was by means of music; but he had a strong sense of piety and he attended gravely to the familiar Anglican service, conducted with a fine decorum in spite of the multitudes of quails. Yet at the same time the sailor remained keenly alert, and he noticed that the breeze had not only diminished but that it was fast backing to its original quarter. The birds had stopped landing, though they were still thick on the deck. The Berwick now had the wind two points free and she was tearing along under skysails and kites, a remarkable display of canvas and of zeal. 'He don't spare the dimity,' Jack reflected: he frowned and shook his head at Mr Appleby, who had induced a quail to sit on his shining, tasselled Hessian boot, and glancing beyond him he saw the Berwick's signal break out aboard the flagship.
They sang a hymn - it blended strangely with those coming from the ships within earshot - and then sat down to hear the sermon. Mr Martin had a low opinion of his powers as a preacher and usually he read a sermon by South or Tillotson, but this time he was to expound a text of his own. While he was searching for it - the marker had blown away during the last hymn but one -Jack noticed Stephen on the forecastle: he was directing the Worcester's other Papists, her two Jews and the Lascars she had inherited from the Skate to gather quails in baskets and launch them over the leeward side. Some flew off quite strongly: others returned.
'My text,' said Mr Martin at last, 'is from the eleventh chapter of the Book of Numbers, verses thirty-one to thirty-four: 'And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: and he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round the camp. And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. And he called the name of that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people that lusted.' Now Kibroth-hattaavah, in Hebrew, signifies the graves of those that lusted, and from this we are to understand that lust is the gateway to the grave . . .'
Church was over. The remaining quails, now regarded with deep suspicion as Jonahs, were encouraged to leave the ship, and the Worcester's people began to look forward with keen anticipation to their Sunday pork and plum-duff. The Berwick's barge left the flagship, her captain looking extremely grave; as it came within hail Jack asked Bennet to dinner, observing, as his guest came up the larboard side without ceremony, 'I shall be able to introduce your new chaplain: he is aboard of us. Pass the word for Mr Martin. Mr Martin: Captain Bennet. Captain Bennet: Mr Martin. Mr Martin has just given us a most impressive sermon.'
'Not at all,' said Martin, looking pleased.
'Oh yes, yes: I was immensely struck by the consequences of lust, by the graves of those that lusted,' said Jack, and it occurred to him that there could be no better prelude to the more or less veiled warning that it was his duty as a friend to give Harry Bennet.
The prelude was perfect, yet the warning never followed. Bennet had had an extremely disagreeable quarter of an hour, but it was only with the Captain of the Fleet, the Admiral being engaged with some Oriental gentlemen, and his spirits revived as soon as he had a glass of Hollands in him. They rose still higher at table, and from the beginning of the meal to his red-faced, jolly departure he entertained Jack with a detailed account of Miss Serracapriola's charms, physical, intellectual and spiritual; he showed him a lock of her very surprising hair, and spoke of his progress in Italian, the extraordinary beauty of her voice, her skill in playing the mandolin, the pianoforte, the harp. 'Nelson kissed her when she was a child,' he said on taking his leave, 'and you may do so, once we are married.'
Jack usually slept very well, unless legal worries filled his mind, but swinging in his cot to the south-eastern swell and staring at the tell-tale compass over his head by the light of a small constantly-burning lantern, he said, 'It is a great while since I kissed anyone.' Bennet's glowing account of his Sicilian had moved Jack strangely; he could see her supple form, the particular warmth of southern beauty; he remembered the scent of a woman's hair, and his thoughts wandered to Spanish girls he had known. 'It is a very great while since I kissed anyone,' he said as he heard three bells strike in the middle watch and the discreet cry of the nearer lookouts, 'Life-buoy - starboard quarterdeck - starboard gangway', 'and it will be even longer before I do so again. There is no duller life on earth than a blockade.'
Sometimes the squadron wore every watch, sometimes every two, according to the wind, as the ships beat to and fro across the likely paths of the Toulon fleet, and far out on either wing lay what frigates or brigs the Admiral could spare. Sometimes they stretched across to raise Sardinia when the breeze might let Emeriau come out eastwards; sometimes almost down to Mahon in line abreast when the mistral blew; and sometimes they stood in to speak to the inshore squadron. Day after day of much the same manoeuvres, continually looking out; but nobody did they see, never a sail but for the odd rigs from up the Mediterranean for the Admiral, otherwise only sea and sky, perpetually changing but still essentially sea and sky. Never a victualler, never a word from the outside world.
Unseasonable drizzling weather from the south brought them fresh water to wash their clothes, but it stopped the dancing on the forecastle, and although the oratorio boomed on between decks, the deeper passages echoing like an organ, Jack felt the general tone of the ship sink half a tone.
Some stood the monotony better than others. The midshipmen's berth did not seem aware of it: with some of the younger officers they were preparing a stage-play; and Jack, recalling his own youth, recommended Hamlet. There was no dramatic poet he preferred to Shakespeare, he said. But Mr Gill, the master, grew sadder still, a dead weight at the wardroom table, and Captain Harris of the Marines, who had far less to do than Gill, increased his already heavy drinking; he was never drunk, never anything but amiably hazy, but he was never wholly sober. Somers, on the other hand, was often unsteady, incoherent, and disagreeable: Pullings did his best to check him, but no one could take the private bottles from his cabin.
He had the afternoon watch at a time when Jack, Pullings and the purser were busy with the ship's books and accounts in the fore-cabin. The squadron was sailing in line abreast under all plain sail, the moderate northwest breeze one point free, when the signal came to tack together, an unusual order, since the Admiral almost always required them to wear, as being kinder to the older, more battered ships - as being more economical in every way, seeing that tacking involved risks to material that wearing did not. Jack heard the cry of 'All hands about ship', but his mind was taken up with the question of changing the people's rations from wine to grog and he thought no more of it until a passionate bawling on deck and a pounding of feet jerked him from his chair. Three strides brought him on to the quarterdeck and one glance showed him that the Worcester had missed stays. She still had a good deal of way on her, though the foretopsail was braced to, and she was about to run her bowsptit over the Pompee's waist. In the thunderous shaking of canvas hands gazed aft for orders: Somers stared, bemused. 'Back the foretopsail,' called Jack. 'Port your helm. Flat in forward, there.' The ship's way was checked but even so the gap narrowed: narrowed horribly, yet not quite to disaster. The Worcester's bowsprit passed six inches astern of the Pompee's taffrail. 'Bartholomew Fair,' shouted her captain as she drew clear and the Worcester gathered sternway. Jack wore his ship round on to the larboard tack, let fall his topgallantsails and ran her up to her rightful station. He turned to Somers, who was looking red and sullen, visibly unsteady: 'How did this lubberly state of affairs come about?' he asked.
'Anyone can miss stays,' said Somers in a thick, heavy voice.
'What kind of an answer is this?' said Jack. 'You are playing with your duty, sir.' He was very angry indeed: the
