H.M.S. Surprise Read Online Free PDF

precautions, I doubt I should put it off; these are the merest conjectures, after all. And it is no use sending Osborne or Schikaneder - Gomez will put his head into no man's hands but mine; and without that contact the new system falls to pieces.'
    'That is true. And of course you understand the local position far better than any of us. But I do not like to think of you running this added risk.'
    'It is very slight, if indeed it exists at the moment - negligible if I have a fair wind and if you caulk this leak, this purely conjectural leak. For this one voyage it does not weigh at all, compared with the common daily hazards of the trade. Afterwards, if silly chatter has its usual effect, clearly I shall not be useful for some time
    - not until you rehabilitate me, ha, ha, with your quasidiplomatic or scientific mission to the Cham of Tartary. When I come back from it I shall publish such papers on the cryptogams of Kamschatka that no one will ever set the mark of intelligence upon my head again.'

CHAPTER TWO
    To and fro, to and fro, from Cape Sicié to the Giens peninsula, wear ship and back again, all day long, week after week, month after month, whatever the weather; after the evening gun they stood out into the offing and at dawn they were back again, the inshore squadron of frigates watching Toulon, the eyes of the Mediterranean fleet, those line-of-battle ships whose topsails flecked the southern horizon, Nelson waiting for the French admiral to come out.
    The mistral had been blowing for three days now and the sea showed more white than blue, with the off-shore wind cutting up little short waves that sent spray flying over the waist of the ship: the three frigates had reduced sail at noon, but even so they were making seven knots and heeling until their larboard chains were smothered in the foam.
    The tediously familiar headland of Cape Side came closer and closer; in this sparkling clean air under the pure sky they could see the little white houses, carts creeping on the road up to the semaphore station and the batteries. Closer, almost within range of the high-perched forty-two pounders; and now the wind was coming in gusts off the high ground.
    'On deck. there,' hailed the lookout at the mast-head. 'Naiad's showing a waft, sir.'
    'Hands wear ship,' said the lieutenant of the watch, more from form than anything else, for not only did the Lively have a crew that had worked together for years, but also she had carried out this manoeuvre several hundred times in this very stretch of water and the order was scarcely needed. Routine had taken the edge off the Livelies' zeal, but nevertheless the boatswain had to call out 'handsomely, handsomely, now, with that bleeding sheet'; for the crew had been brought to such a pitch of silent efficiency that the frigate ran the risk of darting her jib-boom over the taffrail of the Melpomene, her next ahead, whose talents and sailing qualities could not have recommended her anywhere.
    However, round they went in succession, each wearing in the spot where her leader had turned; they hauled their wind and re-formed their rigid line, heading for Giens once more, Naiad, Melpomene, Lively.
    'I do hate this wearing in succession,' said one thin midshipman to another thin midshipman, 'It does not give a man a chance: nothing can you see, not a sausage, no not a sausage; nor yet a smell of one,' he added, peering forward through the rigging and sails towards the gap between the peninsula and the island of Porquerolles.
    'Sausage,' cried the other. 'Oh, Butler, what an infernal bloody thing to say.' He, too, leaned over the top of the hammocks, staring towards the passage; for at any moment now the Niobe might appear from her cruise, watering at Agincourt Sound and working back along the Italian coast, badgering the enemy and picking up what supplies she could find, and it would be the Lively's turn next. 'Sausage,' he cried above the mistral, as he stared, 'hot, crisp, squirting with juice