The Books: “H.M.S. Surprise” (Patrick O’Brian)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O’Brian

The third book in the Aubrey-Maturin series.

In this book, we find the two men back in business – after running from debt – and they sail around the tip of Africa, on their way to India. Their personal problems, however, follow them. Diana Villiers, the woman Stephen and Jack competed for, is in India – she had fled England with a man as her protector – it is clear that she has not married him, and she has left a wake of scandal and heartache behind her. Stephen, in particular, is consumed by Diana. O’Brian does not belabor the point … and the Indian subcontinent is a huge place … but Maturin knows that the odds of him running into Diana are pretty high, and how does he feel about that? There’s something bewitching about that woman. She’s cruel to Stephen. Yet she also counts him as one of her best friends. She’s blatantly open with him, even when she knows it will hurt him. I’m not sure if she will continue to be a major player in the rest of the books (don’t tell me!!) – but she fascinates. I can see why Stephen is so mesmerized by her. And of course Jack is now courting Sophia, a much more conventional young woman – which seems to suit him much better. But enough of these personal romantic concerns. Somewhere in the Indian Ocean is a fleet of ships sent by Napoleon … and I’m not recalling all the details, but I know that Jack is obsessed. Where are they? If he captured them, there would be a huge prize – and it’s all about the prize-money. (I’m learning so much about how the Royal Navy worked – I had no idea!) Aubrey is the underdog in this particular fight – and some of the details are lost right now (I think maybe I’m reading these books too fast, but I can’t help it!) … he is trying to rebuild his career after the devastation of being on the run from debt. He takes what he can gets, in terms of a command. And he is eager, perhaps even voracious, to prove himself again. Not to mention the fact that Sophia’s terrible mother would never approve of her daughter marrying a debt-ridden out-of-work captain. Aubrey has huge stakes here. But that’s one of the best things about the character, in general: his stakes are always high. Whether it’s running the conversation around the captain’s table, or dealing with disciplinary issues on the ship, or fighting a battle … This is a man who lacks the indifferent gene. He really does.

And, as always, the relationship between the two men is really what hooks me in. And because Stephen Maturin is a bit of an outsider – to sea life, anyway – not to mention being Irish – he’s our way in to this world. The other sailors on the ships kind of gently make fun of him, his dumb questions, his lack of sea legs, and yet they also totally respect him because he’s such an amazing surgeon. They trust him with their very lives. Seeing the world of the ship through Stephen’s eyes is tremendously helpful and illuminating … because we’re new to it too.

Now.

There is a description of some major weather and waves – in this book – as the ship shrieks down the coast of Africa. I could barely get through it it was so terrifying. SO well written. My God. My nightmares often run to tidal waves – and have done so since I was a little kid. I think of a 10 story wave coming at me … I mean, I can’t imagine that anyone would find that a cozy thought, so I know I’m not alone … but waves like that haunt my dreams. Maybe it’s growing up in “the Ocean State”, and I’ve certainly seen some weather, I’ve certainly seen waves big enough that I thought: “All righty then, I’m not going swimming TODAY thankyouverymuch …” Perhaps it’s that there is some basis for comparison in my head. Having seen dauntingly big waves where they close the beach is one thing – add 7 or 8 or 9 STORIES to those waves I’ve already seen … and I can try to picture what the sailors deal with. I just never want to see a wave that big, basically. In December, 2004, I had a dream about a tidal wave. You know how you have regular old dreams where, you know, you’re naked in church, or you’re trying to run and your legs won’t work – or run of the mill anxiety dreams … No biggie. But sometimes a dream comes along that changes everything. I call them (unimaginatively) “those dreams”. I’ve had a couple in my lifetime. Myabe 2 or 3. Where my subconscious or whatever you want to call it was forced to be so damn clear to me, so specific … that I wake up very slightly altered. The tidal wave dream was like that. I wrote more about it here. And let us please not dwell TOO much on the fact that I wrote a post called “The Tidal Wave: Let It Come” on December 22, 2004. It freaks me out to even think about it. I know I didn’t cause the damn tsunami, but still – to put out a huge call to tidal waves, telling them to come … and then … uhm … to have one obey, and to have it be the deadliest damn thing in recorded history … I don’t know. Just don’t want to think about those things too much. Anyway. Back to Patrick O’Brian. His description of the sea – in the middle of that storm – the mountains of water … I swear to God, it put a chill in my heart just to read it. I just hope I never ever fucking see anything like that in my life.

Again, we’re seeing it through Stephen’s astonished eyes – which makes it even worse. Jack’s used to bad weather. All sailors are. Stephen THOUGHT he knew what bad weather was until he saw this.

Wonderful writing.

Excerpt below.

EXCERPT FROM H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O’Brian

South and south she ran, flanking across the west wind, utterly alone under the grey sky, heading into the immensity of ocean. From one day to the next the sea grew icy cold, and the cold seeped into the holds, the berth-deck and the cabins, a humid, penetrating cold. Stephen came on deck reflecting with satisfaction upon his sloth, now a parlour-boarder with the Irish Franciscans at Rio, and a secret drinker of the altar-wine. He found the frigate was racing along under a press of canvas, lying over so that her deck sloped like a roof and her lee chains were buried in the foam; twelve and a half knots with the wind on her quarter – royals, upper and lower studdingsails, almost everything she had; her starboard tacks aboard, for Jack still wanted a little more southing. He was there, right aft by the taffrail, looking now at the western sky, now up at the rigging. ‘What do you think of this for a swell?’ he cried.

Blinking in the strong cold wind Stephen considered it: vast smooth waves, dark, mottled with white, running from the west diagonally across the frigate’s course, two hundred yards from crest to crest: they came with perfect regularity, running under her quarter, lifting her high, high, so that the horizon spread out another twenty miles, then passing ahead, so that she sank into the trough, and her courses, her lower sails, sagged in the calm down there. In one of these valleys that he saw was an albatross flying without effort or concern, a huge bird, but now so diminished by the vast scale of the sea that it might have been one of the smaller gulls. ‘It is grandiose,’ he said.

‘Ain’t it?’ said Jack. ‘I do love a blow.’ There was keen pleasure in his eye, but a watchful pleasure too; and as the ship rose slowly up he glanced again at the topsail-studdingsail. As she rose the full force of the wind laid her over, and the studdingsail-boom strained forward, bending far out of the true. All the masts and yards showing this curving strain: they all groaned and spoke; but none like the twisting studdingsail-booms. A sheet of spray flew over the waist, passing through the rigging and vanishing over the larboard bow, soaking Mr. Hailes the gunner as it passed. He was going from gun to gun with his mates, putting preventer-breechings to the guns, to hold them tighter against the side. Rattray was among the booms, making all fast and securing the boats: all the responsible men were moving about, with no orders given; and as they worked they glanced at the Captain, while he, just as often, put out his hand to test the strain on the rigging, and turned his head to look at the sky, the sea, the upper sails.

‘This is cracking on,’ said Joliffe.

‘It will be cracking off, presently,’ said Church, ‘if he don’t take in.’

For a glass and more the watch on deck had been waiting for the order to lay aloft and reduce sail before the Lord reduced it Himself: yet still the order did not come. Jack wanted every last mile out of this splendid day’s run; and in any case the frigate’s tearing pace, the shrill song of her rigging, her noble running lift and plunge filled him with delight, a vivid ecstasy that he imagined to be private but that shone upon his face, although his behaviour was composed, reserved, and indeed somewhat severe – his orders cracked out sharp and quick as he sailed her hard, completely identified with the ship. He was on the quarterdeck, yet at the same time he was in the straining studdingsail-boom, gauging the breaking point exactly.

‘Yes,’ he said, as though a long period of time had not passed. ‘And it will be more grandiose by half before the end of the watch. The glass is dropping fast, and it will start to blow, presently. Just you wait until this sea gets up and starts to tumble about. Mr Harrowby, Mr Harrowby, another man to the wheel, if you please. And we will get the flying jib and stuns’ls off her.’

The bosun’s pipe, the rush of feet, and her tearing speed sensibly diminished. Mr Stanhope, clinging to the companion-ladder, cruelly in the way, said, ‘It is a wonder they do not fall off, poor fellows. This is exhilarating, is it not? Like champagne.’

So it was, with the whole ship vibrating and a deep bass hum coming from the hold, and the clean keen air searching deep into their lungs: but well before nightfall the clean keen air blew so strong as to whip the breath away as they tried to draw it in, and the Surprise was under close-reefed topsails and courses, topgallantmasts struck down on deck, running faster still, and still holding her course south-east.

During the night Stephen heard a number of bumps and cries through his sleep, and he was aware of a change of course, for his cot no longer swung in the same direction. But he was not prepared for what he saw when he came on deck. Under the low grey tearing sky, half driving rain, half driving spray, the whole sea was white – a vast creaming spread as far as eye could see. He had seen the Bay of Biscay at its worst, and the great south-west gales on the Irish coast: they were nothing to this. For a moment the whole might have been a wild landscape, mountainous yet strangely regular; but then he saw that the whole was in motion, a vast majestic motion whose size concealed its terrifying dreamlike speed. Now the crests and troughs were enormously greater; now they were very much farther apart; and now the crests were curling over and breaking as they came, an avalanche of white pouring down the steep face. The Surprise was running almost straight before them, east by south; she had managed to strike her mizzentopmast at first light – anything to diminish the wind-pressure aft and thus the risk of broaching-to — and man-ropes were rigged along her streaming deck. As his eye reached the level of the quarterdeck he saw a wave, a green-grey wall towering above the taffrail, racing towards them – swift inevitability. He strained his head back to see its top, curving beyond the vertical as it came yet still balancing with the speed of its approach, a beard of wind-torn spray flying out before it. He heard Jack call an order to the man at the wheel: the frigate moved a trifle from her course, rose, tilting her stern skywards so that Stephen clung backwards to the ladder, rose and rose; and the mortal wave swept under her counter, dividing and passing on to smother her waist in foam and solid water, on to bar the horizon just ahead, while the ship sank in the trough and the shriek of the rigging sank an octave as the strain slackened.

‘Seize hold, Doctor,’ shouted Jack. ‘Take both hands to it.’

Stephen crept along the life-line, catching a reproachful look from the four men at the wheel, as who should say ‘Look what you done with your albatrosses, mate,’ and reached the stanchion to which Jack was lashed. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said.

‘A very good morning to you. It is coming on to blow.’

‘What?’

‘It is coming on to blow,’ said Jack, with greater force. Stephen frowned, and looked astern through the haze of spray; and there, whiter than the foam, were two albatrosses, racing across the wind. One wheeled towards the ship, rose to the height of the taffrail and poised there in the eddy not ten feet away. He saw its mild round eye looking back at him, the perpetual minute change of its wing-feathers, its tail; then it banked, rose on the wind, darted down, and its wings raised high it paddled on the face of an advancing cliff of water, picked something up and shot away along the valley of the wave before it broke.