The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Historical fiction
ISBN: 9780393037609
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1995-07-31T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

In the afternoon of Saturday, with the Berlings in sight on the larboard bow, the topgallant-sail breeze that had been bowling the Ringle along so handsomely since Cape Finisterre almost entirely deserted her, stunned perhaps by the roar of battle away in the south-west, to starboard.

The schooner, cleared for action, packed on more and more canvas, slanting down into what air there was towards the dimness on the starboard bow. Dr Maturin, torn from the rail where he had been observing the clouds of disturbed, uneasy sea-birds as they drifted in wide circles about their distant rocks, was sent below to that dim, cramped triangular space in which he would have to treat the wounded, single-handed, if the Ringle could work south-west in time to join the fray, the prodigious fray, judging from the din of full broadsides from line-of-battle ships, no less.

Mould, the oldest but the lightest hand aboard, a wizened sinner five feet tall, was at the masthead with a glass: the heady scent of powder was already drifting faint across the deck when he called 'On deck, there. I can see over the smokeband and the murk. It's only the squadron at target-practice. I see Bellona's broad pennant. I see Stately clear.'

The kindly breeze revived as he spoke, sweeping aside the low-lying swathes of gun-smoke, revealing the entire force, now increased by two brigs and a schooner from Lisbon, and wafting the Ringle down at a fine pace towards her rendezvous.

Reade hurried below to release the Doctor. 'It was more like a real battle, a fleet engagement, than anything I have ever heard,' he said. 'If you take my glass you will see that they have been firing both sides, at different sets of targets towed down the line. Both sides! Have you ever known such a thing, sir?'

'Never,' replied Stephen, with the utmost truth. His actionstation was in the cockpit or its equivalent: and although on certain clearly defined occasions when the drum had not beat to quarters he had been allowed to watch the officers, midshipmen and hands going through the great-gun exercises, he had never seen them going through the motions of fighting both sides of the ship at once. It rarely happened even in battle except when the engagement turned into a general mêlée, as it did at Trafalgar, and virtually never in practice, one of the reasons being the cost of powder. Government allowed a certain meagre ration, enough for only a trifling amount of practice with the guns actually firing: anything beyond this had to be paid for by the captain, and few captains were both thoroughly persuaded of the importance of gunnery and rich enough to buy the amount of powder needed to make a ship's company so expert that they could fire three well-directed broadsides in five minutes. Some, though like Thomas of the Thames reasonably well-to-do, felt that briskness in manoeuvre, shining brass, gleaming paintwork, well blacked yards and natural British valour would answer for all purposes,

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