Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  He had a hundred and ninety trained men from the Lydia and a hundred and ninety raw landsmen. During the commissioning of the Sutherland only twenty old Lydias had deserted, abandoning two years’ pay and risking the penalty of a thousand lashes, and he knew he was lucky at that. Some captains would have lost two-thirds of their crews during as long a stay as this in a home port. But those twenty missing men would have been desperately useful now. He was a hundred and seventy men – a hundred and seventy trained men – short of complement. In six weeks he might drill his landsmen, all except that proportion of hopeless ones, diseased, crippled, or idiotic whom he could expect to find among them, into passable seamen and gunners. But in less than six weeks, possibly in less than three, he would be in action on the coast of Spain. By tomorrow night, even, he might be at grips with the enemy – the wind was backing towards the east and might bring out a French squadron of ships of the line from Brest, evading the blockading squadron, and crammed with men, to fall upon such a tempting prize as the East India convoy. What chance would the Sutherland stand, yardarm to yardarm with a French first rate, with only two-thirds of her proper crew, and half of them seasick?

  Hornblower clenched his fists again, boiling with exasperation at the thought. It was he who would be held responsible for any disaster, who would have to sustain the contempt or the pity – either alternative horrible to contemplate – of his brother captains. He yearned and hungered for men, more passionately than ever a miser desired gold, or a lover his mistress. And now he had no more chance of finding any. Gerard’s raid upon St Ives and Redruth had been his last effort; he knew that he had been fortunate to get as many as fifty men from there. There would be no chance of obtaining any from the convoy. Government transports to Lisbon, government storeships to Port Mahon, East India Company’s ships – he could not take a man from any of those. He felt like a man in a cage.

  He went across to his desk again and took out his private duplicate of the ship’s watch bill, which he and Bush had sat up through most of the night to draw up. It was largely upon that watch bill that the efficiency of the ship would depend in her short-handed condition; the trained men had to be distributed evenly over every strategic point, with just the right proportion of landsmen to facilitate training, and yet not to impede the working of the ship. Foretop, maintop, and mizzen top; forecastle and afterguard; every man had to be assigned a duty, so that whatever evolution out of the thousand possible was being carried out, in fair weather or foul, in daylight or darkness, he would go to his position without confusion or waste of time knowing exactly what he had to do. He had to have his place at the guns allotted him under the command of the officer of his division.

  Hornblower looked through the watch bill again. It was satisfactory as far as it went. It had a kind of cardcastle stability – adequate enough at first sight, but incapable of standing any strain or alteration. Casualties or disease would bring the whole thing down in ruins. He flung the watch bill down as he remembered that, if the cruise were a healthy one, he might expect one death every ten days from accident or natural causes without regard to hostile action. Fortunately it was the unseasoned men who were the more likely to die.

  Hornblower cocked his ear at the din on the main deck. The hoarse orders, the pipes of the boatswain’s mates, and the stamp-and-go of many feet told him that they were heaving up the longboat from overside. A strange squeaking, unlike that of the sheaves in the blocks, which had reached him for some time and which he had been unable to identify so far, he suddenly realised was the noise of the various families of pigs – captain’s stores and wardroom stores – at last come on board. He heard a sheep bleating and then a cock crowing to the accompaniment of a roar of laughter. He had brought no cock along with his hens; it must belong to someone in the wardroom or the midshipmen’s berth.

  Someone thumped on the cabin door, and Hornblower snatched up his papers and dropped into his chair. Not for worlds would he be seen standing up and obviously awaiting the hour of departure with discomposure.

  ‘Come in!’ he roared.

  A scared young midshipman put his head round the door – it was Longley, Gerard’s nephew, newly come to sea.

  ‘Mr Bush says the last of the stores are just coming on board, sir,’ he piped.

  Hornblower eyed him with a stony indifference which was the only alternative to grinning at the frightened little imp.

  ‘Very good,’ he growled, and busied himself with his papers.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy, after a moment’s hesitation, withdrawing.

  ‘Mr Longley!’ roared Hornblower.

  The child’s face, more terrified than ever, reappeared round the door.

  ‘Come inside, boy,’ said Hornblower, testily. ‘Come in and stand still. What was it you said last?’

  ‘Er – sir – I said – Mr Bush—’

  ‘No, nothing of the sort. What was it you said last?’

  The child’s face wrinkled into the extreme of puzzlement, and then cleared as he realised the point of the question.

  ‘I said “Yes, sir”’ he piped.

  ‘And what ought you to have said?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Right. Very good.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  That boy had a certain amount of quickness of wit, and did not allow fright to bereave him entirely of his senses. If he learned quickly how to handle the men he would make a useful warrant officer. Hornblower put away his papers and locked his desk; he took a few more turns up and down his cabin, and then, a sufficient interval having elapsed to conserve his dignity, he went up to the quarterdeck.

  ‘Make sail when you’re ready, Mr Bush,’ he said.

  ‘Aye aye, sir. Easy with those falls there, you— you—’

  Even Bush had reached the condition when there was no more savour in oaths. The ship was in a horrible state of muddle, the decks were filthy, the crew exhausted. Hornblower stood with his hands behind him in a careful attitude of Olympian detachment as the order was given for all hands to make sail, and the petty officers drove the crew, stupid with weariness, to their stations. Savage, the senior midshipman, whom Hornblower had seen grow from boyhood to manhood under his eye, came shouting for the afterguard to man the main topsail halliards. Savage was wan and his eyes were bloodshot; a night of debauchery in some foul haunt in Plymouth had not left him in the best of conditions. As he shouted he put his hand to his temple, where clearly the din he was making was causing him agony. Hornblower smiled to himself at the sight – the next few days would sweat him clean again.

  ‘Captain of the afterguard!’ yelled Savage, his voice cracking. ‘I don’t see the afterguard coming aft! Quicker than that, you men! Clap on to the main topsail halliards, there! I say, you master-at-arms. Send the idlers aft. D’ye hear, there!’

  A boatswain’s mate headed a rush to the mizzen rigging at Hornblower’s elbow. Hornblower saw young Longley standing hesitating for a second, looking up at the men preceding him, and then, with a grimace of determination, the boy leaped for the ratlines and scrambled up after them. Hornblower appreciated the influences at work upon him – his fear of the towering height above him, and then his stoical decision that he could follow wherever the other men could venture. Something might be made of that boy.

  Bush was looking at his watch and fuming to the master.

  ‘Nine minutes already! God, look at them! The marines are more like sailors!’

  The marines were farther aft, at the mizzen topsail halliards. Their booted feet went clump-clump-clump on the deck. They did their work like soldiers, with soldierly rigidity, as if at drill. Sailors always laughed at that, but there was no denying that at the present moment it was the marines who were the more efficient.

  The hands scurried from halliards to braces. A roar from Harrison forward told that the mooring was slipped, and Hornblower, casting a final glance up at the windvane, saw that the wind had backed so far easterly that rounding Devil’s Point was no
t going to be simple. With the yards braced round the Sutherland turned on her keel and slowly gathered way. Women’s screeches and a fluttering of handkerchiefs from the shore boats told how some of the wives whom Hornblower had turned out twenty-four hours ago had put off to say good-bye. Close overside he saw a woman in the sternsheets of a boat blubbering unashamed, her mouth wide open and the tears running like rivers. It was no more than an even chance that she would never see her man again.

  ‘Keep your eyes inboard, there!’ yelled Harrison, who had detected some member of the crew waving farewell. Every man’s attention must be kept strictly to the business in hand now.

  Hornblower felt the ship heel as Bush directed her course as near to the wind as she would lie; with Devil’s Point ahead, and an unfamiliar ship to handle, it was clearly as well to get as far to windward as possible. That heeling of the ship awakened a storm of memories. It was not until one was in a ship under sail, with the deck unstable under one’s feet, and the familiar rattle of the blocks and piping of the rigging in one’s ear, that the thousand and one details of life at sea became vivid and recognisable again. Hornblower found himself swallowing hard with excitement.

  They were shaving the Dockyard Point as closely as possible. Most of the dockyard hands left their work to stare at them, stolidly, but not a soul among them raised a cheer. In seventeen years of warfare they had seen too many King’s ships putting out to sea to be excited about this one. Hornblower knew that he ought to have a band on board, to strike up ‘Britons, Strike Home’ or ‘Come cheer up, my lads, ’tis to glory we steer,’ but he had no band; he had not the money for one, and he was not going to call on the marine fifer or the ship’s fiddler to make a tinny little noise at this moment. Stonehouse Pool was opening up before them now, and beyond it lay the roofs of Plymouth. Maria was there somewhere; perhaps she could see the white topsails, closehauled to the wind. Perhaps Lady Barbara was there, looking out at the Sutherland. Hornblower gulped again.

  A little flaw of wind, blowing down Stonehouse Pool, took the ship nearly aback. She staggered until the helmsman allowed her to pay off. Hornblower looked round to starboard. They were coming dangerously close in to Cremyll – he had been correct in his surmise that the Sutherland would make plenty of leeway. He watched the wind, and the set of the tide off the point. He looked ahead at Devil’s Point on the starboard bow. It might be necessary at any moment to put the ship about and beat up to the northward again before breasting the tide once more. At the very moment when he saw that they would weather the point he saw Bush raise his head to bark the orders to go about.

  ‘Keep her steady as she goes, Mr Bush,’ he said; the quiet order was an announcement that he had taken charge, and Bush closed the mouth which had opened to give the order.

  They cleared the buoy a bare fifty yards from any danger, with the water creaming under the lee now as she lay over to the fresh breeze. Hornblower had not interfered to demonstrate the superiority of his seamanship and judgment, but merely because he could not stand by and watch something being done a little less artistically than was possible. In the cold-blooded calculation of chances he was superior to his lieutenant, as his ability at whist proved. Hornblower stood sublimely unconscious of his motives; in fact he hardly realised what he had done – he never gave a thought to his good seamanship.

  They were heading straight for the Devil’s Point now; Hornblower kept his eye on it as they opened up the Sound.

  ‘You can put the helm aport now,’ he said. ‘And set the t’gallant sails, Mr Bush.’

  With the wind abeam they headed into the Sound, the rugged Staddon Heights to port and Mount Edgcumbe to starboard. At every yard they advanced towards the open sea the wind blew fresher, calling a keener note from the rigging. The Sutherland was feeling the sea a little now, heaving perceptibly to the waves under her bows. With the motion, the creaking of the wooden hull became audible – noticeable on deck, loud below until the ear grew indifferent to the noise.

  ‘God blast these bloody farmers!’ groaned Bush, watching the way in which the top gallant sails were being set.

  Drake’s Island passed away to windward; the Sutherland turned her stern to it as with the wind on her port quarter she headed down the Sound. Before the top gallant sails were set they were abreast of Picklecomb Point and opening up Cawsand Bay. There was the convoy – six East Indiamen with their painted ports like men of war, all flying the gridiron flag of the Honourable Company and one sporting a broad pendant for all the world like a king’s commodore; the two naval storeships and the four transports destined for Lisbon. The three-decker Pluto and the Caligula were rolling to their anchors to seaward of them.

  ‘Flagship’s signalling, sir,’ said Bush, his glass to his eye. ‘You ought to have reported it a minute ago, Mr Vincent.’

  The Pluto had not been in sight more than thirty seconds, but there was need for promptness in acknowledging this, the first signal made by the admiral.

  ‘Sutherland’s pendant, sir,’ said the unfortunate signal midshipman, staring through his glass. ‘Negative. No. 7. Number Seven is “Anchor,” sir.’

  ‘Acknowledge,’ snapped Hornblower. ‘Get those t’gallants in again and back the main topsail, Mr Bush.’

  With his telescope Hornblower could see men racing up the rigging of the ships. In five minutes both the Pluto and the Caligula had a cloud of canvas set.

  ‘They commissioned at the Nore, blast ’em,’ growled Bush.

  At the Nore, the gateway of the busiest port in the world, ships of the Royal Navy had the best opportunity of completing their crews with prime seamen taken from incoming merchant vessels, in which it was not necessary to leave more than half a dozen hands to navigate their ships up to London river. In addition, the Pluto and Caligula had enjoyed the advantage of having been able to drill their crews during the voyage down channel. Already they were standing out of the bay. Signals were soaring up the flagship’s halliards.

  ‘To the convoy, sir,’ said Vincent. ‘Make haste. Up anchor. Make all sail con-conformable with the weather, sir. Jesus, there’s a gun.’

  An angry report and a puff of smoke indicated that the admiral was calling pointed attention to his signals. The Indiamen, with their heavy crews and man o’ war routine, were already under weigh. The shoreships and transports were slower, as was only to be expected. The other ships were backing and filling outside for what seemed an interminable time before the last of them came creeping out.

  ‘’Nother signal from the flagship, sir,’ said Vincent, reading the flags and then hurriedly referring to the signal book. ‘Take up stations as previously ordered.’

  That would be to windward of the convoy, and, with the wind abaft as it was, in the rear. Then the ships of war could always dash down to the rescue if a Frenchman tried to cut off one of the convoy under their noses. Hornblower felt the freshening breeze on his cheek. The flagship’s top gallants were set, and as he looked, he saw her royals being spread as well. He would have to conform, but with the wind increasing as it was he fancied that it would not be long before they would have to come in again. Before nightfall they would be reefing topsails. He gave the order to Bush, and watched while the crew gathered at Harrison’s bellow of ‘All hands make sail.’ He could see the landsmen flinch, not unnaturally – the Sutherland’s main royal yard was a hundred and ninety feet above the deck and swaying in a dizzy circle now that the ship was beginning to pitch to the Channel rollers.

  Hornblower turned his attention to the flagship and the convoy; he could not bear the sight of frightened men being hounded up the rigging by petty officers with ropes’ ends. It was necessary, he knew. The Navy did not – of necessity could not – admit the existence of the sentences ‘I cannot’ and ‘I am afraid.’ No exceptions could be made, and this was the right moment to grain it into the men, who had never known compulsion before, that every order must be obeyed. If his officers were to start with leniency, leniency would always be expected, and leniency,
in a service which might at any moment demand of a man the willing sacrifice of his life, could only be employed in a disciplined crew which had had time to acquire understanding. But Hornblower knew, and sympathised with, the sick terror of a man driven up to the masthead of a ship of the line when previously he had never been higher than the top of a haystack. It was a pitiless, cruel service.

  ‘Peace’ll be signed’ grumbled Bush to Crystal, the master, ‘before we make sailors out of these clodhoppers.’

  A good many of the clodhoppers in question had three days before been living peacefully in their cottages with never a thought of going to sea. And here they were under a grey sky, pitching over a grey sea, with a keener breeze than ever they had known blowing round them, overhead the terrifying heights of the rigging, and underfoot the groaning timbers of a reeling ship.

  They were well out to sea now, with the Eddystone in sight from the deck, and under the pressure of the increased sail the Sutherland was growing lively. She met her first big roller, and heaved as it reached her bow, rolled corkscrew fashion, as it passed under her, and then pitched dizzily as it went away astern. There was a wail of despair from the waist.

  ‘Off the decks, there, blast you!’ raved Harrison. ‘Keep it off the decks!’

  Men were being seasick already, with the freedom of men taken completely by surprise. Hornblower saw a dozen pale forms staggering and lurching towards the lee rails. One or two men had sat down abruptly on the deck, their hands to their temples. The ship heaved and corkscrewed again, soaring up and then sinking down again as if she would never stop, and the shuddering wail from the waist was repeated. With fixed and fascinated eyes Hornblower watched a wretched yokel vomiting into the scuppers. His stomach heaved in sympathy, and he found himself swallowing hard. There was sweat on his face although he suddenly felt bitterly cold.