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'It is not unlike the seal-singing of those parts; or indeed some I have heard in the far, far west of Ireland, on Belmullet, where the phalarope lives.'
    Jack nodded. He was considering the fact that 'more mud' had replaced the wild shriek, and that the blocks had not clashed together with the haulers' zeal. He would go into that with Stephen later, and ask him whether it was a deformation of Gaelic. Or Norse? An expression of opinion? In any event, it had a strange beauty. For the moment there was the foretopgallant to be set.
    More orders, more piping, more running feet: hands racing aloft. The cry 'Let fall, let fall,' and the topgallant billowed loose; they sheeted it home and the Orkneymen clapped on to the halliards. The sail rose, filling round and taut as the yard moved up and the men sang
    Afore the wind, afore the wind
    God send, God send
    Fair weather, fair weather,
    Many prizes, many prizes.
    The naval Surprises might not hold with shanties in general but they thoroughly approved of this one, above all its sentiment; and with ship swinging to the true south-west by west and gathering speed, all those forward of the quarterdeck repeated
    Many prizes,
    many prizes.
    Chapter 2
    Fair weather, fair weather bore the Surprise right out beyond the chops of the Channel, to the lonely waters Jack preferred for priddying the decks and making all ship-shape and man-of-war fashion before he turned south for Portugal. It was not that as a letter of marque he feared any pressing of his hands, nor incivility on the part of any considerable King's ship; for in the first place he had his protection from the Admiralty and in the second those few senior officers in the home or Mediterranean fleets who might hive offered to treat the Surprise as a common privateer - obliging Aubrey to lie to, to come up under their lee, bring his papers aboard, justify his existence, answer questions and so on - knew that now he was a member of parliament he was likely to be restored to the list. But on the one hand he preferred to avoid the invitations of even the well-inclined (apart from intimate friends) and the slight awkwardness of their reception of him as a mere civilian; and on the other he would as soon do without the nuisance of the busy unrated vessels of the smaller kind commanded by lieutenants or even by master's mates. They could be dealt with, of course, but it was a time-wasting bore, an irritation.
    The frigate therefore sailed into a vast unfrequented pool, traversed by whales and creatures of the deep and by young boobies in the season of the year, but by little else: its centre bay far to the south of Cape Clear in Ireland, and here, if the day should prove as peaceful as they hoped, the Surprises meant to carry on with their titivating and above all to deal with the piebald blackstrake. The weather was ideal: a dying air from the south-west and the remains of a long easy southern swell, but barely a ripple on the surface. It was one of those early mornings when there is no horizon, when sea and sky blend imperceptibly in a nameless band of colour that strengthens to pale blue at the zenith; and many hands thought they might have a little fishing over the side before they started on the blackstrake - this was a most promising time for codlings.
    But before that they were to have breakfast; and presently eight bells, the bosun's call, the general hurrying about and banging of mess-kids told Stephen that they were in the act of taking it. His own would come soon, when Jack smelt the coffee, the toast and the frying bacon. Aubrey had stayed up until the middle watch, studying Humboldt's observations and working out the best form to record his own, and now as usual he was sleeping right through the din that followed eight bells - nothing but a change of wind, the cry of 'Sail ho!' or the smell of breakfast would wake him.
    Had he been sailing alone as captain of the Surprise he would have enjoyed no less than three apartments of his