And my best wishes for Madame's prompt recovery.'

  'Thank you, sir, thank you,' said the captain, his eyes brimming over again. 'I beg you to take a little something—to make yourselves quite at home.'

  This they did, sitting each in a comfortable chair and eating away at the hill of cakes laid up against young hasty's christening in Agde next week; they sat there easily enough, and next door the poor young woman slept at last, her
husband holding her hand and her crinkled pink baby snorting at her bosom. It was quiet below, wonderfully quiet and peaceful now; and it was quiet on deck with the following wind easing the sloop along at a steady six knots, and with the rigorous barking precision of a man-of-war reduced to an occasional mild 'How does she lie, Joe?' It was quiet; and in that dimly-lighted box they travelled through the night, cradled by the even swell: after a little while of this silence and this uninterrupted slow rhythmic heave they might have been anywhere on earth—alone in the world—in another world altogether. In the cabin their thoughts were far away, and Stephen for one no longer had any sense of movement to or from any particular point—little sense of motion, still less of the immediate present.

  'It is only now,' he said in a low voice, 'that we have the opportunity of speaking to one another. I looked forward to this time with great impatience; and now that it is come, I find that in fact there is little to be said.'

  'Perhaps nothing at all,' said James. 'I believe we understand each other perfectly.'

  This was quite true; it was quite true as far as the heart of the matter was concerned; but nevertheless they talked all through their remaining hours of harboured privacy.

  'I believe the last time I saw you was at Dr Emmet's,' said James, after a long, reflective pause.

  'No. It was at Rathfarnham, with Edward Fitzgerald. I was going out by the summerhouse as you and Kenmare came in.'

  'Rathfarnham? Yes: yes, of course. I remember now. It was just after the meeting of the Committee. I remember . . . You were intimate with Lord Edward, I believe?'

  'We knew one another very well in Spain. In Ireland I saw less and less of him as time went on; he had friends I neither liked nor trusted, and I was always too moderate—far too moderate—for him. Though the dear knows I was full enough of zeal for humanity at large, full enough of republicanism in those days. Do you remember the test?'