He was less pleased however when Standish, the first to recover his wits, replied, ‘Oh yes, sir; and I was thinking of going to fetch my greatcoat’ Pullings frowned, West and Davidge looked away; this was not the tone in which a new-joined purser should answer the Captain; the mere fact of having been pulled out of the sea did not warrant this degree of familiarity.
Jack said, ‘Snow is the term we use for vessels of that kind,
which carry a trysailmast abaft the main.’ Turning to Stephen he said, ‘Auden, who understands these things if any man does, swears she is not a West-Country smuggler or privateer. So I think we must look a little closer; the breeze may strengthen with the sun.
Poor souls, they had a fine bank of codlings about half a mile astern, and they were hauling them in hand over fist when first they saw us.’
‘They would never be innocent fishermen, at all?’
‘With yards like that, and all built for speed? And pierced for five guns aside, her decks full of men? No. I believe she is a French privateer, and probably new off the stocks. Captain Pullings, we have sweeps aboard, have we not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Pullings. ‘I arranged it myself at Dock: they come out of the old Diomede, and they just happened to be laying by.’
‘Very good: capital. It would scarcely be worth sweeping at this point, unless she starts doing so, for I am reasonably confident’ – touching a wooden belaying-pin – ‘that we shall have a breeze from the south-west in time; but let them be cleared away and the ports made ready. In the meanwhile, Mr West, let us take advantage of what little air may see fit to move. Doctor, what do you say to breakfast?’
It was most unusual for a ship as large and heavy as the Surprise to use sweeps, so unusual that the little oar-ports were deeply encrusted with generations of paint, and had to be opened by the carpenter with a heavy persuader and a fid; but since so much of the forenoon had passed without a breath of air she ran them out at four bells – dinner was to be taken watch by watch – and began to creep across the smooth surface like some vast long-legged inefficient water-creature. The snow instantly did the same.
‘Will you take your stand by the cooper, sir, you being quite tall?’ said Pullings to Standish; and seeing his questioning look he added, ‘There is an old saying in the service, when very hard work is to be done, “the gentlemen hale and draw with the mariners”. Presently you will see the Captain and the Doctor take their spell.’
‘Oh, certainly,’ cried Standish. ‘I should be very happy – I should like to have an oar in my hand again.’
The gentlemen haled and drew with the mariners, and although for the first quarter of a mile there was some confusion, with one monstrous crab sending half a dozen men tumbling into their shipmates’ laps, they soon found their rhythm; and once she had gained her impetus the long cumbrous sweeps moved the ship along so that the water ran whispering along her side. There was no lack of zeal, advice – ‘Stretch out, sir, and keep
your eyes in the boat’ – and merriment: it was a pretty example of a good ship’s company at work, and when the log was heaved it showed that the Surprise was making two knots and a half.
Unhappily the snow made three or even more. She was much lighter; her people were far more accustomed to sweeping; and being so much nearer the surface they could use their oars with greater effect. At the end of his first spell of rowing Jack fixed her with his come-up glass, which showed him that the chase was gaining; and in an hour this was evident to every man aboard – even in that light-filled immensity of sea and sky a mile could still be made out. The laughter died away, but not the determination, and with grave, set faces the rowers lunged forward, dipped and pulled hour after hour, their reliefs stepping in at the first sound of the bell so neatly that barely a stroke was lost.
The sun was well past the zenith, the snow had merged with the horizon, almost hull-down, far, far ahead, and there was silence aboard, apart from the rowers’ grunting heave, before the longed-for air began to breathe from the south-south-west. It rounded the upper sails first and rippled the sea quite far ahead; already the ship had a fresh life, and when the topgalbarns were drawing Jack cried, ‘Lay on your oars.’With anxious delight he and all the ship’s company listened to the breeze in the rigging and the bow-wave shearing on either side.
Topsails filled and then courses, and with the yards exactly trimmed Jack had the sweeps brought inboard; many a man stood bending and cherishing his arms and legs or rubbing the
small of his back, but a moment later they ran eagerly and fairly nimbly aloft to spread the cloud of sail the frigate was used to. The strengthening breeze had settled half a point west of its origin; she had it well abaft the beam and she was able to set a most imposing array of royals and skysails, as well as weather studding-sails from top to bottom, spritsail, spritsailtopsail and a host of staysails, an array so beautiful that Standish, coming up for fresh air from tepid mutton soup and his first encounter with the larger kind of weevil called bargemen and seeing all this with the sun shining through and across all its curves, convexities and infinite variety of brilliantly lit or delicately shadowed white, cried out in admiration.
‘Lord, sir,’ he said to Pullings, ‘what more than Gothic glory!’
‘I dare say you are right, sir,’ said Pullings. ‘But we shan’t keep it long, I doubt. See how she has started to pitch and roll.’ So she had, and with something less than her usual well-bred air and long easy buoyant motion: rarely had she been so deep in the water. ‘It is a swell coming up from the south-west, and it is sure to bring us half a gale.’
‘Are we overtaking the snow?’ asked Standish, peering forward at impenetrable canvas.
‘We must be going at an amazing speed.’
‘Close on nine knots,’ said Pullings. ‘And since it was us brought by the wind, we have gained maybe a mile or so. Yet so deep-laden – twelve months’ stores and more – the barky cannot do her best, nor nothing like it. With a breeze like this I have seen her run twelve knots off the reel; and at that rate we should have been alongside the snow half an hour ago. But now, in course, she has the wind too, and she may be drawing away a trifle.
Most remarkable rapid for a snow: such yards I have rarely seen. Was you to go into the bows with this glass, you could see her plain; and was you to look hard you would see she has set save-ails, too.’
‘Thank you,’ said Standish absently: his eyes were fixed on the rail as it rose, rose, rose still, hung for an instant and then began its inevitable, deliberate, vertiginous fall.
‘Mark you,’ continued Pullings, ‘if it comes on to blow like the Captain says and I am sure he is right, then we shall have the advantage; for we are the taller ship, and a heavy sea will not wrong us as it will wrong the snow. Hold up, there: over the rail, sir, if you please.’
When Standish had finished this first bout Pullings told him there was nothing like a good vomit – better than bleeding or rhubarb or blue pill – he would soon get used to the motion –
and called two amused hands to lead him below. He could barely stand, and his face had turned a yellowish green – his lips were curiously pale.
Standish did not reappear that day, nor would any man at all subject to queasiness have done so, for the half-gale reached them even sooner than they had hoped, and Stephen, deep in his papers though he was, noticed that the Surprise had grown unusually skittish and that the whole sound of the ship had changed: a far greater volume, a far greater urgency. Closing a file and tying its original black French tape around it – poor thin stuff, compared with Dublin tape: a man could hang himself with Dublin tape.- he leant back in his chair; and as he did so he saw Jack Aubrey look cautiously through the door.
‘Should you like to see the chase?’ asked Jack. ‘She is a pretty sight.’
‘I should like it of all things,’ said Stephen, getting up. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, how my back hurts.’