The Wine Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian [O'Brian, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure fiction; Sea Faring; Historical
Published: 2011-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

'If you please, sir,' said Jemmy Ducks, 'the tide is on the turn: which we ought to shove off directly.'

'Jemmy Ducks,' said Stephen, 'when you have drank a moderate dram, you shove off by yourself. I am going to walk to the dockyard to see the Liverpool ship.'

'My dear love to you, sir,' said Jemmy Ducks, lowering a quarter of a pint of Peruvian brandy without a wink, 'and my duty to the gentleman.'

As they walked back from the tall headland from which they had waved to the Three Graces for a great while as she sailed away into the south-west, Stephen, Padeen and the little girls were low in their spirits, mute. It was not that the tropical day was oppressive, for an agreeable breeze blew in from the sea, but the dry hard pale-yellow ground under foot had nothing whatsoever growing on it, no life of any kind, and the arid sterility had a saddening effect on minds already disappointed. The distance to their lofty cliff had been greater than they thought, their pace slower; the Liverpool ship was already clear of the coast by the time they got there, and even with Stephen's spy-glass they could not be sure they had seen Martin, though he had gone aboard with no more than a hand to help him over the gangway and had promised to sit there by the taffrail.

In silence they walked, therefore, with the ocean on their left and the Andes on their right, both admittedly majestic, indeed sublime, but perhaps beyond all human measure, at least to those who were sad, hungry and intolerably dry; and it was not until their stark plateau fell abruptly away, showing the green valley of the Rimac far below, with Lima apparently quite close at hand, sharply defined by its walls, and in the other direction Callao, the busy port, the dockyard and the exactly squared town, that they came to sudden cheerful life, calling out to one another 'There is Lima, there is Callao, there is the ship, poor thing' - for to their astonishment she was already in the yard, stripped to the gant-line and partially heaved down - 'And there," cried Sarah, pointing to the shipping along the mole, 'there is the Franklin'& handmaiden.'

'You mean tender,' said Emily.

'Jemmy Ducks says handmaiden,' replied Sarah.

'Sir, sir,' cried Emily, 'she means the Alastor's big schooner-rigged launch, lying there next to the Mexico ship.'

'With the barky all sideways, will there ever be tea?' asked Padeen, with quite extraordinary fluency for him.

'There will certainly be tea,' said Stephen, and he stepped forward briskly to the path winding down the slope.

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