Free The Letter of Marque by Patrick O’Brian Page A

balmy, a golden sky in the west and a royal-blue swell, white along the frigate's side and in her wake.
    Several old Surprises, Stephen's patients these many years, came hurrying aft along the gangway, calling 'Don't look down, sir - Don't clap on to them ratlines - Hold the shrouds, the thick uns, with both hands - Easy does it, sir - Don't let go on the roll, whatever you do.' Presently anxious hands were placing their feet from below, up and up, a great way up, since the Surprise had a 38-gun ship's mainmast, and presently two delighted faces gazed into the top through the lubber's hole.
    'Do nothing rash,' cried Aubrey. 'You have not come by your sea-legs yet. This is no time for skylarking. Give me your hand.' He heaved Stephen and then Martin up on to the platform, and once"again Stephen wondered at his strength: Stephen's bare nine stone was perhaps natural enough, but Martin was far more stoutly built. For all that he was swung up with a lift as effortless as though he had been a moderate dog, held by the nape - swung right up through the hole and set down on his feet.
    It was no Caspian tern that they were looking at, but a sail, and a sail no very great way off. 'What airs these eighteen-gun sloops do give themselves, to be sure,' said Pullings in a discontented voice. 'Look how she is cracking on! It will be moonrakers next. I will lay half a crown she carries away that foretopgallant studdingsail in the next five minutes.'
    'Should you like to have a look at her, sir?' asked Jack, passing Martin his glass.
    Martin clapped his one eye to it, silently recorded a stormy petrel, and after a pause exclaimed 'It has fired a gun! I see the smoke! Surely it will never have the temerity to attack us?'
    'No, no. She is one of ours.' The boom reached them. 'That is a signal for us to lie to.'
    'Would it not be possible to feign deafness, and to sail off in the opposite direction?' asked Stephen, who dreaded another encounter.
    'Most private men-of-war avoid their public brethren if they can possibly outsail them,' said Jack, 'and the notion did occur to me when first she was sighted. But she altered course so quick - hauled her wind five points - that I am sure she recognized us; and if we were not to lie to after a gun, and this is the second, and if she were to report us, we might very well lose our letter of marque. Surprise is so damned recognizable: it is this most uncommon mainmast - you can smoke it ten miles away, like a bear with a sore thumb. Tom, I believe we must use the spare stump topgallant for ordinary cruising: we can always sway this one up for a determined chase.'
    Pullings did not answer: he crouched lower and lower over his telescope, poised on the top-rail, focussing more exactly, and all at once he cried, 'Sir, sir, she's the Tartarus !'
    Jack caught up his glass, and after a moment and in what for him was a happy voice he said 'So she is. I can make out that absurd bright-blue bumpkin.' Another gun, and he said 'She has made her number. She will be signalling presently: William was always a great hand with the bunting.' Directing his voice downwards he called 'Mr West, we will close the sloop under all plain sail, if you please; and let the signal yeoman stand by. Yes,' he went on to those in the top as a distant line of flags appeared, 'there he is - such a hoist. Tom, I dare say you can read it without the book?'
    Pullings had been Jack's signal lieutenant, and he still had much of the list by heart. Til have a try, sir,' he said, and slowly read out 'Welcome... repeat welcome... happy see... beg captain sup... have message... hope... now he is telegraphing: P H I Z... the signal-mid can't spell ..."
    On the quarterdeck the yeoman of the signal's mate, a Shelmerstonian, asked 'What does the brig mean with her P H I Z?'
    'She means our doctor; which he is not a common twopence-a-go barber-surgeon but a genuine certificated physician with a bob-wig and a gold-headed cane.
    'I didn't know,' said the