H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online Page B

could only fire out to sea or at the most sweep 75 of the shore, if traversed. It was a long grind, with the loose sand flying in the wind they always have in these parts filling our eyes and noses and getting into the locks of our pistols. The parson says that the Ancients did not notice this coast; and the Ancients knew what they were about, deep old files - one infernal dust-storm after another. But, however, we got there at last, steering by compass, without their smoking us, gave a cheer and carried the place directly. The Frenchmen left as we came in, all except a little ensign, who fought like a hero until Bonden collared him from behind, when he burst into tears and flung down his sword. We spiked the guns, destroyed the semaphore, blew up the magazine and hurried back to the boats, which had pulled along, carrying their signal-books with us. It was a neat piece of work, though slow: if we had had to reckon with tides, which there are none of here, you know, we should have been sadly out. The Livelies are not used to this sort of caper, but some of them shape well, and they all have willing minds.
    The little officer was still in a great passion when we got him aboard. We should never have dared to show our faces, says he, had the Diomede still been on the coast; his brother was aboard her, and she would have blown us out of the water; someone must have told us - there were traitors about and he had been betrayed. He said something to the effect that she had gone down to Port-Vendres three days or three hours before, but he spoke so quick we could not be certain - no English, of course. Then, something of a cross-sea getting up as we made our offing, he spoke no more, poor lad: piped down altogether, sick as a dog.
    The Diomède is one of their heavy forty-gun eighteen-pounder frigates, just such a meeting as I have been longing for and do long for ever more now, because - don't think badly of me sweetheart - I must give up the command of this ship in a few days' time, and this is my last chance to distinguish myself and earn another; and as anyone will tell you, a ship is as necessary to a sailor as a wife, in war-time. Not at once, of course, but well before everything is over. So we bore away for Port-Vendres (you will find it on the map, down in the bottom right-hand corner of France, where the mountains run down to the sea, just before Spain) picking up a couple of fishing-boats on the way and raising Cape Bear a little after sunset, with the light still on the mountains behind the town. We bought the barca-longas' fish and promised them their boats again, but they were very glum, and we could not get anything out of them - 'Was the Diomède in Port-Vendres? -Yes: perhaps. - Was she gone for Barcelona? -Well, maybe. - Were they a pack of Tom Fools, that did not understand French or Spanish? - Yes, Monsieur' - spreading their hands to show they were only Jack-Puddings, and sorry for it. And the young ensign, on being applied to, turns haughty - amazed that a British officer should so far forget himself as to expect him to help in the interrogation of prisoners; and a piece about Honneur and Patier, which would have been uncommon edifying, I dare say, if we could have understood it all.
    So I sent Randall in one of the barca-longas to look into the port. It is a long harbour with a dog-leg in it and a precious narrow mouth protected by a broad mole and two batteries, one on each side, and another of 24-pounders high up on Bear: a tricky piece of navigation, to take a ship in or out with their infernal tramontane blowing right across the narrow mouth, but an excellent sheltered harbour inside with deep water up to the quays. He came back; had seen a fair amount of shipping inside, with a big square-rigged vessel at the far end; could not be sure it was the Diomede - two boats rowing guard and the dark of the moon - but it was likely.
    Not to bore you with the details, dear, dear Sophie, we laid out five hawsers