‘The day was not seen on the face of the earth when I would be stealing a boat,’ said Sean. ‘But we being so pressed, the way she is sailing with this very tide, and they being wishful to delay us for their own profit, I said your honour would leave the boat hire with the boat. And the rightful fare is fourteen pence. Behind the island she is lying, the Mary Rose: will you go on to the other tack, so?’
‘No. We’ll lie a little longer on this,’ said Peter, bracing himself against the heel of the boat as the wind laid her down and the water raced gurgling under the side. ‘Now,’ he said, having put her shaving round the stern of the wherry, ‘now over—sit down, FitzGerald,’ he cried.
‘Well, upon my honour,’ said FitzGerald, rubbing his head where the boom had rapped it, ‘what strange things you do.’
Presently he sat up again, settled his hat upon his head, and gazed about. ‘So this is the sea,’ he observed. ‘I say, there is a vast great deal of it.’
‘No it an’t,’ said Peter. ‘This is only the Cove of Cork. The brig lies behind the island there. The main sea is beyond.’
The next tack showed them the far side of the island, and Sean said, ‘There she is, and her topsails are loosed.’ As he spoke a thin white line of sail on the brig spread suddenly into a rectangle, bellying out in the wind and straightening as they sheeted home and hauled away.
‘We shall be lucky if we catch her,’ said Peter, edging the boat a little nearer the wind.
‘Would it not be quicker if you went straight, rather than dodging about in this fashion?’ suggested FitzGerald as they went about again.
‘But the wind is straight from her to us,’ said Peter. ‘Sean, give her a hail as soon as you can.’
They were now coming up towards the brig’s starboard quarter, sailing as near the wind as the boat would bear. ‘We shall do it,’ said Peter.
But as they came under the lee of the island the breeze grew lighter and full of flaws. The brig was gathering way and now the water between them was wider.
‘Oh go on, go on,’ urged FitzGerald, wringing his handkerchief between his hands.
Sean put up his hand, and his deep, sonorous hail boomed over the sea; but as if in answer to it there was a burst of white triangles as the brig’s jibs were set and she moved faster away.
FitzGerald groaned. ‘Never mind,’ said Peter, glancing up at the sky, ‘I’ll follow her to England if need be, by the powers.’
‘She’s backing her topsail,’ cried Sean. ‘Hallelujah.’
The brig’s foretopsail yard came round: the sail shivered and filled again. Her speed slackened, and as the boat cleared the island the wind took her true. In another three minutes they were alongside.
‘There,’ said Peter, as he laid the boat along, just kissing the brig, ‘that’s neat, though I say it myself. Up you go,’ he said to FitzGerald, who was gaping at the chains of the brig. ‘There,’ he said, quickly guiding FitzGerald’s hands and propelling him up the side, while Sean struck the sail and laid fourteen pence on the thwart.
‘You Navy chaps are always cutting it fine,’ said the mate of the brig as they came over the side. ‘Now I suppose some poor unfortunate soul will have to take your shallop in tow. Vast heaving, you lubbock,’ he roared in parentheses, and added, ‘The master is below in the cabin.’
The master of the Mary Rose—she was a victualler, chartered by the Admiralty, from Cork for Portsmouth—was no more pleased to see them than his mate, and he spoke sharply about almost missing the tide while some folks disported themselves on shore; but they were both so utterly triumphant and enchanted with having accomplished their care-ridden journey, at having caught up with the brig when all seemed lost at the very last moment, and with being aboard a vessel that would carry them all the rest of the way without any planning or contriving on their part at all, that they were wonderfully cordial to the master; who afterwards confided to the mate his private opinion that ‘the midshipmen came aboard as boiled as a pair of owls’—in which he betrayed a grievous lack of discernment.
‘This is very fine,’ said FitzGerald, with enthusiastic approval, as they stood on deck watching the green hills recede. The steady north-easter sang in the brig’s taut rigging; the sun came out, low under the clouds, lighting the green of the land with an extraordinary radiance. Somewhere behind the haze that hung over Cork, Placidus would be moving composedly along the road to Mallow, carrying Liam away to the north and the west, all over the green country that they might never see again: the thought came into Peter’s head in spite of his excitement; and the same thought was clearly with Sean, who looked long and gravely towards the shore, as so many of his countrymen have done. But FitzGerald, also like many other Irishmen leaving their country, was in tearing high spirits. ‘I am wonderfully pleased with the sea,’ he cried. ‘It was a capital idea, writing to Cousin Wager. I am sure the Navy is far better than the Army in every way. Why, it will be like a boating picnic on the lough, without the troublesome business of going home in the evening. I say, this is famous, is it not, Palafox?’ he said as the Mary Rose lifted to the send of a wave. The wind was blowing across and somewhat against the tide, and a little way out from the land was a line of rough water, chopped up on the invisible swell from the Atlantic: when they crossed Crosshaven, now a sprinkling of white on the loom of the land, the Mary Rose entered this zone of cross forces, and began to grow lively. In an inquisitive manner she pointed her bowsprit up to the sky, then brought it down to explore the green depths below, and her round bows went thump on the sea.
‘This is famous,’ repeated FitzGerald, staggering to keep his footing. ‘Famous,’ he said again, swallowing hard.
‘Do you see that ship?’ cried Peter. ‘No, not that—that’s a ketch—there, right ahead. I believe she’s a man-of-war.’
FitzGerald stared forward beyond the heaving bowsprit, which had now added a curious corkscrewing motion and a sideways lurch to the rest: he groaned, and covered his eyes with his hand.
‘Palafox,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a curse whether the thing is a man-of-war or not. Isn’t it cold?’ A little later he said, ‘Palafox, I am feeling strangely unwell. We should never have eaten that pork at Blarney. Are you feeling unwell, Palafox?’
‘Never better,’ said Peter, still trying to make out the ship.
‘Then perhaps it is the motion of the vessel,’ said FitzGerald, gripping the rail with both hands and closing his eyes. Peter looked at him quickly, and saw that his face had turned a very light green.
‘Come over to this side,’ he said, taking FitzGerald by the elbow, ‘then you can be sick to the lee.’
‘I will not be sick,’ said FitzGerald, without opening his eyes: he pulled his arm away pettishly and shivered all over. ‘And I beg you will not say such disgusting things. Oh.’
‘You will feel better directly if you are,’ said Peter. ‘Some people swallow a piece of fat pork on a string. Come, make an effort.’
‘No,’ said FitzGerald, feebly striking out sideways.
Peter and Sean looked at him with easy compassion.
They were not transfixed with perishing cold; their brains and eyes were not heaving; their mouths were not unnaturally watering; they did not wish the world would come to an end, nor that they could instantly die: indeed, they were having a most enjoyable time—were healthy and disgustingly cheerful.
‘Oh,’ said FitzGerald. He could say no more: Sean plucked him from the rail, to which he clung as the only solid thing in a dissolving universe, and half carried him, half led him below, where Peter stuffed him into a bunk, too far reduced even to curse them, and covered him with blankets.
The wind began to get up in the night and backed round into the