A savage cheer from all the Surprises in the fore part of the ship showed him that he was seeing it again; and having watched the first few splashes he passed Martin the glass.
The boats went overboard, and the guns: but not quite all the guns. As the Franklin's speed increased, her two stern-chasers fired together, the white smoke streaming away across her wake.
'How disagreeable it is to be fired at,' said Martin, shrinking into as small a space as possible; and as he spoke one ball hit the best bower anchor close behind them with an enormous clang: the sharp fragments, together with the second ball, cut away almost all the foretopgallantmast's support. The mast and its attendant canvas fell quite slowly, spars breaking right and left, and the Surprise's bow-chasers just had time to reply, both shots striking the Franklin's stern. But before either Jack's or Pullings' crew could reload their guns they were enveloped in sailcloth, whilst at the same time all hands aft raised the cry Man overboard and the ship flew up into the wind, all her sails taken aback and clattering like a madhouse. The Franklin fired a single gun: an extraordinary cloud of smoke, and extraordinary report. But it was drowned by Captain Aubrey's roar of 'Clew up, clew up, there,' and emerging from the canvas 'Where away?'
'Larboard quarter, sir,' cried several hands. 'It's Mr Reade.'
'Carry on, Captain Pullings,' said Jack, whipping off his shirt and diving straight into the sea. He was a powerful swimmer, the only one in the ship, and from time to time he heaved himself high out of the water like a seal to make sure of his direction. Mr Reade, a midshipman of fourteen, had never been able to do much more than keep afloat, and since losing an arm in a recent battle he had not bathed at all. Fortunately the remaining arm was firmly hooked into the bars of a hen-coop that had been thrown to him from the quarterdeck, and though sodden and bruised he was perfectly in possession of his wits. 'Oh sir,' he cried from twenty yards, 'Oh sir, I am so sorry - oh how I hope we han't missed the chase.'
'Are you hurt?' asked Jack.
'Not at all, sir: but I am so sorry you should have...'
'Then clap on to my hair' - the Captain wore it long and clubbed, 'and so get set on my shoulders. D'ye hear me there?'
From time to time on the way back to the ship Reade apologized into Jack's ear, or hoped they had not lost the chase; but he was often choked with salt water, for Jack was now swimming against the wind and the set of the sea, and he plunged deep at every stroke.
Reade was less coldly received aboard than might have been expected: in the first place he was much esteemed by all hands, and in the second it was clear to any seaman that his being rescued had not in fact delayed the pursuit of the prize: whether Reade had gone overboard or not, the shattered crosstrees had to be replaced and new spars, sails and cordage had to be sent aloft before the frigate could resume her course. Those few hands who were not extremely busy with the tangle forward passed him the bight of a rope, hauled him aboard, asked him with real kindness how he did, and handed him over to Sarah and Emily Sweeting, two little black, black girls from a remote Melanesian island, belonging to Dr Maturin and attached to the sick-berth, to be led below and given dry clothes and a cup of tea. And as he went even Awkward Davies, who had been rescued twice and who often resented sharing the distinction, called out 'It was me as tossed you the hen-coop, sir. I heaved it overboard, ha, ha, ha!'
As for the Captain, he was already in conference with Mr Bulkeley the bosun, and the only congratulations he received were from Pullings, who said, 'Well, and so you've done it again, sir,' before going on to the foretopmost cheekblocks. Jack looked for no more, indeed not for as much: he had pulled so many people out of the water in the course of his time at sea that he thought little of it, while those who, like Bonden his coxswain, Killick his steward and several others, had served with him ever since his first command, had seen him do it so often that it seemed natural -some God-damned lubber fell in: the skipper fished him out -while the privateersmen and smugglers who made up most of the rest of the crew had acquired much of their shipmates' phlegm.
In any case they were all much too preoccupied with getting the barky into chasing trim again to indulge in abstract considerations; and to objective spectators like Maturin and his assistant it was a pleasure to see the intense, accurately-directed and almost silent energy with which they worked, a highly skilled crew of seamen who knew exactly what to do and who were doing it with whole-hearted zeal. The medicoes, having crawled from under the foretopmast staysail, had gone below to find Reade perfectly well, being fed with sick-berth biscuit by the little girls; and now they were watching the strenuous activity from the quarterdeck, where the ordinary life of the ship was going on in a sparse sort of way: West, the officer of the watch, was at his station, telescope under his arm; helmsmen and quartermaster by the wheel.
'Turn the glass and strike the bell,' cried the quartermaster in a loud official voice.
There was no one there of course to obey the order so he turned the glass himself and paced forward towards the belfry to strike the bell. But both gangways were obstructed with spars, cordage and a crowd of straining bodies, and he had to go down into the waist and pick his way among the carpenter and his crew as they worked sweating under the sun, now half-way to its height and terrible in the copper-coloured sky. They were shaping not only the new crosstrees but also the heel of the new topgallantmast, an intent body of men, working to very fine limits in a rolling ship, plying sharp-edged tools and impatient of the slightest interruption. But the quartermaster was a dogged soul; he had served with Nelson in the Agamemnon and the Vanguard; he was not going to be stopped by a parcel of carpenters; and presently four bells rang out their double chime. The quartermaster returned, followed by oaths and bringing with him the two helmsmen who were to take their trick at the wheel.
'Mr West,' said Stephen, 'do you suppose we shall eat our dinner today?'
Mr West's expression was difficult to read; the loss of his nose, frost-bitten south of the Horn, gave what had been a mild, good-humoured, rather stupid face an appearance of malignity; and this was strengthened by a number of sombre reflexions, more recently acquired.
'Oh yes,' he said absently. 'Unless we are in close action we always shoot the sun and pipe to dinner at noon.'
'No, no. I mean our ceremony in the gunroom.'
'Oh, of course,' said West. 'What with Reade going overboard and the chase stopping us dead and tearing away like smoke and oakum just as we were overhauling her, it slipped my mind. Masthead, there,' he hailed. 'What do you see?'
'Precious little, sir,' the voice came floating down. 'It is cruel hazy - orange sorts of haze - in the south-east; but sometimes I catch what might be a twinkle of topgallants.'
West shook his head, but went on, 'No, no, Doctor; never you fret about our dinner. Cook and steward laid it on handsome, and though we may be a little late I am sure we shall eat it - there, do you see, the crosstrees go aloft. They will be swaying up the mast directly.'
