HMS Surprise

The wind stood fair until they were far below Capricorn; day after day she logged her two hundred miles; pure, urgent sailing, all hands getting the last ounce out of her – the beautiful way of naval life that half-pay officers in their dim lodgings remember as their natural existence.

all that forenoon Jack hurried up and down the line in his barge, dispensing officers, gunners, discreet advice and encouragement, and stores of affability. This affability was rarely forced, for most of the captains were right seamen, and given their fiery commodore’s strong lead they set to with a determination that made Jack love them.

He looked hard over the sea at the distant corvette: she vanished in a drift of rain, and he shifted his gaze to the two-decker. What was in Linois’s mind? He was running east-south-east under easy sail: topsails, forecourse clewed up. One thing Jack was certain of was, that Linois was infinitely more concerned with catching the China fleet than wi

Mr Smith, a sea-officer of the small, trim, brisk, round-headed, portwine kind, once shipmates with Stephen in the Lively and now second in the Goliath, rode by on a camel, with his legs folded negligently over the creature’s neck to the manner born:

He had walked himself into a dull apathy of mind, and although his cheeks were still wet – the wind blew cold upon them – he was beyond the immediate pain.

If Linois could not use his lower tier, his heaviest guns, the match would be more nearly even: was that the reason why he was lying there backing and filling, when he was master of the situation, with a convoy worth six millions under his lee? What was in his mind? Plain hesitation? Had he been painfully impressed by the sight of the British line

‘Now, gentlemen, this is a delicate business: we must not offend the Company’s officers, and some of them are very touchy – the least sense of ill-feeling would be disastrous. The men must be made to understand that thoroughly: no pride, no distance, no reference to tea-waggons, or how we do things in the Navy. Our one aim must be to keep their gun

Pullings pointed out the principal charms of the island: Holdfast Tom, Stone Top, and Old Joan Point – he had landed several times, and he did wish he could show the Doctor the bird that haunted Diana’s Peak, a cross between an owl and a poll-parrot, with a curious bill.

One of the reasons for this was the new feeling right along the line of battle: the captains had handled their ships well and they knew it; the success of their manoeuvre and Linois’s retreat had done wonders for the fighting spirit of those who had been somewhat backward, and now there was a unanimity, a readiness to fall in with the plan of attac