No Pirates Nowadays: A Short Story. Patrick O’Brian

and big for his age, but he looked surprisingly young to be on a schooner in those dangerous seas. He was Sullivan’s nephew, and they had picked him up at Kuala Lumpur, where his father had had a plantation, and where both his parents had died, leaving Derrick almost stranded. It had been a last-minute arrangement, much against Ross’s cautious judgement; but, as Sullivan said, they could hardly leave the boy on his beam ends, and it would have delayed the voyage too much to have remained to make all the arrangements for sending him home to school. So, to Derrick’s vast delight, he had been signed on, and, from the day he had got over his first bout of seasickness, he had worked hard and willingly, earning even Ross’s good opinion, a thing which the Scot gave but rarely.

      Below, in the saloon, Ross and Sullivan worked over their reckonings: for the third time they came to the conclusion that an uncharted current had swept them a good distance off their course. A hail from the deck interrupted them: Derrick said that he had heard the sound of another ship’s engines. They listened: out of the fog there came the distinct sound of a throbbing screw.

      ‘Ahoy, Li Han,’ shouted Sullivan. ‘Tell Svenssen to sound the foghorn.’

      ‘Foghorn instantaneously it is, sir,’ replied the Chinese cook. A moment later the melancholy bellow wailed through the fog. Surprisingly close, on the starboard quarter, came the answer.

      ‘Stop the engine, Li Han,’ shouted Sullivan, ‘and stow the dictionary.’

      Li Han went aft without a word, a little distressed at this reference to his treasured dictionary, from which he was teaching himself ‘number one first chop’ English. The engine spluttered and ceased; the other ship could be heard plainly moving towards them. ‘Stand by to start up,’ shouted Sullivan again, and he hailed the other ship. The answer came, ‘Who are you?’

      ‘The Wanderer. Who are you?’

      ‘The Santa Maria. Can I come aboard?’

      ‘Send a boat.’

      They heard the splash of a boat being lowered, the gurgle of the oars, and then out of the wall of fog a jolly-boat appeared, not ten feet away.