Read Blue at the Mizzen for Free Online

the timber and the skill to allow us to put to sea and creep to Funchal, to da Souza's place?'
    'Well, sir,' said the carpenter, 'I do know a little firm of private shipwrights just below Rosia Bay - I sailed as mate with the top man once, and the other day he showed me some lovely wood in his yard. But they are what you might call carriage-trade, and very expensive. And to do anything here, in the royal yard, they would have to come surreptitious, and sweeten many a palm.'
    'Can you give me any sort of a figure?'
    'It would not be less than ten guineas a day, I am afraid; and the wood on top.'
    'Well, Chips, pray lay it on,' said Jack. 'And pray tell your friends that they shall have a handsome present if upon their conscience we can swim before the new moon.'
    He and Stephen left the ship and walked along the mole, gazing eastward at the white spread of Ringle's sails as she beat against the wind, making good progress; and in this total privacy Jack said, 'I think I have made up my mind. It is very probable that Chips's friends will patch her up well enough for us to hope to reach Madeira and a pretty good yard, which should see us home.'
    'Home, brother?'
    'Why, yes: to Seppings' yard in the first place, the best yard in the kingdom, that practically rebuilt her. And in the second place, to gather an adequate crew, a crew of real seamen. Our South American caper absolutely calls for a strong crew, even without paying any attention to our engagements with the Chileans. Surveying, really surveying these coasts - but then you know about the weather and the tides of the Horn - requires truly able seamen aboard the surveyor's ship.'
    'It was the world's pity that those wretched fellows ran off.'
    'Yes, it was: by the time we had rounded the Horn, the bosun and his mates, to say nothing of the officers' efforts and my own, might have turned the rag-tag and bob-tail half into something like real seamen. I do not really blame them, however. We had nothing much to offer them except for hard work, short commons and hard lying - no possibility of prizes and no home leave. It is true that once even indifferent seafarers are no longer in demand - which will be in a month or two - and once their money is spent, which is likely to be sooner by far, a berth in Surprise might be something to be envied. But as far as we are concerned, I am pretty sure of being able to pick up enough truly able-bodied seamen paid off from King's ships with the corning of peace to form a strong crew, capable of fighting the ship. At present we can handle her with those good souls who have stayed, but we could not fight her. You do not seem quite happy, brother?'
    'It is the Chileans who worry me. All this - the present repair, the dillying in Madeira - all this will take a whole almanac of time: and the Chileans are in a high revolutionary fervour, eager for immediate or almost immediate results. Will they wait?'
    'They have no choice. It is not every day that Government fits out a man-of-war to chart their waters, and do little acts of kindness on the way.'
    'Well, I hope you are right, my dear. But do not forget that they are foreigners.'
    'To be sure, that is very much against them, poor souls. Yet from what you have told me, they have been very steadily set upon independence for many years now. Nothing very flighty or enthusiastic in that, I believe? When we are in London, or elsewhere for that matter, should you like me to speak to the heads of the mission and put the case to them in plain seamanlike terms? They could not fail to be convinced.'
    Chapter Two
    To a casual observer it would have seemed difficult if not impossible to carry on an affair in so small and tight-knit a community as Gibraltar; yet it was done or attempted to be done by those who did not mind mixing levity and love, done on a quite surprising scale; and when Lord Barmouth's current mistress, an exceptionally vicious woman who hated Isobel, told him that she and Jack Aubrey met daily