Desolation island

by Patrick O'Brian

  "May I suggest a cigar, sir?"said Moore. "One can hold it in one's mouth.' fie was acting as sponger and second captain, and his face was six inches from Jack's: he was encased in oilskins and there was nothing of the Marine about him but his fine red face and the neat stock showing under his chin.

  "A capital idea,"said Jack, and in the calm of the trough, before the Waakzaamheid appeared again, Moore lit him a cigar from the glowing match in its tub.

  The Leopard began to rise, the Dutchman appeared, black in the white water of the breaking crests high up there, and both nine-pounders went off together. The guns leapt back, the crews worked furiously, grunting, no words, sponged, loaded, and ran them out again. Another shot, and this time Jack saw his ball, dark in the haze of lit water, flying at its mark: he could not follow it home, but the line was true, a little low. Now they were on the crest, and the cabin was filled with wind and water mingled, unbreathable: the gun-crews worked without the slightest pause, soaked through and through.

  Down, down the slope amidst the white wreckage of the wave, the guns run out and waiting. Across the hollow and up the other side. "I believe I caught his splash," said Moore. "Twenty yards short of our starboard quarter."

  "So did I," said Burton. "He wants to knock our rudder, range along, and give us a broadside, the bloody minded dog."

  The Waakzaamheid over the crest again: Jack poured the priming into the touch-hole with his horn, guarding it with the flat of his hand, the cigar clenched between his teeth and the glow kept bright; and this bout each gun fired three times before the Leopard mounted too high, racing up and up, pursued by the Dutchman's shot. On and on: an enormous switchback, itself in slow, majestic motion, but traversed at a racing speed in which the least stumble meant a fall. Alternate bursts of fire, aimed and discharged with such an intensity of purpose that the men

  did not even see the storm of flying water that burst in upon them at each crest. On and on, the Waakzaamheid gaining visibly.

  Here was Babbington at his side, waiting for a pause. "Take over, Moore," said Jack, as the gun ran in. fie stepped over the train-tackle, and Babbington said, "She's hit our mizen-top, sir, fair and square."

  Jack nodded. She was coming far too close: point-blank range now, and the wind to help her balls. "Start the water, all but a ton; and try the jib, one third in."

  Back to the gun as it ran out. Now it was the Waakzaamheid turn to fire, and fire she did, striking the Leopard's stern-post high up: a shrewd knock that jarred the ship as she was on the height of the wave, and a moment latera green sea swept through the deadlights.

  "Good practice in this sea, Mr Burton," said Jack.

  The gunner turned his streaming face, and its fixed fierce glare broke into a smile. "Pretty fair, sir, pretty fair. But if I did not get home two shots ago, my name is Zebedee."

  The flying Leopard drew a little way ahead with the thrust of her jib, a hundred yards or so; and the switchback continued, the distances the same. It was the strangest gunnery, with its furious activity and then the pause, waiting to be fired at; the soaking at the crest, the deck awash; the intervening wall of water; the repetition of the whole sequence. No orders; none of the rigid fire-discipline of the gundeck; loud, gun-deafened conversation between the bouts. The dread of being pooped by the great seas right there in front of their noses, rising to blot out the sun with unfailing regularity, and of broaching to, hardly affected the cabin.

  A savage roar from Burton's crew. "We hit her port-lid," cried Bonden, the second captain. "They can't get it closed."

  "Then we are all in the same boat," said Moore. "Now the Dutchmen will have a wet jacket every time she digs in her

  bows, and I wish they may like it, ha, ha!"

  A short-lived triumph. A midshipman came to report the j1b carried clean away - Babbington had all in hand - was trying to set a storm-staysail - half the water was pumped out.

  But although the Leopard was lighter she felt the loss of the j1b; the U'aakzaamileid was coming up, and now the vast hill of sea separated them only for seconds. If the Leopard did not gain when all her water was gone, the upper-deck guns would have to follow it: anything to draw ahead and preserve the ship. The firing was more and more continuous; the guns grew hot, kicking clear on the recoil, and first Burton and then Jack reduced the charge.

  Nearer and nearer, so that they were both on the same slope, no trough between them: a hole in the Dutchman's foretopsail, but it would not split, and three shots in quick succession struck the Leopard's hull, close to her rudder. Jack had smoked five cigars to the butt, and his mouth was scorched and dry. He was staring along the barrel of his gun, watching for the second when the Waakzaamheid's bowsprit should rise above his sight, when he saw her starboard chaser fire. A split second later he stabbed his cigar down on the priming and there was an enormous crash, far louder than the roar of the gun.

  How much later he looked up he could not tell. Nor, when he did look up, could he quite tell what was afoot. He was lying by the cabin bulkhead with Killick holding his head and Stephen sewing busily; he could feel the passage of the needle and of the thread, but no pain. He stared right and left. "Hold still," said Stephen. He felt the red-hot stabbing now, and everything fell into place. The gun had not burst: there was Moore fighting it. He had been dragged clear - hit - a splinter, no doubt. Stephen and Killick crouched over him as a green sea gushed in: then Step-hen cut the thread, whipped a wet cloth round his ears, one eye and forehead, and said, "Do you hear me, now?" He nodded; Stephen moved on to another man

  lying on the deck; Jack stood up, fell, and crawled over to the guns. Killick tried to hold him, but Jack thrust him back, clapped on to the tackle and helped run out the loaded starboard gun. Moore bent over it, cigar in hand, and from behind him Jack could see the Waakzaamheid twenty yards away, huge, black-hulled, throwing the water wide. As Moore's hand came down, Jack automatically stepped aside; but he was still stupid, he moved slow, and the recoiling gun flung him to the deck again. On hands and knees he felt for the train-tackle in the smoke, found it as the darkness cleared, and tallied on. But for a moment he could not understand the cheering that filled the cabin, deafening his ears: then through the shattered deadlights he saw the Dutchman's foremast lurch, lurch again, the stays part, the mast and sail carry away right over the bows.

  The Leopard reached the crest. Green water blinded him. It cleared, and through the bloody haze running from his cloth he saw the vast breaking wave with the Waakzaamheid broadside on its curl, on her beam-ends, broached to. An enormous, momentary turmoil of black hull and white water, flying spars, rigging that streamed wild for a second, and then nothing at all but the great hill of green-grey with foam racing upon it.

  "My God, oh my God," he said. "Six hundred men."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Throughout the day the Leopard ran under her foretopsail alone, and throughout the day the barometer moved up. The slackening of the wind that Jack had noticed before the sinking of the Waakzaamheid continued, but the sea was still as high or even higher for a while, and there was no possibility of altering course more than a point, still less of heaving to.

  Jack lay there in his cot in the strangest state of daze. He knew that the ship was steering), well, and that she was in good hands; he knew that the pumps were gaining, and that the carpenter had dealt with the shattered deadlights, while Killick and his mates were now restoring the great cabin, where they had already set the stove to rights; and he knew there was a strong likelihood that the storm was blowing itself out - that the ship had come through, and with all her guns aboard. If the Dutchman had not foundered when he did, they must have followed her water over the side. Yet all these things were at a remove. He knew them, but they did not concern him much. The vision of the Waakzaamheid on her beam-ends, overwhelmed by that terrible sea, presented itself again and again to his inner eye. This was war; she had sought the battle; she had done her utmost to destroy the Leopard; it was the biter bit, and his ship had a
ccomplished a feat of great value to the Royal Navy in the farther Indies. But it filled him with a kind of sorrow, a strange abiding grief.

  A light appeared, and he closed his eyes. "Well, my dear," said Stephen, "you do not like the light: just so.' He put it behind a book and they talked quietly for a while. It was, as Jack had supposed, a splinter that had wounded him, a two-foot piece of oak with a lagged cutting edge,

  sent flying by the Dutchman's shot. "I dare say it will give V(u pain in your head for some davs," said Stephen. "The wound itself is spectacular, and it will spoil your beauty; but you have had many worse. It was Lord Nelson's wound, you know - yo Ur forehead hanging over your eye. I Jack smiled. He would almost have done without an arm to follow Nelson. "Yet I do not quite like the bang the flat side gave you; there is some degree of concussion. Still, that is nothing to what the recoiling gun might have done. But for the interposition of St John, you were mere pulp, of little interest even to anatomy. As it is, I have great hopes of your leg. Is there any feeling in it, now?"

  "Leg? What leg? Why, it is numb! Upon my sacred honour, it is numb."

  "Never be perturbed, my dear; I have seen far uglier limbs preserved."

  After a silence in which Jack seemed to lose all interest in his leg, he said, "Stephen, what is that round your neck? You was not hurt, I trust?"

  "It is a woollen comforter against the cold, knitted by Mrs Wogan. The lively red is designed to increase the wearer's sense of warmth, by the association of ideas. I am much obliged to her."

  "Which Mr Grant asks can he report," said Killick, thrusting his head through the door, and speaking in a hoarse whisper.

  Stephen stepped out and told Grant that the patient must not be disturbed; disturbance might agitate his mind.

  "Do you mean he is not right in the head?" cried Grant.

  "I do not," said Stephen. lie disliked the man's eager tone extremely, his obvious willingness to believe the worst; in any case he was on edge from want of sleep, and when he returned to the sleeping-cabin his face had a wicked, reptilian look. In his remoteness Jack did not notice it, however: he said, "After anything of any action, I always have the blue devils. This time it is much worse. I

  see that -ship broaching to, and all her people, five or six hundred men. I see her over and over again. Can you explain that, Stephen? Is it something in the physical fine?"

  "To some extent I think it is," said Stephen. "Five and twenty drops of this' - pouring carefully from a bottle by the shaded light - 'will rectify your humours, as far as physic can."

  "It is less disgusting than your usual dose," said Jack. "I forgot to ask you, how was your night? How does your Gipsy woman come along?"

  "I cannot answer for Mrs Boswell: the Caesarean section is no light undertaking, even without a hurricane. But if it can be fed, the child may live, the creature. It is, as you predicted, female; and therefore hardy. I was at a loss to know what to do with it at first."

  "There is the girl that waits on Mrs Wogan.,

  "There is. But you will recall that she was transported for infanticide, repeated infanticide. She is a little eccentric where babies are concerned, and I could not think her quite a proper person. However, I opened my mind to Mrs Wogan, and she very handsomely offered her services. She tends it at present in a basket, lined with wool; and begs it may be indulged with a hanging stove."

  "Christ, Stephen, how I wish Tom Pullings were here," said Jack, and drifted off to sleep.

  In the wardroom Bryon and Babbington were playing chess while Moore and Benton looked on. Fisher took Stephen aside and said, "What is all this I hear about the Captain's intellects being disturbed?"

  Stephen looked at him for a moment and said, "It is no part of my function to discuss my patients' maladies, and if the Captain's mind were in any way affected I should be the last to say so. But as it is not, I may tell you that Captain Aubrey, though weak from loss of blood, is

  intellectually a match for any two men here. Nay, any three or four. Bread and blood, s1r,"he cried. "What do you mean by questioning me? Your manner is as offensive as your matter. You are impertinent, sir.' He took a quick step forward and Fisher fell back, appalled. He was sorry to have offended - he had meant no harm - if a natural concern had led him into impropriety he would most willingly withdraw. With this he edged round the table and hurried from the room.

  "Well done, Doctor," said Captain Moore. "I love a man who can bite, if vexed. Come and have a glass of grog."

  Stephen turned his cold glare on the Marine; but although he had had a wicked night of it and great responsibility, and although his anxiety for Jack had made him savage, Moore's round red goodhumoured friendly face brought a smile to his own. "Why, no," he said. "I was too hasty, too hasty by half."

  "To be sure," said Moore, near the bottom of his glass, "for a moment the Owner's wits were all astray, and small wonder, when you consider the knock he had. You may not believe me, but when I gave him Joy of the victory, he said he could take no joy in it at all. The captain of a fifty-gun ship to take no joy in sinking a seventy-four! Clearly, for the moment he was all to seek. But from that to say his intellects are disturbed, why . . . "

  The door opened, letting in a blast of freezing air, and Turnbull appeared, calling for a hot drink. He was covered with snow, which he distributed pretty liberally about the wardroom, beating it from his cloak in thick clots. "It has come on to snow,"he said. "Would you believe it? Half a foot on deck, and falling fast."

  "How is the wind?" asked Babbington.

  "Dropping all the time; and the snow has flatted the sea amazingly. It began with rain, and then turned to snow. Would you believe it?"

  Grant came out of his cabin, and Turnbull told him that it had come on to snow. At first it had been rain, but now

  there was half a foot of snow on deck; and both wind and sea had dropped amazingly.

  "Snow?"said Grant. "When I was in these waters I never came south of thirty eight, and there was no snow. The forties are nothing but strong winds, storms, and pestilence: believe me, and I speak with thirty-five years' experience, a prudent commander will never go south of thirty-nine degrees. He will find no snow up there, I believe."

  Stephen found no snow in forty-three degrees either, when he came on deck early the next morning; but it was extremely cold and he did not linger more than the few minutes needed to show him that the swell, though heavy, had no breakers upon it, that the sky was low and dark, that the clouds moved evenly across it, at no great pace, and that the albatross out there on the starboard beam was a young bird, perhaps in its second or third year. He turned to walk into the cabin, and as he turned he saw Herapath's head coming up the hatchway: Herapath caught sight of him and dodged back, his face quite altered.

  Stephen sighed privately. He liked Herapath; he regretted this young man's provoked and necessary betrayal, with its consequent suffering. But there was a friendlier face on the far side of the rail; an open, welcoming grin. "Good morning, Barret Bonden," he said. "What are you at ?"

  "Good morning, sir; new puddening for the mizen. A fine bright morning for the time of the year, sir."

  "I find it disagreeably chill; a dank and cutting air."

  "Well, perhaps it is a little parky, too. Cobb here says he can smell ice. He was a whaler, and they can smell ice a great way off.' They both looked at Cobb, and the whaler blushed, bending low over his puddening.

  "Ice,"thought Stephen as he stepped into the cabin, "and perhaps the great southern penguins, eared seals, the sea-elephant . . . How I should love to see a mountain of

  ice, a floating island. Killick, good morning, and how is himself?"

  "Good morning, sir: passed a quiet night, and is as comfortable as can be expected."

  Comfortable, maybe, although he still seemed closed in and reserved: no doubt there was a good deal of pain in his head. Nausea for sure: he could not touch the huge breakfast that Killick provided. But Stephen was pleased with the leg, and when Jack stated his
determination to be on deck for the noon observation he agreed, only insisting that there should be proper support, and wool next the skin. "You may also receive Mr Grant if you wish," he added. "No doubt you are eager to learn the state of the ship. But you would be wise to speak very quietly, and to keep your mind as calm as may be."

  "Oh,"said Jack, "I sent for him the moment I woke, and asked what the devil he meant bv altering course without orders. There was the line'- wit~ an unguarded nod at the compass hanging over his cot and a wince of pain - pointing north-east and then north. Anyone would have thought I had been killed in the action. I soon undeceived him. What a loud voice that fellow has: I dare say his mother was one of those bulls of Bashan. What is it?"

  "Which it's Mr Byron, sir," said Killick, "asking may he report a mountain of ice to windward."

  Jack nodded, and winced again. As Byron came in Stephen rose, laid his finger to his lips, and left the room. The young man, quicker in wit than Mr Grant, whispered, "A mountain of ice to windward, sir, if you please."

  "Very good, Mr Byron. How far away?"

  "Two leagues, sir; bearing west-south-west a half west."

  "I see. Pray let the bell be muffled, Mr Byron. It fairly goes through my head."

  The muffled bell struck through the day, in a ship that had grown as sHent as the tomb, so sHent that those near the hatchways could distinctly hear the mewling of Mrs Boswell's baby on the orlop.

  It quickened when it nuzzled its red, crinkled face into its mother's tawny bosom, and Mrs Wogan said, "There, poor honey lamb: I will come back for her in an hour."

  "You are handy with these little creatures, I find," said Stephen, leading her back to her cabin.

  "I have always loved babies," said she, and she seemed about to go on.

  After a pause in which nothing emerged Stephen said, "You must put on the warmest garments you possess before your walk, which I must ask you to take early today, with Mr Herapath. You have looked yellowish and peaked these last days, and the air is extremely raw. I recommend two pairs of stockings, two pairs of drawers, drawn well up about the belly, and a pelisse."