HMS Surprise

‘Arma virumque cano,’ began the harsh voice in the darkness, as some recollection of Diana’s mad cousin set Stephen’s memory in motion. ‘Well, thank God we are in Latin again,’ said Jack. ‘Long may it last.’ Long indeed; it lasted until the Equatorial Channel itself, when the morning watch heard the ominous words: ‘… ast illi solvuntur frigore memb

Stephen was a wretched patient; sometimes he looked to M’Alister as an omniscient being who would certainly produce the one true physic; sometimes the ship resounded to the cry of ‘Charlatan’, and drugs would be seen hurtling through the scuttle. The chaplain suffered more than the rest: most of the officers haunted other parts of the ship when the

As far as dear Sophie was concerned life at sea was to be – why, not exactly an eternal picnic, but something not altogether unlike; occasional hardships, to be sure (shortage of coffee, fresh milk, vegetables), and guns going off now and then, and a clash of swords, but without any real people getting hurt: those that happened to die did so instan

Killick was a cross-grained bastard, who supposed that if he sprinkled his discourse with a good many sirs, the words in between did not signify: but still he had procured this coffee, these eggs, this butter, this soft tack, on shore and had put them on the table the morning after a hot engagement – ship still cleared for action and the galley kno

While the Surprise lay to he turned his glass to the French squadron: not that there was any need for a telescope to see their positions, for they were all hull-up – it was the detail of their trim that would tell him what was going on in Linois’s mind.

he had paid little attention to Jack’s anxiety, an anxiety that, like his own, had been growing as the vague charming future became more sharply defined, more nearly the decisive present. He, too, was oppressed by a feeling that this great happiness of travelling month after month towards a splendid end was soon to be broken: a sense not indeed of

Breakfast, with Dundas giving Jack a circumstantial account of his exchange and of the privateer and insisting on a rehearsal of the action with Linois, was a long, rambling meal, with dishes pushed aside and pieces of toast representing ships, which Jack manoeuvred with his left hand, holding Sophia’s under the table with his right, and showing th

Certainly it was delightful for the passengers, the smooth sea, the invigorating breeze carrying them steadily into warmer airs; but in the latitude of the Isle of France Jack, his carpenter and boatswain, and all his seamanlike officers, looked out eagerly for a French privateer – a spare topmast or so, a few spars, a hundred fathoms of one-and-a-

when Killick appeared again. ‘Coffee’s up, sir,’ he said crossly; and as Jack hurried into his cabin he heard the words ‘stone cold now – on the table since six bells – told ’im again and again – enough trouble to get it, and now it’s left to go cold.’ They seemed to be addressed to the Marine sentry, whose look of shocked horror, of refusal to hea