she was so like a Portuguese man-of-war that at a mile even an old experienced hand would have sworn she was all she seemed. Everything was right: colours, officers' uniforms, even the gilded crucifix catching the sun on the quarterdeck.
The old experienced hand would still have sworn it at half a mile: and Captain Aubrey and Mr Allen, who had been standing there side by side with their telescopes fixed on the approaching ship while the keen smell of slow-match wafted about them and hands stood by to cast off the cloths masking the loaded guns, turned to one another with the same expression of dawning comprehension, surprise, disappointment, and relief.
'Thank God we never fired, sir,' said the master.
Jack nodded, and cried, 'Dowse the match, there; dowse the match. Mr Mowett, pennant and colours.' The Portuguese hail came across the water, somewhat testy, and he went on 'Mr Allen, pray reply,' - for the master was fluent in Portuguese - 'and ask the captain to dine with me.'
The Portuguese captain would not dine, but he did accept Jack's apologies and explanation with a good grace. They split a bottle of capital white port in his cabin, and Jack learnt that although there were two American privateers in the harbour of Fayal, neither was the Spartan, nor anything like her size. She had been seen in these waters, but the Portuguese thought she had probably borne away for the Guinea coast, unless conceivably she was lying far to the eastward 'looking out for some of your fat West Indiamen with the full moon to chase them in' he said with a chuckle, for he loved a prize as much as any man living.
The full moon was indeed no great way off, and its increase tended to swallow the wind, so that by the time the Surprise saw her third Spartan, well to the east of Terceira, the Atlantic looked as harmless as the Serpentine, ruffled here and there with light airs and varying breezes. She appeared as ships so often did, from a morning bank of haze: she was lying there to the northward, hull up from the quarterdeck, on the frigate's starboard bow and she too was on the larboard tack. At first she met with little credit. The starboard watch, red legged from cleaning the decks with water that was now quite cold, were sick of this here so-called privateer, sick of this goddam deck-cargo and these bloody side-cloths. it was far too late to come across any Spartan now, and they wanted their breakfast.
Jack, staring out over the sea from the maintop, was much of their opinion, but he did think it worthwhile to call down that hammocks were not to be piped up and that the watch below was to stay there until further orders.
As the light strengthened he was glad he had done so. His very recent experience of a Portuguese man-of-war made the Spartan's disguise - for this was the true, the genuine privateer - less convincing; and in any case the ship over there answered exactly to Pullings' description. A tall ship with massive spars, no doubt very fast indeed, and capable of throwing a shockingly heavy broadside, at least at close quarters. On seeing the Surprise she had at once clapped her helm a-lee, and this seemed to Jack profoundly significant, since it would in time give her the weather-gage. A real Portuguese, with no more than a discretionary duty to inspect, would not go to so much trouble - would not undertake a move which at this distance and in these light airs could come to good only after hours of careful manoeuvring.
Jack steered a corresponding course, and as he took his breakfast in the top he watched her with unremitting attention. By his last cup of coffee he was perfectly convinced of her identity, and his conviction had communicated itself to the crew. From time to time he sent still more men below, so as to reduce his visible crew as nearly to the size of a merchantman's as he could: a difficult task, since at the same time he needed enough hands to make sail and brace round the heavy yards as quickly as the privateer, which, he saw, was very well manned indeed.
The larboard watch, at first delighted with the idea of the starbowlins doing all the cold wet work on deck while they lay like lords in their hammocks, soon became uneasy: then, as more starbowlins were sent below, almost desperate. On the lower deck there were of course no ports nor even scuttles and they were obliged to rely on reports delivered down the forehatchway by their happier companions.
Ships in the Royal Navy differed enormously in the matter of discipline. There were some in which two men could hardly be seen talking together quietly without being put down as malcontents, perhaps potential mutineers, and reported by the master-at-arms. The Surprise was nothing remotely like any of those unhappy vessels, but even so prolonged conversation on duty was not encouraged, especially at a time when exceedingly delicate operations were in hand. The accounts that came down the hatchway were therefore sparse and fragmentary; but uttered by seamen for seamen they gave the broad picture quite accurately.
The two ships lay north and south of one another, and although there were odd cat's paws and small local breezes from other quarters the undoubted general movement of the air was from the westward; and there were signs that in time, perhaps tomorrow, it might freshen. The aim of each captain was to get the weather-gage, that is to say to gain a position westward of the other so that he might come down with the breeze on his best point of sailing and force the engagement at the moment and in the conditions most favourable for himself rather than undertake a long and perhaps inconclusive windward chase, with the continual possibility of having an important spar knocked away by gunfire or carried away by the breeze. But each wished his manoeuvre to seem unstudied, a natural part of his ordinary, peaceful voyage, so that his unsuspecting, unhurrying adversary should let himself be outstripped, thinking no harm.
This added a fresh dimension to the snail-paced but strenuous race to windward, in which every vagrant puff had to be wooed and embraced by all the canvas that could be spread, but it was one that set the Surprise at a disadvantage to begin with, since in her character as a prudent merchantman she had no royal masts above her stump topgallants, and they could hardly be sent up man-of-war fashion without exciting suspicion; nor could royals, skysails, moonsails, stargazers and other flying-kites, all very useful in these mere zephyrs, where the higher air moved somewhat faster than that just over the sea.
The masts and yards were sent up in time and the lofty sails were set upon them, but in the meanwhile the Spartan, profiting by a north-western slant of wind, had come half a mile closer.
This did not suit Jack's book at all. He did not want his ship or his people to be wounded or killed for the sake of a privateer: what he hoped to do was to gain a decided advantage in beating up to the west and then, with the Spartan under his lee and well within reach of his long guns, to throw off his disguise, send a shot across her bows and await her surrender. If it did not come directly, then a couple of broadsides should certainly bring it. But if this present advance went on the privateer would be laying him aboard and there would be a general m?e, the Spartan's forty-two-pound carronades coming into play, with the ship being hurt and a great many people wounded.
Looking very keenly at the cat's paw travelling over the smooth surface and bearing the Spartan with it, Jack leaned over the top-rim and called down his orders. The Surprise turned gently to starboard, glided across towards the Spartan, to within random shot, picked up the cat's paw as it left her and went about, staying with a smooth perfection. For ten or fifteen minutes the Surprise ran fast enough to make the water ripple along her side, leaving the Spartan with all her sails limp, barely capable of steering.
By the time the breeze left the frigate too the balance had been restored. This was reported to the men below, and Faster Doudle, an old and knowing hand, observed that now they could settle down to a luffing-match in peace: the skipper need fear no one in a luffing-match, and as for sailing on a bowline, the barky had no equal
