The Golden Ocean. Patrick O’Brian

      ‘And you put to sea in those?’ asked Captain Kidd.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter, wonderingly; for to him it was an everyday occurrence.

      ‘In those seas,’ said the Commodore, ‘it must be a very fine apprenticeship for those that survive.’

      ‘But sir,’ said Peter, made uncommonly bold by the Commodore’s affability, ‘there is the disadvantage that we call the things by Irish names; and although a man may be able to work one of our boats through the sea and it standing straight up to the sky, he sounds but a sad looby in a man-of-war when he calls the mast the tree, as we do at home.’

      ‘Never mind,’ said the Commodore. ‘When I first went to sea I could not make out why the half-deck was so small compared with the quarter-deck. It will all come in time, if you have a seaman’s right resolution. By Heaven,’ he said, breaking off, ‘I wish we had a few score of your villagers here. Kidd, have you heard of the shabby trick the guardship played on poor Legge, after he had been promised ten able seamen?’

      The conversation drifted away to the manifold difficulties of manning the fleet, and Peter spoke no more; but he was very much happier than he had been, and when dinner was over he went on deck with a much lighter heart.

      ‘Mr Palafox,’ said the first lieutenant, looking upon him with an unwontedly favourable eye, ‘you may go with Mr Keppel in the cutter: he is taking a party up the coast to see if he can press a few men. Look lively now, and tell them not to hang too much cloth on the tree,’ he added, with a curiously human smile.

      The cutter was alongside, still hooked on in the chains, and Peter dropped down as the boat reached the top of a wave.

      ‘Mr Saunders said I was to come,’ he said.

      ‘I see,’ said Keppel, with chilling indifference. ‘Give way,’ he ordered, and the boat pulled away into the eye of the wind.

      Half-way to the shore they passed the liberty boat, and in the sheets Peter saw FitzGerald huddled in his boat-cloak. He looked ghastly pale; and he made no sign as they passed.

      ‘Do you know what the other Teague has done?’ said Hope to Keppel, meeting him on the Hard.

      ‘No?’

      ‘He has fought with an ensign of the 43rd and has a ball through his leg.’

       Chapter Five

      ‘FORTY-FIVE DEGREES, OUGHT MINUTES NORTH, AND FIFTEEN degrees thirty-one minutes of West longitude,’ said Keppel, making a decorative flourish under his answer.

      ‘Mr Palafox?’ asked the schoolmaster.

      ‘I have not quite worked it out yet, sir,’ said Peter, breathing heavily over his slate.

      ‘Mr Hope?’

      ‘It does not seem right, sir,’ said Hope, looking doubtfully at his reckoning. ‘I have 20° 1’ South and 143° 50’ East.’