The Golden Ocean. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ and full of flaws. The brig was gathering way and now the water between them was wider.

      ‘Oh go on, go on,’ urged FitzGerald, wringing his handkerchief between his hands.

      Sean put up his hand, and his deep, sonorous hail boomed over the sea; but as if in answer to it there was a burst of white triangles as the brig’s jibs were set and she moved faster away.

      FitzGerald groaned. ‘Never mind,’ said Peter, glancing up at the sky, ‘I’ll follow her to England if need be, by the powers.’

      ‘She’s backing her topsail,’ cried Sean. ‘Hallelujah.’

      The brig’s foretopsail yard came round: the sail shivered and filled again. Her speed slackened, and as the boat cleared the island the wind took her true. In another three minutes they were alongside.

      ‘There,’ said Peter, as he laid the boat along, just kissing the brig, ‘that’s neat, though I say it myself. Up you go,’ he said to FitzGerald, who was gaping at the chains of the brig. ‘There,’ he said, quickly guiding FitzGerald’s hands and propelling him up the side, while Sean struck the sail and laid fourteen pence on the thwart.

      ‘You Navy chaps are always cutting it fine,’ said the mate of the brig as they came over the side. ‘Now I suppose some poor unfortunate soul will have to take your shallop in tow. Vast heaving, you lubbock,’ he roared in parentheses, and added, ‘The master is below in the cabin.’

      The master of the Mary Rose—she was a victualler, chartered by the Admiralty, from Cork for Portsmouth—was no more pleased to see them than his mate, and he spoke sharply about almost missing the tide while some folks disported themselves on shore; but they were both so utterly triumphant and enchanted with having accomplished their care-ridden journey, at having caught up with the brig when all seemed lost at the very last moment, and with being aboard a vessel that would carry them all the rest of the way without any planning or contriving on their part at all, that they were wonderfully cordial to the master; who afterwards confided to the mate his private opinion that ‘the midshipmen came aboard as boiled as a pair of owls’—in which he betrayed a grievous lack of discernment.

      ‘This is very fine,’ said FitzGerald, with enthusiastic approval, as they stood on deck watching the green hills recede. The steady north-easter sang in the brig’s taut rigging; the sun came out, low under the clouds, lighting the green of the land with an extraordinary radiance. Somewhere behind the haze that hung over Cork, Placidus would be moving composedly along the road to Mallow, carrying Liam away to the north and the west, all over the green country that they might never see again: the thought came into Peter’s head in spite of his excitement; and the same thought was clearly with Sean, who looked long and gravely towards the shore, as so many of his countrymen have done. But FitzGerald, also like many other Irishmen leaving their country, was in tearing high spirits. ‘I am wonderfully pleased with the sea,’ he cried. ‘It was a capital idea, writing to Cousin Wager. I am sure the Navy is far better than the Army in every way. Why, it will be like a boating picnic on the lough, without the troublesome business of going home in the evening. I say, this is famous, is it not, Palafox?’ he said as the Mary Rose lifted to the send of a wave. The wind was blowing across and somewhat against the tide, and a little way out from the land was a line of rough water, chopped up on the invisible swell from the Atlantic: when they crossed Crosshaven, now a sprinkling of white on the loom of the land, the Mary Rose entered this zone of cross forces, and began to grow lively. In an inquisitive manner she pointed her bowsprit up to the sky, then brought it down to explore the green depths below, and her round bows went thump on the sea.

      ‘This is famous,’ repeated FitzGerald, staggering to keep his footing. ‘Famous,’ he said again, swallowing hard.

      ‘Do you see that ship?’ cried Peter. ‘No, not that—that’s a ketch—there, right ahead. I believe she’s a man-of-war.’

      FitzGerald stared forward beyond the heaving bowsprit, which had now added a curious corkscrewing motion and a sideways lurch to the rest: he groaned, and covered his eyes with his hand.

      ‘Palafox,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a curse whether the thing is a man-of-war or not. Isn’t it cold?’ A little later he said, ‘Palafox, I am feeling strangely unwell. We should never have eaten that pork at Blarney. Are you feeling unwell, Palafox?’

      ‘Never better,’ said Peter, still trying to make out the ship.

      ‘Then perhaps it is the motion of the vessel,’ said FitzGerald, gripping the rail with both hands and closing his eyes. Peter looked at him quickly, and saw that his face had turned a very light green.

      ‘Come over to this side,’ he said, taking FitzGerald by the elbow, ‘then you can be sick to the lee.’

      ‘I will not be sick,’ said FitzGerald, without opening his eyes: he pulled his arm away pettishly and shivered all over. ‘And I beg you will not say such disgusting things. Oh.’

      ‘You will feel better directly if you are,’ said Peter. ‘Some people swallow a piece of fat pork on a string. Come, make an effort.’

      ‘No,’ said FitzGerald, feebly striking out sideways.

      Peter and Sean looked at him with easy compassion.

      They were not transfixed with perishing cold; their brains and eyes were not heaving; their mouths were not unnaturally watering; they did not wish the world would come to an end, nor that they could instantly die: indeed, they were having a most enjoyable time—were healthy and disgustingly cheerful.

      ‘Oh,’ said FitzGerald. He could say no more: Sean plucked him from the rail, to which he clung as the only solid thing in a dissolving universe, and half carried him, half led him below, where Peter stuffed him into a bunk, too far reduced even to curse them, and covered him with blankets.

      The wind began to get up in the night and backed round into the west; it brought rain with it, and the next day Peter and Sean, in borrowed tarpaulins, kept the glistening deck to watch the cruel coast of Cornwall drift by in the late afternoon. From time to time they went down to comfort FitzGerald as he lay, utterly void and longing for the death that he saw approaching, but at all too slow a pace. There was nothing to be done for him, however. He would take nothing; and if ever he could be roused to speak, it was only to say, ‘Palafox, you said fat. You should never have said fat—oh.’ Sometimes he said that he almost hoped he might live to have Peter’s blood for it: at other times he said he forgave him, and wished to be remembered at home.

      On Thursday the wind, as if it had been specially ordered, shifted into the south-west and south: they sailed gently up the Channel on a milk-and-water sea that rippled playfully in the sun, the innocent element; on either side there sailed in company with them a great number of vessels, near and far; and as the sweet evening gathered in the western sky, FitzGerald appeared on deck in time to see five ships of the line with two attendant frigates and a sloop of war pass within a cable’s length, close hauled on the wind and in a formation as precise as a regiment of foot-guards on parade. With their towering height of gleaming canvas—their royals were set—and with their long sides exactly chequered with gun-ports, they gave an instant impression of immense strength and majesty, a moving and exhilarating feeling that made Peter wish to cheer. FitzGerald was moved too; a tinge of colour came into his face and some animation to his extinguished eyes.

      ‘It would almost be worth while going to sea to be aboard one of those things,’ he said.

      ‘Hullo,’ cried Peter, turning round. ‘How are you?’

      ‘Thank СКАЧАТЬ