18 The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian [O'Brian, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Retail
ISBN: 9780007429271
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-11-25T04:42:31+00:00

Chapter Six

The grief and anxiety did not die away, but of necessity they receded, and as the Bellona worked her way, tack upon tack, round the Saints to regain the bay at dawn, the top of his mind was taken up with the handling of the ship and with a very close watch to see just what harm the lax but harsh command of his jobbing captain had done. He had already looked through the recent gunnery records, which contained no account whatsoever of live firing, only of rattling the great guns in and out: the log, on the other hand, spoke of frequent flogging, more punishment than Jack would have inflicted in a quarter.

At one bell in the morning watch the Bellona’s tender, the Ringle, now commanded by that valuable young man Reade, a fast, weatherly, sweet-sailing schooner with much less draught than the great seventy-four, hailed to say that she was shoaling her water: ten fathoms, then nine. ‘What do you say, Yann?’ asked Jack – the pilot was standing at his side.

‘What him bottom?’

‘Arm your lead,’ called Jack; and shortly after the reply came back across the calm, gently heaving sea, ‘Hake’s teeth and white sand, if you please, sir.’

‘Carry on, sir,’ said Yann. ‘Next cast ten, eleven, twelve.’

A presence behind him, and a very agreeable smell. ‘Which I thought you might like some coffee, sir,’ said Killick, passing the mug. ‘The Doctor said it preserved the frame from falling damps.’

‘Bellona,’ called the tender, ‘nine fathoms, if you please.’ A pause. ‘Ten, and grey sludge.’

Yann nodded with satisfaction. ‘If we carry on till come two bells, and then wear ship and stand east-south-east and half east, we fine, we all right, sir.’

At two bells the idlers were called; the sentinels all round the ship cried ‘All’s well’; the mate of the watch, having heaved the log, reported to Miller, third lieutenant and officer of the watch, ‘Four knots exactly, sir, if you please,’ and this he wrote on the log-board, together with the Bellona’s present course of south-south-west; the hoarser of the carpenter’s mates whispered, ‘Four and half inches in the well, sir,’ into Miller’s ear; and Miller, turning to the Captain and taking off his hat, repeated all this to him in a voice calculated to be heard above the din of hand-pumps, buckets, swabs and holystones of various sizes that were preparing to clean the deck in the first half-lights of the coming day. But before they could begin Jack called, ‘Belay, there,’ and more gently, ‘Mr Miller, we will wear ship, if you please, and stand east-south-east and a half east. The watch will suffice.’

Jack rarely tacked a line-of-battle ship when he had sea-room to wear her, letting her head fall off from the wind and come right round to the desired bearing: it was slower and less spectacular than coming up into the wind’s eye, crossing through and steadying on the new course, but it called for fewer hands and it preserved both spars and rigging.

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