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Authors: Patrick O'Brian

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BOOK: The Golden Ocean
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‘Pizarro. Yes. A most capable, seamanlike officer. I am very glad to know it, if it is true. What is your estimate of the truth of this information, Mr Palafox? What is its probable source?’

‘It comes from the owlers mostly, sir—the smugglers. There is always a Spanish lugger or a Portugee somewhere up or down the coast. And then, sir, there are many people with relatives in Spain, in the Spanish service, or studying to be priests at Salamanca, like Padeen Mc—like several I know: and news comes home.’

‘Two ships of the line and four others at least: perhaps six,’ said the Commodore, thoughtfully. ‘Is there anything more you can tell me?’

Peter reflected, staring down at his feet. ‘No, sir, I don’t think there is,’ he said.

‘It is a great pity that you did not retain the names of the Spanish ships. However, perhaps they may come into your mind: if they do, write them down at once and bring them to me. That will do for the moment, Mr Palafox.’

‘Aye-aye, sir,’ said Peter, retiring.

‘Did you tell him, your honour?’ asked Sean, in the gangway.

‘Sure I told him every last thing that I knew,’ said Peter absently; and vaguely he wondered why Sean should dart below with such speed, armed with such an unholy weapon to crush the butcher and steward.

Peter thought and thought through the forenoon watch, trying to relive the time when Patrick Leary, the best smuggler of Mallagh, had told him about the Spanish ships: but it all seemed so long ago now. He tried to remember the letters he had read for some of the villagers—letters from sailors and soldiers in the service of Spain (illegally, like the men of the Irish regiments in the French army; but taken very much as a matter of course at home) and from the seminarists far away. But the exact details would not come.

He thought hard during his watch below with no better result; and in the dog watch he tried to combine reflection with the exercise of his duties, which, the wind coming round contrary and fitful, required all his concentration. This earned him a very well-merited rebuke from Mr Brett, and five minutes later he was ordered to the mast-head to expiate the crime of sluggishness and incomprehension.

Mast-heading on a fine day, however, was little punishment to Peter: the tremendous cliffs—they fell fifteen hundred feet in one appalling drop, and he had been accustomed to walking about them, like a fly, from childhood—the cliffs at home made his present height seem trivial, and from his perch he phlegmatically gazed at the unbroken horizon.

‘Goposco? Goposco? Poposco?’ he murmured. High in the pure air, but still below him, the main-topgallant staysail made a huge triangle that swelled in a lovely curve under the thrust of the wind, blindingly white in the sun and almost black by contrast where the curved shadow of the fore-topsail fell upon it: peering down between the main-topgallant staysail and the main topsail he could see a good deal of the waist of the ship, far, far below, holystoned and gleaming, with small figures moving about down there.

‘Giposco?’ he said; but it did not sound right. ‘That bowline is slack,’ he observed, watching the windward leech of the foretopgallantsail beginning to shiver. A furious roar from the deck showed that Peter was not the only one to have seen it, and before the roar had died away the bowline tightened guiltily and the bridles plucked the trembling sail like so many fingers, taughtening the leech to take the wind.

The
Centurion
was sailing close-hauled with the larboard tacks aboard upon a breeze something south of east: she could have carried far more sail, but tacking as she was obliged to, and with no more than sixty really able seamen in a watch, the Commodore dared not set more, although every league lost meant a later and more stormy passage round the Horn.

Looking forward now, Peter saw the
Gloucester
, the next in line ahead, pay off half a point: the signal to tack must have run up the Centurion’s mizzen, and looking windward to the
Tryal
, Peter saw the repeated signal flying; it was too far for him to make it out without a glass, but it could be nothing else.

‘Hands to tack ship,’ he heard below him, and the shrilling of the bo’suns’ calls, as the
Centurion
paid off to gather the little extra way that should carry her through stays, and he saw the hands race aft.

He watched them with a kindly interest, as ignorant as a child unborn of his duty, which was to proceed with all possible despatch to his station. He watched them as they hauled the lee tacks, weather sheets and lee bowlines through the slack and stretched along the weather braces in readiness for putting her about.

‘The
brace
, you crimson beast,’ came the despairing bellow of a bo’sun’s mate, and Peter guessed that some frantic landsman had clapped on to a lanyard, or perhaps a stay. Then he heard the cry ‘Helm’s a-lee!’ and the
Centurion
began to come up into the wind. There was a steady succession of orders—‘Fore-sheet—fore top-bowline—jib and staysail sheets let go—off tacks and sheets’—and the yards groaned in their slings as the braces brought them round, while the blocks
made their wooden shriek, leaping up and down under the unsteady pull of inexpert hands. The staysails shivered, the main and mizzen square sails lay becalmed by the headsails, her backed forecourse and foretopsail clapped untidily against the mast and shrouds, and now the whole array of canvas, so taut, orderly and beautiful a few minutes ago, was a mass of vaguely flapping, meaningless cloth, like Bridget Hanlon’s washing-day magnified a hundred times. The
Centurion
was in stays.

Her impetus tended to carry her round, and her backed head-sails had something of the same turning effect; but at the same time they checked her advance, giving her stern-way, and it was possible that she might ignominiously fall off again, back on to the old tack. In his anxiety Peter stood on tiptoe, gauging her state by glancing now at the vane and now at the line of her deck: they were no longer exactly parallel—she was beyond the wind’s eye. At the same moment he heard the strong voice of the officer of the watch cry ‘Mainsail haul!’ and again the main and mizen yards creaked round: her stern-way increased, and now came the word ‘Let go and haul!’ followed by a sharp and indeed somewhat tense ‘Bear a hand there, damn your eyes.’ Now the head yards came round, the hands at the braces singing out ‘Hey yo, one for Jo; hey yo, hey yo, haul-o the blackamoor, haul-o the blackamoor,’ and at the third
blackamoor
the jib and fore-staysail filled together, and she was round. Immediately afterwards the square sails filled and the hands were called to brace them up sharp and haul on the bowlines. The
Centurion
heeled to the wind again and gathered way on the starboard tack: Peter relaxed—it would have been dreadful for the
Centurion
to have disgraced herself in the sight of all the squadron. But still there was a flapping somewhere aft, and angry voices were to be heard desiring various works to be accomplished with very great rapidity: however, in spite of the united efforts of the quarterdeck, the warrant-officers, the petty-officers and the blue-water sailormen, it was a long while before the
Centurion
was moving under well-trimmed sails—a much longer time than
seemed to please Mr Saunders, who had now joined Mr Brett on the quarter-deck, and whose displeasure could be heard a mile away. The ship was undercanvassed; but for all that she had twelve sails abroad—no, thirteen, Peter corrected himself, catching sight of a corner of the mizzen-topsail staysail, which had been set since his disgrace—and handling them with instant exactness was impossible when half the crew was still incapable of telling a halliard from a horse.

It was some time, then, before Peter resumed his familiar easy swoop. ‘Suppose this is a roll of twenty degrees,’ he said to himself, settling comfortably on the cross-trees, ‘and suppose she is pitching five degrees, and suppose I am a hundred and fifty feet up, I ought to be able to work out how far I travel sideways and how far I go to and fro,’ for some primitive notions of trigonometry were beginning to dawn. ‘But,’ he thought, having ruminated for some time, ‘I should have to look at the tables.’ He tried to make a rough estimate by facing aft and then leaning forwards to look as perpendicularly as he could between his feet as they dangled in space. In the middle of the roll the main-topgallant stay came just between his shoes; then he saw the main-topmast stay, the main-stay below it and below that the deck, sweeping steadily away to the right, then the ship’s side, the fore-chains, and after that the sea—a great deal of sea. Deliberately the
Centurion
began her backward roll: the sea moved to the left, the side of the ship reappeared between his feet, the deck, the stays, in reverse order: the mast, and Peter with it, reached the vertex, passed it, and leant over to the lee, where his clear view was spoilt by the sails.

‘Probably fifty feet,’ he thought, ‘with some to add, of course, on the leeward, seeing that the wind lays her over.’ He gazed down for some time longer, for the pendulum-like motion had a curious fascination for one who was impervious to sea-sickness and the dread of height; and he might have gazed indefinitely if he had not been aroused by four bells and the piping up of the watch below. He leant out, seized a backstay, wrapped his legs round it and slid down without a stop,
reaching the deck with something of a thump and with his stocking worn through where the rope had rubbed it. He talked with FitzGerald for a moment at the gangway, and then went below to attack their private ham, for he found that his airing had given him a violent appetite.

He was darning his stocking when FitzGerald came in. ‘I say, Palafox,’ he said, ‘you’re in a pretty high state of grease.’

‘I have been eating the ham,’ said Peter.

‘Anyone would think that you had been sleeping with it,’ said FitzGerald. ‘What are those stripes in the fat?’ he asked, absent-mindedly cutting himself a slice.

‘That’s where I drew my wool through it,’ said Peter, ‘to make it pass into the eye of the needle, you know.’

‘You should have licked the wool,’ said FitzGerald, stowing the ham away. ‘I have just come from the surgeon.’

‘Oh? What did he say?’

‘He said I was fit for duty, which is what I have been telling him for days. Tomorrow I shall turn up with the larboard watch. But I tell you what it is, Palafox,’ he said, sitting next to Peter and speaking in a low voice. ‘Now that these fellows are so cursed unpleasant, upon my word I hate the idea of displaying my ignorance. I may not be here very much longer, but even so I should hate to be a laughing-stock for these oafs. I have been reading in this,’ he said, tapping the manual that protruded from his pocket, ‘and I would take it very kindly if you would hear me and tell me when I am wrong.’

‘Of course,’ said Peter, putting down his stocking directly.

‘I’ll begin at the front of the ship,’ said FitzGerald. ‘Just the essentials, you understand. What I want to avoid are the absurd, ludicrous errors like—like—’

‘Like taking a sheet for a tack?’ suggested Peter.

‘Exactly so,’ said FitzGerald. ‘By the way, the sheet is the thing on the right and the tack the one on the left, isn’t it?’

‘Well, no. Not really,’ said Peter. ‘It depends on the wind.’

‘But it is in this,’ said FitzGerald, pointing to the diagram in his book. ‘Look: it says sheet and tack.’

‘Yes, but in this picture she is sailing with her larboard
tacks aboard. The wind is coming from that side, you see? Now when she goes about they brace round the yard, like this, and then the sheet is this side and the tack over there.’

‘Oh.’

‘Look, the sheet always goes aft.’

‘Towards the flag at the blunt end?’

‘That’s right. It holds the after end of the sail tight round to the wind, when the wind comes sideways. And the tack holds the other end of the sail tight for’ard—the tack must go from the clew—the bottom corner—of the sail for’ard, you see?’

‘Yes. Oh, I understand now. So whichever side the wind is blowing from, those tacks are aboard. Why didn’t the dunderhead say so in the book? What a capital teacher you are, Peter: I puzzled over that for hours. Now what are these—’

Bailey, Preston and one of the master’s mates came in: FitzGerald broke off, and a moment later he said, ‘Shall we take a turn on deck?’

Five minutes later Peter was saying, ‘… you can’t see it properly from here. The foretop would be much better—let’s go up there. An’t you coming?’ he asked, hanging in the ratlines.

‘It scarcely seems worth while,’ said FitzGerald.

‘You do not mind the climb, do you?’ asked Peter, looking down at him.

‘What the devil do you mean?’ said FitzGerald, with an anger that surprised Peter very much. ‘Do you mean to imply that I am afraid? If you think you may presume, because you happen to be able to climb, you will find yourself mistaken. It is an accomplishment common to every monkey born, after all.’

Ignoring this civil reflection, Peter said, ‘Come on, then,’ and ran up the shrouds. When he had been in the top for some minutes he saw FitzGerald’s face appear; he was pale, and he was breathing hard.

‘You have come through the lubber-hole,’ said Peter. FitzGerald made no reply for a while, but stood looking about him. The roll of the ship, exaggerated by the height, sent him
staggering off his balance against a swivel-gun. He held on to it with both hands. ‘What other way is there of getting here?’ he asked. His face was expressionless; his tone unnatural: Peter wondered why on earth he had become suddenly so unfriendly.

‘You ought to come up by the futtock-shrouds. These ones,’ said Peter, walking to the edge of the broad platform and leaning over to point out the ropes that ran in a sharp diagonal from the edge to the upper part of the foremast. ‘It is quite simple going down: you hang by your hands, wait for the roll and then bring your feet up and feel for the hold. Look,’ he added, pointing up at the topmast, ‘those are the futtocks, coming out from the ordinary shrouds at the top.’

‘What is the point of hanging upside down,’ said FitzGerald, not looking up, ‘when there is a square hole specially made to allow for a much safer passage? At this height it is madness.’

BOOK: The Golden Ocean
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