The guns’ crews strained at the tackles as the heave of the ship bade fair to send them surging back against the ship’s sides. They sponged and they rammed.
“Fire as you will, boys!” shouted Gerard. He was up on the hammock-netting now, gazing through the smoke wreaths at the Natividad rising and swooping alongside. The next broadside crashed out raggedly, and the next more raggedly still, as the more expert gun crews got off their shots more quickly than the others; soon the sound of firing was continuous, and the Lydia was constantly a-tremble. At intervals through the roar of her cannon came the thunderous crash of the Natividad’s broadside—Crespo evidently could not trust his crew to fire independently with efficiency, and was working them to the word of command. He was doing it well, too; at intervals as the sea permitted, her lower deck ports were opening like clockwork and the big twenty-four pounders were vomiting flame and smoke.
“Hot work, this, sir,” said Bush.
The iron hail was sweeping the Lydia’s decks. There were dead men piled round the masts, whither they had been hastily dragged so as not to encumber the guns’ crews. Wounded men were being dragged along the deck and down the hatchways to where the horrors of the cockpit awaited them. As Hornblower looked he saw a powder boy flung across the deck, dissolved into a red inhuman mass as a twenty-four pounder ball hit him.
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower, but the sound was drowned in the roar of the quarterdeck carronade beside him. It was hot work indeed, too hot. This five minutes of close firing was sufficient to convince him that the Natividad’s guns were too well worked for the Lydia to have any chance against her overpowering strength broadside to broadside, despite the damage done in the first few minutes of the action. He would have to win by craft if he was to win at all.
“Hands to the braces!” he yelled, his voice, high-pitched, cutting through the din of the guns. He stared narrow-eyed at the Natividad with the smoke pouring from her sides, he estimated the force of the wind and the speeds of the ships. His mind was making calculations with delirious rapidity, keyed up by the excitement, as he began the new manoeuvre. Throwing the main topsail aback a trifle allowed the Natividad to shoot ahead without taking so much way off the Lydia to go about again, but even as the sheets were handed and the tacked his ship about so that the waiting starboard battery was able to fire into the Natividad’s stern. The Natividad came up into the wind in the endeavour to follow her opponent round and keep broadside to broadside with her, but the frigate was far quicker in stays than the clumsy, stumpy two-decker. Hornblower, watching his enemy with his keen gaze, tacked once more, instantly, and shot past the Natividad’s stern on the opposite tack while Gerard, running from gun to gun, sent every shot crashing into the shattered timbers.
“Glorious! Damme! Damn my eyes! Damn my soul! Glorious!” spluttered Bush, thumping his right fist into his left hand and leaping up and down on the quarterdeck.
Hornblower had no attention to spare for Bush nor for Bush’s good opinion, although later he was to remember hearing the words and find warm comfort in them. As the ships diverged he shouted for the Lydia to go about again, but even as the sheets were handed and the helm put over the Natividad wore round to pass her to leeward. So much the better. At the cost of a single exchange of broadsides he would be able to assail that vulnerable stern again, and if the Natividad attempted to circle, his was the handier ship and he could rely on getting in at least two effective shots to his opponent’s one. He watched the Natividad come foaming up; her bulwarks were riddled with shot and there was a trickle of blood from her scuppers. He caught a glimpse of Crespo on the poop—he had hoped that he might have been killed in the last two broadsides, for that would mean, almost for certain, a slackening in the attack. But her guns were run out ready, and on this, her weather side, her lower deck ports were open.
“For what we are about to receive—,” said Bush, repeating the hackneyed old blasphemy quoted in every ship awaiting a broadside.
Seconds seemed as long as minutes as the two ships neared. They were passing within a dozen yards of each other. Bow overlapped bow, foremast passed foremast and then foremast passed mainmast. Rayner was looking aft, and as soon as he saw that the aftermost gun bore on the target he shouted the order to fire. The Lydia lifted to the recoil of the guns, ears were split with the sound of the discharge, and then, even before the gale had time to blow away the smoke, came the Natividad’s crashing reply.
It seemed to Hornblower as if the heavens were falling round him. The wind of a shot made him reel; he found at his feet a palpitating red mass which represented half the starboard side carronade’s crew, and then with a thunderous crackling the mizzen mast gave way beside him. The weather mizzen rigging entangled him and flung him down into the blood on the deck, and while he struggled to free himself he felt the Lydia swing round as she paid off despite the efforts of the men at the wheel.
He got to his feet, dizzy and shaken, to find ruin all round him. The mizzen mast was gone, snapped off nine feet from the deck, taking the main top gallant mast with it, and masts and yards and sails and rigging trailed alongside and astern by the imparted shrouds. With the loss of the balancing pressure of the mizzen topsail the Lydia had been unable to keep her course on the wind and was now drifting helplessly dead before the gale. And at that very moment he saw the Natividad going about to cross his stern and repay, with a crushing broadside, the several unanswered salvoes to which earlier she had been forced to submit. His whole world seemed to be shattered. He gulped convulsively, with a sudden sick fear of defeat at the pit of his stomach.
Chapter XIV
But he knew, and he told himself, at the moment of his getting to his feet, that he must not delay an instant in making the Lydia ready for action again.
“Afterguard!” he roared—his voice sounding unnatural to himself as he spoke—“Mr. Clay! Benskin! Axes here! Cut that wreckage away!”
Clay came pounding aft at the head of a rush of men with axes and cutlasses. As they were chopping at the mizzen shrouds he noticed Bush sitting up on the deck with his face in his hands—apparently a falling block had struck him down but there was no time to spare for Bush. The Natividad was coming down remorselessly on them; he could see exultant figures on her deck waving their hats in triumph. To his strained senses it seemed to him that even through the din on board the Lydia he could hear the creaking of Natividad’s rigging and the rumble of her reloaded guns being run out. She was steering to pass as close as possible. Hornblower saw her bowsprit go by, felt her reefed fore topsail loom over him, and then her broadside crashed out as gun after gun bore on the Lydia’s stern. The wind caught the smoke and whipped it round Hornblower, blinding him. He felt the deck leap as the shots struck home, heard a scream from Clay’s party beside him, felt a splinter scream past his cheek, and then, just as annihilation seemed about to engulf him, the frightful succession of shots ended, the smoke was borne away, the Natividad had gone by, and he was still alive and could look round him. The slide of the aftermost carronade had been smashed, and one of Clay’s men was lying screaming on the deck with the gun across his thighs and two or three of his mates striving futilely to prise it off them.
“Stop that!” screamed Hornblower—the necessity of having to give such an order sent his voice up to the same pitch as that of the miserable wretch in his agony—“Cut that bloody wreckage away! Mr. Clay, keep them at work!”
A cable’s length away, over the grey topped waves the Natividad was slowly wearing round to return and deal a fresh blow at her helpless opponent. It was lucky that the Natividad was an unhandy ship, like all those stumpy fourth rates—it gave Hornblower more time between the broadsides to try and get the Lydia into a condition so that she could face her enemy again.
“Foretop, there! Mr. Galbraith! get the headsails in.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The absence of the fore-topmast-staysail and storm jib would balance to some extent the loss of the mizzen topsail and driver.
He might, by juggling with the helm, get the Lydia to lie to the wind a trifle then, and hit back at his big opponent. But there was no hope of doing so while all this wreckage was trailing astern like a vast sea anchor. Until that was cut away she could only lie helpless, dead before the wind, suffering her enemy’s blows in silence. A glance showed him that the Natividad had worn round now, and was heading to cross their stern again.
“Hurry up!” he screamed to the axe men. “You, there, Holroyd, Tooms, get down into the mizzen chains.”
He suddenly realised how high-pitched and hysterical his voice had become. At all costs he must preserve before Clay and the men his reputation for imperturbability. He forced himself convulsively, to look casually at the Natividad as she came plunging down on them again, wicked with menace; he made himself grin, and shrug his shoulders, and speak in his normal voice.
“Don’t mind about her, my lads. One thing at a time. Cut this wreckage away first, and we’ll give the Dagoes their bellyful after.”
The men hacked with renewed force at the tough tangles of cordage. Something gave way, and a new extravagant plunge on the part of the Lydia as a huge wave lifted her stern caused the wreckage to run out a little farther before catching again, this time on the mizzen stay, which, sweeping the deck, tumbled three men off their feet. Hornblower seized one of the fallen axes, and fell desperately on the rope as it sawed back and forth with the roll of the ship. From the tail of his eye he saw the Natividad looming up, but he could spare no attention for her. For the moment she represented merely a tiresome interruption to his work, not a menace to his life.
Then once more he was engulfed in the smoke and din of the Natividad’s broadside. He felt the wind of shot round him, and heard the scream of splinters. The cries of the man under the carronade ceased abruptly, and beneath his feet he could feel the crash as the shot struck home in the Lydia’s vitals. But he was mesmerised by the necessity of completing his task. The mizzen stay parted under his axe; he saw another rope draw up taut, and cut that as well—the pattern of the seams of the deck planking at that point caught his notice—felt another severed and flick past him, and then knew that the Lydia was free from the wreckage. Almost at his feet lay young Clay, sprawled upon the deck, but Clay had no head. He noted that as an interesting phenomenon, like the pattern of the deck seams.
A sudden breaking wave drenched him with spray; he swept the water from his eyes and looked about him. Most of the men who had been on the quarterdeck with him were dead, marines, seamen, officers. Simmonds had what was left of the marines lined up against the taffrail, ready to reply with musketry to the Natividad’s twenty-four pounders. Bush was in the main top, and Hornblower suddenly realised that to him was due the cutting of the mizzen top mast stay which had finally freed the ship. At the wheel stood the two quartermasters, rigid, unmoving, gazing straight ahead; they were not the same as the men who had stood there when the action began, but the iron discipline of the Navy and its unbending routine had kept the wheel manned through the vicissitudes of the battle.
Out on the starboard quarter the Natividad was wearing round again. Hornblower realised with a little thrill that this time he need not submit meekly to the punishment she was determined to administer. It called for an effort to make himself work out the problem of how to work the ship round, but he forced his mind to concentrate on it, comparing the proportional leverages of the fore and main topsails, and visualising in his mind the relative positions of the centre of the ship and the mainmast—luckily this latter was stepped a little aft.
“Man the braces, there!” he called. “Mr. Bush, we’ll try and bring her to the wind.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
He looked back at the Natividad, plunging and heaving towards them.
“Hard-a-starboard!” he snapped at the quartermaster. “Stand to your guns, men.”
The crew of the Natividad, looking along their guns, suddenly saw the Lydia’s battered stern slowly turn from them. For a fleeting half minute, while the English frigate held her way, the quartermasters straining at her wheel were able to bring the wind abeam of her as the Natividad swept by.
“Fire!” yelled Gerard—his voice, too, was cracking with excitement.
The Lydia heaved again with the recoil of the guns, and the smoke billowed over her deck, and through the smoke came the iron hail of the Natividad’s broadside.
“Give it her again, lads!” screamed Gerard. “There goes her fore-mast! Well done, lads.”
The guns’ crews cheered madly, even though their two hundred voices sounded feeble against the gale. In that sudden flurry of action the enemy had been hard hit. Through the smoke Hornblower saw the Natividad’s fore-mast shrouds suddenly slacken, tauten again, slacken once more, and then her whole foremast bowed forward; her main topmast whipped and then followed it, and the whole vanished over the side. The Natividad turned instantly up into the wind, while at the same time the Lydia’s head fell off as she turned downwind despite the efforts of the men at the wheel. The gale screamed past Hornblower’s ears as the strip of grey sea which divided the ships widened more and more. One last gun went off on the main deck, and then the two ships lay pitching upon the turbulent sea, each unable to harm the other.
Hornblower wiped the spray slowly from his eyes again. This battle was like some long drawn nightmare, where one situation of fantastic unreality merged into the next. He felt as if he were in a nightmare, too—he could think clearly, but only by compelling himself to do so, as though it was unnatural to him.
The gap between the ships had widened to a full half mile, and was widening further. Through his glass he could see the Natividad’s forecastle black with men struggling with the wreck of the foremast. The ship which was first ready for action again would win. He snapped the glass shut and turned to face all the problems which he knew were awaiting his immediate solution.
Chapter XV
The captain of the Lydia stood on his quarterdeck while his ship, hove to under the main staysail and three-reefed main topsail, pitched and wallowed in the fantastic sea. It was raining now, with such violence that nothing could be seen a hundred yards away, and there were deluges of spray sweeping the deck, too, so that he and his clothes were as wet as if he had been swimming in the sea, but he was not aware of it. Everyone was appealing to him for orders—first lieutenant, gunner, boatswain, carpenter, surgeon, purser. The ship had to be made fit to fight again, even though there was every doubt as to whether she would even live through the storm which shrieked round her. It was the acting-surgeon who was appealing to him at the moment.
“But what am I to do, sir?” he said pathetically, white faced, wringing his hands. This was Laurie, the purser’s steward, who had been appointed acting-surgeon when Hankey the surgeon died. He had fifty wounded down in the grim dark cockpit, maddened with pain, some with limbs torn off, and all of them begging for the assistance which he had no idea of how to give.
“What are you to do, sir?” mimicked Hornblower scornfully, beside himself with exasperation at this incompetence. “After two months in which to study your duties you have to ask what to do!”
Laurie only blenched a little more at this, and Hornblower had to make himself be a little helpful and put some heart in this lily-livered incompetent.
“See here, Laurie,” he said, in more kindly fashion. “Nobody expects miracles of you. Do what you can. Those who are going to die you must make easy. You have my orders to reckon every man who has lost a limb as one of those. Give them laudanum—twenty-five drops a man, or more if that won’t ease them. Pretend to bandage ‘em. Tell ‘em they’re certain to get better and draw a pension for the next fifty years. As for the others, surely your mother wit can guide you. Bandage ‘em until the bleeding stops. You have rags enough to bandage the whole ship’s crew. Put splints on the broken bones. Don’t move any man more than is necessary. Keep every man quiet. A tot of rum to every wounded man, and promise ‘em another at eight bells if they lie still. I
never knew a Jack yet who wouldn’t go through hell fire for a tot of rum. Get below, man, and see to it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Laurie could only think of his own responsibility and duty; he scuttled away below without a thought for the hell-turned-loose on the main deck. Here one of the twelve-pounders had come adrift, its breechings shot away by the Natividad’s last broadside. With every roll of the ship it was rumbling back and forth across the deck, a ton and a half of insensate weight, threatening at any moment to burst through the ship’s side. Galbraith, with twenty men trailing ropes, and fifty men carrying mats and hammocks, was trailing it cautiously from point to point in the hope of tying it or smothering it into helplessness. As Hornblower watched them, a fresh heave of the ship canted it round and sent it thundering in a mad charge straight at them. They parted wildly before it, and it charged through them, its trucks squealing like a forest of pigs, and brought up with a shattering crash against the mainmast.
“Now’s your chance, lads! Jump to it!” yelled Hornblower.
Galbraith, running forward, risked limb and life to pass a rope’s end through an eye tackle. Yet he had no sooner done it than a new movement of the ship swung the gun round and threatened to waste his effort.
“Hammocks, there!” shouted Hornblower. “Pile them quick! Mr. Galbraith, take a turn with that line round the mainmast. Whipple, put your rope through the breeching ring. Quick, man! Now take a turn!”
Hornblower had accomplished what Galbraith had failed to do—had correlated the efforts of the men in the nick of time so that now the gun was bound and helpless. There only remained the ticklish job of manoeuvring it back to its gun port and securing it with fresh breechings. Howell the carpenter was at his elbow now, waiting until he could spare a moment’s attention from this business with the gun.
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