The Fortune of War
Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.Captain Jack Aubrey, RN, arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a despatch vessel. But the war of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and unexpected scenes where Stephen’s past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance.
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PATRICK OâBRIAN
The Fortune of War
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979
Copyright © The Estate of the late Patrick OâBrian CBE 1979
Patrick OâBrian asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006499190
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007429325 Version: 2017-06-09
FOR MARY, WITH LOVE
The sails of a square-rigged ship, hung out to dry in a calm.
1 Flying jib
2 Jib
3 Fore topmast staysail
4 Fore staysail
5 Foresail, or course
6 Fore topsail
7 Fore topgallant
8 Mainstaysail
9 Main topmast staysail
10 Middle staysail
11 Main topgallant staysail
12 Mainsail, or course
13 Maintopsail
14 Main topgallant
15 Mizzen staysail
16 Mizzen topmast staysail
17 Mizzen topgallant staysail
18 Mizzen sail
19 Spanker
20 Mizzen topsail
21 Mizzen topgallant
Illustration source: Serres, Liber Nauticus. Courtesy of The Science and Technology Research Center, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation
The warm monsoon blew gently from the east, wafting HMS Leopard into the bay of Pulo Batang. She had spread all the sails she could, to reach the anchorage before the tide should turn and to come in without discredit, but a pitiful show they made â patched, with discoloured heavy-weather canvas next to stuff so thin it scarcely checked the brilliant light â and her hull was worse. A professional eye could make out that she had once been painted with the Nelson chequer, that she was a man-of-war, a fourth-rate built to carry fifty guns on two full decks; but to a landsman, in spite of her pennant and the dingy ensign at her mizzen-peak, she looked like an unusually shabby merchant ship. And although both watches were on deck, gazing earnestly at the shore, the extraordinarily bright-green shore, and breathing in the heady scent of the Spice Islands, the Leopardâs crew was so sparse that the notion of her being a merchant-man was confirmed: furthermore, a casual glance showed no guns at all; while the ragged, shirt-sleeved figures on her quarterdeck could hardly be commissioned officers.
These figures all gazed with equal intensity down the bay, to the green-rimmed inlet where the flagship rode, and beyond it to the spreading white house that had been the Dutch governorâs favourite wet-season residence: a Union flag flew over it at present. As they gazed a signal ran up on a second flagstaff to the right.
âThey desire us to heave out the private signal, sir, if you please,â said the signal-midshipman, his telescope to his eye.
âMake it so, Mr Wetherby, together with our number,â said the Captain; and to his first lieutenant, âMr Babbington, round-to when we are abreast the point and start the salute.â
The Leopard glided on, the wind singing gently in her rigging, the warm, still water whispering down her side: otherwise a total silence, the hands bracing her yards without a word as the breeze came more abeam. And in the same silence the shore contemplated the Leopardâs number.
She was abreast of the point; she came smoothly to the wind, and her single carronade began to speak. Seventeen feeble puffs of smoke, and seventeen little bangs like damp squibs over the miles of deep blue sea; when the last faint yelp had died away, the flagship began her deep, full-throated reply, and at the same time another hoist ran up on shore. âCaptain repair to flag, if you please, sir,â said the midshipman.
âBarge away, Mr Babbington,â said the Captain, and walked into his cabin. Neither their landfall nor the presence of the flag was unexpected, and his full-dress uniform was laid out on his cot, scrubbed and brushed to remove the stains of salt water, iced seaweed, antarctic lichen and tropical mould until it was threadbare in some places and strangely felted in others; yet the faded, shrunken blue goldlaced coat was still honest broadcloth, and as he put it on he broke into a sweat. He sat down and loosened his neckcloth. âI shall get used to it presently, no doubt,â he said, and then, hearing the voice of his steward raised in blasphemous, whining fury, âKillick, Killick there: whatâs amiss?â
