Book 5 - Desolation Island

by Patrick O'Brian

  Chapter Nine

  'Wednesday, 24 December. Course estimated E 15°S. Latitude estimated 46°30'S. Longitude 49°45'E. First part, fresh breezes at WNW, latter parts calm and fine. People employed pumping and thrumming spritsail to fother ship. Water one and a half foot above orlop beams forward, one foot amidship and aft.

  'Thursday, 25 December. Course estimated E 10°S. Latitude observed 46°37'S. Longitude estimated 50°15'E. Winds light and variable with haze and rain. Sea calm with several small blocks of ice. PM hauled up foresail, veered out stop-water to check ship's way, and passed fotheringsail forward from abaft the sternpost, bowsing it taut from the fashion-pieces to the mizzen-chains. The sail answered and the pumps gained five foot in the day.'

  Jack was copying his rough notes into the log-book, and when he came to this triumphant entry he smiled. He was tempted to embellish it with an epithet or two—to add something about the feeble screech by way of a cheer when the gain of the first clear foot was reported—to describe the extraordinary change of spirit, the flood of new strength that sent the winches flying round, so that from having to encourage, threaten, beat or even cajole the exhausted hands, their officers had to restrain their zeal, for fear that the pump-chains would break or choke yet again—to speak of the Christmas dinner (fresh pork and double plum-duff) eaten with such merriment in relays. But he knew that even if he could find words to describe this change, a log-book was not the place for them, and he contented himself with drawing a small pointing hand in the margin.

  His earlier notes, those that dealt with the first days after the boats went off, had been lost when he and the carpenters were trying to rig some kind of a rudder, working out of the stern window—a following sea had set the whole cabin in a swim. They had recorded the Leopard's eastward course, directly before the wind for the most part, travelling on in what seemed a slow death-agony, while all her people's efforts were divided between trying to keep her afloat and trying to get her to steer. The pumps never still, except when they broke down or choked with the infernal coal: the men perpetually heaving the winches round and sometimes even baling too, when the water surged up through the scuttles and hatchways, as though the ship were settling at last.

  Even now, with the leak so much reduced that the ship made no more than the pumps could throw out, the Leopard still could not be made to wear and stay. She was very much by the head, so that the water there did not flow back to the well; and the almost invariably western winds with following seas kept her so. The first steering-machine had been too heavy for its supports and had carried away; the remaining hawsers, towing vanes of one kind and another, had little effect when they were veered out; and none of the combinations of sails and drogues had moved her head more than a few points. Now he and Mr Gray were busy, or as busy as the poor old carpenter's failing strength would allow, with a steering-oar, an object that harked back to the earliest days of sail, now taken up on an enormous scale.

  The question of steering had of course been of the first importance from the moment the Leopard had lost her rudder, but these last few days it was even more present to his mind than usual. At any moment now the Crozet islands might heave in sight, and to reach them he must be able to manoeuvre the ship. Just when they might appear he could not tell: in the first place he had little confidence in the longitude laid down by their French discoverer, and in the second his chronometers had been overturned in the drunken turmoil when the boats put off, so that he had only his hack-watch for his position. However, neither he nor the Frenchman could be far out in the latitude, and he had been keeping the Leopard as near to 46°45'S as ever he could, though with these covered skies he could rarely make a noon observation. And for days now, in spite of the shortage of hands, the sharpest eyes in the ship had been at the masthead.

  The log ran on: 'Sunday. Course E 10°N. Latitude estimated 46°50'S, longitude 50°30'E. Fresh breezes at W and WNW. Larboard pump sucked. Rigged church for shortened prayers and thanksgiving; read Articles of War. Admonished Wm Plaice, James Hole, Thos. Paine and M. Lewis for drunkenness and sleeping. People employed about steering-machine and pumps. Set the foresail and middle staysail. PM starboard pump-chain broke for the eighth time; hove up and rove again in under one hour.'

  Jack had very nearly brought the book up to this day's date when the welcome drum began to beat, and he stumped out into the rain and down the hatchway to the wardroom. All the officers messed there now, and, since both the Captain's and the wardroom cook had taken to the boats, and Killick's notion of cookery went little farther than toasted cheese, their food came straight from the galley, unadorned. They still ate it in a certain style, however, and they still made a fairly creditable appearance; for with the Captain presiding this amounted to something like a cabin-invitation, and they all wore at least a uniform coat. Although the remaining oldsters had come from the drowned midshipmen's berth to fill the places left by Grant, Turnbull, Fisher and Benton, the long table looked rather sparse, particularly as there were no servants behind the chairs; but, as Jack, Babbington, Moore and Byron frequently observed, the fewer the better fare. Today's fare, by immemorial custom, should have been half a pint of dried peas and oatmeal, this being a banyan day; but the pumps still called for unusual exertion and the steering-oar was going to call for a great deal more, so all hands were allowed a piece of salt beef. As every officer took his full share at the winches, night and day, and as the temperature was only just above freezing, the wardroom ate up its beef with silent, barbarous avidity, relaxing only when the plates disappeared and the wine came in. A brief return to civility—the King's health—a very little conversation—and Jack said, 'Well, gentlemen . . .'

  The steering-oar was a most imposing affair, a spare foresailyard with a paddle at the seaward end: it was to pivot on the taffrail, strengthened for the purpose, and the inboard arm was to be moved from side to side by tackles to the crossjack yard and the mizzen. The rigging of such an engine called for a high degree of skill with ropes, blocks, and the marlinspike, an intuitive grasp of marine dynamics: Stephen could be of no use—indeed, he was invited to go away—and when he had finished his spell at the pump he stood at the rail, indulging himself with a view of the birds. They had increased in number quite remarkably these last days—skuas, whalebirds, albatrosses and petrels of different kinds, sheathbills, terns—and he had noticed that they appeared to be travelling to or from some fixed point to the north. The north, however, was at present swathed in rain, and he crossed to the starboard side, where the light was better for looking down into the water, with its splendid wealth of penguins: here he had seen a seal pursuing them, so that the little creatures shot from the surface almost like flying-fish, but not so far nor so efficiently, alas. And here he had seen the seal herself pursued, hunted down and dismembered by a troop of killer-whales, so that the sea turned red. Penguins: there they were, flying nimbly under water, chasing long thin fishes that in their turn were feeding amidst an infinity of fine stout shrimps, as pink as if they had been boiled. Duty called Stephen to the side of Mrs Boswell and young Leopardina and to his sickbay; humanity called upon him to visit Mrs Wogan. In vain. 'If her constitution can withstand a Caesarian delivery in the midst of battle,' he observed, 'five minutes delay cannot much affect Mrs Boswell; besides, she is doing extremely well—no doubt she is asleep.' Five minutes: ten: and as the warmth of pumping was leaving him—as the wind was biting through his fourth waistcoat and comforter—he was rewarded by what appeared to be the sea-bed rising to the surface right by the ship, a vast dark area that grew clearer and clearer until it assumed the form of a whale. But a whale of unspeakable dimensions: still it rose, unhurried, and as he stared, holding his breath, the sea rounded in a smooth boil—the surface parted—the creature's streaming back appeared, dark blue-grey just flecked with white, stretching from the fore to the mizzen-chains. The head rose higher still and expired a rushing jet of air that instantly condensed in a plume as tall as the foretop and floated over the Leop
ard's bowsprit: and at the same moment Stephen himself breathed out. He believed he heard the hissing inspiration just before the head sank and the enormous bulk slid over in an easy, leisurely motion; a dorsal fin appeared, far back; a hint of the flukes themselves, and the sea closed softly over Leviathan; but his hurry of spirits was so great that he could not be sure.

  'Cobb, Cobb!' he cried, seeing the whaler and dragging him to the side. 'What is that? Tell me, what is that?' An acre or so of monstrous back could still be seen, moving slowly through the shrimps.

  'Oh, he's only a blue finner,' said Cobb. 'You don't want to take any notice of him.'

  'But it was a hundred feet long! It stretched from here to there!'

  'I dare say,' said Cobb. 'But he's only a blue finner, a nasty, spiteful thing. You plant a harpoon in his side, and what does he do? He rushes on you like a thunder-clap and beats the boat to splinters and then runs out a thousand fathom of line. You don't want to take notice of him. Now by your leave, sir, I must go aloft. There's Moses Harvey looking down quite old-fashioned, for to he relieved.'

  Chilled through and through, Stephen cast a lingering glance over the sea and went below: he looked at Mrs Boswell's stitches with great satisfaction and then made his way to the store that now served as a sickbay. Herapath was waiting for him, and together they inspected their only patient, the Turkish eunuch. This being Ramadan, the Turk refrained from food and drink throughout the day lit hours; and as he also refrained from pork by night he was now in a very feeble state. They had tried to delude him with artificial darkness, but some inner clock frustrated them. 'The new moon alone will cure this case,' said Stephen, and they talked about the general health of the ship, most astonishingly good in spite of the long absence of fresh provisions and in spite of the incessant toil. This Stephen attributed to the great reduction in numbers, so that when the men slept, they slept with plenty of space about them, and no vitiated air; to the bracing cold; and above all to the sense of crisis, that left no time for hypochondria. 'And to this same sense of imminent disaster,' said he, 'we no doubt owe the singular harmony, the quasi-unanimity with which the work of the ship is carried on. No harsh words, no vehement rebukes are heard; the rattan canes, the knotted ends of rope no longer encumber the lictors' hands. A cheerful compliance, even an anticipatory zeal, does away with the fretful exercise of authority; and upon this, perhaps more than upon any other factor but the Captain's skill in navigation, we may rely for our eventual salvation. And no doubt it was providential that we got rid of the discordant element, of those whom he might term the awkward sods . . .'

  'We got rid of the Jonah, is all that matters,' said the Turk, to their astonishment. 'All's well, now no Jonah.'

  Stephen walked over and looked down at the wasted yellow glabrous face: the Turk closed one knowing eye, and said, 'No Jonah now,' closed the other, and spoke no more.

  'It is true, sir,' said Herapath, after a pause. 'I have heard it all over the ship—my former messmates—all the lower deck. They were convinced Mr Larkin was a Jonah: that was why he drank so much, they said, because he believed it himself. They were very pleased when he tried to get into the boat in the last rush, and,' he added in a whisper, 'I think some of them helped him over the side.'

  Stephen nodded: likely enough. He would have offered some observations on the power of faith, had not the cry of 'Land ho' transfixed him as they formed.

  On deck they followed the pumpers' staring eyes, and there, on the larboard beam, a snowy peak showed and vanished among the clouds some ten or fifteen miles to the north. Stephen, Herapath, the few remaining landsmen and convicts, were jubilant; they would have cheered, capered, tossed their hats into the air, had it not been for the reserve, the anxious questioning looks of the sailors.

  To these it was clear that everything depended on the steering-oar. If it could bring the Leopard up to the wind so that she could stay and lie close-hauled on either tack, all was well. If it could even bring the west wind one point forward of the beam, the ship might make the land on the larboard tack alone, so long as the operation was carried out within the hour, before she had been driven still farther to the east. But if the oar could not bring her up, or if it could not bring her even half up precious soon, she was condemned to travel on and on, with nothing between her pierced bottom and the antarctic sea but a piece of worn sailcloth that could not last much longer.

  Once again the ship broke into the most intense activity. Few could help in the long and complex rigging of the oar, but once the sails were so trimmed as to bring her head as far north of east as possible, they could all set to the pumps, they could all lighten the ship, so that she would answer her helm the quicker, when she had a helm to answer to.

  'Huzzay, heave round,' they cried, and again the water gushed out in a stiff, prodigious jet. Stephen stood between Moore and his remaining sergeant, both of them experienced theoretical seamen, and in gasps they kept him informed of the progress aft. It was maddeningly slow: they kept glancing at the mountain, clearer now that the clouds had dissolved in rain, and saying that the ship was not to leeward, no not by a mile and more. It was plain, from their talk of preventer-guys, double-rove, and the like, that the Captain was leaving nothing to chance: that was wisdom, no doubt, yet a huge impatience welled up, a violent longing for the oar to be tried, perfectly rigged or not.

  An hour passed by: the rain beat on the pumpers' steaming backs; and at last some hands were called away to the poop. Those at the pumps saw the head of the oar rise to its place just abaft the mizzenmast; they saw the tackles tighten; and after a pause in which the rain turned to sleet, they heard the cry, 'Stand by, starboard: handsomely now, handsomely, and half a fathom. Larboard ease away.' The Leopard's motion changed perceptibly. Still heaving the winches round like fury, the pumpers tended their faces to the wind, felt it come full abeam, and then a little forward. They heard the familiar call of the men at the bowlines, 'Heave one, heave two, heave belay,' that meant the ship was sailing on a wind—a call they had not heard for weeks. One point free: but no farther. In spite of all the orders from the poop, all the movements of the enormous oar, the Leopard would not lie closer. Jack could not set the driver, and all their recent labour to get the ship by the stern so that she would wear prevented her from coming up, or at least from coming up with any headway still on her.

  'Still,' said Moore, 'she will do. A near-run thing, but she will do.' And indeed Stephen, looking forward, saw that the Leopard was heading not straight for the island, but a very little to the windward of it.

  Now began a long series of operations carried out with extraordinary speed: yards were braced, jibs hauled down, set again and flatted in, staysails flashed out, hands sent to the larboard side of the forecastle and head so that their weight might help—every conceivable manoeuvre to get the ship a few yards to windward, to overcome her natural leeway, the effect of the waves that kept knocking her head off the wind, and that of the powerful current perpetually setting east. At first Moore explained these one by one, but presently he fell silent; and as Stephen watched the island he saw it gradually move from the right of the bowsprit to a point where the bowsprit bisected the peak, and at last, when it was within a mile, well to the left. He had never seen leeway more clearly exemplified: all this time the Leopard had been pointing due north, yet all the time she had slipped a little sideways in a sea that was itself in motion, moving bodily away to the east, so that with the two the island itself appeared to travel west.

  Although the light was fading fast by now—a growing purple low in the south-west—the rocky shores were well in sight, with clouds of sea-birds over them, and the minute forms of penguins, crowds of penguins, standing on the beaches or emerging from the sea. And what is more, there was a small sheltered bay, clear of surf, just under the lee of an outward-running spur.

  More orders from the poop. 'He is going to commit all his forces now,' said Moore. 'Throw in his last reserves.'

  'Half a fathom, handsom
ely. Half a fathom more,' said Jack, and the island moved to the right: the little bay opened wider. 'Half a fathom—Christ!'

  A long rending crack and the oar broke at the head. The loom and paddle went astern, held by a guy, the Leopard's head swung from the wind, the island moved to the left in a long, slow, even motion until it lay on the larboard quarter, dwindling astern, as inaccessible as the moon.

  'In mizzen topsail and topgallant,' said Jack in the midst of the heavy silence.

  It was within three days of this that the first cases of scurvy appeared in the sickbay. All four of them were prime seamen, broad-shouldered, long-armed, powerfully-built, responsible men, cheerful in an emergency, valuable members of the crew. Now they were glum, listless, apathetic; and only a sense of what was right kept them from complaining or open despondency. Stephen pointed out the physical symptoms, the spongy gums, the offensive breath, the extravasated blood, and in two cases the old reopening wounds; but he insisted even more upon the gloom as the most significant part of the disease. 'I must confess, Mr Herapath,' he said, 'that nothing grieves me more than this dependence of the mind upon the body's nutriment. It points to a base necessitarianism that I rebel against with all the vehemence my spirit can engender. And here, in the particular instance, I am at a loss. These men have had their sovereign lime-juice. Perhaps we must inspect the cask: most merchants are a sort of half-rogues, and quite capable of supplying a sophisticated juice.'

  'With submission, sir,' said Herapath, 'it occurs to me that these men may not have had their juice.'