‘A most commendable deed,’ commented Hooper.
‘Nothing for a desperate man, Your Excellency.’
‘Perhaps not. And then? After you were in the water? Were you pursued?’
‘As far as I can tell, Your Excellency, I was not. Perhaps it was some time before they noticed my absence. Even then they would have to let down the ladder and climb down it. I heard nothing as I made off.’
‘Which way did you go?’ asked Hornblower.
‘I kept to the river, My Lord, making my way downstream. It reaches the sea at Montego Bay, as we decided, if you remember, My Lord, when we were making our first observations.’
‘Was it an easy journey?’ asked Hornblower. Something was stirring in his mind, demanding his attention despite the strong emotions he was experiencing.
‘Not easy in the dark, My Lord. There were rapids in places, and the boulders were slippery. I fancy the main pass is narrow, although I could not see it.’
‘And at Montego Bay?’ asked Hooper.
‘There was the guard over the fishing boats, a half-company of the West Indian Regiment, Your Excellency. I had their officer awakened, and he found me a horse, and I took the road through Cambridge and Ipswich.’
‘You got yourself remounts on the way?’
‘I claimed I was on a mission of the greatest importance, Your Excellency.’
‘You made good time, even then.’
‘The patrol at Mandeville told me His Lordship was on his way to Your Excellency, and so I rode straight to Government House.’
‘Very sensible.’
To the picture in Hornblower’s mind of the leap in the darkness were now added others, of a nightmare journey down the river, falling over slippery boulders, tumbling into unexpected pools, struggling along invisible banks; then the endless, weary ride.
‘I shall represent your conduct to the Lords Commissioners, Mr Spendlove,’ he said, formally.
‘I must thank Your Lordship.’
‘And I shall represent it to the Secretary of State,’ added Hooper.
‘Your Excellency is too kind.’
To Hornblower it was not the least of Spendlove’s achievements (guessed at from a glance at his plate) that Spendlove had contrived somehow to gulp down a whole plateful of steak and onions while making his report. The man must have learned to dispense with chewing.
‘Enough of compliments,’ said Hooper, mopping up his gravy with a piece of bread. ‘Now we have to destroy these pirates. This lair of theirs – you say it is strong?’
Hornblower let Spendlove answer.
‘Impregnable to direct assault, Your Excellency.’
‘M’m. D’ye think they’ll make a stand there?’
For the past several minutes Hornblower had been debating this point with himself. Those leaderless men, dazed now by the complete failure of their scheme – what would they do?’
‘They could scatter all over the island, Your Excellency,’ said Spendlove.
‘So they could. Then I’ll have to hunt them down. Patrols on every road, movable columns in the mountains. And the sick-list is high already.’
Troops exposed to the weather and the night air for long in the West Indies died like flies, and it might well take weeks to run the outlaws down.
‘Maybe they’ll scatter,’ said Hornblower, and then he committed himself, ‘but in my opinion, Your Excellency, they will not.’
Hooper look at him sharply.
‘You think not?’
‘I think not, Your Excellency.’
That gang had been despairing as well as desperate when he had been among them. There was something childlike about them, leaderless as they were. On the cliff they had shelter, food – they had a home, if the expression could be tolerated. They would not readily leave it.
‘And you say this place is impregnable? It would mean a long siege?’
‘I might reduce them quickly with a naval force, Your Excellency, if Your Excellency would give me leave to try.’
‘Your Lordship is welcome to try anything that will save lives.’
Hooper was looking at him curiously.
‘Then I’ll make my arrangements,’ said Hornblower.
‘You’ll go round to Montego Bay by sea?’
‘Yes.’
Hornblower restrained himself from saying ‘of course’. Soldiers always found it hard to realise the convenience of the sea for rapid and secret movements.
‘I’ll maintain my patrols in case they bolt while you smoke out the nest,’ said Hooper.
‘I think Your Excellency would be taking a wise precaution in doing so. I trust my plan will not take long in execution. With Your Excellency’s leave—’
Hornblower rose from the table.
‘You’re going now?’
‘Every hour is of importance, Your Excellency.’
Hooper was looking at him more inquisitively than ever.
‘The Navy displays its notorious reserve,’ he said, ‘Oh, very well then. Order His Lordship’s carriage. You have my leave to try, My Lord. Report to me by courier.’
There they were, in the warm morning air, sitting, the three of them, Hornblower, Spendlove, and Gerard, in the carriage.
‘The dockyard,’ ordered Hornblower briefly. He turned to Spendlove. ‘From the dockyard you will go on board Clorinda and convey my order to Captain Fell to make ready for sea. I shall be hoisting my flag within an hour. Then it is my order to you that you get yourself some rest.’
‘Aye aye, My Lord.’
At the dockyard the Captain-Superintendent did his best not to appear surprised at an unheralded visit from his Admiral who by the last news had been kidnapped.
‘I want a boat mortar, Holmes,’ said Hornblower, brushing aside the expressions of pleased surprise.
‘A boat mortar, My Lord? Y-yes, My Lord. There’s one in store, I know.’
‘It’s to go on board Clorinda at once. Now, there are shells for it?’
‘Yes, My Lord. Uncharged, of course.’
‘I’ll have Clorinda’s gunner charge ’em while we’re under way. Twenty pounds apiece, I believe. Send two hundred, with the fuses.’
‘Aye aye, My Lord.’
‘And I want a punt. Two punts. I’ve seen your hands using ’em for caulking and breaming. Twenty-foot, are they?’
‘Twenty-two foot, My Lord,’ answered Holmes; he was glad that he could answer this question while his Admiral had not insisted on an answer regarding so obscure a matter as the weight of boat-mortar shells.
‘I’ll have two, as I said. Send them round to be hove on deck.’
‘Aye aye, My Lord.’
Captain Sir Thomas Fell had his best uniform on to greet his Admiral.
‘I received your order, My Lord,’ he said, as the twittering of the pipes died away in a last wail.
‘Very well, Sir Thomas. I want to be under way the moment the stores I have ordered are on board. You can warp your ship out. We are going to Montego Bay to deal with pirates.’
‘Aye aye, My Lord.’
Fell did his best not to look askance at the two filthy punts that he was expected to heave on to his spotless deck – they were only the floating stages used in the dockyard for work on ship’s sides – and the two tons of greasy mortar shells for which he had to find space were no better. He was not too pleased when he was ordered to tell off the greater part of his ship’s company – two hundred and forty men – and all his marine detachment for a landing party. The hands were naturally delighted with the prospect of a change of routine and the possibility of action. The fact that the gunner was weighing out gunpowder and putting two pounds apiece in the shells, a glimpse of the armourer going round with the Admiral on an inspection of the boarding-pikes, the sight of the boat mortar, squat and ugly, crouching on its bed at the break of the forecastle, all excited them. It was a pleasure to thrash along to the westward, under every stitch of canvas, leaving Portland Point abeam, rounding Negril Point at suns
et, catching some fortunate puffs of the sea breeze which enabled them to cheat the trade wind, ghosting along in the tropical darkness with the lead at work in the chains, and anchoring with the dawn among the shoals of Montego Bay, the green mountains of Jamaica all fiery with the rising sun.
Hornblower was on deck to see it; he had been awake since midnight, having slept since sunset – two almost sleepless nights had disordered his habits – and he was already pacing the quarterdeck as the excited men were formed up in the waist. He kept a sharp eye on the preparations. That boat mortar weighed no more than four hundred pounds, a mere trifle for the yard-arm tackle to lower down into the punt alongside. The musketmen were put through an inspection of their equipment; it was puzzling to the crew that there were pikemen, axemen, and even malletmen and crowbarmen as well. As the sun climbed higher and blazed down hotter the men began to file down into the boats.
‘Gig’s alongside, My Lord,’ said Gerard.
‘Very well.’
On shore Hornblower returned the salute of the astonished subaltern commanding the detachment of the West Indian Regiment on guard over the boats – he had turned out his men apparently expecting nothing less than a French invasion – and dismissed him. Then he ran a final glance over the rigid lines of the marine detachment, scarlet tunics and white cross-belts and all. They would not be nearly as tidy by the end of the day.
‘You can make a start, captain,’ he said. ‘Keep me informed, Mr Spendlove, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, My Lord.’
With Spendlove as guide the marines marched forward; they were the advanced guard to secure the main body from surprise. It was time to give orders to Clorinda’s first-lieutenant.
‘Now, Mr Sefton, we can move.’
The little river had a little bar at its mouth, but the two punts carrying the mortar and the ammunition had been floated in round it. For a mile there was even a track beside the water, and progress was rapid as they dragged the punts along, while the vegetation closed in round them. The shade was gratifying when they first entered into it, but they found it breathless, damp, stifling, as they progressed farther in. Mosquitoes stung with venomous determination. Men slipped and fell on the treacherous mud-banks, splashing prodigiously. Then they reached the first stretch of shallows, where the river came bubbling down a long perceptible slope between steep banks under the light filtering in through the trees.
At least they had saved a mile and more by water carriage even this far. Hornblower studied the grounded punts, the soil and the trees. This was what he had been thinking about; it was worth making the experiment before putting the men to the toil of carrying the mortar up by brute force.
‘We’ll try a dam here, Mr Sefton, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, My Lord, Axemen! Pikemen! Malletmen!’
The men were still in high spirits; it called for exertion on the part of the petty officers to restrain their exuberance. A line of pikes driven head downward where the soil was soft enough to receive them formed the first framework of the dam. Axemen felled small trees with a childish delight in destruction. Crowbarmen levered at stumps and rocks. A small avalanche came tumbling down into the river bed. The water swirled about the trash; already there was sufficient obstruction to hold it. Hornblower saw the level rise before his very eyes.
‘More rocks here!’ roared Sefton.
‘Keep your eye on those punts, Mr Sefton,’ said Hornblower – the clumsy craft were already afloat again.
Felled trees and rocks extended, heightened, and strengthened the dam. There was water spouting through the interstices, but not as much as was being held back.
‘Get the punts upstream,’ ordered Hornblower.
Four hundred willing hands had achieved much; the water was banked up sufficient to float the punts two-thirds of the way up the shallows.
‘Another dam, I think, Mr Sefton, if you please.’
Already they had learned much about the construction of temporary dams. The stream bed was choked in a twinkling, it seemed. Splashing knee-deep in water the men dragged the punts higher still. They grounded momentarily, but a final heave ran them over the last of the shallows into a reach where they floated with ease.
‘Excellent, Mr Sefton.’
That was a clear gain of a quarter of a mile before the next shallows.
As they were preparing to work on the next dam the flat report of a musket-shot came echoing back to them in the heated air, followed by half a dozen more; it was several minutes before they heard the explanation, brought back by a breathless messenger.
‘Captain Seymour reports, sir. We was fired on by someone up there, sir. Saw ’im in the trees, sir, but ’e got away.’
‘Very well.’
So the pirates had posted a look-out downstream. Now they knew that a force was advancing against them. Only time would show what they would do next; meanwhile the punts were afloat again and it was time to push on. The river curved back and forth, washing at the foot of vertical banks, preserving, for a time, miraculously, enough depth of water to float the punts at the expense of occasionally dragging them up slight rapids. Now it began to seem to Hornblower as if he had spent days on this labour, in the blinding patches of sunlight and the dark stretches of shade, with the river swirling round his knees, and his feet slipping on the rocks. At the next dam he was tempted to sit and allow the sweat to stream down him. He had hardly done so when another messenger arrived from the advanced guard.
‘Captain Seymour reporting, sir. ’E says to say the pirates ’ave gorn to ground, sir. They’re in a cave, sir, right up in the cliff.’
‘How far ahead of here?’
‘Oh, not so very fur, sir.’
Hornblower could have expected no better answer, he realised.
‘They was shooting at us, sir,’ supplemented the messenger.
That defined the distance better, for they had heard no firing for a long time; the pirates’ lair must be farther than the sound could carry.
‘Very well. Mr Sefton, carry on, if you please. I’m going ahead. Come along, Gerard.’
He set himself to climb and scramble along the river bank. On his left hand as he progressed he noticed the bank was growing steeper and loftier. Now it was really a cliff. Another stretch of rapids at a corner, and then he opened up a fresh vista. There it was, just as he remembered it, the lofty, overhanging cliff with the waterfall tumbling down it to join the river at its foot, and the long horizontal seam halfway up the cliff; open grassland with a few trees on his right, and even the little group of mules on the narrow stretch of grass between the cliff and the river. Red-coated marines were strung out over the grassland, in a wide semi-circle whose centre was the cave.
Hornblower forgot his sweating fatigue and strode hastily forward to where he could see Seymour standing among his men gazing up at the cliff, Spendlove at his side. They came to meet him and saluted.
‘There they are, My Lord,’ said Seymour. ‘They took a few shots at us when we arrived.’
‘Thank you, captain. How do you like the look of the place now, Spendlove?’
‘As much as before, My Lord, but no more.’
‘Spendlove’s Leap,’ said Hornblower.
He was pressing forward along the river bank towards the cave, staring upwards.
‘Have a care, My Lord,’ said Spendlove, urgently.
A moment after he had spoken something whistled sharply just above Hornblower’s head; a puff of smoke appeared over the parapet of the cave, and a sharp ringing report came echoing from the cliff face. Then, made tiny by the distance, doll-like figures appeared over the parapet, waving their arms in defiance, and the yells they were uttering came faintly to their ears.
‘Someone has a rifle up there, My Lord,’ said Seymour.
‘Indeed? Perhaps then it would be best to withdraw out of range before he can reload.’
The incident had made little impression on Hornblower until that moment. Now he suddenly realised that the al
most legendary career of the great Lord Hornblower might have been terminated then and there, that his future biographer might have had to deplore the ironic chance which, after so many pitched battles, brought him death at the hands of an obscure criminal in an unknown corner of a West Indian island. He turned and walked away, the others at his side. He found he was holding his neck rigid, his muscles tense; it had been a long time since his life was last in danger. He strove to appear natural.
‘Sefton will be up with the mortar before long,’ he said, after casting about in his mind for something natural to say; and he hoped it did not sound as unnatural to the others as it did to him.
‘Yes, My Lord.’
‘Where shall we site it?’ He swung round and looked about him, measuring ranges with his eye. ‘It had better be out of range of that rifle.’
His interest in what he was doing immediately erased the memory of his danger. Another puff of smoke from the parapet; another echoing report.
‘Did anyone hear that bullet? No? Then we can assume we’re out of rifle shot here.’
‘If you please, My Lord,’ asked Spendlove. ‘What range can you expert with a boat mortar?’
‘The encyclopedic Spendlove displaying ignorance! Seven hundred yards with a one-pound charge of powder, and a time of flight of fifteen seconds. But here we have to burst the shell sixty feet above the firing-point. A nice problem in ballistics.’ Hornblower spoke with perfect indifference, confident that no one knew that at one o’clock that morning he had been studying those figures in the manual. ‘Those trees there will be useful when we come to sway the mortar up. And there’s level ground within twenty feet of them. Excellent.’
‘Here they come, My Lord.’
The first of the main body appeared round the distant corner of the cliff, hurrying along the river bank. As they took in the situation they broke into a yell and a run, leaping and scrambling over the broken ground; Hornblower was reminded of hounds rushing up clamouring at sight of their quarry at bay.
Admiral Hornblower Page 93