See, the topmast is swaying up – it rises, rises, the capstan turns – higher, higher, secured by a complex system of ropes – high enough – Tom cries “Launch ho!” – it is ridded and safe – they fling themselves upon the shrouds and cast off this and that – the brave topgallant-mast follows …”
So it did; and once the frigate looked like a Christian ship again – for the shifting of the jibboom was neither here nor there to the medicoes – they returned to their squids, more active now than ever. ‘I am almost certain that over there we have a species quite unknown,’ said Martin. He leaned out with his long-handled net, but before he had even dipped it he started back. ‘Oh,’ he said in a shocked voice. ‘Do not move. Do not hang your arm over the side. My image of Paradise was only too exact. The Evil One is with us too.’
They peered cautiously over the gunwale, and there under the frail skiff they saw the familiar form of a shark: one of the many kinds of Carcharias no doubt, though to tell just which they would have to look at its teeth; yet it seemed larger than most: far larger.
‘Do you suppose it is likely to bump the boat?’ asked Martin in a low voice.
‘Sure he may well do so, by rising suddenly; or sometimes they are known to take a run and launch themselves bodily into the middle, or athwartships as we say, snapping right and left.’
‘I wonder you can speak with such levity,’ said Martin. ‘And you too a married man.’
A silence fell, broken from time to time by the splash of a deep-diving booby and the remote shrilling of bosun’s calls. A bird dived close at hand, down and down: the shark moved smoothly from under the boat: its bulk covered the diving form and carried on into the depths, growing steadily dimmer though still huge when it vanished. Three or four feathers floated up. ‘Will he come back, do you imagine?’ asked Martin, still gazing down with shaded eyes.
‘I do not,’ said Stephen. ‘The flesh of the booby is acrid and rank, and I have no doubt he thinks we belong to the same genus at least.’
From over the sea came an urgent piping and Captain Aubrey’s powerful voice urging haste. In rapid succession all the frigate’s boats were lowered down; their crews leapt into them with the breakneck speed they would have shown if a valuable prize had just heaved up; and lines having been passed they began towing the ship in the direction of the boobies.
By the time the Surprise reached them the sun was already far down the sky. The fish had stopped biting; the squids and their prey had sunk out of sight; and as soon as the boats were hoisted in the hands were piped to a belated supper, with precious little rum served out.
‘What a comfort it is to have solid heart of oak beneath one’s feet,’ said Martin as they took their pots fishes rods buckets and specimens out of the skiff. ‘I had never felt the dreadful fragility of this boat – planking not half an inch thick – so much as when I saw that horrible creature almost touching it. I have never felt more uneasy in my life. As I peered down it rolled a little and gave me a cold look that I shall not soon forget.’
Supper was hardly swallowed before the drum beat for quarters. The cabins vanished in the usual clean sweep fore and aft; Stephen hid his specimens together with a large number of squids in the quarter-gallery and hurried to the sick-berth, his action-station; the great guns were cast loose, and the drooping officers reported ‘All present and sober, if you please.’
They were soberer still by the time they had performed the great-gun exercise – running in the cannon (five hundredweight to a man) – running the massive object out again as far as possible, laying the tackle-falls in neat fakes – pointing the guns in a given direction – going through the motions of firing – running in, going through the motions of worming, sponging and reloading – replacing the tompion – housing and making all fast – a dozen turns apiece, each separately timed by their inflexible Captain, and then a full broadside together: all this in dumb show. They were not indulged in a single round of live ammunition, for although the magazines were tolerably full (powder being one of the few things that New South Wales could supply) Jack Aubrey had no intention whatsoever of giving them pleasure: he was profoundly displeased with his officers and men, and with himself for not
having detected this spirit of faction earlier. He was in no mood for indulgence of any kind, and the hands knew it.
There was no singing or dancing on the forecastle during what little remained of the sweetest evening. The hands sat about, dog-tired, until the setting of the watch. They did not resent the skipper’s anger: they knew it was justified: they hoped it would not last.
A vain hope. All through the variables they were kept on the run, manning and arming boats, lowering them down and hoisting them in until they achieved twenty-five minutes twenty seconds for the one and nineteen minutes fifty seconds for the other: they could also send up lower yards and topmasts and cross topgallant yards in four minutes four seconds; and apart from shifting topmasts every now and then there was always the bending of new sails, painting ship and a remarkable amount of small-arms and cutlass exercise.
Throughout this time Jack kept his severity for the quarterdeck: once in the cabin he was as amiable as ever. He played his violin to Stephen’s ‘cello with his usual wholehearted enjoyment, and apart from the deep lines in his weatherbeaten face there was little to show the strain he was under.
‘Lord, Stephen,’ said he, after a day of particularly wearing exercise, ‘I cannot tell you what a refuge this cabin is, and what a happiness it is for me to have you to talk to and play music with. Most captains have trouble with their ship’s people from time to time – on occasion it is a continual sullen covert war – and unless they make cronies of their first lieutenants, as some do, they have to chew over it alone. I do not wonder that so many of them grow strange or bloody-minded; or run melancholy mad, for that matter.’
Even when they did reach the full north-east trades there was no relaxation of his manner on deck: he was fairly cordial to Pullings, Oakes and Reade, always civil to Martin and markedly polite to Clarissa when he saw her; but he remained stern, impersonal, remote and exigent with the other officers and the foremast jacks. Nor was there much relaxation in their daily and nightly toil, for the trade-wind proved more northerly and considerably less steady than he could have wished, and this called for the nicest management of the helm, a continual attention to brace and bowline and a frequent change of jibs and staysails if the Surprise were both to keep her course and run off her two hundred sea-miles between one noon observation and the next. He spent most of his waking hours on deck with Pullings, and he liked West, Davidge and Oakes to spend much of theirs aloft, supervising the exact carrying-out of his orders or even anticipating them. They grew worn and lean; they were haunted by the dread of being found asleep on their watch; and the gunroom dinners were silent less from animosity than extreme fatigue. None of them had ever known a ship driven so hard so long.
‘My dear’ wrote Stephen.
‘We are now in the realm of the trade wind and we fly along at an exhilarating pace; but sailing against the wind (or as nearly against it as lies within the abilities of a square-rigged ship) is very unlike sailing before it, very unlike those luxurious days of rolling down to St Helena when one sits under an awning admiring the sea or reading one’s book and when the mariners are not required to touch the flowing sheet. Now we lean over to a dangerous degree, and the spray or even solid water comes sweeping back with uncommon vehemence. Jack comes down soaked: not that he comes down often, because sailing of this kind requires his presence on deck. It would be much, much easier
for all concerned if he would spread fewer sails and keep the wind one point free; yet he means not only to reach Moahu as soon as ever he can but he also, and above all, wishes to deal with the present situation by recalling all hands to their duty; and he is doing so with a greater authority than I knew he possessed.