The Hundred Days by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online Page A

neither floating free nor firmly ashore, with what
conveniences the land might provide.
    The squadron, necessarily gathered together in a
hurry and necessarily short-handed, had to be thoroughly reorganized, above all
the unhappy Pomone: a ship always suffered from a trial for sodomy and although
her people had not been in her for anything like an ordinary commission it was
long enough for them to feel their position acutely - to resent the calls they
heard ashore or the smiles and meaning silence when a group of them walked into
a bar. After all, one of their officers had been dismissed from the service in
the most ignominious fashion possible and towed ashore on a grating in the view
of countless spectators; and some of the discredit clung to his former
shipmates. This corporate shame had a thoroughly bad effect on discipline,
which had never been the Pomone’s strongest point; and a new captain, with a
second lieutenant who knew nobody aboard, was unlikely to remedy this state of
affairs in the near future. She did have a good bosun, however, and the gunner,
though discouraged, was willing and knowledgeable. He and Captain Pomfret were
suitably shocked when the Commodore invited them to accompany Surprise well out
into the Strait, off Algeciras, so that both ships might
exercise the great guns, firing at towed targets. The Pomones brought their
ship out creditably and they were reasonably brisk at the dumb-show of running
the eighteen-pounders in and out, but some of the gun-crews were hesitant about
firing them. Only three or four in the starboard battery had much notion of
anything but point-blank aim or of judging the roll. The first and second
captains were competent upon the whole, but the midshipmen in charge of the
divisions left much to be desired and some of the ordinary hands belonging to
the gun might never have seen an eighteen-pounder fired in earnest before. The
fury of the recoil shocked them extremely and after the first wavering, ragged broadside several had to be led or carried
below, hurt by iron-taut tackles and breechings or even by the angles of the
carriage itself. The Marines who took their places did at least stand clear,
but on the whole it was a most lamentable exhibition, and the Surprises had no
compunction in making it even more obviously ludicrous by destroying, utterly
destroying, the hitherto unscathed target with three
broadsides in five minutes and ten seconds.
    ‘Captain Pomfret,’ said Jack before he left the
ship, ‘I can foresee a very great deal of great-gun exercise, morning and
afternoon, as well as at quarters: the team must know their pieces through and
through, so that they never have to think, as I am sure you are very well
aware.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said Pomfret, trying to master his
distress. ‘The only thing I can advance is that we are cruelly short-handed,
and the people have not been together long.’
    ‘You have enough right seamen to man your pinnace
and launch?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Then let your first lieutenant and the second when
he joins - I know the Admiral means to let you have an excellent young man -
take them out in the middle watch and lie off Cape Spartel till dawn. If they
do not press a score of hands out of the passing merchantmen who have not yet
heard the news I shall be amazed. But above all keep your people hard at it,
the young gentlemen especially - idle young dogs, sauntering about with their
hands in their pockets - hard at it: yet do not blackguard them. Praise if ever
you can; you will find it answer wonderfully. Next week you may fire live -
nothing pleases them more, once they are used to the din.’
    Returning to harbour, Jack visited the other ships and
vessels of his squadron, requiring each to beat to quarters and at least to
cast loose their guns. The exactness of the coiled muzzle-lashing, made fast to
the eye-bolt above the port-lid, the seizing of the mid-breeching to the
pommelion, the neat arrangement of the sponge, handspike,