down the Moroccan coast under courses and full topsails with an easier following sea and the wind on their larboard quarter; they were still in the order of their leaving, Ringle lying under Surprise’s lee, as became a tender.
This was pure sailing, with a fine regular heave and lift, an urgency of the water along the side, and sea-harping in the taut sheets and windward shrouds, the moon and the stars making their even journey across the clearer sky from bow to quarter, pause and back again.
At eight bells in the first watch the log was heaved and a very small and sleepy boy reported, ‘Twelve knots and one fathom, sir, if you please.’
‘Thank you, Mr Wells,’ said Jack. ‘You may turn in now.’
‘Thank you very much, sir: good night, sir,’ said the child, and staggered off to get four hours’ sleep.
Beautiful sailing, and it was with some reluctance that Jack, having re-arranged his line by signal, so that they sailed Surprise, Pomone, Dover, Ganymede, Rainbow, Briseis, left the deck: he had an overwhelming desire to read his letters again, thoroughly digesting every detail.
The cabin had not yet been fully cleared for action and Stephen was sitting there with the light of an Argand lamp focused by a concave mirror on to the dark purple of that terrible hand, now stretched out by clamps on a board; and he was making an extraordinarily exact drawing of a particular tendon, in spite of the frigate’s motion.
‘What a sea-dog you are become,’ said Jack.
‘I flatter myself that a whole pack of sea-dogs could not have improved upon the forward starboard aspect of this aponeurosis,’ said Stephen. ‘I do it by pressing the underneath of the table with my knees and the top of it with my elbows so that we all, paper, object, table and draughtsman, move together with very little discontinuity - one substance, as it were. To be sure, a fairly regular motion of the vessel is required; and for regularity this slow, even swing could hardly be bettered; though the amplitude calls for such tension that I believe I shall now take a spell.’
They both returned to their heaps of letters - small heaps, since William Reade had kept nagging at the writers about his tide, and since they had had so little notice that many things of the first importance flew out of their heads. Clarissa Oakes wrote by far the best, least flustered account of the household and its return towards something like a normal existence, much helped by the unchanging ritual of the countryside - of Jack’s estate and his plantations in particular - and by the children’s steadily continuing education. Sophie’s two hurried, tear-blotted pages did her heart more credit than her head, but it was clear that the company of Mrs Oakes was a great relief to her; though of course their neighbours far and near were very kind: she asked Jack’s advice about the wording of her mother’s epitaph - the stone was ready and the mason eager to begin - and she referred to the window-tax.
‘Sophie and the children send their love,’ he said, when Stephen laid down the letter he was reading. ‘George tells me that the keeper showed him a sett with young badgers in it.’
‘That is kind of them,’ said Stephen. ‘And Brigid sends you hers, together with a long passage from Padeen that I cannot make out entirely. He told it her in Irish, do you see- they generally speak Irish together - but although she is perfectly fluent in the language she has no notion at all of its orthography, so she writes as it might sound, spoken by an English person. In time I shall find out the meaning, I am sure, by murmuring it aloud.’
He fell to his murmuring, and Jack to a closer study of Sophie’s hurried, distracted words: both were interrupted by the sound of seven bells in the middle watch. Jack tidied his papers, reached for his sextant and stood up. ‘Is anything afoot?’ asked Stephen.
‘I must look at the coast, take our latitude and have a word with William: we should be quite near the height of Laraish by now.’
On deck he found the sky clearer still, with the outline of the shore plain against it. Both wind and sea had been diminishing steadily, and if it had not been for his doubt about the solidity of Dover’s mainmast he would have increased sail some time ago: he glanced down the line - all present and correct - and to leeward, where the schooner was running goose-winged on a course exactly parallel with his, well within hail for a powerful voice. Jack had a powerful voice, strengthened by many, many years of practice; but for the moment he contented himself with looking at the logboard, with all its entries of course and speed, doing some mental arithmetic, and taking the exact, double-checked height of Mizar, a star for which he had a particular affection.
‘Mr Whewell,’ he asked the officer of the watch, ‘what do you make our position?’
‘Just at seven bells, sir, I had a very good observation and found 35* 17’ and perhaps twelve seconds.’
‘Very good,’ said Jack with satisfaction. ‘Let us signal Squadron diminish lights, reduce sail.’ Then, leaning over the rail, ‘Ringle?’
