Wilkins, the yeoman of the signals, had been expecting this for some time; so had his colleague in the Pollux; and the request and the consent flew to and fro with extraordinary speed, together with the civil addition from Pollux, Happy return.
The Surprise stood in for the land and the ship of the line (for that was her official rating, feeble though she was by current standards) went about, to stand off and on according to their agreement, in case the frigate should rejoin before next day. Slowly the shore looming in the dull south grew clearer, and presently Jack called the youngsters, as he usually did on approaching an anchorage new to them. At this time of morning and in this weather there was no likelihood of seeing Mrs Fielding and everyone was in working clothes, most looking cold and wet. Williams was particularly squalid in a woollen Guernsey frock deep in slush, for he had been helping the bosun grease the topmast caps; but he had dutifully brought the azimuth compass, since Captain Aubrey would certainly require them to take the bearings of various sea-marks when he had explained them.
'There, on the larboard bow,' he said, nodding towards a tall dark headland with sheer cliffs falling to the sea, 'that is Cape Raba, and you must give it a wide berth, because of the reef running out half a mile from the point. And right ahead, close on two leagues west-south-west, that is Akroma.' They looked attentively at the distant promontory, which was very like the first, except that it had a fortification high on its seaward end. 'Beyond Cape Akroma there is Jedid Bay, rather open but with a good holding-ground in fifteen-fathom water and an island with rabbits on it that keeps off the westerlies and the north-westerlies- a useful place to run for if it is blowing very hard and you cannot double Akroma. But it is nothing nigh so big nor such a fine anchorage as this nearer bay we are heading for now, Zambra Bay, between Raba and Akroma.' The breeze had freshened with the rising of the almost invisible sun, and the Surprise, no longer held back to old Pollux' pace, was making well over eight knots with the wind two points free: Cape Raba moved rapidly astern and they opened Zambra Bay, a noble body of water, deeper than it was broad, an indented gulf with many spurs and capes, and the whole running roughly south ten or twelve miles into the land. The frigate brought the wind on to her beam and ran faster still for the west shore of the bay. 'You cannot see Zambra yet,' said Jack. 'It is tucked away in the south-east corner. But you can see the Brothers. Run south a couple of miles from Akroma Point until you come to a small headland with a palm-tree on it. A trifle beyond that there are four rocks in a line, each maybe a cable's length apart. Those are the Brothers.'
'I see them, sir,' cried Calamy, and Williamson said 'They bear just south-west by west.'
'You would see them better if the breeze were strong in the north-east, and if it had had time to work up a hearty sea. There is a reef between them with not much above two-fathom water over it, and with a north-east swell it shows white. But ordinarily it looks quite smooth, like this. The Moors of these parts take no account of it, but we were stuck there when I was in Eurotas, which drew eighteen foot six abaft. Generally speaking, you would be wise to assume that there is always shoal water between a string of rocks of the same kind. Mr Mowett,' he said, breaking off, 'since we have made such excellent time, we had better complete our water before running down to the port. We do not want to be there too early, and in any event I believe it will rain later, in the day, so let us get it over. The watering-place is on the east side, in the inlet beyond those three small islands.' With this he turned to go into his cabin, but then, checking himself when his hand was actually on the lock, he plunged below to the gunroom.
Here he found Stephen looking frowsty and discontented - there was nothing that more thoroughly persuaded Jack of his friend's innocence with regard to Mrs Fielding than this three days' beard, this vile old wig- and Stephen said to him 'If the woman does not issue a more Christian invitation in two minutes, I shall drink that,' - pointing to the gunroom's coffee, weak, insipid, only just luke-warm. 'She has asked us to take chocolate with her. Chocolate at this time in the morning, dear Mother of God. Suff on her.'
Killick came in, still with a genteel cabin-smirk on his face, and said 'The lady says certainly there will be coffee if the gentlemen prefer it.'
Certainly the gentlemen preferred it, and they sat drinking cup after cup in their usual exorbitant way until from a change in the ship's motion Jack knew they were close to the shore. He went on deck and guided her in past the green islands to the little cove with its sandy beach, where he dropped no more than a kedge, sheltered as they were. He went ashore with the first boat of empty casks, and for the first time that morning he found himself in touch with that feeling of another and as it were parallel world again, the feeling that had been with him so strongly these last few days. It was the extraordinary familiarity of the watering-place that brought it back. He had not been there for nearly twenty very active years and yet he knew every stone of its ancient worn coping and even the exact scent of freshness and green as he leant over the basin.
But getting twenty tons of water aboard, cask by cask, called for a great deal of immediate attention and energy: and since this was one of the tasks that Jack did not choose to delegate, neither he nor anyone else had much leisure for introspection on a conscious level, particularly as a small rain soon began to drive from the north-west in gusts, making the handling of the slippery, ponderous casks even slower and more difficult.
For some time now the Pollux had been edging down towards the opening of the bay, as everybody had already known she would; and at present, impelled by Harte's curiosity and her own notorious sagging to leeward, she was actually within the line between the two capes, backing and filling under the lee of Akroma and exercising her people in the shifting of topgallantmasts. Although she was technically inside the bay, and would have to wear or tack to get out of it, she was still just keeping her promise, since she was well out of sight of Zambra; but her presence irritated the Surprises. 'If Nosey Parker goes on like this, they will have to make two legs of it, wear and wear again, to make their offing,' said Mowett to Rowan; and as he spoke the fortress high on Cape Akroma fired a gun. The sound, borne by the wind, came clearly across the broad expanse of sea, and all hands who were not actively engaged looked up. But nothing happened; and the launch coming alongside with a load of casks immediately afterwards, they very soon looked down again.
Yet it seemed strange to Jack, since the fort flew no colours, and he was still looking at the cape with his telescope when a large ship rounded the point from Jedid Bay. A man-of-war, double-decked, eighty guns, wearing Turkish colours and a commodore's broad pennant: she was closely followed by two frigates, one of thirty-eight or forty guns, the other light, perhaps a twenty-eight. He had just time to observe this and to see that the heavy frigate was passing up along the commodore's larboard side when the Turkish colours came down, the French ran up and the two-decker fired her forward guns into the Pollux. The Pollux put before the wind - what wind she had under the lee of the cape - but in two minutes the big Frenchman ranged close alongside, almost yardarm to yardarm, and began hammering her with full broadsides, while the heavy frigate passed the commodore's disengaged side and took up a station athwart the Pollux' hawse. Even before she opened her murderous raking fire the Surprise abandoning launch, kedge and hawser, was racing out from her inlet, packing on canvas as she came and at the same time clearing for action.