The Happy Return hh-7

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Cock your locks!” shouted Gerard in the waist.

  “Easy, Mr. Hooker. Way enough!” roared Hornblower.

  The Lydia turned inch by inch, with Gerard squinting along one of the starboard guns to judge of the moment when it would first bear.

  “Take your aim!” he yelled, and stood back, timing the roll of the ship in the heavy swell. “Fire!”

  The smoke billowed out amid the thunder of the discharge, and the Lydia heaved to the recoil of the guns.

  “Give him another, lads!” shouted Hornblower through the din. Now that action was joined he found himself exalted and happy, the dreadful fears of mutilation forgotten. In thirty seconds the guns were reloaded, run out, and fired. Again and again and again, with Gerard watching the roll of the ship and giving the word. Counting back in his mind, Hornblower reckoned five broadsides from the Lydia, and he could only remember two from the Natividad in that time. At that rate of firing the Natividad’s superiority in numbers of guns and weight of metal would be more than counterbalanced. At the sixth broadside a gun went off prematurely, a second before Gerard gave the word. Hornblower sprang forward to detect the guilty crew—it was easy enough from their furtive look and suspicious appearance of busyness. He shook his finger at them.

  “Steady, there!” he shouted. “I’ll flog the next man who fires out of turn.”

  It was very necessary to keep the men in hand while the range was as long as at present, because in the heat and excitement of the action the gun captains could not be trusted to judge the motion of the ship while preoccupied with loading and laying.

  “Good old Horny!” piped up some unknown voice forward, and there was a burst of laughing and cheering, cut short by Gerard’s next order to fire.

  The smoke was banked thick about the ship already—as thick as a London fog so that from the quarterdeck it was impossible to see individuals on the forecastle, and in the unnatural darkness which it brought with it one could see the long orange flashes of the guns despite the vivid sunshine outside. Of the Natividad all that could be seen was her high smoke cloud and the single topmast jutting out from it. The thick smoke, trailing about the ship in greasy wreaths, made the eyes smart and irritated the lungs, and affected the skin like thundery weather until it pricked uncomfortably.

  Hornblower found Bush beside him.

  “Natividad’s feeling our fire, sir,” he roared through the racket. “She’s firing very wild. Look at that, sir.”

  Of the broadside fired only one or two shots struck home. Half a dozen plunged together into the sea astern of the Lydia so that the spray from the fountains which they struck up splashed round them on the quarterdeck. Hornblower nodded happily. This was his justification for closing to that range and for running the risks involved in the approach. To maintain a rapid fire, well aimed, amid the din and the smoke and the losses and the confusion of a naval battle called for discipline and practice of a sort that he knew the Natividad’s crew could not boast.

  He looked down through the smoke at the Lydia’s main deck. The inexperienced eye, observing the hurry and bustle of the boys with the cartridge buckets, the mad efforts of the gun crews, the dead and the wounded, the darkness and the din, might well think it a scene of confusion, but Hornblower knew better. Everything that was being done there, every single action, was part of the scheme worked out by Hornblower seven months before when he commissioned the Lydia, and grained into the minds of all on board during the long and painful drills since. He could see Gerard standing by the mainmast, looking almost saintly in his ecstasy—gunnery was as much Gerard’s ruling passion as women; he could see the midshipmen and other warrant officers each by his subdivision of guns, each looking to Gerard for his orders and keeping his guns working rhythmically, the loaders with their rammers, the cleaners with their sponges, the gun captains crouching over the breeches, right hands raised.

  The port side battery was already depleted of most of its men; there were only two men to a gun there, standing idle yet ready to spring into action if a shift of the fight should bring their guns to bear. The remainder were on duty round the ship—replacing casualties on the starboard side, manning the pumps, whose doleful clanking continued steadily through the fearful din, resting on their oars in the cutter, hard at work aloft repairing damages. Hornblower found time to be thankful that he had been granted seven months in which to bring his crew into its present state of training and discipline.

  Something—the concussion of the guns, a faint breath of air, or the send of the sea—was causing the Lydia to turn away a trifle from her enemy. Hornblower could see that the guns were having to be trained round farther and farther so that the rate of firing was being slowed down. He raced forward, running out along the bowsprit until he was over the cutter where Hooker and his men sat staring at the fight.

  “Mr. Hooker, bring her head round two points to starboard.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The men bent to their oars and headed their boat towards the Natividad; the tow-rope tightened while another badly aimed broadside tore the water all round them into foam. Tugging and straining at the oars they would work the ship round in time. Hornblower left them and ran back to the quarterdeck. There was a white-faced ship’s boy seeking him there.

  “Mr. Howell sent me, sir. Starboard side chain pump’s knocked all to pieces.”

  “Yes?” Hornblower knew that Howell the ship’s carpenter would not merely send a message of despair.

  “He’s rigging another one, sir, but it will be an hour before it works, sir. He told me to tell you the water’s gaining a little, sir.”

  “Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower. The infant addressing him grew round-eyed and confidential now that the first strangeness of speaking to his captain had worn off.

  “There was fourteen men all knocked into smash at the pump, sir. ‘Orrible, sir.”

  “Very good. Run back to Mr. Howell and tell him the captain is sure he will do his best to get the new pump rigged.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The boy dived down to the maindeck, and Hornblower watched him running forward, dodging the hurrying individuals in the crowded space there. He had to explain himself to the marine sentry at the fore hatchway—no one could go below without being able to show that it was his duty which was calling him there. Hornblower felt as if the message Howell had sent did not matter at all. It called for no decision on his part. All there was to do was to go on fighting, whether the ship was sinking under their feet or not. There was a comfort in being free of all responsibility in this way.

  “One hour and a half already,” said Bush, coming up rubbing his hands. “Glorious, sir. Glorious.”

  It might have been no more than ten minutes for all Hornblower could tell, but Bush had in duty bound been watching the sand glass by the binnacle.

  “I’ve never known Dagoes stick to their guns like this before,” commented Bush. “Their aim’s poor, but they’re firing as fast as ever. And it’s my belief we’ve hit them hard, sir.”

  He tried to look through the eddying smoke, even fanning ridiculously with his hands in the attempt—a gesture which, by showing that he was not quite as calm as he appeared to be, gave Hornblower an absurd pleasure. Crystal came up as well as he spoke.

  “The smoke’s thinning a little, sir. It’s my belief that there’s a light air of wind blowing.”

  He held up a wetted finger.

  “There is indeed, sir. A trifle of breeze over the port quarter. Ah!”

  There came a stronger puff as he spoke, which rolled away the smoke in a solid mass over the starboard bow and revealed the scene as if a theatre curtain had been raised. There was the Natividad, looking like a wreck. Her jury foremast had gone the way of its predecessor, and her mainmast has followed it. Only her mizzen mast stood now, and she was rolling wildly in the swell with a huge tangle of rigging trailing over her disengaged side. Abreast her foremast three ports had been battered into one; the gap looked like a missing t
ooth.

  “She’s low in the water,” said Bush, but on the instant a fresh broadside vomited smoke from her battered side, and this time by some chance every shot told in the Lydia, as the crash below well indicated. The smoke billowed round the Natividad, and as it cleared the watchers saw her swinging round head to the wind, helpless in the light air. The Lydia had felt the breeze. Hornblower could tell by the feel of her that she had steerage way again; the quartermaster at the wheel was twirling the spokes to hold her steady. He saw his chance on the instant.

  “Starboard a point,” he ordered. “Forward, there! Cast off the cutter.”

  The Lydia steadied across her enemy’s bows and raked her with thunder and flame.

  “Back the main tops’l!” ordered Hornblower.

  The men were cheering again on the maindeck through the roar of the guns. Astern the red sun was dipping to the water’s edge in a glory of scarlet and gold. Soon it would be night.

  “She must strike soon. Christ! Why don’t she strike?” Bush was saying, as at close range the broadsides tore into the helpless enemy, raking her from bow to stern. Hornblower knew better. No ship under Crespo’s command and flying el Supremo’s flag would strike her colours. He could see the golden star on a blue ground fluttering through the smoke.

  “Pound him, lads, pound him!” shouted Gerard.

  With the shortening range he could rely on his gun captains to fire independently now. Every gun’s crew was loading and firing as rapidly as possible. So hot were the guns that at each discharge they leaped high in their carriages, and the dripping sponges thrust down their bores sizzled and steamed at the touch of the scorching hot metal. It was growing darker, too. The flashes of the guns could be seen again now, leaping in long orange tongues from the gun muzzles. High above the fast fading sunset could be seen the first star, shining out brilliantly.

  The Natividad’s bowsprit was gone, splintered and broken and hanging under her forefoot, and then in the dwindling light the mizzen mast fell as well, cut through by shots which had ripped their way down the whole length of the ship.

  “She must strike now, by God!” said Bush.

  At Trafalgar Bush had been sent as prize master into a captured Spanish ship, and his mind was full of busy memories of what a beaten ship looked like—the dismounted guns, the dead and wounded heaped on the deck and rolling back and forth as the dismasted ship rolled on the swell, the misery, the pain, the helplessness. As if in reply to him there came a sudden flash and report from the Natividad’s bows. Some devoted souls with tackles and hand-spikes had contrived to slew a gun round so that it would bear right forward, and were firing into the looming bulk of the Lydia.

  “Pound him, lads, pound him!” screamed Gerard, half mad with fatigue and strain.

  The Lydia by virtue of her top hamper was going down to leeward fast upon the rolling hulk. At every second the range was shortening. Through the darkness, when their eyes were not blinded with gun flashes, Hornblower and Bush could see figures moving about on the Natividad’s deck. They were firing muskets now, as well. The flashes pricked the darkness and Hornblower heard a bullet thud into the rail beside him. He did not care. He was conscious now of his overmastering weariness.

  The wind was fluky, coming in sudden puffs and veering unexpectedly. It was hard, especially in the darkness, to judge exactly how the two ships were nearing each other.

  “The closer we are, the quicker we’ll finish it,” said Bush.

  “Yes, but we’ll run on board of her soon,” said Hornblower.

  He roused himself for a further effort.

  “Call the hands to stand by to repel boarders,” he said, and he walked across to where the two starboard side quarterdeck carronades were thundering away. So intent were their crews on their work, so hypnotised by the monotony of loading and firing, that it took him several seconds to attract their notice. Then they stood still, sweating, while Hornblower gave his orders. The two carronades were loaded with canister brought from the reserve locker beside the taffrail. They waited, crouching beside the guns, while the two ships drifted closer and closer together, the Lydia’s main deck guns still blazing away. There were shouts and yells of defiance from the Natividad, and the musket flashes from her bows showed a dark mass of men crowding there waiting for the ships to come together. Yet the actual contact was unexpected, as a sudden combination of wind and sea closed the gap with a rush. The Natividad’s bow hit the Lydia amidships, just forward of the mizzenmast, with a jarring crash. There was a pandemonium of yells from the Natividad as they swarmed forward to board, and the captains of the carronades sprang to their lanyards.

  “Wait!” shouted Hornblower.

  His mind was like a calculating machine, judging wind and sea, time and distance, as the Lydia slowly swung round. With hand spikes and the brute strength of the men he trained one carronade round and the other followed his example, while the mob on the Natividad’s forecastle surged along the bulwarks waiting for the moment to board. The two carronades came right up against them.

  “Fire!”

  A thousand musket balls were vomited from the carronades straight into the packed crowd. There was a moment of silence, and then the pandemonium of shouts and cheers was replaced by a thin chorus of screams and cries—the blast of musket balls had swept the Natividad’s forecastle clear from side to side.

  For a space the two ships clung together in this position; the Lydia still had a dozen guns that would bear, and these pounded away with their muzzles almost touching the Natividad’s bow. Then wind and sea parted them again, the Lydia to leeward now, drifting away from the rolling hulk; in the English ship every gun was in action, while from the Natividad came not a gun, not even a musket shot.

  Hornblower fought off his weariness again.

  “Cease firing,” he shouted to Gerard on the main deck, and the guns fell silent.

  Hornblower stared through the darkness at the vague mass of the Natividad, wallowing in the waves.

  “Surrender!” he shouted.

  “Never!” came the reply—Crespo’s voice, he could have sworn to it, thin and high pitched. It added two or three words of obscene insult.

  Hornblower could afford to smile at that, even through his weariness. He had fought his battle and won it.

  “You have done all that brave men could do,” he shouted.

  “Not all, yet, Captain,” wailed the voice in the darkness.

  Then something caught Hornblower’s eyes—a wavering glow of red about the Natividad’s vague bows.

  “Crespo, you fool!” he shouted. “Your ship’s on fire! Surrender, while you can.”

  “Never!”

  The Lydia’s guns, hard against the Natividad’s side, had flung their flaming wads in amongst the splintered timbers. The tinder-dry wood of the old ship had taken fire from them, and the fire was spreading fast. It was brighter already than when Hornblower had noticed it; the ship would be a mass of flames soon. Hornblower’s first duty was to his own ship—when the fire should reach the powder charges on the Natividad’s decks, or when it should attain the magazine, the ship would become a volcano of flaming fragments, imperilling the Lydia.

  “We must haul off from her, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, speaking formally to conceal the tremor in his voice. “Man the braces, there.”

  The Lydia swung away, close hauled, clawing her way up to windward of the flaming wreck. Bush and Hornblower gazed back at her. There were bright flames now to be seen, spouting from the shattered bows—the red glow was reflected in the heaving sea around her. And then, as they looked, they saw the flames vanish abruptly, like an extinguished candle. There was nothing to be seen at all, nothing save darkness and the faint glimmer of the wave crests. The sea had swallowed the Natividad before the flames could destroy her.

  “Sunk, by God!” exclaimed Bush, leaning out over the rail.

  Hornblower still seemed to hear that last wailing “Never!” during the seconds of silence that followed. Yet he w
as perhaps the first of all his ship’s company to recover from the shock. He put his ship about and ran down to the scene of the Natividad’s sinking. He sent off Hooker and the cutter to search for survivors—the cutter was the only boat left, for gig and jolly boat had been shattered by the Natividad’s fire, and the planks of the launch were floating five miles away. They picked up a few men—two were hauled out of the water by men in the Lydia’s chains, and the cutter found half a dozen swimmers; that was all. The Lydia’s crew tried to be kind to them, as they stood on her deck in the lantern light with the water streaming from their ragged clothes and their lank black hair, but they were sullen and silent; there was even one who struggled for a moment, as if to continue the battle which the Natividad had fought so desperately.

  “Never mind, we’ll make topmen of them yet,” said Hornblower, trying to speak lightly.

  Fatigue had reached such a pitch now that he was speaking as if out of a dream, as if all these solid surroundings of his, the ship, her guns and masts and sails, Bush’s burly figure, were unreal and ghostlike, and only his weariness and the ache inside his skull were existing things. He heard his voice as though he were speaking from a yard away.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the boatswain.

  Anything was grist that came to the Royal Navy’s mill—Harrison was prepared to make seamen out of the strangest human material; he had done so all his life, for that matter.

  “What course shall I set, sir?” asked Bush, as Hornblower turned back to the quarterdeck.

  “Course?” said Hornblower, vaguely. “Course?”

  It was terribly hard to realise that the battle was over, the Natividad sunk, that there was no enemy afloat within thousands of miles of sea. It was hard to realise that the Lydia was in acute danger, too; that the pumps, clanking away monotonously, were not quite able to keep the leaks under, that the Lydia still had a sail stretched under her bottom, and stood in the acutest need of a complete refit.