pleasant illusion of eternity, this quiet sailing under a perfect sky towards a horizon perpetually five miles ahead, never nearer; but at the same time every man aboard, apart from the Gibraltar lunatics and one home grown innocent called Henry, knew that there was no permanence about it at all. For one thing, the paying-off pennant was already being prepared, a splendid silk streamer the length of the ship and more that was to be hoisted the day she went out of commission and all her people, paid at last, changed from members of a tight-knit community to solitary individuals. For another, since everybody was determined that if the barky were to be laid up in ordinary or if she were to go to the breaker's yard, then she should go in style, they spent a great deal of their time beautifying her. She had been much battered south of the Horn, and all that Mr Mowett had screwed out of the Bridgetown yard and all that he had bought out of his own pocket - best gold leaf and two pots of vermilion - would hardly be enough to bring her to full perfection.
Given the Surprise's very high standards and her first lieutenant's love of perfection the prettying and the pennant would in any case have been difficult and time-consuming; they were rendered very much more so by the frigate's deck-cargo and side-cloths. These were designed to give her the appearance of a merchantman, and the first was made up of empty casks that could eventually be knocked down and used for firewood, while the second were long strips of cloth painted with the likeness of gunports and fastened along the frigate's sides, covering her real gunports and giving a fine impression of falsity, particularly when they rippled in the breeze.
The Surprises had long been used to their Captain's ways and they took great delight in this disguise; there was something piratical about it and something of the biter bit (or to be bit) that pleased their very souls; and although the Spartan, a far-ranging privateer, could scarcely be expected for several hundred miles they worked double-tides on the painted portlids, going over them again and again to get them just wrong, just a little too large and out of true, so that a sharp, predatory eye should pride itself on seeing through the deceit and close without hesitation. Nor did they make the least objection to striking down the deck-cargo in order to make a clean sweep fore and aft every evening for quarters.
This was Jack's favourite time of the day, and the time when he was proudest of his ship and her people. He had always been a great believer in gunnery, and at great cost in time, spirit and private powder he had trained his gun-crews to something very near the highest pitch of efficiency their instruments allowed.
At different times the Surprise had been armed in different ways. At one point she had carried almost nothing but carronades, short, light guns that shot a very heavy ball for a very small charge of powder, so that with her twenty-four thirty-two-pounders and her eight eighteen-pounders she could throw a broadside of no less than 456 pounds, more than the gundeck of a line-of-battle ship. But she could not throw them very far nor very accurately, and although these carronades, these smashers as they were called, were wonderfully effective at close quarters so long as they did not overturn or set the ship's sides on fire because of their shortness, Jack did not think much of them for blue-water sailing. At close quarters he preferred boarding to battering, and at a distance he preferred the fine-work of exact, very carefully aimed gunfire in rippling broadsides. At present the frigate carried twenty-two twelve-pounders on her maindeck and two beautiful brass long nines, Captain Aubrey's private property, the gift of a grateful Turk, that might be fitted in the chase-ports below or that might, in suitable weather, take the place of the two forecastle carronades. She possessed six twenty-four-pounder carronades, but
Given the Surprise's very high standards and her first lieutenant's love of perfection the prettying and the pennant would in any case have been difficult and time-consuming; they were rendered very much more so by the frigate's deck-cargo and side-cloths. These were designed to give her the appearance of a merchantman, and the first was made up of empty casks that could eventually be knocked down and used for firewood, while the second were long strips of cloth painted with the likeness of gunports and fastened along the frigate's sides, covering her real gunports and giving a fine impression of falsity, particularly when they rippled in the breeze.
The Surprises had long been used to their Captain's ways and they took great delight in this disguise; there was something piratical about it and something of the biter bit (or to be bit) that pleased their very souls; and although the Spartan, a far-ranging privateer, could scarcely be expected for several hundred miles they worked double-tides on the painted portlids, going over them again and again to get them just wrong, just a little too large and out of true, so that a sharp, predatory eye should pride itself on seeing through the deceit and close without hesitation. Nor did they make the least objection to striking down the deck-cargo in order to make a clean sweep fore and aft every evening for quarters.
This was Jack's favourite time of the day, and the time when he was proudest of his ship and her people. He had always been a great believer in gunnery, and at great cost in time, spirit and private powder he had trained his gun-crews to something very near the highest pitch of efficiency their instruments allowed.
At different times the Surprise had been armed in different ways. At one point she had carried almost nothing but carronades, short, light guns that shot a very heavy ball for a very small charge of powder, so that with her twenty-four thirty-two-pounders and her eight eighteen-pounders she could throw a broadside of no less than 456 pounds, more than the gundeck of a line-of-battle ship. But she could not throw them very far nor very accurately, and although these carronades, these smashers as they were called, were wonderfully effective at close quarters so long as they did not overturn or set the ship's sides on fire because of their shortness, Jack did not think much of them for blue-water sailing. At close quarters he preferred boarding to battering, and at a distance he preferred the fine-work of exact, very carefully aimed gunfire in rippling broadsides. At present the frigate carried twenty-two twelve-pounders on her maindeck and two beautiful brass long nines, Captain Aubrey's private property, the gift of a grateful Turk, that might be fitted in the chase-ports below or that might, in suitable weather, take the place of the two forecastle carronades. She possessed six twenty-four-pounder carronades, but
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