Surprise’s hull hanging down through it and the clean copper near her water-?line reflecting an extraordinary violet into the sea:
then a white explosion as Stephen shattered the mirror, plunging bottom foremost from the gangway, twenty feet above. His impetus bore him down and down, and Jack noticed that he was holding his nose: he was holding it still when he came to the surface, but then relinquished it to strike out in his usual way - short, cataleptic jerks, with his eyes tightly shut and his mouth clenched in savage determination. Some inherent leading quality about his person kept him very low in the water, his nose straining just clear of the surface; but he had made great progress since the day Jack had first dipped him over the side in a running bowline three days out from Madeira, two thousand miles and many weeks sailing to the north: or rather many weeks of trimming sail, hoping to catch a hint of a breeze in their royals and flying kites, and whistling for a wind; for although they had picked up the north-?east trades off the Canaries and had run down twenty-?five degrees of latitude, day after day of sweet sailing, hardly touching a sheet or a brace and often logging two hundred miles between noon and noon, the sun growing higher with every latitude they took, they had run into the Variables far north of the line, and hitherto they had not had a hint of the south-?east trades, in spite of the fact that at this time of the year they were to be expected well above the equator. Three hundred miles now of calm or of capricious often baffling breezes - weeks of towing the ship’s head round to take advantage of them, heaving round the yards, getting the fire-?engine into the tops to wet the sails, buckets of water whipped up to the royals to help them draw - only to find the breeze die away or desert them to ruffle the sea ten miles away. But mostly dead calm and the Surprise drifting imperceptibly westwards on the equatorial current, very slowly turning upon herself. A lifeless sea, the swell invisible but for the sickening heave of the horizon as she rolled with no sail to steady her; almost no birds, very few fishes - the single turtle and yesterday’s booby a nine days’ wonder; never a sail under the pure dome of the sky; the sun beating down twelve hours a day. And they were running short of water . . . how long would the short allowance last? He dismissed the calculations for the moment and swam towards the boat towing behind, where Stephen was clinging to the gunwale and calling out something about the Hellespont, incomprehensible for the gasping.
‘Did you see me?’ he cried as Jack came nearer. ‘I swam the entire length: four hundred and twenty strokes without a pause!’
‘Well done,’ said Jack, swinging himself into the boat with an easy roll. ‘Well done indeed.’ Each stroke must have propelled Stephen a little less than three inches, for the Surprise was only a twenty-?eight gun ship, a sixth-? rate of 579 tons - the kind so harshly called a jackass frigate by those not belonging to her. ‘Should you like to come aboard? Let me give you a hand.’
‘No, no,’ cried Stephen, drawing away. ‘I shall manage perfectly well. For the moment I am taking my ease. I thank you, however.’ He hated to be helped. Even at the beginning of the voyage, when his poor twisted limbs would hardly carry him along the deck he had detested it, and yet daily he had made a stated number of turns from the taffrail to the break of the head and back again; daily, after they had reached the height of Lisbon, he had crawled into the mizen-?top, allowing no man but Bonden to attend him, while Jack watched in agony from below and two hands darted about on deck with a fender to break his fall. And every evening he forced his mutilated hand to skip up and down the muted strings of his ‘cello, while his set face turned a paler grey. But Lord, what progress he had made! This last frantic swim would have been infinitely beyond his strength only a month ago, to say nothing of their time in Portsmouth.
‘What were you saying about the Hellespont?’ he asked.
‘How wide is it?’
‘Why, not above a mile or so - point-?blank range from either side.’
‘The next time we go up the Mediterranean,’ said Stephen, ‘I shall swim it.’
‘I am sure you will. If one hero could, I am sure another can.’
‘Look, look! Surely that is a tern, just above the horizon,’ cried Stephen.
‘Where away?’
‘There, there,’ said Stephen, releasing his hold to point. He sank at once, bubbling; but his pointing hand remained above the surface. Jack seized it, heaved him inboard and said, ‘Come, let us dart up the stern-?ladder. I can smell our coffee, and we have a busy morning ahead of us.’ He took the painter, pulled the boat up to the frigate’s stern, and guided the ladder into Stephen’s grasp.
The bell struck; and at the pipe of the bosun’s call the hammocks came flying up, close on two hundred of them, to be stowed with lightning rapidity into the nettings, with their numbers all turned the same way; and in the rushing current of seamen Jack stood tall and magnificent in a flowered silk dressing-?gown, looking sharply up and down the deck. The smell of coffee and bacon was almost more than he could bear, but he meant to see this operation through: it was by no means as brisk as he could wish, and some of those hammocks were flabby, dropsical objects. Hervey would have to start using a hoop again. Pullings, who had the morning watch, was forward, causing a hammock to be re-?lashed in an un-?Sunday tone of voice - he was obviously of the same opinion. It was Jack’s usual custom to invite the officer of the morning watch and one of the youngsters to breakfast with him, but this was to be a particularly social day later on, and Callow, the squeaker in question, had burst out into an eruption of adolescent spots, enough to put a man off his appetite. Dear Pullings would certainly forgive him.
An eddy in the tide brought a civilian staggering over the quarterdeck. This was Mr Atkins, the envoy’s secretary, an odd little man who had already given them a deal of
trouble - strange notions of his own importance, of the accommodation possible in a small frigate, and of seagoing customs; sometimes high and offended, sometimes over-?familiar.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said Jack.
‘Good morning, Captain,’ cried Atkins, falling into step as Jack started his habitual pacing - no idea of the sacrosanctity of a captain, and in spite of his before-?breakfast shrewishness Jack could hardly tell him of it himself. ‘I have good news for you. His Excellency is far better today - far better than we have seen him since the beginning of the trip. I dare say he will take the air presently. And I think I may venture to hint,’ he whispered, taking Jack’s reluctant arm and breathing into his face, ‘that an invitation to dinner might prove acceptable.’
‘I am delighted to hear that he is better,’ said Jack, disengaging himself. ‘And I trust that we may soon have the pleasure of his company.’
‘Oh, you need not be anxious - you need not make any great preparations. H.E. is quite simple - no distance or pride. A plain dinner will do very well. Shall we say today?’
‘I think not,’ said Jack, looking curiously at the little man by his side. ‘I dine with the gunroom on Sunday. It is the custom.’
‘But surely, Captain, surely no previous engagement can stand in the way - His Majesty’s direct
