Chapter One
The mist lay soft and thick in white tails stretching low along the river to the northeast, tails shaped by the last tickling moments of the flood tide. Just before sunrise the tide paused and like a gentle sigh turned to its ebb, a moment felt in the diaphragms of sailors but otherwise unremarked. The mist shivered and the tails drew to the southwest, teased by the ebbing flow.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, a tall and somewhat detached young man, stirred slightly from where he had been lying in the stern sheets, adjusted the telescope through which he had been watching a spot on the hill and saw the discreet signal flash out: three handkerchiefs tied to a piece of string, held horizontally, and gone the instant he made his acknowledgment. Kevin ported his helm with one hand and slipped his mooring with the other, gently filled as he came broadside to the ebb—the sails having been hoisted some time before in the still dark—and set to reach across the channel in the tide wind. Within a few minutes both mist and tide were chased down by the morning breeze and for a moment he rode a tide exactly matched by the wind and felt no air whatsoever. He made no movement and the skiff remained perfectly as she was, except that the boom swung slowly to starboard as the wind overwhelmed the tide and his heart lived in that moment. His mind noted only the change of tack and the regained forward momentum.
After showing the signal Mona had raced down the back slope of the hill to the waiting post chaise, the horses barely having regained their composure. Brigid had the reins, and although she disliked a post chaise and four in particular, she was a keen and attentive driver and wheeled the team and carriage round handsomely the moment Mona was at the foot-plate. Stephen Maturin sat in the carriage and looked sullen, 'Signal given and acknowledged sir, three wipes held horizontal like…' 'Kevin will bring up the boat?' Stephen interrupted, but not unkindly as his present ill humor sprung from his own uncertainties. 'Which he'll do easily sir, pray that the breeze should hold, and the flow is not too strong for another two hours yet,' she said aloud, 'and besides, the lazy bugger could row,' she added inwardly.
Mona and Kevin were twins, born in the county Cork and taken up off the Munster coast by corsairs as slaves before the peace with France. Stephen had bought them in a market in Algiers in the last year before Bonaparte was exiled when they where still very small so that they should be returned to their parents—he knew their home town of Ballydonegan intimately well from his youth—and ever since he had been their undeclared benefactor. Mona and Kevin were for their part devoted to Stephen, not in any servile or subjugated sense, but in a simpler, kinder sense. Both would gladly perform any task for Stephen, at any hour, however strange or unlikely it seemed simply at his word or private note as if it were the most usual thing, and many strange tasks had they performed. They did this out of a profound friendship and respect and were infinitely forgiving of his terse words, melancholy moods, and often exceedingly eccentric manner. They all of them understood each other in a curiously literal way that was unusual surrounded as it was by idiom and innuendo, Brigid being the most literal of them all.
Up on the seat Brigid now let the team go free running hard on a long and straight section of the lane, here lined on either side by beach and willow as a creek ran nearby, yet she had a strangely vacant, almost angelic look about her. Her mother had been an exceptional horsewoman who delighted in hard driving, pushing, ignoring all pleas and pushing to the limit, and just once past it. Brigid didn't push, the horses ran for her, not because of her. Her eyelids fluttered, and she slipped slowly into her own world singing as she skipped along, 'skilligalee skilligaloo, skilligalee skilligaloo,' the heave of the frigate’s deck and the low rumble of the wind and sea as natural to her as the rocking of the chaise, now perceived in an otherworldly slow-motion. Sunlight pierced through the trees and the rigging, small bright circles danced slowly on the ground and on the horses flanks, on her boots and pinafore as it slatted in the wind; barefoot now, hands on the shrouds and feet on the ratlines, feet guided by strong deep-tanned arms and gentle words. 'Up like so miss, through the lubber's hole,' and every breath held as she shot out on the futtock shrouds and over with the roll onto the cross-tree platform. 'Wheee, I will never go on land again, never.'
Stephen froze involuntarily as Brigid, now back from her otherworld with quite but unopposable determination, checked the pace for the bend. The short uphill between the bend and the creek took some more way off and they went over the bridge straight as an arrow and as controlled as anyone could wish. Stephen opened his eyes, reprimanded himself for his silliness, and returned to worry about the uncertainties of their current engagement; he was about to form the opinion that it was even as bad as a folly when there was a loud crack and a jolt and Stephen was thrown sideways as the carriage lurched off the lane, still being dragged on by the frightened and confused horses. The rear axel had sheared through and they had thrown a wheel. Brigid was reining hard and talking in a low calming voice; Mona was already at the front of the team and hauling hard on the lead horse, pulling his head down.
...
Kevin Fitzpatrick, a tall and somewhat detached young man, stirred slightly from where he had been lying in the stern sheets, adjusted the telescope through which he had been watching a spot on the hill and saw the discreet signal flash out: three handkerchiefs tied to a piece of string, held horizontally, and gone the instant he made his acknowledgment. Kevin ported his helm with one hand and slipped his mooring with the other, gently filled as he came broadside to the ebb—the sails having been hoisted some time before in the still dark—and set to reach across the channel in the tide wind. Within a few minutes both mist and tide were chased down by the morning breeze and for a moment he rode a tide exactly matched by the wind and felt no air whatsoever. He made no movement and the skiff remained perfectly as she was, except that the boom swung slowly to starboard as the wind overwhelmed the tide and his heart lived in that moment. His mind noted only the change of tack and the regained forward momentum.
After showing the signal Mona had raced down the back slope of the hill to the waiting post chaise, the horses barely having regained their composure. Brigid had the reins, and although she disliked a post chaise and four in particular, she was a keen and attentive driver and wheeled the team and carriage round handsomely the moment Mona was at the foot-plate. Stephen Maturin sat in the carriage and looked sullen, 'Signal given and acknowledged sir, three wipes held horizontal like…' 'Kevin will bring up the boat?' Stephen interrupted, but not unkindly as his present ill humor sprung from his own uncertainties. 'Which he'll do easily sir, pray that the breeze should hold, and the flow is not too strong for another two hours yet,' she said aloud, 'and besides, the lazy bugger could row,' she added inwardly.
Mona and Kevin were twins, born in the county Cork and taken up off the Munster coast by corsairs as slaves before the peace with France. Stephen had bought them in a market in Algiers in the last year before Bonaparte was exiled when they where still very small so that they should be returned to their parents—he knew their home town of Ballydonegan intimately well from his youth—and ever since he had been their undeclared benefactor. Mona and Kevin were for their part devoted to Stephen, not in any servile or subjugated sense, but in a simpler, kinder sense. Both would gladly perform any task for Stephen, at any hour, however strange or unlikely it seemed simply at his word or private note as if it were the most usual thing, and many strange tasks had they performed. They did this out of a profound friendship and respect and were infinitely forgiving of his terse words, melancholy moods, and often exceedingly eccentric manner. They all of them understood each other in a curiously literal way that was unusual surrounded as it was by idiom and innuendo, Brigid being the most literal of them all.
Up on the seat Brigid now let the team go free running hard on a long and straight section of the lane, here lined on either side by beach and willow as a creek ran nearby, yet she had a strangely vacant, almost angelic look about her. Her mother had been an exceptional horsewoman who delighted in hard driving, pushing, ignoring all pleas and pushing to the limit, and just once past it. Brigid didn't push, the horses ran for her, not because of her. Her eyelids fluttered, and she slipped slowly into her own world singing as she skipped along, 'skilligalee skilligaloo, skilligalee skilligaloo,' the heave of the frigate’s deck and the low rumble of the wind and sea as natural to her as the rocking of the chaise, now perceived in an otherworldly slow-motion. Sunlight pierced through the trees and the rigging, small bright circles danced slowly on the ground and on the horses flanks, on her boots and pinafore as it slatted in the wind; barefoot now, hands on the shrouds and feet on the ratlines, feet guided by strong deep-tanned arms and gentle words. 'Up like so miss, through the lubber's hole,' and every breath held as she shot out on the futtock shrouds and over with the roll onto the cross-tree platform. 'Wheee, I will never go on land again, never.'
Stephen froze involuntarily as Brigid, now back from her otherworld with quite but unopposable determination, checked the pace for the bend. The short uphill between the bend and the creek took some more way off and they went over the bridge straight as an arrow and as controlled as anyone could wish. Stephen opened his eyes, reprimanded himself for his silliness, and returned to worry about the uncertainties of their current engagement; he was about to form the opinion that it was even as bad as a folly when there was a loud crack and a jolt and Stephen was thrown sideways as the carriage lurched off the lane, still being dragged on by the frightened and confused horses. The rear axel had sheared through and they had thrown a wheel. Brigid was reining hard and talking in a low calming voice; Mona was already at the front of the team and hauling hard on the lead horse, pulling his head down.
...
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