The Happy Return hh-7

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Four feet an’ more in the well, sir,” said Howell, knuckling his forehead. “Nearer five, an’ making fast as well as I could tell. Can I have some more men for the pumps, sir?”

  “Not until that gun’s in place,” said Hornblower, grimly. “What damage have you found?”

  “Seven shot holes, sir, below water line. There’s no pluggin’ of ‘em not with this sea runnin’, sir.”

  “I know that,” snapped Hornblower. “Where are they?”

  “All of ‘em for’rard, somehow, sir. One clean through the third frame timber, starboard side. Two more—”

  “I’ll have a sail forthered under the bottom as soon as there are enough men to spare. Your men at the pumps will have to continue pumping. Report to the first lieutenant’s party with your mates now.”

  The first lieutenant and the boatswain were busily engaged upon the duty of erecting a jury mizzen mast. Already the boatswain had come ruefully to the captain with the information that half the spare spars secured between the gangways had been damaged by shot, but there was a main topsail yard left which would serve. But to sway up its fifty-five foot length into a vertical position was going to be a tricky business—hard enough in a smooth sea, dangerous and prolonged out here with the Pacific running mad. In harbour an old ship—a sheer hulk—would be brought alongside, and would employ the two immense spars which constituted her sheers as a crane in which to lift the new mast vertically into the ship. Here there was nothing of the sort available, and the problem of raising the spar might seem insoluble, but Bush and Harrison between them were tackling it with all the resource and energy the navy could display.

  Happily there was that stump of the old mizzen mast left—its nine feet of length relieved them of the tiresome complication of steeping the new mast, which they proposed instead merely to fish to the stump. The after part of the ship was alive with working parties each intent on its own contribution to the work in hand. With tackles and rollers the spar had been eased aft until its butt was solidly against the stump of the mizzen mast. Harrison was now supervising the task of noosing shrouds to the new masthead; after that he would have to prepare the masthead to receive the cap and the trussel trees which the carpenter and his mates would now have to make.

  In the mizzen chains on either side Harrison’s mates were supervising the efforts of two other parties engaged upon attaching the other ends of the shrouds to the channels, where with dead eyes and lanyards the shrouds could be kept taut as the mast rose. Bush was attending to the preparation of the jears and tackle at the mainmast which would help to accomplish a great part of the lift; the sailmaker and his mates were rousing out and adapting sails to fit the new mast, gaff, and yards. Another party of men under the gunner was engaged on the difficult task of remounting the dismounted quarterdeck carronade, while Gerard was aloft with the topmen attending to the repair of the damage done to the standing and running rigging of the remaining masts. All this was in the rain, with the wind shrieking round them; and yet the rain and the wind seemed warm to the touch, so oppressively hot was it. The half-naked seamen, slaving at their task, were running wet with sweat as well as with rainwater and spray. The ship was a nightmare of insane yet ordered activity.

  A sudden flurry of rain heralded the arrival of a clear spell. Braced upon the heaving deck Hornblower set his glass to his eye; the Natividad was visible again, hull down now, across the tossing grey-flecked sea. She was hove-to as well, looking queerly lopsided in her partially dismasted condition. Hornblower’s glass could discover no sign of any immediate replacement of the missing spars; he thought it extremely probable that there was nothing left in the ship to serve as jury masts. In that case as soon as the Lydia could carry enough sail aft to enable her to beat to windward he would have the Natividad at his mercy—as long as the sea was not running high enough to make gunnery impossible.

  He glowered round the horizon; at present there was no sign of the storm abating, and it was long past noon. With the coming of night he might lose the Natividad altogether, and nightfall would give his enemy a further respite in which to achieve repairs.

  “How much longer, Mr. Harrison?” he rasped.

  “Not long now, sir. Nearly ready, sir.”

  “You’ve had long enough and to spare for a simple piece of work like that. Keep the men moving, there.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Hornblower knew that the men were cursing him under their breath; he did not know they admired him as well, as men will admire a hard master despite themselves.

  Now it was the cook come to report to him—the cook and his mates had been the only men in the ship who could be spared for the grisly work allotted to them.

  “All ready, sir,” he said.

  Without a word Hornblower strode forward down the starboard side gangway, taking his prayer book from his pocket. The fourteen dead were there, shrouded in their hammocks, two to a grating, a roundshot sewn into the foot of each hammock. Hornblower blew a long blast upon his silver whistle, and activity ceased on board while he read, compromising between haste and solemnity, the office for the burial of the dead at sea.

  “We therefore commit their bodies to the deep—”

  The cook and his mates tilted each grating in turn, and the bodies fell with sullen splashes overside while Hornblower read the concluding words of the service. As soon as the last words were said he blew his whistle again and all the bustle and activity recommenced. He grudged those few minutes taken from the work bitterly, but he knew that any unceremonious pitching overboard of the dead would be resented by his men, who set all the store by forms and ceremonies to be expected of the uneducated.

  And now there was something else to plague him. Picking her way across the maindeck below him came Lady Barbara, the little negress clinging to her skirts.

  “My orders were for you to stay below, ma’am,” he shouted to her. “This deck is no place for you.”

  Lady Barbara looked round the seething deck and then tilted her chin to answer him.

  “I can see that without having it pointed out to me,” she said, and then, softening her manner: “I have no intention of obstructing, Captain. I was going to shut myself in my cabin.”

  “Your cabin?”

  Hornblower laughed. Four broadsides from the Natividad had blasted their way through that cabin. The idea of Lady Barbara shutting herself up there struck him as being intensely funny. He laughed again, and then again, before checking himself in hurried mistrust as an abyss of hysteria opened itself before him. He controlled himself.

  “There is no cabin left for you, ma’am. I regret that the only course open to you is to go back whence you have come. There is no other place in the ship that can accommodate you at present.”

  Lady Barbara, looking up at him, thought of the cable tier she had just left. Pitch dark, with only room to sit hunched up on the slimy cable, rats squeaking and scampering over her legs; the ship pitching and rolling madly, and Hebe howling with fright beside her; the tremendous din of the guns, and the thunderous rumble of the gun trucks immediately over her head as the guns were run in and out; the tearing crash which had echoed through the ship when the mizzen mast fell; the ignorance of how the battle was progressing—at this very moment she was still unaware whether it had been lost or won or merely suspended: the stench of the bilge, the hunger and the thirst.

  The thought of going back there appalled her. But she saw the captain’s face, white with fatigue and strain under its tan, and she had noted that laugh with its hysterical pitch, abruptly cut off, and the grim effort that had been made to speak to her reasonably. The captain’s coat was torn across the breast, and his white trousers were stained—with blood, she suddenly realised. She felt pity for him, then. She knew now that to speak to him of rats and stinks and baseless fears would be ridiculous.

  “Very good, Captain,” she said quietly, and turned to retrace her steps.

  The little negress set up a howl, and was promptly shaken
into silence as Lady Barbara dragged her along.

  Chapter XVI

  “Ready now, sir,” said Bush.

  The crew of the Lydia had worked marvellously. The guns were all secured now, and the main deck cleared of most of the traces of the fight. A sail stretched over the bottom of the ship had done much to check the inflow of water, so that now only twenty men were at work upon the pumps and the level in the well was measurably sinking. The sailmaster had his new sails ready, the boatswain his rigging, the carpenter his accessories. Already Harrison had his men at the windlass, and the mast lay ready for hoisting.

  Hornblower looked round him. All the mad effort put into the work to get it done speedily was wasted, for the gale still showed no signs of abating and with this present wind blowing it would be hopeless to try to beat over to the Natividad. He had driven his men hard—overdriven them—to lose no time, and now it was obvious that they might have done it all at their leisure. But the work might as well be completed now. He ran his eye over the waiting groups of men; each knew their duty, and there was an officer at each strategic point to see that orders were carried out.

  “Very good, Mr. Bush,” he said.

  “Hoist away, there!” yelled Bush to the windlass crew.

  The windlass began to turn, the rope began to groan through the jears, and the mast rose, little by little, watched by every eye. The mad plunges of the ship threatened to ruin everything. There was danger of the masthead escaping from the ropes that held it; there was danger of the butt slipping away from the stump of the mizzen mast against which it rested. Everything had to be watched, every precaution taken, to see that neither of these possibilities developed. Bush watched the jears, while Gerard at the main masthead attended to the slings. Galbraith was in the mizzen chains on one side, Rayner on the other. Boatswain and carpenter stood with ropes and spars at the butt end of the mast, but it was the captain, leaning on the quarterdeck rail, whose duty it was to see that every part of the cumbrous machine did its work in its proper relation to the others. It was he whom the crew would blame for failure.

  He knew it, too. He watched the dizzy heave and pitch of the ship, and the masthead wavering in the slings, and he heard the butt end grinding upon the deck as it moved uneasily between the two spars lashed as buttresses against the stump of the mizzen mast. It was an effort to think clearly, and he could only compel his mind to it by an exertion of all his will. He was sick and tired and nervous.

  It was of vital importance that the hands at the shrouds and backstays only took up as much slack as was won for them by the jears, and refrained from tightening up when a roll of the ship swung the mast over on their side a trifle. Yet this was just what they persisted in doing, maddeningly, so obsessed were they with the necessity of keeping all taut to prevent the swaying mast from taking charge. Twice the grip of the slings on the masthead was imperilled in this way, and Hornblower had to key himself up to his highest pitch for several seconds, watching the roll of the ship, so as to time precisely the next heave which would obviate the danger. His voice was hoarse with shouting.

  Slowly the mast left the horizontal and swayed up towards the perpendicular. Hornblower’s calculating eye, measuring stresses and reactions, saw that the crisis was now come—the moment when the jears could raise the masthead no more and the final lifting must be accomplished by the pull of the backstays aft. The next few moments were tricky ones, because the masthead would not be deprived of the positive support of the slings. The jears had to be disconnected from the windlass and their work done by the backstays. Two lengths of cable had to be passed round the sloping jury mast and the vertical stump, with gangs of men ready to tighten them, tourniquet fashion, with capstan bars as each gain was made. Yet in these first seconds the backstays were at a mechanical disadvantage and would certainly not bear the strain which would be imposed on them if the windlass were employed in an endeavour to drag the mast upright by brute force.

  The motion of the ship must be utilised to help. Hornblower had to watch the motion carefully, calling to the men to wait as the ship rolled and plunged, and then, as the bow slowly emerged from the creaming sea and climbed steadily skywards, he had to set windlass men and tourniquet men and lanyard men all in action at once, and then check them all instantly as the bow began to sink again and full strain came on to the rigging. Twice he managed it successfully, and then three times—although the third time an unexpected wave lifted the Lydia’s stern at the wrong moment and nearly wrecked everything.

  Then the fourth heave settled it all. The mast was now so nearly vertical that shrouds and backstays were at a mechanical advantage, and everything could be hove taut regardless of the ship’s motion. Shrouds and backstays could be set up now in normal fashion, the jury mast adequately fished to the stump—in fact all the difficult part of the work was completed. Hornblower leaned against the rail, sick with weariness, wondering dully how these ironframed men of his could find the strength to cheer as they put the finishing touches to their work.

  He found Bush beside him—Bush had a rag round his head, bloodstained because of the cut in his forehead inflicted by the falling block.

  “A magnificent piece of work, if I may say so, sir,” he said.

  Hornblower eyed him sharply, suspicious as ever of congratulation, knowing his own weakness so well. But Bush, surprisingly, seemed to mean in all sincerity what he said.

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower, grudgingly.

  “Shall I send up the topmast and yards, sir?”

  Hornblower looked round the horizon once more. The gale was blowing as madly as ever, and only a grey smudge on the distant horizon marked where the Natividad was battling with it. Hornblower could see that there was no chance of showing any more canvas at present, no chance of renewing the fight while the Natividad was still unprepared. It was a bitter pill to swallow. He could imagine what would be said in service circles when he sent in his report to the Admiralty. His statement that the weather was too bad to renew the action, after having received such a severe handling, would be received with pitying smiles and knowing wags of the head. It was a hackneyed excuse, like the uncharted rock which explained faulty navigation. Cowardice, moral or even perhaps physical, would be the unspoken comment on every side—at ten thousand miles distance no one could judge of the strength of a storm. He could divest himself of some of his responsibility by asking Bush his opinion, and requesting him to go through the formality of putting it in writing; but he turned irritably from the thought of displaying weakness before his inferior.

  “No,” he said, without expression. “We shall stay hove-to until the weather moderates.”

  There was a gleam of admiration in Bush’s bloodshot eyes—Bush could well admire a captain who could make with such small debate a decision so nearly touching his professional reputation. Hornblower noticed it, but his cursed temperament forbade him to interpret it correctly.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Bush, warned by the scowl on his captain’s forehead not to enlarge on the subject. But his affection for his captain compelled him to open a fresh one. “If that’s the case, sir, why not take a rest? You look mortally tired, sir, indeed you do. Let me send and have a berth screened off for you in the ward room.”

  Bush found his hand twitching—he had been about to commit the enormity of patting his captain’s shoulder, and restrained himself just in time.

  “Fiddlesticks!” snapped Hornblower. As if a captain of a frigate could publicly admit that he was tired! And Hornblower could not trust himself to show any weakness at all—he always remembered how on his first commission his second-in-command had taken advantages of lapses on his part.

  “It is rather you who need a rest,” said Hornblower. “Dismiss the starboard watch, and go below and turn in. Have someone attend to that forehead of yours, first. With the enemy in sight I shall stay on deck.”

  After that it was Polwheal who came to plague him—Hornblower wondered ineffectively whether he came of his own
initiative or whether Bush sent him up.

  “I’ve been to attend to the lady, sir,” said Polwheal; Hornblower’s tired mind was just beginning to grapple with the problem of what to do with Lady Barbara in a damaged ship cleared for action. “I’ve screened off a bit of the orlop for her, sir. The wounded’s mostly quiet by now, sir. I slung a ‘ammock for her—nipped into it like a bird, she did, sir. She’s taken food, too, sir—what was left of that cold chicken an’ a glass of wine. Not that she wanted to, sir, but I persuaded her, like.”

  “Very good, Polwheal,” said Hornblower. It was an enormous relief to hear that one responsibility at least was lifted from his shoulders.

  “An’ now about you, sir,” went on Polwheal. “I’ve got you up some dry clothes from your chest in your storeroom, sir—I’m afraid that last broadside spoilt everything in your cabin, sir. An’ I’ve got your boat cloak, sir, all warm an’ dry. Do you care to shift your clothes up here or down below, sir?”

  Polwheal could take much for granted and could wheedle the rest. Hornblower had anticipated dragging his weary form in his waterlogged clothes up and down the quarterdeck all through the night, his nervous irritation not permitting him to contemplate any other course. Polwheal unearthed Lady Barbara’s hammock chair from somewhere and lashed it to the rail and persuaded Hornblower to sit in it and consume a supper of biscuit and rum. Polwheal draped the boat cloak about him and airily took it for granted that he would continue to sit there, since his determination was fixed not to turn in while the enemy was still close at hand.

  And marvellously, as he sat there, with the spray wetting his face and the ship leaping and rolling under him, his head drooped upon his breast and he slept. It was only a broken and fitful sleep, but astonishingly restorative. He awoke every few minutes. Twice it was the sound of his own snores which roused him. At other times he woke with a start to see whether the weather was moderating; at other times still the thoughts which went running on through his mind despite his dozing called him out of his unconsciousness when they reached some fresh startling conclusion regarding what opinion England and his crew would hold of him after this battle.