Master & Commander (50 page)

   At first the column had been perfectly straight, like a cypress; but after the first quarter of an hour its tip began to lean southwards and inland, towards the hills, and the smoke-cloud above to stream away in a long pall, lit from below. The brilliance was if anything greater, and Stephen saw gulls drifting across between the sloop and the land, all heading for the fire. 'It will be attracting every living thing,' he reflected, with anxiety. 'What will be the conduct of the bats?'

   Presently the top two-thirds was leaning over strongly, and the
Sophie
began to roll, with the waves slapping up against her larboard side.

   Mr Watt broke from his long state of wonder to give the necessary orders, and coming back to the rail he said, 'They will have a hard pull, if this goes on.'

   'Could we not bear down and pick them up?' asked Stephen.

   'Not with this wind come round three points, and those old shoals off of the headland. No, sir.'

   Another group of gulls passed low over the water. 'The flame is attracting every living thing for miles,' said Stephen.

   'Never mind, sir,' said the bosun. 'It will be daylight in an hour or two, and they will pay no heed then, no heed at all.'

   'It lights up the whole sky,' said Stephen.

   It also lit up the deck of the
Formidable
, Captain Lalonde, a beautifully built French eighty-gun ship of the line wearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Linois at the mizzen: she was seven or eight miles off shore, on her way from Toulon to Cadiz, and with her in line ahead sailed the rest of the squadron, the
Indomptable
, eighty, Captain Moncousu, the
Desaix
, seventy-four, Captain Christy-Pallière (a splendid sailer), and the
Muiron
, a thirty-eight gun frigate that had until recently belonged to the Venetian Republic.

   'Let us put in and see what is afoot,' said the admiral, a small, dark, round-headed, lively gentleman in red breeches, very much the seaman; and a few moments later the hoists of coloured lanterns ran up. The ships tacked in succession with a quiet efficiency that would have done credit to any navy afloat, for they were largely manned from the Rochefort squadron, and as well as being commanded by efficient professional officers they were filled with prime sailormen.

   They ran inshore on the starboard tack with the wind one point free, bringing up the daylight, and when they were first seen from the
Sophie's
deck they were greeted with joy. The boats had just reached the sloop after a long wearisome pull, and the French men-of-war were not sighted as early as they might have been: but sighted they were, in time, and at once every man forgot his hunger, fatigue, aching arms, and the cold and the wet, for the rumour instantly filled the sloop—'Our galleons are coming up, hand over fist!' The wealth of the Indies, New Spain and Peru: gold ingots by way of their ballast. Ever since the crew had come to know of Jack's private intelligence about Spanish shipping there had been this persistent rumour of a galleon, and now it was fulfilled.

   The splendid flame was still leaping up against the hills, though more palely as dawn broke all along the eastern sky; but in the cheerful animation of putting all to rights, of making everything ready for the chase, no one took notice of it any more—whenever a man could look up from his business his eyes darted eager, delighted glances over the three or four miles of sea at the
Desaix
, and at the
Formidable
, now some considerable way astern of her.

   It was difficult to say just when all the delight vanished: certainly the captain's steward was still reckoning up the cost of opening a pub on the Hunstanton road when he brought Jack a cup of coffee on the quarter-deck, heard him say 'A horrid bad position, Mr Dalziel,' and noticed that the
Sophie
was no longer standing towards the supposed galleons but sailing from them as fast as she could possibly go, close-hauled, with everything she could set, including bonnets and even drabblers.

   By this time the
Desaix
was hull-up—had been for some time—and so was the
Formidable
: behind the flagship there showed the topgallants and topsails of the
Indomptable
, and out to sea, a couple of miles to windward of her, the frigate's sails nicked the line of the sky. It was a horrid bad position; but the
Sophie
had the weather-gage, the breeze was uncertain and she might be taken for a merchant brig of no importance—something a busy squadron would not trouble with for more than an hour or so: they were not in very grave earnest, concluded Jack, lowering his glass. The behaviour of the press of men on the
Desaix's
fo'c'sle, the by no means extraordinary spread of canvas, and countless indefinable trifles, persuaded him that she had not the air of a ship chasing in deadly earnest. But even so, how she slipped along! Her light, high, roomy, elegant round French bows and her beautifully cut, taut, flat sails brought her smoothly over the water, sailing as sweetly as the
Victory
. And she was well handled: she might have been running along a path ruled out upon the sea. He hoped to cross her bows before she had satisfied her curiosity about the fire on shore and so lead her such a dance of it that she would give it up—that the admiral would eventually make her signal of recall.

   'Upon deck,' called Mowett from the masthead. 'The frigate has taken the packet.'

   Jack nodded, sweeping his glass out to the miserable
Ventura
and back beyond the seventy-four to the flagship. He waited: perhaps five minutes. This was the crucial stage. And now signals did indeed break out aboard the
Formidable
, signals with a gun to emphasize them. But they were not signals of recall, alas. The
Desaix
instantly hauled her wind, no longer interested in the shore: her royals appeared, sheeted home and hoisted with a brisk celerity that made Jack round his mouth in a silent whistle. More canvas was appearing aboard the
Formidable
too; and now the
Indomptable
. was coming up fast, all sails abroad, sweeping along with a freshening of the breeze.

   It was clear that the packet had told what the
Sophie
was. But it was clear, too, that the rising sun was going to make the breeze still more uncertain, and perhaps swallow it up altogether. Jack glanced up at the
Sophie's
spread: everything was there, of course; and at present everything was drawing in spite of the chancy wind. The master was at the con, Pram, the quartermaster, was at the wheel, getting everything out of her that she was capable of giving, poor fat old sloop. And every man was at his post, ready, silent and attentive: there was nothing for him to say or do; but his eye took in the threadbare, sagging Admiralty canvas, and his heart smote him cruelly for having wasted time—for not having bent his own new topsails, made of decent sailcloth, though unauthorized.

   'Mr Watt,' he said, a quarter of an hour later, looking at the glassy patches of calm in the offing, 'stand by to out sweeps.'

   A few minutes after this the
Desaix
hoisted her colours and opened with her bow-chasers; and as though the rumbling double crash had stunned the air, so the opulent curves of her sails collapsed, fluttered, swelled momentarily and slackened again. The
Sophie
kept the breeze another ten minutes, but then it died for her too. Before the way was off her—long before—all the sweeps that Malta had allowed her (four short, alas) were out and she was creeping steadily along, five men to each loom, and the long oars bending perilously under the urgent, concentrated heave and thrust, right into what would have been the wind's eye if there had still been any blowing. It was heavy, heavy work: and suddenly Stephen noticed that there was an officer to almost every sweep. He stepped forward to one of the few vacant places, and in forty minutes all the skin was gone from his palms.

   'Mr Daiziel, let the starboard watch go to breakfast. Ah, there you are, Mr Ricketts: I believe we may serve out a double allowance of cheese—there will be nothing hot for a while.'

   'If I may say so, sir,' said the purser with a pale leer, 'I fancy there will be something uncommon hot, presently.'

   The starboard watch, summarily fed, took over the labouring sweeps while their shipmates set to their biscuit, cheese and grog, with a couple of hams from the gun-room—a brief, uneasy meal, for out there the wind was ruffling the sea, and it had chopped round two points. The French ships picked it up first, and it was striking to see how their tall, high-reaching sails sent them running on little more than an air. The
Sophie's
hard-won advance was wiped out in twenty minutes; and before her sails were drawing the
Desaix
already had a bow-wave, whiskers that could be seen from the quarter-deck.
Sophie's
sails were drawing now, but this creeping pace would never do.

   'In sweeps,' said Jack. 'Mr Day, throw the guns overboard.'

   'Aye aye, sir,' said the gunner briskly, but his movements were strangely slow, unnatural and constrained as he sprung the capsquares, like those of a man walking along the edge of a cliff, by will-power alone.

   Stephen came on deck again, his hands neatly mittened. He saw the team of the starboard brass quarter-deck fourpounder with crows and handspike in their hands and a common look of anxious, almost frightened concern, waiting for the roll: it came, and they gently urged their gleaming, highly-polished gun overboard—their pretty number fourteen over the side. Its splash coincided exactly with the fountain thrown up not ten yards away by a ball from the
Desaix's
bow-chaser, and the next gun went overboard with less ceremony. Fourteen splashes at half a ton apiece; then the heavy carriages over the rail after them, leaving the slashed breeching and the unhooked tackles on either side of the gaping ports—a desolation to be seen.

   He glanced forward, then astern, and understood the position he pursed his lips and retired to the taffrail. The lightened
Sophie
gathered speed minute by minute, and as all this weight had gone from well above the water-line she swam more upright—stiffer to the wind

   The first of the
Desaix's
shot whipped through the topgallantsail, but the next two pitched short. There was still time for manoeuvre—for plenty of manoeuvre. For one thing, reflected Jack, he would be very much surprised if the
Sophie
could not come about twice as quickly as the seventy-four 'Mr Dalziel,' he said, 'we will go about and back again. Mr Marshall, let her have plenty of way on her.' It would be quite disastrous if the
Sophie
were to miss stays on her second turn: and these light airs were not what she liked—she never gave of her best until there was something of a sea running and at least one reef in her topsails.

   'Ready about . . .' The pipe twittered, the sloop luffed up, came into the wind, stayed beautifully and filled on the larboard tack: her bowlines were as taut as harpstrings before the big seventy-four had even begun her turn.

   The swing began, however; the
Desaix
was in stays; her yards were coming round; her checkered side began to show; and Jack, seeing the first hint of her broadside in his glass, called out, 'You had better go below, Doctor.' Stephen went, but no farther than the cabin; and there, craning from the stern-window, he saw the
Desaix's
hull vanish in smoke from stem to stern, perhaps a quarter of a minute after the
Sophie
had begun her reverse turn. The massive broadside, nine hundred and twenty-eight pounds of iron, plunged into a wide area of sea away on the starboard beam and rather short, all except for the two thirty-six pound balls, which hummed ominously through the rigging, leaving a trail of limp, dangling cordage. For a moment it seemed that the
Sophie
might not stay—that she would fall impotently off, lose all her advantage and expose herself to another such salute, more exactly aimed. But a sweet puff of air in her backed headsails pushed her round and there she was on her former tack, gathering way before the
Desaix's
heavy yards were firmly braced—before her first manoeuvre was complete at all.

   The sloop had gained perhaps a quarter of a mile. 'But he will not let me do that again,' reflected Jack.

   The
Desaix
was round on the starboard tack again, making good her loss; and all the while she fired steadily with her bowchasers, throwing her shot with remarkable accuracy as the range narrowed, just missing, or else clipping the sails, compelling the sloop to jig every few minutes, slightly losing speed each time. The
Formidable
was lying on the other tack to prevent the
Sophie
slipping through, and the
Indomptable
was running westwards, to haul her wind in half a mile or so for the same purpose. The
Sophie's
pursuers were roughly in line abreast behind her and coming up fast as she ran sloping across their front. Already the eighty-gun flagship had yawed to fire one broadside at no unlikely distance; and the grim
Desaix
, making short boards, had done so on each turn. The bosun and his party were busy knotting, and there were some sad holes in the sails; but so far nothing essential had been struck, nor any man wounded.

   'Mr Dalziel,' said Jack, 'start the stores over the side, if you please.'

   The hatch-covers came off, the holds emptied into the sea—barrels of salt beef, barrels of pork, biscuit by the ton, peas, oatmeal, butter, cheese, vinegar. Powder, shot. They started their water and pumped it overboard. A twenty-four pounder hulled the
Sophie
low under the counter, and at once the pumps began gushing sea as well as fresh water.

   'See how the carpenter is doing, Mr Ricketts,' said Jack.

   'Stores overboard, sir,' reported the lieutenant.

   'Very good, Mr Dalziel. Anchors away now, and spars. Keep only the kedge.'

   'Mr Lamb says two foot and a half in the well,' said the midshipman, panting. 'But he has a comfortable plug in the shot-hole.'

   Jack nodded, glancing back at the French squadron. There was no longer any hope of getting away from them close-hauled. But if he were to bear up, turning quickly and unexpectedly, he might be able to double back through their line; and then, with this breeze one or two points on her quarter, and with the help of the slight following sea her lightness and her liveliness, why, she might live to see Gibraltar yet She was so light now—a cockleshell—she might outrun them before the wind, and with any luck, turning briskly, she would gain a mile before the line-of-battle ships could gather way on the new tack. To be sure, she would have to survive a couple of broadsides as she passed through . . . But it was the only hope; and surprise was everything