companions pumped and baled the launch dry - a good deal of water had come aboard earlier, but now there was no more than the odd waft of spray - his mind moved back to its essential preoccupations. His moral conviction that Vidal had been party to Dutourd's escape was irrational in that it was based on no more than an instinctive distrust of Vidal's first reply; but now that he reflected, gathering all he had ever heard of Dutourd's views and those of the Knipperdollings, all that he knew about enthusiasm and the lengths to which it might lead the enthusiast, it appeared to him that here reason and instinct coincided, as they sometimes did when he fought a battle over again in recollection or at least those phases such as boarding and the hand-to-hand encounter in which there was really no time for deliberation, no time at all. And his reflecting mind approved of his having Ben here in the launch: it might do great good; it would do no harm at all.
Yet how Dutourd had managed to get away was scarcely worth pondering about for any length of time: all that signified was that he had got away and that Stephen had said he should be kept aboard. 'From my point of view it might be impolitic' for him to be set ashore in Peru.
Stephen's point of view had of course to do with intelligence, as Jack knew very well: during an earlier voyage he had seen him drop a box which, bursting, revealed a sum so vast that it could only have been intended for the subversion of a government; and he strongly suspected him of having dished two English traitors, Ledward and Wray, attached to a French mission to the Sultan of Prabang.
In a parenthesis he heard Stephen's voice: 'Tell me, Jack, my dear, is dish a nautical term?'
'We often use it in the Navy,' Jack replied. 'It means to ruin or frustrate or even destroy. Sometimes we say scupper; and there are coarser words, but I shall not embarrass you by repeating them.'
On the windward bow Canopus was just clearing the horizon. 'Stand by to go about,' he called, and his companions ran to their stations. He eased off half a point, cried, 'Helm's a-lee,' and ducking under the boom he brought the launch round in a true smooth curve, filling with barely a check on the starboard tack.
The moon was lowering now, and dimmed by a high veil she gave so little light that he scarcely saw Johnson come aft. 'Shall I spell you now, sir?' he asked, and his teeth showed in the darkness.
'Why, no thank you, Johnson,' said Jack. 'I shall sit here for a while.'
The launch sailed on and on, almost steering herself as the breeze grew lighter: and as the seas declined - no breaking crests at all - so the water became alive with phosphorescence, a pale fire streaming away and away in her wake but also gleaming in vast amorphous bodies at depths of perhaps ten or even twenty fathoms, and at various levels the movement of fishes could be seen, interweaving lanes or sudden flashes.
Jack returned to his reflexions: Stephen's point of view had of course to do with intelligence. This had almost certainly been the case for many, many years, and on occasion Jack had been officially required to seek his advice on political matters. But he had no notion of Stephen's present task: he did not wish to know, either, ignorance being the surest guarantee of discretion. Nor could he imagine how such a man as Dutourd could be any hindrance to whatever task it was. Surely no government, however besotted, could ever think of using such a prating, silly fellow as an intelligence agent or any sort of envoy.
He turned the matter over this way and that. It was an exercise as useful as trying to solve an equation with innumerable terms of which only two could be read. To windward there was a vast expiring sigh as a sperm whale surfaced, black in a corruscation of green light, an enormous solitary bull. His spout drifted across the launch itself, and he could be heard drawing in the air, breathing for quite some time; then easily, smoothly, he shouldered over and dived, showing his flukes in a final blaze.
Jack continued with his pointless exercise, with one pause when Johnson spelled him, until the end of the watch, ending with no more valuable observation than that with which he had begun: if Dutourd was in any way a threat to Stephen on shore it was his clear self-evident duty to get the man aboard again if it could be done, and if it could not, then at least to take Stephen off.
From the end of the watch at four he slept until six, blessing himself for this eye, but uneasy about the failing breeze, still right in their teeth, but barely carrying the launch close-hauled at more than five knots, and they measured by a hopeful mind.
It did not surprise him to wake to a calm, but for a moment he was surprised by the strong smell of frying fish: there was still an hour to go before breakfast.
'Good morning, sir,' said Killick, creeping in with his dressings. 'Flat calm and an oily swell.' But this he said without his usual satisfaction in bringing unwelcome news, and he went on, 'Which Joe Plaice asks pardon, but could not help having a cast; and breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. It would be a shame to let it grow cold.'
'Then bring me the hot water, and as soon as I am shaved I shall come on deck. You can do my eye afterwards: it is much better.'
'I knew as how Gregory would do it,' cried Killick, a look of triumphant happiness on his face. 'I shall double the dose. I knew I was right. It rectifies the humours, you understand.'
Joe Plaice, a steady forecastle-hand, was good at all the countless skills required of an able seaman, but he was an absolute artist in the use of a casting-net: poised on the bowsprit, with his left hand on the stay, he swung the net with his right, throwing it with an exactly-calculated twist that spread its weighted edge so that the whole fell flat as a disk on the surface just over one of the countless bands of anchovies that surrounded the launch for miles in every direction. The little fishes stared in amazement or even tried to leap upwards. The weights quickly carried the edge of the net down and inwards; a string drew them together; and the imprisoned fish were drawn aboard. Half the first cast had been eaten by the helmsman, who was always fed first; the second half and two more were eaten fresh and fresh by all hands, sitting on the deck round a large pan, itself poised over charcoal on a raised iron plate.
'By God, this is good,' said Jack, sweeping up the juice with his biscuit. 'There is nothing better than your really fresh anchovy.' 'It must die in the pan,' observed Plaice. 'It is deadly poison else.' There was a general murmur of assent. 'Very true,' said Jack. 'But I tell you what, shipmates,' he went on, nodding towards the east-south-east, 'you had better blow your kites out, you had better eat all you can, because God knows when you will have another hot meal. Or a cold one, for that matter. Ben, do you know what a wind-gall is?'
The very young man blushed, choked on his fish, and in a strained voice, looking nervously at his companions, said, 'Well, sir, I seen the ordinary kind.'
'Look out to leeward, a little afore the beam, and you will see one a long way out of the ordinary.'
'It was not there when we set to breakfast,' said Joe Plaice.
'And to leeward too, oh dear, oh dear,' said Johnson. 'God bless us.'
