The sudden swoop of his squadron in the grey dawn had taken the Elsinore garrison by surprise, but there could be no surprise for Saltholm and Amager. They could see his ships in this clear weather a dozen miles away, and the gunners would have ample time to make all preparations to receive them. He looked ahead down the line of vessels.
‘Make a signal to Moth,’ he snapped over his shoulder, “Keep better station”.’
If the line were to straggle it would be the longer exposed to fire. The land was in plain sight through his glass; it was lucky that Saltholm was low-lying so that its guns had only poor command. Copenhagen must be only just out of sight, below the horizon to starboard. Vickery was taking Lotus exactly down the course Hornblower had laid down for him in his orders. There was the smoke bursting out from Saltholm. There was the boom of the guns – a very irregular salvo. He could see no sign of damage to the ships ahead. Lotus was firing back; he doubted if her popgun nine-pounders could hit at that range, but the smoke might help to screen her. All Saltholm was covered with smoke now, and the boom of the guns across the water was in one continuous roll like a drum. They were still out of range of Amager at present; Vickery was wearing ship now for the turn. Bush very sensibly had leadsmen in the chains.
‘By the mark seven!’
Seven fathoms was ample, with the tide making. Brown against green – those were the batteries on Saltholm, dimly visible in the smoke; young Carlin on the maindeck was pointing out the target to the port-side twelve-pounders.
‘By the deep six, and half six!’
A sudden tremendous crash, as the port-side battery fired all together. The Nonsuch heaved with the recoil, and as she did so came the leadsman’s cry.
‘And a half six!’
‘Starboard your helm,’ said Bush. ‘Stand by, the starboard guns!’
Nonsuch poised herself for the turn; as far as Hornblower could tell, not a shot had been fired at her at present.
‘By the mark five!’
They must be shaving the point of the shoal. There were the Amager batteries in plain sight – the starboard-side guns, with the additional elevation due to the heel of the ship, should be able to reach them. Both broadsides together, this time, an ear-splitting crash, and the smoke from the starboard guns billowed across the deck, bitter and irritant.
‘And a half five!’
That was better. God, Harvey was hit. The bomb-ketch, two cables’ lengths ahead of Nonsuch, changed in a moment from a fighting vessel to a wreck. Her towering mainmast, enormous for her size, had been cut through just above her deck; mast and shrouds, and the huge area of canvas she carried, were trailing over her quarter. Her stumpy mizzen-topmast had gone as well, hanging down from the cap. Raven, as her orders dictated, swept past her, and Harvey lay helpless as Nonsuch hurtled down upon her.
‘Back the maintops’l,’ roared Bush.
‘Stand by with the heaving-line, there!’ said Hurst.
‘And a half five!’ called the leadsman.
‘Helm-a-lee,’ said Bush, and then in the midst of the bustle the starboard broadside bellowed out again, as the guns bore on the Amager batteries, and the smoke swept across the decks. Nonsuch heaved over; her backed topsail caught the wind and checked her way as she recovered. She hovered with the battered Harvey close alongside. Hornblower could see Mound, her captain, directing the efforts of her crew from his station at the foot of her mizzenmast. Hornblower put his speaking-trumpet to his lips.
‘Cut that wreckage away, smartly, now.’
‘Stand by for the line!’ shouted Hurst.
The heaving-line, well thrown, dropped across her mizzen shrouds, and Mound himself seized it; Hurst dashed below to superintend the passing across of the towline, which lay on the lower gundeck all ready to be passed out of an after gun-port. A splintering crash forward told that one shot at least from Amager had struck home on Nonsuch. Axes were cutting furiously at the tangle of shrouds over the Harvey’s side; a group of seamen were furiously hauling in the three-inch line from Nonsuch which had been bent on the heaving-line. Another crash forward; Hornblower swung round to see that a couple of foremast shrouds had parted at the chains. With the Nonsuch lying nearly head to wind neither port-side nor starboard-side guns bore to make reply, but Carlin had a couple of guns’ crews hard at work with hand-spikes heaving the two foremost guns round – it would be as well to keep the batteries under fire so as not to allow them to indulge in mere target practice. Hornblower turned back; Nonsuch’s stem was almost against Harvey’s quarter, but some capable officer already had two spars out from the stem gallery to boom her off. The big cable itself was on its way over now; as Hornblower watched he saw Harvey’s men reach and grasp it.
‘We’ll take you out stem first, Mr Mound,’ yelled Hornblower through his speaking-trumpet – there was no time to waste while they took the cable forward. Mound waved acknowledgement.
‘Quarter less five,’ came the voice of the leadsman; the leeway which the two vessels were making was carrying them down on the Saltholm shoals.
On the heels of the cry came the bang-bang of the two guns which Carlin had brought to bear on the Amager batteries, and following that came the howl of shot passing overhead. There were holes in main and mizzen-topsails – the enemy were trying to disable Nonsuch.
‘Shall I square away, sir?’ came Bush’s voice at Hornblower’s side.
Mound had taken a turn with the cable’s end round the base of the Harvey’s mizzenmast, which was stepped so far aft as to make a convenient point to tow from. He was waving his arms to show that all was secure, and his axemen were hacking at the last of the mainmast shrouds.
‘Yes, Captain.’ Hornblower hesitated before dropping a word of advice on a matter which was strictly Bush’s business. ‘Take the strain slowly, or you’ll part the tow or pluck that mizzenmast clear out of her. Haul your headsails up to starboard, then get her slowly under way before you brace up your maintops’l.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Bush showed no resentment at Hornblower’s telling him what to do, for he knew very well that Hornblower’s advice was something more valuable than gold could ever buy.
‘And if I were doing it I’d keep the towline short – stern first, with nothing to keep her under control, Harvey’ll tow better that way.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Bush turned and began to bellow his orders. With the handling of the headsails the Nonsuch turned away from the wind, and instantly Carlin brought his guns into action again. The ship was wrapped in smoke and in the infernal din of the guns. Shots from Amager were still striking home or passing overhead, and in the next interval of comparative silence the voice of the leadsman made itself heard.
‘And a half four!’
The sooner they were away from these shoals the better. Fore- and mizzen-topsails were filling slightly, and the headsails were drawing. The towline tightened, and as the ears recovered from the shock of the next broadside they became aware of a vast creaking as the cable and the bitts took the strain – on the Nonsuch’s quarterdeck they could over-hear Harvey’s mizzenmast creaking with the strain. The ketch came round slowly, to the accompaniment of fierce bellowings at Nonsuch’s helmsman, as the two-decker wavered at the pull across her stern. It was all satisfactory; Hornblower nodded to himself – if Bush were stealing glances at him (as he expected) and saw that nod it would do no harm.
‘Hands to the braces!’ bellowed Bush, echoing Hornblower’s thoughts. With fore- and mizzen-topsails trimmed and drawing well Nonsuch began to increase her speed, and the ketch followed her with as much docility as could be expected of a vessel with no rudder to keep her straight. Then she sheered off in ugly fashion to starboard before the tug of the line pulled her straight again to a feu de joie of creaks. Hornblower shook his head at the sight, and Bush held back his order to brace up the maintopsail.
‘Starboard your helm, Mr Mound!’ shouted Hornblower through his speaking-trumpet. Putting Harvey’s rudder
over might have some slight effect – the behaviour of every ship being towed was an individual problem. Speed was increasing, and that, too, might affect Harvey’s behaviour for better or worse.
‘By the mark five!’
That was better. And Harvey was behaving herself, too. She was yawing only very slightly now; either the increase in speed or the putting over of the rudder was having its effect.
‘That’s well done, Captain Bush,’ said Hornblower pompously.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Bush, and promptly ordered the maintopsail to be braced up.
‘By the deep six!’
They were well off the Saltholm shoal, then, and Hornblower suddenly realised that the guns had not fired for some time, and he had heard nothing of any more firing from Amager. They were through the channel, then, out of range of the batteries, at a cost of only a single spar knocked away. There was no need to come within range of any other hostile gun – they could round Falsterbo well clear of the Swedish batteries.
‘By the deep nine!’
Bush was looking at him with that expression of puzzled admiration which Hornblower had seen on his face before. Yet it had been easy enough. Anyone could have foreseen that it would be best to leave to the Nonsuch the duty of towing any cripples out of range, and, once that was granted, anyone would have the sense to have a cable roused out and led aft ready to undertake the duty instantly, with heaving-lines and all the other gear to hand, and anyone would have posted Nonsuch last in the line, both to endure the worst of the enemy’s fire and to be in position to run down to a cripple and start towing without delay. Anyone could have made those deductions – it was vaguely irritating that Bush should look like that.
‘Make a general signal to heave to,’ said Hornblower. ‘Captain Bush, stand by, if you please, to cast off the tow. I’ll have Harvey jury rigged before we round Falsterbo. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to send a party on board to help with the work.’
And with that he went off below. He had seen all he wanted both of Bush and of the world for the present. He was tired, drained of his energy. Later there would be time enough to sit at his desk and begin the weary business of – ‘Sir, I have the honour to report –’ There would be dead and wounded to enumerate, too.
VII
His Britannic Majesty’s seventy-four-gun ship Nonsuch was out of sight of land in the Baltic. She was under easy sail, running before that persistent westerly wind, and astern of her, like a couple of ugly ducklings following their portly mother, came the two bomb-ketches. Far out to starboard, only just in sight, was the Lotus, and far out to port was the Raven. Beyond the Raven, unseen from the Nonsuch, was the Clam; the four ships made a visual chain which could sweep the narrow neck of the Baltic, from Sweden to Rügen, from side to side. There was still no news; in spring, with the melting of the ice, the whole traffic of the Baltic was outwards, towards England and Europe, and with this westerly wind so long prevailing little was astir. The air was fresh and keen, despite the sunshine, and the sea was silver-grey under the dappled sky.
Hornblower gasped and shuddered as he took his bath under the wash-deck pump. For fifteen years he had served in tropical and Mediterranean waters; he had had lukewarm seawater pumped over him far more often than he could remember, and this Baltic water, chilled by the melting ice in the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and the snow-water of the Vistula and the Oder, was still a shock to him. There was something stimulating about it, all the same, and he pranced grotesquely under the heavy jet, forgetful – as he always was while having his bath – of the proper dignity of a Commodore. Half a dozen seamen, working in leisurely fashion under the direction of the ship’s carpenter at replacing a shattered gun-port, stole wondering glances at him. The two seamen at the pump, and Brown standing by with towel and dressing-gown, preserved a proper solemnity of aspect, close under his eye as they were.
Suddenly the jet ceased; a skinny little midshipman was standing saluting his naked Commodore. Despite the gravity of addressing so great a man the child was round-eyed with wonder at this fantastic behaviour on the part of an officer whose doings were a household word.
‘What is it?’ said Hornblower, water streaming off him. He could not return the salute.
‘Mr Montgomery sent me, sir. Lotus signals, “Sail to leeward”, sir.’
‘Very good.’
Hornblower snatched the towel from Brown, but the message was too important for time to be wasted drying himself, and he ran up the companion still wet and naked, with Brown following with his dressing-gown. The officer of the watch touched his hat as Hornblower appeared on the quarterdeck – it was like some old fairy story, the way everybody rigidly ignored the Commodore’s lack of clothes.
‘New signal from Lotus, sir. “Chase has tacked. Chase is on the port tack, bearing east-by-north, half east”.’
Hornblower leaped to the compass; only the topsails of the Lotus were in sight from the deck as he took the bearing by eye. Whatever that sail was, he must intercept it and gather news. He looked up to see Bush hastening on deck, buttoning his coat.
‘Captain Bush, I’ll trouble you to alter course two points to starboard.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Lotus signalling again, sir. “Chase is a ship. Probably British merchantman”.’
‘Very good. Set all sail, Captain Bush, if you please.”
‘Aye aye, sir.’
The pipes shrilled through the ship, and four hundred men went pouring up the ratlines to loose the royals and set studding-sails. Hornblower raised a professional eye to watch the operation, carried out under a storm of objurgation from the officer of the watch. The still clumsy crew was driven at top speed by the warrant officers through the evolution, and it was hardly completed before there was a yell from the masthead.
‘Sail on the starboard bow!’
‘Must be the ship Lotus can see, sir,’ said Bush. ‘Masthead there! What can you see of the sail?’
‘She’s a ship, sir, closehauled an’ coming up fast. We’re headin’ to meet her.”
‘Hoist the colours, Mr Hurst. If she was beating up for the Sound, sir, she would have tacked whether she saw Lotus or not.’
‘Yes,’ said Hornblower.
A shriek came from the masthead, where one of the midshipmen of the watch, an urchin who had not yet mastered his changing voice, had run up with a glass.
‘British colours, sir!’
Hornblower remembered he was still wet and naked; at least, he was still wet in those parts of him which did not offer free play for the wind to dry him. He began to dab at these inner corners with the towel he still held, only to be interrupted again.
‘There she is!’ said Bush; the ship’s upper sails were over the horizon, in view from the deck.
‘Lay a course to pass her within hail, if you please,’ said Hornblower.
‘Aye aye, sir. Starboard a point, Quartermaster. Get those stuns’ls in again, Mr Hurst.’
The ship they were approaching held her course steadily; there was nothing suspicious about her, not even the fact that she had gone about immediately on sighting Lotus.
‘Timber from the South Baltic, I expect, sir,’ said Bush, training his glass. ‘You can see the deck cargo now.’
Like most ships bound out of the Baltic her decks were piled high with timber, like barricades along the bulwarks.
‘Make the merchant ships’ private signal if you please, Captain,’ said Hornblower.
He watched the reply run up the ship’s halliards.
‘A – T – numeral – five – seven, sir,’ read Hurst through his glass. ‘That’s the correct reply for last winter, and she won’t have received the new code yet.’
‘Signal her to heave to,’ said Hornblower.
With no more delay than was to be expected of a merchant ship, unadept at reading signals, and with a small crew, the ship backed her maintopsail and lay-to. The Nonsuch came hurtling down upon her.
‘That’s the yellow Q
she’s hoisting now, sir,’ said Hurst, suddenly. ‘The fever flag.’
‘Very good. Heave to, Captain Bush, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir. I’ll keep to wind’ard of her, too, if you’ve no objection, sir.’
The Nonsuch laid her topsails to the mast and rounded-to, rocking in the gentle trough of the waves a pistol-shot to windward Hornblower took his speaking-trumpet.
‘What ship’s that?’
‘Maggie Jones of London. Eleven days out from Memel!’
In addition to the man at the wheel there were only two figures visible on the poopdeck of the Maggie Jones; one of them, wearing white duck trousers and a blue coat, was obviously the captain. It was he who was answering by speaking-trumpet.
‘What’s that yellow flag for?’
‘Smallpox. Seven cases on board, and two dead. First case a week ago.’
‘Smallpox, by God!’ muttered Bush. A frightful mental picture came up before his mind’s eye, of what smallpox would do, let loose in his precious Nonsuch, with nine hundred men crammed into her restricted space.
‘Why are you sailing without convoy?’
‘None available at Memel. The rendezvous for the trade’s off Lange-land on the twenty-fourth. We’re beating up for the Belt now.’
‘What’s the news?’ Hornblower had waited patiently during all these interminable sentences before asking that question.
‘The Russian embargo still holds, but we’re sailing under licence.’
‘Sweden?’
‘God knows, sir. Some say they’ve tightened up their embargo there.’
A curious muffled howl came from below decks in the Maggie Jones at the moment, just audible in the Nonsuch.
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Hornblower.
‘One of the smallpox cases, sir. Delirious. They say the Czar’s meeting Bernadotte next week for a conference somewhere in Finland.’
‘Any sign of war between France and Russia?’
Admiral Hornblower Page 28