Read Online The Surgeon's Mate by Patrick O’Brian - Free Book Online

sailing, until we had rounded the Cape and crossed the tropic line. But then a damned - an extremely untoward thing fell out. She took fire, burnt to the water-line, and blew up.'
    'Heavens, Captain Aubrey!'
    'Then the boats separated in the darkness, and seeing they were not provisioned, we had a sad time of it until we were picked up by Java, some way off Brazil. But even then our troubles were not over, because some days later Java fell in with the American Constitution, and as you remember, the Americans beat her into a cocked hat.'
    'Oh, how well I remember: people absolutely wept when they heard the news. But they said it was not fair - that the American was not really a frigate at all, or that they had more guns or something.'
    'No: she was a frigate without any kind of doubt, a heavy frigate; and it was a fair fight, I do assure you. She would have been a tough nut to crack in any case, and in the event she used her guns better than we did: and we were taken.'
    'But the dear gallant Shannon has set that right,' she said, laying her hand on his knee.
    'So she has,' said Jack, laughing with pleasure. 'And now I find it hard to remember how hipped we all were at the time. Well, the Americans were very good to us once it was all over: they sent most of Java's people home in a cartel and carried those of us who were knocked about back to Boston. Maturin very handsomely volunteered to come with me and his other patients - '
    'You were wounded?' she cried.
    'Oh, only a musket-ball in the arm,' he said. 'But it went bad, as these things will, and I should have lost it but for him. So there we were, do you see, prisoners of war in Boston. Our exchange was delayed for one reason or another, and finding the situation did not suit, Maturin and I took a boat, together with Diana Villiers - '
    'What in Heaven's name was she doing there?'
    'She had been staying with friends, before the war was declared. And we sailed out to meet Shannon as she stood in to look into the harbour. Broke was kind enough to take us aboard and give us a passage to Halifax, and that is how - '
    The rain he had promised, the rain foreseen by the toad, began to fall quite fast, and they ran in. Their entry was not particularly remarked: they were only one couple out of several, and they were preceded by a young lady who attracted far more comment, her white dress being liberally scattered with moss behind and even stained with the green of grass. Even so, they were not quite unnoticed. Colonel Aldington gave them a sullen, resentful look; and when Jack was drinking rum-punch to ward off the damp, Miss Smith having retired for a moment, he said 'Look here, Jack, this is all very fine and large, but you took my partner. I saw you steal away just as I came to claim her - I saw you - and I had to stand there like a fool all through that dance and the next. It ain't right: no, it ain't right.'
    'None but the brave deserve the fair,' said Jack: and pleased with the thought he began to sing in his deep, surprisingly tuneful voice
    'None but the brave
    None but the brave
    Deserve the fair ha, ha, ha! What do you say to that, Tom?'
    'I don't know what you mean to imply about the brave,' said the Colonel, exceedingly cross, 'but if that is your idea of the fair, well, all I can say is, your idea is not mine. That's all. I could say more: I could say that after what I heard just now it is no more than I might have expected. I could say something about reputations, and warn you not to burn your fingers, but I shan't. And I could advise you to put your glass down and drink no more - you have had quite enough - but I shan't do that, neither. You always was a self-willed - '
    Miss Smith's reappearance checked any retort that might have been forming in Jack's mind: the music began again, and as he led her into the dance he observed that it was strange how differently wine took different men - some grew glum and fault-finding, some quarrelsome or tearful; for his part he