Free Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brian Page B

seemed to him very doubtful whether the Sophie possessed anything like that amount of room, whatever her official complement might be. He was still working at it when the midshipman called, 'Unrow. Boat your oars,' and they kissed gently against the wharf.
       'Go back to the ship now, Mr Ricketts,' said Jack on an impulse. 'I do not suppose I shall be long, and it may save a few minutes.'
       But with the Burford's draft he had missed his chance: other captains were there before him now and he had to wait his turn. He walked up and down in the brilliant morning sun with one whose epaulette matched his own—Middleton, whose greater pull had enabled him to snap up the command of the Vertueuse , the charming French privateer that would have been Jack's had there been any justice in the world. When they had exchanged the naval gossip of the Mediterranean, Jack remarked that he had come for a couple of twelve-pounders.
       'Do you think she'll bear them?' asked Middleton.
       'I hope so. Your four-pounder is a pitiful thing: though I must confess I feel anxious for her knees.'
       'Well, I hope so, too,' said Middleton, shaking his head. 'At all events you have come on the right day: it seems that Head is to be placed under Brown, and he has taken such a at it that he is selling off his stock like a fishwife at the end of the fair.'
       Jack had already heard something of this development in the long, long squabble between the Ordnance Board and the Navy Board, and he longed to hear more; but at this moment Captain Halliwell came out, smiling all over his face, and Middleton, who had some faint remains of concience, said, 'You take my turn. I shall be an age, with my carronades to explain.'
       'Good morning, sir,' said Jack. 'I am Aubrey, of the Sophie , and I should like to try a couple of long twelves, you please.'
       With no change in his melancholy expression, Mr Head said, 'You know what they weigh?'
       'Something in the nature of thirty-three hundredweight, I believe.'
       'Thirty-three hundredweight, three pounds, three ounces, three pennyweight. Have a dozen, Captain, if you feel she will bear them.'
       'Thank you: two will be plenty,' said Jack, looking sharply to see whether he were being made game of.
       'They are yours, then, and upon your own head be it,' said Mr Head with a sigh, making secret marks upon a worn, curling parchment slip. 'Give it to the master-parker and he will troll you out as pretty a pair as ever the heart of man could desire. I have some neat mortars, if you have room.'
       'I am extremely obliged to you, Mr Head,' said Jack, laughing with pleasure. 'I wish the rest of the service were run so.'
       'So do I, Captain, so do I,' cried Mr Head, his face growing suddenly dark with passion. 'There are some slack-arsed, bloody-minded men—flute-playing, fiddle-scraping, present-seeking, tale-bearing, double-poxed hounds that would keep you waiting about for a month; but I am not one of them. Captain Middleton, sir: carronades for you, I presume?'
       In the sunlight once more Jack threw out his signal and, peering among the masts and criss-crossed yards, he saw a figure at the Sophie's masthead bend as though to hail the deck, before disappearing down a backstay, like a bead sliding upon a thread.
       Expedition was Mr Head's watchword, but the master-parker of the ordnance wharf did not seem to have heard of it. He showed Jack the two twelve-pounders with great good will. 'As pretty a pair as the heart of man could desire,' he said, stroking their cascabels as Jack signed for them; but after that his mood seemed to change—there were several other captains in front of Jack—fair was fair—turn and turn about—them thirty-sixes were all in the way and would have to be moved first—he was precious short of hands.
       The Sophie had warped in long ago and she was lying neatly against the dock right under the derricks. There was more noise aboard her than there