'I am with you now,' said Stephen, starting up. 'Pray lead on.'
'There,' said Jack as they all three stood at the quarterdeck barricade, facing forward. There were several other officers on the leeward side and they too watched Stephen's face attentively.
'Where am I to look?' he asked.
'Why, everywhere,' cried both Jack and Fielding.
'It seems much the same to me,' said Stephen.
'Oh for shame,' cried Jack amidst a general sound of disapproval. 'Do not you see the loathesome deck?'
'The rope-yarns hanging about in the rigging?' asked Fielding.
'The loose reef-points?' asked the master, moved beyond discretion.
'The fag-ends of rope everywhere?'
'There is a blue patch on this near topsail that may not have been there yesterday,' said Stephen, anxious to please. 'And perhaps the sail itself is less bright than usual.' This had no success however: pursed lips, shaken heads, mutual looks of intelligence; while behind him an involuntary growl burst from the quartermaster at the con.
'Perhaps I had better occupy myself with what I am more competent to judge,' he said. 'I shall take my morning rounds. Do you choose to accompany me, sir?'
Jack ordinarily visited the sick-berth with the surgeon, to ask the invalids how they did - an attention that was much appreciated - but this morning he excused himself, adding 'You were no doubt misled by our not having shifted the other sails; but it will be clearer after dinner.'
Even before dinner the change was somewhat more evident. Stephen came on deck in time to see the taking of the sun's altitude as it crossed the meridian. He had been present at this ceremony times without number, but he had rarely seen it carried out so earnestly - every sextant and quadrant the Nutmeg possessed was in action and all the midshipmen stood elbow to elbow along her starboard gangway - and never with the ship in such a condition. The tide of squalor had flowed aft, almost reaching the holy quarterdeck, and even the most unobservant eye could not fail to notice the grimy, patched topsails (the most striking contrast to the brilliant sunlit white of the courses, topgallants and royals, and their own spotless studdingsails), the carefully dulled brass, the uneven ratlines, the dirty buckets hung here and there in defiance of all decency, the general air of advanced seediness. Many of the hands had spent their time on line-of-battle ships, which called for sweepers almost every glass and which never, never resorted to practices of this kind; and at first they looked upon the deliberate profanation with horror. But gradually they had been won over, and now, with the enthusiasm of converts, they daubed her sides with filth, almost to excess.
The ceremony came to its invariable end with the first lieutenant stepping across the deck, taking off the hat that he had put on for the purpose, reporting noon to Captain Aubrey and receiving the reply 'Make it so, Mr Fielding,' which gave the new naval day its legal existence. And immediately after this, as eight bells was struck and the hands were piped to dinner with the usual roaring and trampling, he noticed Jack and the master exchange a nod of satisfaction, from which he concluded without much difficulty that the Nutmeg, racing along in this spirited way, her bow-wave flung white and wide, was doing so on the right parallel.
Their own dinner, which again they took by themselves in the austere, echoing great cabin, was barely edible, Wilson having lost his head in the excitement, but apart from observing 'Well, at least the wine goes down well; and I believe there is rice pudding to come,' Jack took little notice. After a glass or two he said 'You do understand, Stephen, do you not, that all this is merely provisional, just in the event that the Corn?e has done exactly what I want her to have done?' Stephen smiled and nodded, reflecting 'And I do understand how the evil eye can be attempted to be averted.'
Jack went on 'This morning I did not tell you about my sequence of events, though it is of the very first importance. To begin with, I must raise the island at first light to make sure whether the Corn?e is there or not: it would be absurd to carry out some of the more extravagant capers I have in mind until that is decided. I am reasonably confident that we can do so, and with most of the night to spare: the master and I and Dick Richardson all agree very closely in our reckoning, and we should have a very good lunar observation tonight with this clear sky. If it tells us that we are where I think we are, I shall reduce sail and draw in gently until dawn, when I hope Nil Desperandum will be in sight, away to leeward.'
'Ha, ha,' said Stephen, fired for once with a kind of martial fervour. 'I shall desire Welby to give me a call at - at four bells, would it be? He sleeps next door: sleeps, that is to say, when he is not trying to learn French, poor soul.'
'I shall send the mate of the watch,' said Jack. 'Then suppose she is there, we strike topgallantmasts down on deck, dip below the horizon, carry out my other capers, and stand in under topsails, quite leisurely, you understand, because if circumstances are not right - and everything depends on circumstances - or if my direct attack fails, I must entice her out a little after noon, so that we may run through the Passage in the night; and after moonset I can draw ahead, put the helm hard over, nip behind my island, showing neither a glim nor a scrap of canvas and lying to a drift-anchor till she passes, chasing the lights of the boat we have sent on. And once she is, once she is to leeward - why, there we are. We have the weather-gage!'
'Ah? Very good. Will I pour you some wine?'
'If you please. Capital port: have rarely drunk better. Stephen, you are aware of the importance of the weather-gage, are you not? I do not have to explain that a better sailer who has the weather-gage can force an action as and when she chooses? The Nutmeg cannot play at long bowls with the Corn?e, cannot keep up a broadside battle at long range; but coming up fast in her wake she can range alongside, hammer her and board her. Though of course I do not have to tell you that.'
'It would be strange if the weather-gage had to be explained to so old a sea-dog; though I must confess that there was a time when I confused it with that thing which creaks on the roof, showing which way the wind is blowing. Yet could you not obtain this valuable gage by some less arduous means than running a hundred miles and hiding behind a more or less mythical island which no one has ever seen, and that in the dark, a perilous proceeding if ever there was one?'
'Why, no. I cannot work to windward of him without exposing myself to his broadside at a distance, which our ship cannot stand: and if I reduce sail to let him come up he will very naturally decline, put his helm down and batter me from beyond the effective range of carronades. For I cannot go on the assumption that the Corn?e has no more powder than the Alkmaar's four barrels. And as for the island, it is not mythical at all. There are two of them, rising steep-to from fifty fathom and well surveyed. The Dutch used the Passage a great deal, and Raffles gave me an excellent chart. But even so, let us hope that the first plan of running in and boarding her straight away comes to root. That is to say...' He paused, frowning.
