The Young Hornblower Omnibus

by C. S. Forester

  “You’re hitting, I think,” said Bush. He turned back to look again through his glass. “I think—by God, yes! Smoke! Smoke!”

  A faint black cloud was just visible between the schooner’s masts. It thinned again, and Bush could not be perfectly sure. The nearest gun bellowed out, and a chance flaw of wind blew the powder smoke about them as they stood together, blotting out their view of the schooner.

  “Confound it all!” said Bush, moving about restlessly in search of a better viewpoint.

  The other guns went off almost simultaneously and added to the smoke.

  “Bring up fresh charges!” yelled Hornblower, with the smoke eddying round him. “See that you swab those guns out properly.”

  The smoke eddied away, revealing the schooner, apparently unharmed, still creeping along the bay, and Bush cursed in his disappointment.

  “The range is shortening and the guns are hot now,” said Hornblower; and then, louder, “Gun captains! Get your quoins in!”

  He hurried off to supervise the adjustment of the guns’ elevation, and it was some seconds before he hailed again for hot shot to be brought up. In that time Bush noticed that the schooner’s boats, which had been pulling in company with the schooner, were turning to run alongside her. That could mean that the schooner’s captain was now sure that the flaws of wind would be sufficient to carry her round the point and safely to the mouth of the bay. The guns went off again in an irregular salvo, and Bush saw a trio of splashes rise from the water’s surface close on the near side of the schooner.

  “Fresh charges!” yelled Hornblower.

  And then Bush saw the schooner swing round, presenting her stern to the battery and heading straight for the shallows of the further shore.

  “What in hell—” said Bush to himself.

  Then he saw a sudden fountain of black smoke appear spouting from the schooner’s deck, and while this sight was rejoicing him he saw the schooner’s booms swing over as she took the ground. She was afire and had been deliberately run ashore. The smoke was dense about her hull, and while he held her in his telescope he saw her big white mainsail above the smoke suddenly disintegrate and disappear—the flames had caught it and whisked it away into nothing. He took the telescope from his eye and looked round for Hornblower, who was standing on the parapet again. Powder and smoke had grimed his face, already dark with the growth of his beard, and his teeth showed strangely white as he grinned. The gunners were cheering, and the cheering was being echoed by the rest of the landing party in the fort.

  Hornblower was gesticulating to make the gunners cease their noise so that he could be heard down in the fort as he countermanded his call for more shot.

  “Belay that order, Saddler! Take those shot back, bearer men!”

  He jumped down and approached Bush.

  “That’s done it,” said the latter.

  “The first one, anyway.”

  A great jet of smoke came from the burning wreck, reaching up and up from between her masts; the mainmast fell as they watched, and as it fell the report of the explosion came to their ears across the water; the fire had reached the schooner’s powder store, and when the smoke cleared a little they could see that she now lay on the shore in two halves, blown asunder in the middle. The foremast still stood for a moment on the forward half, but it fell as they watched it; bows and stern were blazing fiercely, while the boats with the crew rowed away across the shallows.

  “A nasty sight,” said Hornblower.

  But Bush could see nothing unpleasant about the sight of an enemy burning. He was exulting. “With half his men in the boats he didn’t have enough hands to spare to fight the fires when we hit him,” he said.

  “Maybe a shot went through her deck and lodged in her hold,” said Hornblower.

  The tone of his voice made Bush look quickly at him, for he was speaking thickly and harshly like a drunken man; but he could not be drunk, although the dirty hairy face and blood-shot eyes might well have suggested it. The man was fatigued. Then the dull expression on Hornblower’s face was replaced once more by a look of animation, and when he spoke his voice was natural again.

  “Here comes the next,” he said. “She must be nearly in range.”

  The second schooner, also with her boats in attendance, was coming down the channel, her sails set. Hornblower turned back to the guns.

  “D’you see the next ship to aim at?” he called; and received a fierce roar of agreement, before he turned round to hail Saddler. “Bring up those shot, bearer men.”

  The procession of bearers with the glowing shot came up the ramp again—frightfully hot shot; the heat as each one went by—twenty-four pounds of white-hot iron—was like the passage of a wave. The routine of rolling the fiendish things into the gun muzzles proceeded. There were some loud remarks from the men at the guns, and one of the shot fell with a thump on the stone floor of the battery, and lay there glowing. Two other guns were still not loaded.

  “What’s wrong there?” demanded Hornblower.

  “Please, sir—”

  Hornblower was already striding over to see for himself. From the muzzle of one of the three loaded guns there was a curl of steam; in all three there was a wild hissing as the hot shot rested on the wet wads.

  “Run up, train, and fire,” ordered Hornblower. “Now what’s the matter with you others? Roll that thing out of the way.”

  “Shot won’t fit, sir,” said more than one voice as someone with a wad-hook awkwardly rolled the fallen shot up against the parapet. The bearers of the other two stood by, sweating. Anything Hornblower could say in reply was drowned for the moment by the roar of one of the guns—the men were still at the tackles, and the gun had gone off on its own volition as they ran it up. A man sat crying out with pain, for the carriage had recoiled over his foot and blood was already pouring from it onto the stone floor. The captains of the other two loaded guns made no pretence at training and aiming. The moment their guns were run up they shouted “Stand clear!” and fired.

  “Carry him down to Mr. Pierce,” said Hornblower, indicating the injured man. “Now let’s see about these shot.”

  Hornblower returned to Bush with a rueful look on his face, embarrassed and self-conscious.

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Bush.

  “Those shot are too hot,” explained Hornblower. “Damn it, I didn’t think of that. They’re half melted in the furnace and gone out of shape so that they won’t fit the bore. What a fool I was not to think of that.”

  As his superior officer, Bush did not admit that he had not thought of it either. He said nothing.

  “And the ones that hadn’t gone out of shape were too hot anyway,” went on Hornblower. “I’m the damndest fool God ever made. Mad as a hatter. Did you see how that gun went off? The men’ll be scared now and won’t lay their guns properly—too anxious to fire it off before the recoil catches them. God, I’m a careless son of a swab.”

  “Easy, easy,” said Bush, a prey to conflicting emotions.

  Hornblower pounding his left hand with his right fist as he upbraided himself was a comic sight; Bush could not help laughing at him. And Bush knew perfectly well that Hornblower had done excellently so far, really excellently, to have mastered at a moment’s notice so much of the technique of using red-hot shot. Moreover, it must be confessed that Bush had experienced, during this expedition, more than one moment of pique at Hornblower’s invariable bold assumption of responsibility; and the pique may even have been roused by a stronger motive, jealousy at Hornblower’s good management—an unworthy motive, which Bush would disclaim with shocked surprise if he became aware of it. Yet it made the sight of Hornblower’s present discomfiture all the more amusing at the moment.

  “Don’t take on so,” said Bush with a grin.

  “But it makes me wild to be such a—”

  Hornblower cut the sentence off short. Bush could actually see him calling up his self-control and mastering himself, could see his annoyance at having been se
lf-revelatory, could see the mask of the stoical and experienced fighting man put back into place to conceal the furious passions within.

  “Would you take charge here, sir?” he said; it might be another person speaking. “I’ll go and take a look at the furnace, if I may. They’ll have to go easy with those bellows.”

  “Very good, Mr. Hornblower. Send the ammunition up and I’ll direct the fire on the schooner.”

  “Aye aye, sir. I’ll send up the last shot to go into the furnace. They won’t be too hot yet, sir.”

  Hornblower went darting down the ramp while Bush moved behind the guns to direct the fire. The fresh charges came up and were rammed home, the wet wads went in on top of the dry wads, and then the bearers began to arrive with the shot.

  “Steady, all of you,” said Bush. “Those won’t be as hot as the last batch. Take your aim carefully.”

  But when Bush climbed onto the parapet and trained his telescope on the second schooner he could see that the schooner was changing her mind. She had brailed up her foresail and taken in her jibs; her boats were lying at an angle to her course, and were struggling, beetle-like, off her bows. They were pulling her round—she was going back up the bay and deciding not to run the gauntlet of the red-hot shot. There was the smouldering wreck of her consort to frighten her.

  “She’s turning tail!” said Bush loudly. “Hit her while you can, you men.”

  He saw the shot curving in the air, he saw the splashes in the water; he remembered how yesterday he had seen a ricochet shot from these very guns rebound from the water and strike the Renown’s massive side—one of the splashes was dead true for line, and might well indicate a hit.

  “Fresh charges!” he bellowed, turning to make himself heard down at the magazine. “Sponge out!”

  But by the time the charges were in the guns the schooner had got her head right round, had reset her foresail, and was creeping back up the bay. Judging by the splashes of the last salvo she would be out of range before the next could be fired.

  “Mr. Hornblower!”

  “Sir!”

  “ ’Vast sending any shot.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  When Hornblower came up again to the battery Bush pointed to the retreating schooner.

  “He thought better of it, did he?” commented Hornblower. “Yes, and those other two have anchored, I should say.”

  His fingers were twitching for the one telescope again, and Bush handed it over.

  “The other two aren’t moving either,” said Hornblower, and then he swung round and trained the telescope down the bay towards the sea. “Renown’s gone about. She’s caught the wind. Six miles? Seven miles? She’ll be rounding the point in an hour.”

  It was Bush’s turn to grab for the telescope. There was no mistaking the trim of those topsails. From the Renown he transferred his attention to the opposite shore of the bay. There was the other battery with the Spanish flag above it the flag was now drooping, now flapping lazily in the light wind prevailing over the shore. He could make out no sign of activity whatever, and there was some finality in his gesture as he closed the telescope and looked at his second in command.

  “Everything’s quiet,” he said. “Nothing to be done until Renown comes down.”

  “That is so,” agreed Hornblower.

  It was interesting to watch Hornblower’s animation ebb away. Intense weariness was obvious in his face the moment he was off his guard.

  “We can feed the men,” said Bush. “And I’d like to have a look at the wounded. Those damned prisoners have to be sorted out—Whiting’s got ’em all herded in the casemate, men and women, captains and drum boys. God knows what provisions there are here. We’ve got to see about that. Then we can set a watch, dismiss the watch below, and some of us can get some rest.”

  “So we can,” said Hornblower; reminded of the necessary activities that still remained, he resumed his stolid expression. “Shall I go down and start attending to it, sir?”

  XI

  The sun at noontime was glaring down into the fort of Samaná. Within the walls the heat was pitilessly reflected inwards to a murderous concentration, so that even the corners which had shade were dreadfully hot. The sea breeze had not yet begun to blow, and from the flagstaff the White Ensign drooped spiritlessly, half covering the Spanish colours that drooped below it. Yet discipline still prevailed. On every bastion the lookouts stood in the blazing sun to guard against surprise. The marine sentries, with regular and measured step, were “walking their posts of duty in a smart and soldierly manner” in accordance with regulations, muskets sloped, scarlet tunics buttoned to the neck, crossbelts exactly in position. When one of them reached the end of his beat he would halt with a click of his heels, bring down his musket to the “order” position in three smart movements, and then, pushing his right hand forward and his left foot out, stand “at ease” until the heat and the flies drove him into motion again, when his heels would come together, the musket rise to his shoulder, and he would walk his beat once more. In the battery the guns’ crew dozed on the unrelenting stone, the lucky men in the shade cast by the guns, the others in the narrow strip of shade at the foot of the parapet; but two men sat and kept themselves awake and every few minutes saw to it that the slow matches smouldering in the tubs were still alight, available to supply fire instantly if the guns had to be worked, whether to fire on ships in the bay or to beat off an attack by land. Out beyond Samaná Point H.M.S. Renown lay awaiting the first puffs of the sea breeze to come up the bay and get into touch with her landing party.

  Beside the main storehouse Lieutenant Bush sat on a bench and tried to stay awake, cursing the heat, cursing his own kindness of heart that had led him to allow his junior officers to rest first while he assumed the responsibilities of officer on duty, envying the marines who lay asleep and snoring all about him. From time to time he stretched his legs, which were stiff and painful after all his exertions. He mopped his forehead and thought about loosening his neckcloth.

  Round the corner came a hurried messenger.

  “Mr. Bush, sir. Please, sir, there’s a boat puttin’ off from the battery across the bay.”

  Bush rolled a stupefied eye at the messenger.

  “Heading which way?”

  “Straight towards us, sir. She’s got a flag—a white flag, it looks like.”

  “I’ll come and see. No peace for the wicked,” said Bush, and he pulled himself to his feet, with all his joints complaining, and walked stiffly over to the ramp and up to the battery.

  The petty officer of the watch was waiting there with the telescope, having descended from the lookout tower to meet him. Bush took the glass and looked through it. A six-oared boat, black against the blue of the bay was pulling straight towards him, as the messenger had said. From the staff in the bow hung a flag, which might be white; there was no wind to extend it. But in the boat there were no more than ten people all told, so that there could be no immediate danger to the fort in any case. It was a long row across the glittering bay. Bush watched the boat heading steadily for the fort. The low cliffs which descended to meet the water on this side of the Samaná peninsula sank in an easy gradient here in the neighbourhood of the fort; diagonally down the gradient ran a path to the landing stage, which could be swept—as Bush had already noted—by the fire of the last two guns at the right-hand end of the battery. But there was no need to man those guns, for this could not be an attack. And in confirmation a puff of wind blew out the flag in the boat. It was white.

  Undeviating, the boat pulled for the landing stage and came alongside it. There was a flash of bright metal from the boat, and then in the heated air the notes of a trumpet call, high and clear, rose to strike against the ears of the garrison. Then two men climbed out of the boat onto the landing stage. They wore uniforms of blue and white, one of them with a sword at his side while the other carried the twinkling trumpet, which he set to his lips and blew again. Piercingly and sweet, the call echoed along the cliffs;
the birds which had been drowsing in the heat came fluttering out with plaintive cries, disturbed as much by the trumpet call as they had been by the thunder of the artillery in the morning. The officer wearing the sword unrolled a white flag, and then he and the trumpeter set themselves to climb the steep path to the fort. This was a parley in accordance with the established etiquette of war. The pealing notes of the trumpet were proof that no surprise was intended: the white flag attested the pacific intentions of the bearer.

  As Bush watched the slow ascent he meditated on what powers he had to conduct a negotiation with the enemy, and he thought dubiously about the difficulties that would be imposed on any negotiation by differences of language.

  “Turn out the guard,” he said to the petty officer; and then to the messenger, “My compliments to Mr. Hornblower, and ask him to come here as soon as he can.”

  The trumpet echoed up the path again; many of the sleepers in the fort were stirring at the sound, and it was a proof of the fatigue of the others that they went on sleeping. Down in the courtyard the tramp of feet and the sound of curt orders told how the marine guard was forming up. The white flag was almost at the edge of the ditch; the bearer halted, looking up at the parapets, while the trumpeter blew a last final call, the wild notes of the fanfare calling the last of the sleepers in the garrison to wakefulness.

  “I’m here, sir,” reported Hornblower.

  The hat to which he raised his hand was lopsided, and he was like a scarecrow in his battered uniform. His face was clean, but it bore a plentiful growth of beard.

  “Can you speak Spanish enough to deal with him?” asked Bush, indicating the Spanish officer with a jerk of his thumb.

  “Well, sir—yes.”

  The last word was in a sense spoken against Hornblower’s will. He would have liked to temporize, and then he had given the definite answer which any military situation demanded.