Sublime

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-

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.

‘Poor dear,’ said Jack, his mind still with his ship, ‘I am afraid she is growing old: all the spirit in the world, but anno domini can’t be beat.

Linois is only reculing pour mew sauter, as he would say.

Perhaps a glass of Madeira? They have an excellent sercial here, that I can conscientiously recommend.’

As his eyes reached the level of the quarterdeck he saw a wave, a green-grey wall towering above the taffrail, racing towards them – swift inevitability. He strained his head back to see its top, curving beyond the vertical as it came yet still balancing with the speed of its approach, a beard of wind-torn spray flying out before it.

‘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

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.