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

you, sir, because Garron, going through the cabin of the gunboat, found this in a drawer. I have not your command of French, sir, but glancing through I thought you ought to see it at once.' He passed a broad flat book, its covers made of sheet-lead.
    'Hey, hey!' cried Jack, with a bright and lively eye. 'Here's a palm in Gilead, by God - private signals -code by numbers - lights - recognition in fog - Spanish and other allied signals. What does bannière de partance mean, do you think? Pavilion de beaupré, that's a jack. Misaine's the foremast, though you might not think it. Hunes de perroquet? Well, damn the hunes de perroquet, the pictures are clear enough. Charming, ain't they?' He turned back to the front. 'Valid until the twenty-fifth. They change with the moon, I suppose. I hope we may profit by it - a little treasure while it lasts. How do you come along with the gunboat?'
    'We are pretty forward, sir. She will be ready for you as soon as her decks are dry.' There was a superstition in the Navy that damp was mortal to superior officers and that its malignant effects increased with rank; few first lieutenants turned out before the dawn washing of the decks was almost finished, and no commander or post-captain until they had been swabbed, squeegeed and flogged dry. The gun-boat was being flogged at this moment.
    'I had thought of sending her down to Gibraltar with young Butler, a responsible petty-officer or two, and the crew of the launch. He did very well - pistolled her captain
    - and so did they, in their heathen fashion. The command would do him good. Have you any observations to offer, Mr Simmons?' he asked, seeing the lieutenant's face.
    'Well, sir, since you are so good as to ask me, might I suggest another crew? I say nothing whatsoever against these men - quiet, attentive, sober, give no trouble, never brought to the gangway - but we took the Chinamen out of an armed junk with no cargo, almost certainly a pirate, and the Malays out of a proa of the same persuasion, and I feel that if they were sent away, they might be tempted to fall to their old ways. If we had found a scrap of evidence, we should have strung 'cm up. We had the yardarm rigged, but Captain Hamond, being a magistrate at home, had scruples about evidence. There was some rumour of their having ate it.'
    'Pirates? I see, I see. That explains a great deal. Yes, yes; of course. Are you sure?'
    'I have no doubt of it myself, both from the circumstances and from remarks that they have let fall since. Every second vessel is a pirate in those seas, or will be if occasion offers, right round from the Persian Gulf to Borneo. But they look upon things differently there, and to tell you the truth, I should be loath to see High Bum or John Satisfaction swinging in a noose now; they have improved wonderfully since they came among us; they have given up praying to images and spitting on deck, and they listen to the tracts Mr Carew reads them with proper respect.'
    'Oh, now, there's no question,' cried Jack. 'If the Judge Advocate of the Fleet were to tell me to hang an able seaman, let alone the captain of the maintop, I should tell him to - I should decline. But, as you say, we must not lead them into temptation. It was only a passing thought; she might just as well stay in company. Indeed, it would be better. Mr Butler shall have her, though; pray be so good as to pick a suitable crew.'
    The gunboat stayed in company, and at dusk the Livelys' launch pulled round under her stern on its way inshore, towards the dark loom of the island. Mr Butler, packing his own quarterdeck, ordered the salute in a voice that started deep and shot up into a strangled, blushing squeak, his first experience of the anguish of command.
    Jack, wrapped in a boat-cloak, with a dark-lantern between his knees, sat in the stern-sheets, filled with pleasurable anticipation. He had not seen Stephen Maturin for a vast stretch of time, made even longer by the grinding monotony of the