Lieutenant Hornblower h-2

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “I think Mr. Hornblower deserves every credit,” he said.

  “Of course,” said Buckland—but the slight hint of surprise in his voice seemed to indicate that he did not really believe it; and he changed the subject without pursuing it further. “We’ll start tomorrow—I’ll get both launches out as soon as the hands’ve had breakfast. By noon—now what’s the matter with you, Mr. Hornblower?”

  “Well, sir—”

  “Come on. Out with it.”

  “Ortega comes back tomorrow morning to hear our terms again, sir. I suppose he’ll get up at dawn or not long after. He’ll have a bite of breakfast. Then he’ll have a few words with Villanueva. Then he’ll row across the bay. He might be here at eight bells. Later than that, probably, a little—”

  “Who cares when Ortega has his breakfast? What’s all this rigmarole for?”

  “Ortega gets here at two bells in the forenoon. If he finds we haven’t wasted a minute; if I can tell him that you’ve rejected his terms absolutely, sir, and not only that, if we can show him the gun mounted, and say we’ll open fire in an hour if they don’t surrender without conditions, he’ll be much more impressed.”

  “That’s true, sir,” said Bush.

  “Otherwise it won’t be so easy, sir. You’ll either have to temporise again while the gun’s being got into position, or you’ll have to use threats. I’ll have to say to him if you don’t agree, then we’ll start hoisting a gun up. In either case you’ll be allowing him time, sir. He might think of some other way out of it. The weather might turn dirty—there might even be a hurricane get up. But if he’s sure we’ll stand no nonsense, sir—”

  “That’s the way to treat ‘em,” said Bush.

  “But even if we start at dawn “ said Buckland, and having progressed so far in his speech he realised the alternative. “You mean we can get to work now?”

  “We have all night before us, sir. You could have the launches hoisted out and the gun swayed down into one of them. Slings and cables and some sort of carrying cradle prepared. Hands told off—”

  “And start at dawn!”

  “At dawn the boats can be round the peninsula waiting for daylight, sir. You could send some hands with a hundred fathoms of line up from the ship to here. They can start off along the path before daylight. That’d save time.”

  “So it would, by George!” said Bush; he had no trouble in visualising the problems of seamanship involved in hoisting a gun up the face of a cliff.

  “We’re shorthanded already in the ship,” said Buckland. “I’ll have to turn up both watches.”

  “That won’t hurt ‘em, sir,” said Bush. He had already been two nights without sleep and was now contemplating a third.

  “Who shall I send? I’ll want a responsible officer in charge. A good seaman at that.”

  “I’ll go if you like, sir,” said Hornblower.

  “No. You’ll have to be here to deal with Ortega. If I send Smith I’ll have no lieutenant left on board.”

  “Maybe you could send me, sir,” said Bush. “That is, if you were to leave Mr. Hornblower in command here.”

  “Um—” said Buckland. “Oh well, I don’t see anything else to do. Can I trust you, Mr. Hornblower?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “Let me see—” said Buckland.

  “I could go back to the ship with you in your gig, sir,” said Bush. “Then there’d be no time wasted.”

  This prodding of a senior officer into action was something new to Bush, but he was learning the art fast. The fact that the three of them had not long ago been fellow conspirators made it easier; and once the ice was broken, as soon as Buckland had once admitted his juniors to give him counsel and advice, it became easier with repetition.

  “Yes, I suppose you’d better,” said Buckland, and Bush promptly rose to his feet, so that Buckland could hardly help doing the same.

  Bush ran his eye over Hornblower’s battered form.

  “Now look you here, Mr. Hornblower,” he said. “You take some sleep. You need it.”

  “I relieve Whiting as officer on duty at midnight, sir,” said Hornblower, “and I have to go the rounds.”

  “Maybe that’s true. You’ll still have two hours before midnight. Turn in until then. And have Whiting relieve you at eight bells again.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  At the very thought of abandoning himself to the sleep for which he yearned Hornblower swayed with fatigue.

  “You could make that an order, sir,” suggested Bush to Buckland.

  “What’s that? Oh yes, get a rest while you can, Mr. Hornblower.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Bush picked his way down the steep path to the landing stage at Buckland’s heels, and took his seat beside him in the stern sheets of the gig.

  “I can’t make that fellow Hornblower out,” said Buckland a little peevishly on one occasion as they rowed back to the anchored Renown.

  “He’s a good officer, sir,” answered Bush, but he spoke a little absently. Already in his mind he was tackling the problem of hoisting a long ninepounder up a cliff, and he was sorting out mentally the necessary equipment, and planning the necessary orders. Two heavy anchors—not merely boat grapnels—to anchor the buoy solidly. The thwarts of the launch had better be shored up to bear the weight of the gun. Travelling blocks. Slings—for the final hoist it might be safer to suspend the gun by its cascabel and trunnions.

  Bush was not of the mental type that takes pleasure in theoretical exercises. To plan a campaign; to put himself mentally in the position of the enemy and think along alien lines; to devise unexpected expedients; all this was beyond his capacity. But to deal with a definite concrete problem, a simple matter of ropes and tackles and breaking strains, pure seamanship—he had a lifetime of experience to reinforce his natural bent in that direction.

  Chapter XIII

  “Take the strain,” said Bush, standing on the cliff’s edge and looking far, far down to where the launch floated moored to the buoy and with an anchor astern to keep her steady. Black against the Atlantic blue two ropes came down from over his head, curving slightly but almost vertical, down to the buoy. A poet might have seen something dramatic and beautiful in those spider lines cleaving the air, but Bush merely saw a couple of ropes, and the white flag down in the launch signalling that all was clear for hoisting. The blocks creaked as the men pulled in on the slack.

  “Now, handsomely,” said Bush. This work was too important to be delegated to Mr. Midshipman James, standing beside him. “Hoist away. Handsomely.”

  The creaking took on a different tone as the weight came on the blocks. The curves of the ropes altered, appeared almost deformed, as the gun began to rise from its cradle on the thwarts. The shallow, lovely catenaries changed to a harsher, more angular figure. Bush had his telescope to his eye and could see the gun stir and move, and slowly—that was what Bush meant by ‘handsomely’ in the language of the sea—it began to upend itself, to dangle from the traveller, to rise clear of the launch; hanging, just as Bush had visualized it, from the slings through its cascabel and round its trunnions. It was safe enough—if those slings were to give way or to slip, the gun would crash through the bottom of the launch. The line about its muzzle restrained it from swinging too violently.

  “Hoist away,” said Bush again, and the traveller began to mount the rope with the gun pendant below it. This was the next ticklish moment, when the pull came most transversely. But everything held fast.

  “Hoist away.”

  Now the gun was mounting up the rope. Beyond the launch’s stern it dipped, with the stretching of the cable and the straightening of the curve, until its muzzle was almost in the sea. But the hoisting proceeded steadily, and it rose clear of the water, up, up, up. The sheaves hummed rhythmically in the blocks as the hands hove on the line. The sun shone on the men from its level position in the glowing east, stretching out their shadows and those of the trees to incredible lengths over the ir
regular plateau.

  “Easy, there!” said Bush. “Belay!”

  The gun had reached the cliff edge.

  “Move that cat’s cradle over this way a couple of feet. Now, sway in. Lower. Good. Cast off those lines.”

  The gun lay, eight feet of dull bronze, upon the cat’s cradle that had been spread to receive it. This was a small area of stout ropenetting, from which diverged, knotted thickly to the central portion, a score or more of individual lines, each laid out separately on the ground.

  “We’ll get that on its way first. Take a line, each of you marines.”

  The thirty redcoated marines that Hornblower had sent along from the fort moved up to the cat’s cradle. Their noncommissioned officers pushed them into position, and Bush checked to see that each man was there.

  “Take hold.”

  It was better to go to a little trouble and see that everything was correctly balanced at the start rather than risk that the unwieldy lump of metal should roll off the cat’s cradle and should have to be laboriously manoeuvred back into position.

  “Now, all of you together when I give the word. Lift!”

  The gun rose a foot from the ground as every man exerted himself.

  “March! Belay that, sergeant.”

  The sergeant had begun to call the step, but on this irregular ground with every man supporting eighty pounds of weight it was better that they should not try to keep step.

  “Halt! Lower!”

  The gun had moved twenty yards towards the position Bush had selected for it.

  “Carry on, sergeant. Keep ‘em moving. Not too fast.”

  Marines were only dumb animals, not even machines, and were liable to tire. It was better be conservative with their strength. But while they laboured at carrying the gun the necessary half mile up to the crest the seamen could work at hauling up the rest of the stores from the launches. Nothing would be as difficult as the gun. The gun carriage was a featherweight by comparison; even the nets, each holding twenty ninepound cannon balls, were easy to handle. Rammers, sponges, and wadhooks, two of each in case of accidents; wads; and now the powder charges. With only two and a half pounds of powder in each they seemed tiny compared with the eightpound charges Bush had grown accustomed to on the lower gundeck. Last of all came the heavy timbers destined to form a smooth floor upon which the gun could be worked. They were awkward things to carry, but with each timber on the shoulders of four men they could be carried up the gentle slope fast enough, overtaking the unfortunate marines, who, streaming with sweat, were lifting and carrying, lifting and carrying, on their way up.

  Bush stood for a moment at the cliff edge checking over the stores with James’ assistance. Linstocks and slow match; primers and quills; barricoes of water; handspikes, hammers, and nails; everything necessary, he decided—not merely his professional reputation but his selfrespect depended on his having omitted nothing. He waved his flag, and received an answer from the launches. The second launch cast off her mooring line, and then, hauling up her anchor, she went off with her consort to pull back round Samaná Point to rejoin Renown–in the ship they would be most desperately shorthanded until the launches’ crews should come on board again. From the trees to which it was secured, over Bush’s head, the rope hung down to the buoy, neglected unless it should be needed again; Bush hardly spared it a glance. Now he was free to walk up the crest and prepare for action; a glance at the sun assured him that it was less than three hours since sunrise even now.

  He organised the final carrying party and started up to the crest. When he reached it the bay opened below him. He put his glass to his eye: the three vessels were lying at anchor within easy cannon shot of where he stood, and when he swung the glass to his left he could just make out, far, far away, the two specks which were the flags flying over the fort—the swell of the land hid the body of the building from his sight. He closed the glass and applied himself to the selection of a level piece of ground on which to lay the timbers for the platform. Already the men with the lightest loads were around him, chattering and pointing excitedly until with a growl he silenced them.

  The hammers thumped upon the nails as the crosspieces were nailed into position on the timbers. No sooner had they ceased than the gun carriage was swung up on to it by the lusty efforts of half a dozen men. They attached the tackles and saw to it that the guntrucks ran easily before chocking them. The marines came staggering up, sweating and gasping under their monstrous burden. Now was the moment for the trickiest piece of work in the morning’s programme. Bush distributed his steadiest men round the carrying ropes, a reliable petty officer on either side to watch that accurate balance was maintained.

  “Lift and carry.”

  The gun lay beside the carriage on the platform.

  “Lift. Lift. Higher. Not high enough. Lift, you men!”

  There were gasps and grunts as the men struggled to raise the gun.

  “Keep her at that! Back away, starboard side! Go with ‘em, port side. Lift! Bring the bows round now. Steady!”

  The gun in its cat’s cradle hung precariously over the carriage as Bush lined it up.

  “Now, back towards me! Steady! Lower! Slowly, damn you! Steady! For’ard a little! Now lower again!”

  The gun sank down towards its position on the carriage. It rested there, the trunnions not quite in their holes, the breech not quite in position on the bed.

  “Hold it! Berry! Chapman! Handspikes under those trunnions! Ease her along!”

  With something of a jar the ton of metal subsided into it, place on the carriage, trunnions home into their holes and breech settled upon the bed. A couple of hands set to work untying the knots that would free the cat’s cradle from under the gun, but Berry, gunner’s mate, had already snapped the capsquares down upon the trunnions, and the gun was now a gun, a vital fighting weapon and not an inanimate ingot of metal. The shot were being piled at the edge of the platform.

  “Lay those charges out back there!” said Bush, pointing. No one in his senses allowed unprotected explosives nearer a gun than was necessary. Berry was kneeling on the platform, bent over the flint and steel with which he was working to catch a spark upon the tinder with which to ignite the slow match. Bush wiped away the sweat that streamed over his face and neck; even though he had not taken actual physical part in the carrying and heaving he felt the effect of his exertions. He looked at the sun again to judge the time; this was no moment for resting upon his labours.

  “Gun’s crew fall in!” he ordered. “Load and run up’”

  He applied his eye to the telescope.

  “Aim for the schooner,” he said. “Take a careful aim.”

  The guntrucks squealed as the handspikes trained the gun round.

  “Gun laid, sir,” reported the gun captain.

  “Then fire!”

  The gun banged out sharp and clear, a higherpitched report than the deafening thunderous roar of the massive twentyfourpounders. That report would resound round the bay. Even if the shot missed its mark this time, the men down in those ships would know that the next, or the next, would strike. Looking up at the high shore through hastily trained telescopes they would see the powder smoke slowly drifting along the verge of the cliff, and would recognise their doom. Over on the southern shore Villanueva would have his attention called to it, and would know that escape was finally cut off for the men under his command and the women under his protection. Yet all the same, Bush, gazing through the telescope, could mark no fall of the shot.

  “Load and fire again. Make sure of your aim.”

  While they loaded Bush turned his telescope upon the flags over the fort, until the gun captain’s cry told him that loading was completed. The gun banged out, and Bush thought he saw the fleeting black line of the course of the shot.

  “You’re firing over her. Put the quoins in and reduce the elevation. Try again!”

  He looked again at the flags. They were very slowly descending, down out of his sight. Now they rose once
more, very slowly, fluttered for a moment at the head of the Flagstaff, and sank again. The next time they rose they remained steady. That was the preconcerted signal. Dipping the colours twice meant that the gun had been heard in the fort and all was well. It was Bush’s duty now to complete ten rounds of firing, slowly. Bush watched each round carefully; it seemed likely that the schooner was being hit. Those flying ninepound balls of iron were crashing through the frail upper works, smashing and destroying, casting up showers of splinters.

  At the eighth round something screamed through the air like a banshee two yards over Bush’s head, a whirling irregular scream which died away abruptly behind his back.

  “What the hell was that?” demanded Bush.

  “The gun’s unbushed, sir,” said Berry.

  “God—” Bush poured out a torrent of blasphemy, uncontrolled, almost hysterical. This was the climax of days and nights of strain and labour, the bitterest blow that could be imagined, with success almost within their grasp and now snatched away. He swore frightfully, and then came back to his senses; it would not be good for the men to know that their officer was as disappointed as Bush knew himself to be. His curses died away when he restrained himself, and he walked forward to look at the gun.

  The damage was plain. The touchhole in the breech of a gun, especially a bronze gun, was always a weak point. At each round some small part of the explosion vented itself through the hole, the blast of hot gas and unconsumed powder grains eroding the edges of the hole, enlarging it until the loss of force became severe enough to impair the efficiency of the gun. Then the gun had to be ‘bushed’; a tapering plug, with a hole pierced through its length and a flange round its base, had to be forced into the touchhole from the inside of the gun, small end first. The hole in the plug served as the new touchhole, and the explosions of the gun served to drive the plug more and more thoroughly home, until the plug itself began to erode and to weaken, forcing itself up through the touchhole while the flange burned away in the fierce heat of the explosions until at last it would blow itself clean out, as it had done now.