Master & Commander (18 page)

   'Yes, sir,' said James Dillon. 'It could not have fallen more happily.'

   'Signal the convoy to haul two points to larboard and to reduce sail. Mr Richards, have you noted the time? You must carefully note the time of everything. But, Dillon, what can the fellow be thinking of? Did he suppose we were engaged? Blind? However, this is not time to . . . We will board, of course, if only the Norwegians can hold out long enough. I hate firing into a galley, in any event. I believe you may have all our pistols and cutlasses served out Now, Mr Marshall,' he said, turning to the master, who was at his action-station by the wheel, and who was now responsible for sailing the
Sophie
, 'I want you to lay us alongside that damned Moor You may set the lower-stuns'ls if she will bear them.' At this moment the gunner crept up the ladder. 'Well, Mr Day,' said Jack, 'I am happy to see you on deck. Are you a little better?'

   'Much better, sir, I thank you,' said Mr Day, 'thanks to the gentleman'—nodding towards Stephen. 'It worked,' he said, directing his voice towards the taffrail 'I just thought I'd report as I was in my place, sir'

   'Glad of it—I'm very glad of it This is a bit of luck, master-gunner, I believe?' said Jack

   'Why, so it is, sir—it worked, Doctor it worked, sir, like a maiden's dream,—So it is,' said the gunner, looking complacently over the mile or so of sea at the
Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter
and the corsair, at the
Sophie
, with all her guns warm, freshly-loaded, run out, perfectly ready, her crew on tip-toe and her decks cleared for action

   'Here we were exercising,' went on Jack, almost to himself 'And that impudent dog rowed up-wind on the far side and made a snatch at the cat—what can he be thinking of?—and would be running off with her now if our good doctor had not brought us to our senses.'

   'Never was such a doctor, is my belief,' said the gunner. 'Now I fancy I had best get down into my magazine, sir. We've not all that much powder filled; and I dare say you'll be calling for a tidy parcel, ha, ha, ha!'

   'My dear sir,' said Jack to Stephen, measuring the
Sophie's
increasing speed and the distance that separated her from the embattled cat—in this state of triply intensified vitality he could perfectly well calculate, talk to Stephen and revolve a thousand shifting variables all at once—'my dear sir, do you choose to go below or should you rather stay on deck? Perhaps it would divert you to go to into the maintop with a musket, along with the sharpshooters, and have a bang at the villains?'

   'No, no, no,' said Stephen. 'I deprecate violence. My part is to heal rather than to kill; or at least to kill with kindly intent. Pray let me take my place, my station, in the cockpit.'

   'I hoped you would say that,' said Jack, shaking him by the hand. 'I had not liked to suggest it to my guest, however. It will comfort the men amazingly—all of us, indeed. Mr Ricketts, show Dr Maturin the cockpit. And give the loblolly boy a hand with the chests.'

   A sloop with the depth of a mere ten feet ten inches cannot rival a ship of the line for dank airless obscurity below; but the
Sophie
did astonishingly well, and Stephen was obliged to call for another lantern to check and lay out his instruments and the meagre store of bandages, lint, tourniquets and pledgets. He was sitting there with Northcote's
Marine Practice
held close to the light, carefully reading '. . . having divided the skin, order the same assistant to draw it up as much as possible; then cut through the flesh and bones circularly,' when Jack came down. He had put on Hessian boots and his sword, and he was carrying a pair of pistols.

   'May I use the room next door?' asked Stephen, adding in Latin, so that he might not be understood by the loblolly boy, 'it might discourage the patients, were they to see me consulting my printed authorities.'

   'Certainly, certainly,' cried Jack, riding straight over the Latin. 'Anything you like. I will leave these with you. We shall board, if ever we can come up with them; and then, you know, they may try to board us—there's no telling—these damned Algerines are usually crammed with men. Cut-throat dogs, every one of 'em,' he added, laughing heartily and vanishing into the gloom.

   Jack had only been below a very short while, but by the time he returned to the quarter-deck the situation had entirely changed. The Algerines were in command of the cat: she was falling off before the northerly wind; they were setting her crossjack, and it was clear that they hoped to get away with her. The galley lay in its own length away from her, on her starboard quarter: it lay there motionless on its oars, fourteen great sweeps a side, headed directly towards the
Sophie
, with its huge lateen sails brailed up loosely to the yards—a long, low, slim vessel, longer than the
Sophie
but much slighter and narrower: obviously very fast and obviously in enterprising hands. It had a singularly lethal, reptilian air. Its intention was clearly either to-engage the
Sophie
or at least to delay her until the prize-crew should have run the cat a mile or so down the wind towards the safety of the coming night.

   The distance was now a little over a quarter of a mile, and with a smooth continuous flow the relative positions were perpetually changing: the cat's speed was increasing, and in four or five minutes she was a cable's length to the leeward of the galley, which still lay there on its oars

   A fleeting cloud of smoke appeared in the galley's bows, a ball hummed overhead, at about the level of the topmast crosstrees, followed in half a heart's beat by the deep boom of the gun that had fired it 'Note down the time, Mr Richards,' said Jack to the pale clerk—the nature of his pallor had changed and his eyes were starting from his head. Jack hurried forward, just in time to see the flash of the galley's second gun. With an enormous smithy-noise the ball struck the fluke of the
Sophie's
best bower anchor, bent it half over and glanced off into the sea far behind.

   'An eighteen-pounder,' observed Jack to the bosun, standing there at his post on the fo'c'sle. 'Maybe even a twenty-four. Oh, for my long twelves,' he added inwardly. The galley had no broadside, naturally, but mounted her guns fore and aft: in his glass Jack could see that the forward battery consisted of two heavy guns, a smaller one and some swivels; and, of course, the
Sophie
would be exposed to their raking fire throughout her approach. The swivels were firing now, a high sharp cracking noise.

   Jack returned to the quarter-deck. 'Silence fore and aft,' he cried through the low, excited murmur. 'Silence. Cast loose your guns. Level your guns. Out tompions. Run out your guns. Mr Dillon, they are to be trained as far for'ard as possible. Mr Babbington, tell the gunner the next round will be chain.' An eighteen-pound ball hit the
Sophie's
side between the larboard number one and three guns, sending in a shower of sharp-edged splintered wood, some pieces two feet long, and heavy: it continued its course along the crowded deck, knocked down a marine and struck against the mainmast, its force almost spent. A dismal 'Oh oh oh' showed that some of the splinters had done their work, and a moment later two seamen hurried by, carrying their mate below, leaving a trail of blood as they went.

   'Are those guns trained round?' cried Jack.

   'All hard round sir,' came the reply after a gasping pause. 'Starboard broadside first. Fire as they bear. Fire high. Fire for the masts. Right, Mr Marshall, over she goes.'

   The
Sophie
yawed forty-five degrees off her course, presenting quarter of her starboard side to the galley, which instantly sent another eighteen-pound ball into it amidships, just above the water-line, its deep resonant impact surprising Stephen Maturin as he put a ligature round William Musgrave's spouting femoral artery, almost making him miss the loop. But now the
Sophie's
guns were bearing, and the starboard broadside went off on two successive rolls: the sea beyond the galley spat up in white plumes and the
Sophie's
deck swirled with smoke, acrid, piercing gunpowder smoke. As the seventh gun fired Jack cried, 'Over again,' and the
Sophie's
head came round for the larboard broadside. The eddying cloud cleared under her lee: Jack saw the galley fire its whole forward battery and leap into motion under the power of its oars to avoid the
Sophie's
fire. The galley fired high, on the upward roll, and one of its balls severed the maintopmast stay and struck a great lump of wood from the cap. The lump, rebounding from the top, fell on to the gunner's head just as he put it up through the main hatchway.

   'Lively with those starboard guns,' cried Jack. 'Helm amidships.' He meant to bring the sloop back on to the port tack, for if he could manage to get in another starboard broadside he would catch the galley as it was moving across from left to right. A muffled roar from number four gun and a terrible shrieking: in his haste the sponger had not fully cleared the gun and now the fresh charge had gone off in his face as he rammed it down. They dragged him clear, re-sponged, re-loaded the gun and ran it up. But the whole manoeuvre had been too slow: the whole starboard battery had been too slow: the galley was round again—it could spin like a top, with all those oars backing water—and it was speeding away to the south-west with the wind on its starboard quarter and its great lateen sails spread on either side—set in hares' ears, as they say. The cat was now standing south-east; it was half a mile away already, and their courses were diverging fast. The yawing had taken a surprising amount of time—had lost a surprising amount of distance.

   'Port half a point,' said Jack, standing on the lee-rail and staring very hard at the galley, which was almost directly ahead of the
Sophie
, a little over a hundred yards away, and gaining. 'Topgallant stuns'ls. Mr Dillon, get a gun into the bows, if you please. We still have the twelve-pounder's ring-bolts.'

   As far as he could see they had done the galley no harm: firing low would have meant firing straight into benches packed tight with Christian rowers chained to the oars; firing high . . . His head jerked sideways, his hat darted across the deck: a musket-ball from the corsair had nicked his ear. It was perfectly numb under his investigating hand, and it was pouring with blood. He stepped down from the rail, craning his head out sideways to bleed to windward, while his right hand sheltered his precious epaulette from the flow. 'Killick,' he shouted, bending to keep his eyes on the galley under the taut arch of the square mainsail, 'bring me an old coat and another handkerchief.' Throughout his changing he gazed piercingly at the galley, which had fired twice with its single after gun, both shots going a very little wide. 'Lord, they run that twelve-pounder in and out briskly,' he reflected. The topgallant studdingsails were sheeted home; the
Sophie's
pace increased; now she was gaining perceptibly. Jack was not the only one to notice this, and a cheer went up from the fo'c'sle, running down the larboard side as the gun-crews heard the news.

   'The bow-chaser is ready, sir,' said James Dillon, smiling. 'Are you all right, sir?' he asked, seeing Jack's bloody hand and neck.

   'A scratch—nothing at all,' said Jack. 'What do you make of the galley?'

   'We're gaining on her, sir,' said Dillon, and although he spoke quietly there was an extraordinarily fierce exultation in his voice. He had been shockingly upset by Stephen's sudden appearance, and although his innumerable present duties had kept him from much consecutive thought, the whole of his mind, apart from its immediate forefront, was filled with unvoiced concern, distress and dark incoherent nightmare shadows: he looked forward to the turmoil on the galley's deck with a wild longing.

   'She's spilling her wind,' said Jack. 'Look at that sly villain by the mainsheet. Take my glass.'

   'No, sir. Surely not,' said Dillon, angrily clapping the telescope shut.

   'Well,' said Jack, 'well . . .' A twelve-pounder ball passed through the
Sophie's
starboard lower studdingsails—two holes, precisely behind each other, and hummed along four or five feet from them, a visible blur, just skimming the hammocks. 'We could do with one or two of their gunners,' observed Jack. 'Masthead!' he hailed.

   'Sir?' came the distant voice.

   'What do you make of the sail to windward?'

   'Bearing up, sir, bearing up for the head of the convoy.'

   Jack nodded. 'Let the captains of the bow guns and the quartergunners serve the chaser. I'll lay her myself.'

   'Pring is dead, sir. Another captain?'

   'Make it so, Mr Dillon.'

   He walked up forward. 'Shall we catch 'un, sir?' asked a grizzled seaman, one of the big boarding-party, with the pleasant friendliness of crisis.

   'I hope so, Cundall, I hope so indeed,' said Jack. 'At least we shall have a bang at him.'

   'That dog,' he said to himself, staring along the dispart-sight at the Algerine's deck. He felt the first beginning of the upward roll under the
Sophie's
forefoot, snapped the match down on to the touch-hole, heard the hiss and the shattering crash and the shriek of trucks as the gun recoiled.

   'Huzzay, huzzay!' roared the men on the fo'c'sle. It was no more than a hole in the galley's mainsail, about half-way up, but it was the first blow they had managed to get home. Three more shots; and they heard one strike something metallic in the galley's stern.

   'Carry on, Mr Dillon,' said Jack, straightening. 'Light along my glass, there.'

   The sun was so low now that it was difficult to see as he stood balancing to the sea, shading his object-glass with his far hand and concentrating with all his power on two red-turbanned figures behind the galley's stern-chaser. A musketoon-ball struck the
Sophie's
starboard knighthead and he heard a seaman rip out a string of furious obscenity. 'John Lakey copped it something cruel,' said a low voice close behind him. 'In the ballocks.' The gun went off at his side, but before its smoke hid the galley from him he had made up his mind. The Algerine was, in fact, spilling his wind—starting his sheets so that his sails, apparently full, were not really drawing with their whole force: that was why the poor old fat heavy dirty-bottomed
Sophie
, labouring furiously and on the very edge of carrying everything away, was gaining slightly on the slim, deadly, fine-cut galley. The Algerine was leading him on—could, in fact, run away at any moment. Why? To draw him far to the leeward of the cat, that was why: together with the real possibility of dismasting him, raking him at leisure (being independent of the wind) and making a prize of the
Sophie
as well. To draw him to the leeward of the convoy, too, so that the sail to windward might snap up half a dozen of them. He glanced over his left shoulder at the cat. Even if she were to go about they would still fetch her in one board, close-hauled, for she was a very slow creature—no topgallants and, of course, no royals—far slower than the
Sophie
. But in a very little while, on this course and at this pace, he would never be able to reach her except by beating up, tack upon tack, with the darkness coming fast. It would not do. His duty was clear enough: the unwelcome choice, as usual. And this was the time for decision.