Clarissa Oakes by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online Page A

quickly ate three more slices of toasted soda-bread, drank another cup of coffee, looked at Jack's tongue with evident satisfaction and hurried away.
       He did not emerge until quite well on in the forenoon watch, and as he came up he met a usual morning procession that had just reached the quarterdeck from the leeward gangway: Jemmy Ducks bearing three hencoops, one empty; Sarah carrying the speckled hen in her arms; and Emily leading the goat Jezebel, all bound for the animals' daytime quarters abaft the wheel.
       Greetings, smiles and bobs; but then Emily said in her clear child's voice 'Miss is weeping and wringing her hands, way up forward.'
       Stephen was thinking 'How well animals behave to children: that goat is a froward goat and the speckled hen a cross ill-natured bird, yet they allow themselves to be led and carried without so much as an oath', and it was a moment before he grasped the force of her remark. 'Ay,' he replied, shaking his head. They moved on with their livestock, greeted by a great quacking of ducks, already installed in a coop with legs.
       He was considering Miss Harvill, the island (much closer now), its cliffs, its tall and strangely ugly trees, when he heard Jack cry 'Jolly-boat's crew away,' and he became aware of the tension on the quarterdeck. All the officers were there, looking unusually grave, and from the forecastle and along the gangways the people gazed steadily aft. All this must have been in train for some time, since getting even a jolly-boat over the side was a laborious business. The hands ran down to their places: the bowman hooked on and they all sat there looking up as boat and ship rose and fell.
       'There is a Norfolk Island petrel,' said Martin at Stephen's elbow; but Stephen only gave the bird a passing glance.
       'Pass the word for my coxswain,' called Jack.
       'Sir?' said Bonden, appearing in a moment.
       'Bonden, take the jolly-boat into the bay between the cape and the small island with the trees on it and see whether it is possible to land through the surf.'
       'Aye aye, sir.'
       'You had better pull in, but you may sail back.'
       'Aye aye, sir: pull in and sail back it is.'
       Jack and Bonden had served many years together; they understood one another perfectly well, and it appeared to Stephen that in spite of their matter-of-fact words and everyday expression some message passed between them; yet though he knew both men intimately he could not tell what that message was.
       They pulled away and away, and once it had set a rise of the swell between itself and the ship the jolly-boat disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, reappeared, smaller each time, heading straight for the land, two miles away. White water on the small island with trees close inshore to the east; white water between that island and the iron-bound coast; white water on the headland to the west; and the bay between had a fringe of white. Yet whereas all the rest of the coast in sight had cliffs dropping almost sheer, this bay possessed a beach, probably a sandy beach, running well back to a moderate slope; and there seemed to be a fairly clear passage in.
       They watched intently, saying little; but at five bells Jack, turning abruptly from the weather-rail, said 'Captain Pullings, we will stand off and on until the boat returns.' And pausing on the companion-ladder he added 'On the inshore leg we might try for soundings' before hurrying below.
       'Philips tells me that there are also parrots, parakeets, gannets and pigeons on the island,' said Martin. 'How I hope we may go ashore! If we cannot land on this side, do you think we may be able to do so on the other?'
       For once Stephen found Martin a tedious companion. Was it possible that the man did not know what landing on Norfolk Island might entail? Yes: on reflexion it was quite possible. Just as Captain Aubrey had been the last person to know that there was a woman aboard his ship, so Nathaniel Martin