Master & Commander

'Shall I send the hands to di

'No, Mr Dillon. We must profit by this wind. Once we are past the cape they may go below. Those guns are breeched and frapped?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then we will make sail. In sweeps. All hands to make sail.'

The bosun sprang his call and hurried away to the fo'c'sle amidst a great rushing of feet and a good deal of bellowing.

'Newcomers below. Silence there.' Another rush of feet. The Sophie's regular crew stood poised in their usual places, in dead silence. A voice on board the Gйnйreux a cable's length away could be heard, quite clear and plain, 'Sophie's making sail.'

She lay there, rocking gently, out in Mahon harbour, with the shipping on her starboard beam and quarter and the brilliant town beyond it. The breeze a little abaft her larboard beam, a northerly wind, was pushing her stern round a trifle. Jack paused, and as it came just so he cried, 'Away aloft.' The calls repeated the order and instantly the shrouds were dark with passing men, racing up as though on their stairs at home.

'Trice up. Lay out.' The calls again, and the topmen hurried out on the yards. They cast off the gaskets, the lines that held the sails tight furled to the yards; they gathered the canvas under their arms and waited.

'Let fall,' came the order, and with it the howling peep-peep, peep-peep from the bosun and his mates.

'Sheet home. Sheet home. Hoist away. Cheerly there, in the foretop, look alive. T'garns'l sheets. Hands to the braces. Belay.'

A gentle push from above heeled the Sophie over, then another and another, each more delightfully urgent until it was one steady thrust; she was under way, and all along her side there sang a run of living water. Jack and his lieutenant exchanged a glance: it had not been bad – the foretopgallantsail had taken its time, because of a misunderstanding as to how newcomer should be defined and whether the six restored Sophies were to be considered in that injurious light, which had led to a furious, silent squabble on the yard; and the sheeting-home had been rather spasmodic; but it had not been disgraceful, and they would not have to support the derision of the other men-of-war in the harbour. There had been moments in the confusion of the morning when each had dreaded just that thing.

The Sophie had spread her wings a little more like an unhurried dove than an eager hawk, but not so much so that the expert eyes on shore would dwell upon her with disapprobation; and as for the mere landsmen, their eyes were so satiated with the coming and going of every kind of vessel that they passed over her departure with glassy indifference.

'Forgive me, sir,' said Stephen Maturin, touching his hat to a nautical gentleman on the quay, 'but might I ask whether you know which is the ship called Sophia?'

'A King's ship, sir?' asked the officer, returning his salute. 'A man-of-war? There is no ship of that name but perhaps you refer to the sloop, sir? The sloop Sophie?'

'That may well be the case, sir. No man could easily surpass me in ignorance of naval terms. The vessel I have in mind is commanded by Captain Aubrey.'

'Just so: the sloop, the fourteen-gun sloop. She lies almost directly in front of you, sir, in a line with the little white house on the point.'

'The ship with triangular sails?'

'No. That is a polacre-settee. Somewhat to the left, and farther off.'

'The little small squat merchantman with two masts?

'Well' – with a laugh – she is a trifle low in the water, but she is a man-of-war, I assure you And I believe she about to make sail. Yes. There go her topsails: sheeted borne. They hoist the yard. To'garns'ls. What's amiss? Ah, there we are. Not very smartly done, but all's well that ends well, and the Sophie never was one of your very brisk performers. See, she gathers way. She will fetch the mouth of the harbour on this wind without touching a brace.'

'She is sailing away?'

'Indeed she is. She must be ru

'I am very much obliged to you, sir,' said Stephen, – lifting his hat.

'Servant, sir,' said the officer, lifting his. He looked after Stephen for a while 'Should I ask him whether he is well? I have left it too late However, he seems steady enough now.'

Stephen had walked down to the quay to find out whether – the Sophie could be reached on foot or whether he should have to take a boat to keep his di

Stephen had allowed his mind to convince itself entirely, and the strength of his emotion at the sight of the Sophie, her white sails and her low hull dwindling fast over the shining sea, showed him how much he had come to look forward to the prospect of a new place and new skies, a living, and a closer acquaintance with this friend who was now ru

He walked up through the town with his mind in a curious state; he had suffered so many disappointments recently that it did not seem possible he could bear another. What was more, he had allowed all his defences to disperse – unarm. It was while he was reassembling them and calling out his reserves that his feet carried him past Joselito's coffee-house and voices said, 'There he is – call out – run after him – you will catch him if you run.'

He had not been into the coffee-house that morning because it was a question either of paying for a cup of coffee or of paying for a boat to row him out to the Sophie, and he had therefore been unavailable for the midshipman, who now came ru

'Dr Maturin?' asked young Mowett, and stopped short, quite shocked by the pale glare of reptilian dislike. However, he delivered his message; and he was relieved to find that it was greeted with a far more human look.

'Most kind,' said Stephen. 'What do you imagine would be a convenient time, sir?'

'Oh, I suppose about six o'clock, sir,' said Mowett.

'Then at six o'clock I shall be at the Crown steps,' said Stephen. 'I am very much obliged to you, sir, for your diligence in finding me out.' They parted with a bow apiece, and Stephen said privately, 'I shall go across to the hospital and offer Mr Florey my assistance: he has a compound fracture above the elbow that will call for primary resection of the joint. It is a great while since I felt the grind of bone under my saw,' he added, smiling with anticipation.

Cape Mola lay on their larboard quarter: the troubled blasts and calms caused by the heights and valleys along the great harbour's winding northern shore no longer buffeted them, and with an almost steady tramontana at north by east the Sophie was ru

'Bring her up as close as she will lie,' said Jack. 'How near will she point, Mr Marshall? Six?'