Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon Read Free Book Online Page A

release, if only for moments at a time, from Its Claims upon the Attention. "Sad to say, Boys, I was well below, and preoccupied with sea-
      surgery, learning what I needed to know of it upon the Spot. By the end of the Engagement I was left with nothing but my Faith between me and absolute black Panic. Afterward, from whatever had happen'd upon that patch of secular Ocean, I went on to draw Lessons more abstract.
    "Watching helplessly as we closed with the l'Grand, I felt that with each fraction of a second, Death was making itself sensible in new
    ways        We were soon close enough to hear the creak and jingling of the
    gun tackle and the rumble of trucks upon the deck, then to see the ends
of the rammers backing through the gun-ports, and vanishing as car
tridges and wads were pushed into place, and the high-pitch'd foreign
jabbering as we lean'd ever closer     
    "Broadsides again and again, punctuated by tacking so as to present the Guns of the other Side,— ringing cessations in which came the Thumps of re-loading, the cries of the injur'd and dying, nausea, Speech-lessness, Sweat pouring,— then broadsides once more. Each time the firing stopp'd, there seem'd hope, for a Minute, that we'd got away and it was over,.. .until we'd hear the Gun-Tackle being shifted, and feel in the dark the deck trying to tilt us over, charg'd with the moments, upon the downward Roll, just before the Guns, vibrating in a certain way we had come to expect,— and when it came no more, we stood afraid to breathe, because of what might be next.
    "The Astronomers and I meanwhile endur'd intestinal agonies so as not to be the first to foul his breeches in front of the others, as the Spars came crashing from above, and the cannon sent sharp Thuds thro' the Ship like cruel fists boxing our ears, knocking cockroaches out of the overhead,— Blows whose personal Malevolence was more frightening even than their Scale,— the Ship's hoarse Shrieking, a great Sea-animal in pain, the textures of its Cries nearly those of the human Voice when under great Stress."
    Altho' Dixon is heading off to Sumatra with a member of the Church of England,— that is, the Ancestor of Troubles,— a stranger with whom he moreover but hours before was carousing exactly like Sailors, shameful to say, yet, erring upon the side of Conviviality, will he decide to follow Fox's Advice, and answer "that of God" in Mason, finding it soon enough
    with the Battle on all 'round them, when both face their equal chances of imminent Death.
    Dissolution, Noise, and Fear. Below-decks, reduced to nerves, given in to the emprise of Forces invisible yet possessing great Weight and Speed, which contend in some Phantom realm they have had the bad luck to blunder into, the Astronomers abide, willing themselves blank yet active. Casualties begin to appear in the Sick Bay, the wounds inconceivable, from Oak-Splinters and Chain and Shrapnel, and as Blood creeps like Evening to Dominion over all Surfaces, so grows the Ease of giving in to Panic Fear. It takes an effort to act philosophickal, or even to find ways to be useful,— but a moment's re-focusing proves enough to show them each how at least to keep out of the way, and presently to save steps for the loblolly boy, or run messages to and from other parts of the ship.
    After the last of the Gun-Fire, Oak Beams shuddering with the Chase, the Lazarette is crowded and pil'd with bloody Men, including Capt. Smith with a great Splinter in his Leg, his resentment especially powerful,— "I'll have lost thirty of my Crew. Are you two really that important?" Above, on deck, corpses are steaming, wreckage is ev'ry-where, shreds of charr'd sail and line clatter in the Wind that is taking the Frenchman away.
    What conversation may have passed between the Post-Captain and the Commandant? He wore the Order of the Holy Ghost, the white Dove plainly visible thro' the Glass,— St.-Foux, almost certainly, yet commanding a different Ship.