Lieutenant Hornblower h-2

by Cecil Scott Forester

  Through the telescope details were far plainer. Two large schooners with several guns aside; a big lugger, and a vessel whose rig they still could not determine, as she was the farthest away and, with no sail set, was towing behind her boats out from the anchorage.

  “It’ll be long range, Mr. Hornblower,” said Bush.

  “Yes, sir. But they hit us with these same guns yesterday.”

  “Make sure of your aim. They won’t be long under fire.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The vessels were not coming down together. If they had done so they might stand a better chance, as the fort would only be able to fire on one at a time. But the panic feeling or every man for himself must have started them off as soon as each one separately could get under way—and perhaps the deep channel was too narrow for vessels in company. Now the leading schooner had taken in her sail again; the wind here, what there was of it, was foul for her when she turned to port along the channel. She had two boats out quickly enough to tow her; Bush’s telescope could reveal every detail.

  “Some time yet before she’s in range, sir,” said Hornblower. “I’ll take a look at the furnace, with your permission.”

  “I’ll come too,” said Bush.

  At the furnace the bellows were still being worked and the heat was tremendous—but it was far hotter when Saddler drew out the grating that carried the heated shot. Even in the sunshine they could see the glow of the spheres; as the heat rose from them the atmosphere above them wavered so that everything below was vague and distorted. It could be a scene in Hell. Saddler spat on the nearest cannon ball and the saliva leaped with an instant hiss from the smooth surface of the sphere, falling from it without contact to dance and leap on the grating under it until with a final hiss it vanished entirely. A second attempt by Saddler brought the same result.

  “Hot enough, sir?” asked Saddler.

  “Yes,” said Hornblower.

  Bush had often enough as a midshipman taken a smoothing-iron forward to the galley to heat it when there had been particular need to iron a shirt or a neckcloth; he remembered how he had made the same test of the temperature of the iron. It was a proof that the iron was dangerously hot to use when the spittle refused to make contact with it, but the shot was far hotter than that, infinitely hotter.

  Saddler thrust the grating back into the furnace and wiped his steaming face with the rags that had shielded his hands.

  “Stand by, you bearer men,” said Hornblower. “You’ll be busy enough soon.”

  With a glance at Bush for permission he was off again, back to the battery, hurrying with awkward galvanic strides. Bush followed more slowly; he was weary with all his exertions, and it crossed his mind as he watched Hornblower hurrying up the ramp that Hornblower had probably been more active than he and was not blessed with nearly as powerful a physique. By the time he came up to him Hornblower was watching the leading schooner again.

  “Her scantling’ll be weak,” said Hornblower. “These twentyfourpounders’ll go clean through her most of the time, even at long range.”

  “Plunging shot,” said Bush. “Maybe they’ll go through her bottom.”

  “Maybe so,” said Hornblower, and then added “sir.”

  Even after all his years of service he was liable to forget that important monosyllable when he was thinking deeply.

  “She’s setting sail again!” said Bush. “They’ve got her head round.”

  “And the tows have cast off,” added Hornblower. “Not long now.”

  He looked down the line of guns, all charged and primed, the quoins withdrawn so that they were at their highest elevation, the muzzles pointing upward as though awaiting the shot to be rolled into them. The schooner was moving perceptibly down the channel towards them. Hornblower turned and walked down the row; behind his back one hand was twisting impatiently within the other; he came back and turned again, walking jerkily down the row—he seemed incapable of standing still, but when he caught Bush’s eye on him he halted guiltily, forcing himself, with an obvious effort, to stand still like his superior officer. The schooner crept on, a full half-mile ahead of the next vessel.

  “You might try a ranging shot,” said Bush at length.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Hornblower with instant agreement, like a river bursting through a broken dam. It seemed as if he had been compelling himself to wait until Bush should speak.

  “Furnace there!” hailed Hornblower. “Saddler! send up one shot.”

  The bearers came plodding up the ramp, carrying carefully between them the glowing cannon ball. The bright redness of it was quite obvious—even the heat that it gave off was distinctly perceptible. The wet wads were rammed down the bore of the nearest gun, the shot bearer was hoisted up level with its muzzle, and coaxed into motion with wadhook and rammer, the fiery shot was rolled in. There was an instant hissing and spluttering of steam as the ball came into contact with the wet wads; Bush wondered again how long it would be before the wads were burned through and the charge set off; the recoil would make it decidedly uncomfortable for anyone who happened to be aiming the gun at that moment.

  “Run up!” Hornblower was giving the orders. The gun’s crew heaved at the tackles and the gun rumbled forward.

  Hornblower took his place behind the gun and, squatting down, he squinted along it.

  “Trail right!” Tackles and handspikes heaved the gun around. “A touch more! Steady! No, a touch left. Steady!”

  Somewhat to Bush’s relief Hornblower straightened himself and came from behind the gun. He leaped on to the parapet with his usual uncontrollable vigour and shaded his eyes; Bush at one side kept his telescope trained on the schooner.

  “Fire!” said Hornblower.

  The momentary hiss of the priming was drowned in the instant bellow of the gun. Bush saw the black line of the shot’s path across the blue of the sky, reaching upward during the time it might take to draw a breath, sinking downward again; a strange sort of line, an inch long if he had to say its length, constantly renewing itself in front and constantly disappearing at its back end, and pointing straight at the schooner. It was still pointing at her, just above her—to that extent did the speed of the shot outpace the recording of retina and brain—when Bush saw the splash, right in line with the schooner’s bows. He took his eye from the telescope as the splash disappeared, to find Hornblower looking at him.

  “A cable’s length short,” he said, and Hornblower nodded agreement.

  “We can open fire, then, sir?” asked Hornblower.

  “Yes, carry on, Mr. Hornblower.”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth before Hornblower was hailing again.

  “Furnace, there! Five more shot!”

  It took Bush a moment or two to see the point of that order. But clearly it was inadvisable to have hot shot and powder charges brought up on the platform at the same time; the gun that had been fired would have to remain unloaded until the other five had fired as well. Hornblower came down and stood at Bush’s side again.

  “I couldn’t understand yesterday why they always fired salvos at us, sir,” he said, “that reduced the rate of fire to the speed of the slowest gun. But I see now.”

  “So do I,” said Bush.

  “All your wet wads in?” demanded Hornblower of the guns’ crews. “Certain? Carry on, then.”

  The shot were coaxed into the muzzles of the guns; they hissed and spluttered against the wads.

  “Run up. Now take your aim. Make sure of it, captains.”

  The hissing and spluttering continued as the guns were trained.

  “Fire when your gun bears!”

  Hornblower was up on the parapet again; Bush could see perfectly well through the embrasure of the idle gun. The five guns all fired within a second or two of each other; through Bush’s telescope the sky was streaked by the passage of their shot.

  “Sponge out!” said Hornblower; and then, louder, “Six charges!”

  He came down to Bush.


  “One splash pretty close,” said Bush.

  “Two very short,” said Hornblower, “and one far out on the right. I know who fired that one and I’ll deal with him.”

  “One splash I didn’t see,” said Bush.

  “Nor did I, sir. Clean over, perhaps. But possibly a hit.”

  The men with the charges came running up to the platform, and the eager crews seized them and rammed them home and the dry wads on top of the charges.

  “Six shot!” shouted Hornblower to Saddler; and then, to the gun captains, “Prime. Put in your wet wads.”

  “She’s altered course,” said Bush. “The range can’t have changed much.”

  “No, sir. Load and run up! Excuse me, sir.”

  He went hurrying off to take his stand by the lefthand gun, which presumably was the one which had been incorrectly laid previously.

  “Take your aim carefully,” he called from his new position. “Fire when you’re sure.”

  Bush saw him squat behind the lefthand gun, but he himself applied his attention to observing the results of the shooting.

  The cycle repeated itself; the guns roared, the men came running with fresh charges, the redhot shot were brought up. The guns were fired again before Hornblower came back to Bush’s side.

  “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 to 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 farther 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 lamer.

  “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 bloodshot eyes might well have suggested it. The man was fatigued. Then the dull expression of 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—twentyfour pounds of whitehot 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 wadhook 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 on to 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 selfconscious.

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Bush.

  “These 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 damnedest 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 redhot 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 selfcontrol and mastering himself, could see his annoyance at having been selfrevelatory, 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. “These won’t be as hot as the last batch. Take your aim carefully.”