Book 2 - Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian [O'Brian, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-00-649916-9
Publisher: HarperCollins

'What news from Mapes, shipmate?' asked Jack.

'What? I cannot hear a word with all this screeching and bawling overhead.'

'You are as bad as Parker,' said Jack, and poking his head out of the cabin he called, ' 'Vast heaving the after carronades. Mr Pullings, let these hands reef tops'ls. I said "What news from Mapes?" '

'A miscellaneous bag. I saw Sophie alone: she and Diana have parted brass-rags. Diana is looking after her cousin in Dover. I called on her. She asked us both to dinner on Friday, to eat a dish of Dover soles. I accepted for myself, but said I could not answer for you: you might not find it possible to go ashore.'

'She asked me?' cried Jack. 'Are you sure? What is it, Babbington?'

'I beg your pardon, sir, but the flagship is signalling all captains.'

'Very well. Let me know the moment Melpomène's barge touches the water. Stephen, chuck me my breeches, will you?' He was in working clothes—canvas trousers, a guernsey frock and a frieze jacket—and as he stripped the criss-cross of wounds showed plain: bullets, splinters, cutlasses, a boarding-axe; and the last, a raking thrust from a pike, still showed red about the edges. 'Half an inch to the left—if that pike had gone in half an inch to the left, you would have been a dead man,' observed Stephen.

'My God,' said Jack, 'there are times when I wish—however, I must not whine.' From under his clean white shirt he asked, 'How was Sophie?'

'Low in her spirits. She is subjected to the attentions of a moneyed parson.' No reply. No emergence of the head. He went on, 'I also saw to everything at Melbury: all is well there, though the lawyer's men have been hanging about. Preserved Killick asks may he join the ship? I took it upon myself to say that he should come and ask you himself. You will be happy to have the skilled attendance of Preserved Killick. I reduced my femur at the hospital—the leg may be saved—and wished my dement on to them, with a slime-draught to make him easy. I also bought your thread, music-paper, and strings: these I found at a shop in Folkestone.'

'Thank you, Stephen. I am very much obliged to you. You must have had a damned long ride of it. Indeed, you look dog-tired, quite done up. Just tie my hair for me, like a good fellow, and then you shall turn in. I must get you an assistant, a surgeon's mate: you work too hard.'

'You have some grey hairs,' said Stephen, tying the yellow queue.

'Do you wonder?' said Jack. He buckled on his sword, sat down on the locker, and said, 'I had almost forgot. I had a pleasant surprise today. Canning came aboard! You remember Canning, that admirable chap I liked so much in town, and who offered me his privateer? He has a couple of merchantmen in the road and he came round from the Note to see them off. I have asked him to dinner tomorrow; and that reminds me .

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