Jack glanced at the paper. 'No,' he said. 'No. It is not pleasing. Let us try to show them something rather better. Stephen, it is long since you watched a great-gun exercise,and I do not remember ever having shown you a ship firing both sides at targets. Should you like to watch?'
'I should like it of all things.'
As they walked out on to the quarterdeck Pullings gave the order to beat to arms, and above the thunder of the drum Jack said 'It is just the main batteries, you understand, the gun-deck and the upper deck, the thirty-two pounders and the eighteens.'
Even Dr Maturin could not have supposed that this was a normal great-gun exercise, with the hands called away from their ordinary occupation to run their pieces in and out three or four times before being dismissed. Not at all: it was meant, and everyone in the squadron knew it was meant, as an example of how these things should be done in battle: and everyone in the Bellona was exceedingly anxious that the pennant-ship's example should indeed be exemplary, for not only was there already a very high degree of pride in the barky, but even among those who had served with him from his very first command, a lumpish brig in the Mediterranean, there was a strong inclination to please the Commodore, or more exactly to avoid his displeasure, which could be devastating, above all at present. From an early hour Mr Meares, the gunner, his mate, the quarter-gunners and of course the guncrews, first captain, second captain, sponger, fireman, sail-trimmers, boarders, powder-boys and Marines, had been titivating their pieces, greasing trucks, begging slush from the cooks to ease the blocks, arranging tackles and shot-garlands just so, while the midshipmen and officers in charge of stated divisions also fussed over every detail of powder-horns, wads, cartridge-cases, locks, works and the like: and this each crew did on both the starboard and larboard batteries, for although the Bellona had rather better than five hundred people aboard, that was not enough to provide men for each side, and a single crew had to serve two guns.
The crews, often captained by old Surprises, used to Jack Aubrey's ways, or at all events by men who had seen a great deal of action, had been formed as soon as Jack took command and they had practised together ever since. They should have been confident, but they were not. They settled their handkerchiefs round their heads, hitched their trousers, spat on their hands and stared out forward into the brilliant light over the smooth-heaving sea, their black, brown, or whitish deep-tanned upper parts unconsciously swaying with the heave of the deck as they waited for the signal-gun from the quarterdeck and the appearance of the targets.
'Very well, Mr Meares,' said Captain Pullings, and the shrill gun went off: its smoke had barely swept astern before the starboard target appeared, three masses of casks and worn-out sailcloth flying on upright spars, each representing the forecastle, waist and quarterdeck of a ship of the line, the whole towed on a long cablet by the boats of the squadron. And at a two-minute interval came the larboard set, also travelling at an easy pace within three hundred yards.
'From forward aft, fire as they bear,' called Pullings from the quarterdeck, and on the gun-deck the second lieutenant echoed his words. Jack set his stop-watch.
Two long heaves, with the ship rolling seven degrees, all her teeth showing; and on the next rise the gun-deck bow thirty-two pounder uttered its enormous sullen roar, shooting out a stab of flame that lit the whole jet of smoke, and its ball struck barrel-staves from the target: cheers down the line from both decks, but the bow-gun's crew had no time for such things - they held the gun at its full recoil, sponged, loaded with cartridge and then ball, rammed the wad home with furious speed, heaved the fifty-five-hundredweight monster out again with a crash and raced across to the larboard side, where the second captain had all ready for them to point their massive piece at the next. By this time the firing had run half way down both gun and upper decks on the starboard side. The shattering din, the billowing smoke had already confused Stephen's spirits and the perception, but now the uproar redoubled as the larboard guns came into play and still another set of targets moved within range. He had an impression of enormous, overwhelming noise, shot through and through with fierce jets of intense, concentrated labour where he could see the gun-crews in the waist, shining with sweat as they heaved and pointed and fired their gun before leaping across to the other, never getting in one another's way, never stumbling - almost no words - gestures, nods immediately understood.
Then, with a last deliberate thirty-two pounder right aft, it was all over, and silence fell on the deafened world. The smoke-bank drifted to leeward, clear of the squadron. Jack looked at the anxious Tom and said 'I am afraid it was not quite the equivalent of three broadsides in five minutes, Captain Pullings.'
'I am afraid not, sir,' said Tom, shaking his head.
'Yet it was not very far off; and we shall soon work up to something a little brisker,' Jack went on. 'And in any case it did give a general idea of what may be expected, a moderately good general idea. What did you make of it, Doctor?'
'I had no idea that fighting both sides was so very strenuous,' said Stephen in that rather loud voice usual after heavy gunfire, 'nor so very skilled and dangerous, with the cannon recoiling on either hand, with such shocking force. The single broadside I have seen often enough, and it called for surprising agility, but this passes all imagination. I watched them at their frightful task in the waist' - nothing over the quarterdeck barricade down to the upper-deck eighteen-pounders, now being housed and all their implements made fast - 'but below, in the gun-deck itself, with those vast pieces booming in one's ear on either side and all the smoke, it must have been very like Hell itself.'
'Use makes master,' observed Jack. 'It is wonderful what one can grow accustomed to. Not many people could stand your saws and buckets of blood, but you do not turn a hair.' He turned to walk back to the cabin and Stephen was about to follow him when the senior assistant surgeon approached. 'Forgive me, sir,' he said, 'but we are much concerned at Mr Gray's condition - the first lieutenant - Macaulay thinks it may be a very sudden and acute attack of the stone; and with submission I agree.'
'I will come at once, Mr Smith,' said Stephen; and as they passed down, deck after deck, so the patient's strangled cries became more evident. Stephen's coming was some relief, and Gray stopped for the length of a quick examination - quick, since there was no doubt about the matter - but as soon as he was eased back the groaning began again, though he bit on sheet and blanket with all his strength, his body arched and quivering with the pain. Stephen nodded, went to his dispensary, took out his untouched tincture of laudanum (once his own solace and delight, and very nearly his destruction, it being a liquid form of opium) and some leeches, poured a dose that made his assistants stare, gave them instructions about instruments and bandages, placed half a dozen leeches, told the young men in Latin that he entirely agreed and that as soon as the patient was in a fit state - should he survive that far - he would operate, probably early in the morning: The carpenter would have the necessary chair prepared: there was a measured drawing in Archbold.
He returned to the quarterdeck and there paced for a while in the sweet evening. The squadron was standing south-southeast under an easy sail and from the forecastle of the Stately, next astern, came the sound of music, the hands dancing in the last dog-watch. At one point he saw Killick in the halfdarkness, who said to him 'There will be a rare old duck for supper tonight, sir,' in a kindly, protective tone before padding along the gangway to the forecastle: thence by way of the shrouds, he reached the foretop, that broad, comfortable platform high above the deck, with folded studdingsails for cushions and a splendid view of the leading ships steering for Africa under courses and single-reefed topsails beneath a sky already filling with starts. But Killick was as indifferent to the stars as he was to the beauty of the Laurel, the lovely little twenty-two-gun ship just ahead. He had come aloft by appointment, to one of the very few places in the ship (zoo people and more in a space 170 feet long by 46 feet 9
