Hornblower and the Atropos h-6

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “He’ll have the stitches out of you soon,” said Hornblower. “Meanwhile time is of importance.”

  It was infuriating that a captain in his own ship should have to endure this sort of insolence. Hornblower thought of the official complaints he could make. He could quarrel with McCullum, abandon the whole attempt, and in his report to Collingwood he would declaim that “owing to the complete lack of cooperation on the part of Mr. William McCullum, of the Honourable East India Company’s Service” the expedition had ended in failure. No doubt McCullum would then be rapped on the knuckles officially. But it was better to achieve success, even without receiving any sympathy for the trials he was enduring, than to return with the best of excuses emptyhanded. It was just as meritorious to pocket his pride and to coax McCullum into giving clear instructions as it was to head a boarding party on to an enemy’s deck. Just as meritorious—although less likely to achieve a paragraph in the Gazette. He forced himself to ask the right questions and to listen to McCullum’s grudging explanations of what should next be done.

  And it was pleasant, later, when eating his dinner, to be able to congratulate himself on his duty done, orders given, all prepared. Those words of McCullum’s, “a cascade of silver,” ran in his mind as he sat and ate. It called for little imagination to conjure up a mental picture of the wreck down there in the translucent water, with her strong-room torn open and the silver in a frozen stream pouring out of it. Gray could have written a poem about it; and somewhere in that strong-room there was the gold. Life was good, and he was a fortunate man. He slowly consumed his last mouthful of roast lamb, and addressed himself to his lettuce salad, tender young plants, sweet and delicious, the first fruits of the Turkish spring.

  Chapter XVI

  The Turkish spring was not going to give way to summer without a last struggle, without calling the vanished winter back to her aid. The wind blew wildly and cold from the northwestward; the skies were grey, and the rain lashed down torrentially. It drummed upon the deck, streaming out through the scuppers; it poured in unexpected streams down from points in the rigging; even though it grudgingly gave to the crew the chance to wash their clothes in fresh water it denied them the opportunity of drying them again. Atropos swung fitfully to her anchor as the gusts blowing down from the surrounding mountains backed and veered, whipping the surface of the Bay into turbulent whitecaps. Wind and rain seemed peculiarly searching. Everyone seemed to be colder and wetter than if the ship were battling a storm in midAtlantic, with the deck leaking as she worked in a sea way and the waves crashing down upon it; sulkiness and bad temper made their appearance among the ship’s company along with the cold and wet—lack of exercise and lack of occupation combined with the constant drumming of the rain to bring that about.

  Walking upon the quarterdeck with the raindrops rattling upon his oilskin seemed to Hornblower to be a cheerless business, the more so until this gale dropped there would be no chance of continuing the salvage operations. Boxes of gold lay over there under that wind-whipped surface; he hated having to wait through these empty hours before knowing if they could be recovered. He hated the thought of having to rouse himself from his inertia and exert himself to reestablish the good spirits of the ship’s company, but he knew he must.

  “Messenger!” he said, “my compliments to Mr. Smiley and Mr. Horrocks, and I’ll see them at once in my cabin.”

  Half an hour later both watches were assembled on deck by divisions (“Half an hour I’ll give you to get it all arranged,” Hornblower had said) wearing only their duck trousers in the rain, the cold drops beating on their bare chests and feet. There was plenty of growling at the discomfort, but there was amusement among the topmen because every idler in the ship was there—“I’ll have ‘em all,” Hornblower had said, “waisters and holders, gunner’s crew and sailmaker’s crew.” And there was the excitement always attendant upon a race; and there was the compensation of seeing the three senior watchkeeping officers, Jones and Still and Turner, climbing the ratlines to take their places in the crosstrees to see that the racing was fair. Hornblower stood forward by the knightheads with his speaking trumpet so that the wind would carry his voice plainly along the deck.

  “One to get steady!” he shouted. “Two to be ready! Three—and you’re off!”

  It was a relay race, up the rigging of each mast in turn and down again, port watch against starboard; it was the inclusion of the men who rarely, if ever, went aloft that gave spice to the proceedings. Soon divisions down on deck were dancing with excitement as they watched the slow ascent and descent of some lumbering gurneys mate or ship’s corporal; until he completed the journey they were not free to dash to the next mast and start again.

  “Come on, Fatty!”

  The Pegasuswinged topmen to whom the ascent was a trifle leaped up and down on deck with never a thought for the streaming rain as some rival division, set free by the eventual descent of its last man, rushed loyally along the deck to the next mast while they were forced to stand and witness the cautious movements of the slowest of their own side.

  Up went the men and down, round and across. The Prince of Seitz-Bunau came shrieking round the deck, wild with excitement; Horrocks and Smiley, captains of the two sides, were croaking like crows, their voices failing them with the continual shouting as they organized and encouraged. The cook’s mate, who was the last man of the port watch, was already close to the mainmast head when Horrocks, who had reserved himself to be the last of the starboard watch, began the ascent on the other side. Everyone in the ship seemed to be shouting and gesticulating. Up ran Horrocks, the shrouds vibrating with the apelike speed of his passage. The cook’s mate reached the crosstrees and started down again.

  “Come on, Fatty!”

  The cook’s mate did not even look to see where to put his feet, and he was coming down two ratlines at a time. Horrocks reached the crosstrees and leaped for the deck stay. Down he came, sliding at a speed that must burn his hands. Cook’s mate and midshipman reached the deck together, but Horrocks had farther to run to reach his place with his division than did the cook’s mate. There was a final yell as both of them staggered gasping to their places, but the cook’s mate was first by a full yard, and every eye was turned towards Hornblower.

  “Port watch wins!” he announced. “Starboard watch provides the entertainment tomorrow night!”

  The port watch cheered again, but the starboard watch—Hornblower was observing them closely—was not humiliated. He could guess that there were plenty of men among them who were not too displeased at the thought of tomorrow exhibiting their talents to an audience and who were already planning their turns. He put his speaking trumpet to his lips again.

  “Attention! Mr. Horrocks! Mr. Smiley! Dismiss your teams.”

  Aft, beside the wardroom door, as Hornblower was returning to his cabin, there was an unusual figure, walking with slow steps under the supervision of the doctor.

  “This is a pleasure, Mr. McCullum,” said Hornblower. “It’s good to see you out of your bed.”

  “The incision has entirely healed, sir,” said Eisenbeiss, proudly. “Not only are the sutures removed, but I have judged it safe to remove the bristle from the wound, as the drainage was complete.”

  “Excellent!” said Hornblower. “Then that arm will come out of its sling soon?”

  “Within a few days. The broken ribs seem to have knitted well.”

  “Still a bit stiff round here,” said McCullum, feeling his right armpit with his left hand. He was displaying none of his usual ill temper; but a convalescent, making his first attempt to walk, and with his wound under discussion, could feel so much in the centre of the picture as to be well disposed towards humanity.

  “Well it might be,” said Hornblower. “A pistol bullet at twelve paces is not a welcome visitor. We thought we had lost you. At Malta they thought that bullet was in your lungs.”

  “It would have been easier,” said Eisenbeiss, “if he had not been so muscular. The bul
let could not be felt in that mass of muscle.”

  McCullum fished from his left trouser pocket a small object which he handed to Hornblower.

  “D’you see that?” asked McCullum. It was the bullet which Eisenbeiss had extracted, flattened and irregular. Hornblower had seen it before, but this was not the moment to say so. He marvelled over it in suitable terms, much to McCullum’s gratification.

  “I think,” said Hornblower, “that this occasion should be observed with a fitting ceremony. I shall invite the wardroom to dine with me, and I can ask you two gentlemen first of all.”

  “Honoured, I’m sure,” said McCullum, and Eisenbeiss bowed.

  “Let us say tomorrow, then. We can dine in comfort before the entertainment which the starboard watch is providing.”

  He retired to his cabin well pleased with himself. He had exercised his crew; he had given them something to think about; he had found a suitable occasion to entertain his officers socially; his salvage expert had returned from the jaws of death and in a better temper than usual—all this, and the Speedwell’s treasure lay on the Tom Tiddler’s Ground of the sandy bottom of the Bay, with gold and silver only waiting to be picked up. His good opinion of himself even enabled him to endure the tedium of the concert given by the starboard watch that night. There were the sentimental songs which a handsome young fore-topman sang; Hornblower found their glutinous sentimentality as wearisome to his soul as the music was to his tonedeaf ear. “The Flowers on Mother’s Grave” and “The Empty Cradle”—the young seaman squeezed out every lugubrious drop from their funereal substance, and his audience, with the exception of Hornblower, revelled in it. And an elderly bos’n’s mate sang sea songs in a thunderous bass while Hornblower marvelled that a seagoing audience could tolerate the misuse of nautical terms in those songs; if his “good sail” were to “rustle” with a following wind, his officer of the watch would hear from him in good round terms, and there was, of course, the usual landsman’s confusion between the sheet and the sail, and Dibdin had never bothered to find out that a “sheer hulk” was still leading a useful existence thanks to its sheers—the term did not imply a complete hulk or anything like it. And of course the song laid stress on the statement that Tom Bowling was dead, like the foretopman’s mythical mother and baby. He had “Gone aloft” and everybody in the ship’s company, apparently, felt the better for it.

  The hornpipes were more agreeable; Hornblower could admire the lightness and grace of the dancers and could manage to ignore the squeaky sweetness of the flute that accompanied them, played by the same cook’s mate whose final effort had won the race for the port watch—his services as accompanist were so necessary, apparently, that they were called for even though the port watch were officially the guests at the concert. To Hornblower the most amusing part of the evening’s entertainment, in fact, was the difference in attitude between the two watches, the starboard watch as anxious hosts and the port watch as critical guests. He could congratulate himself again at the end of the evening on a successful piece of work. He had a willing and orderly crew, and a satisfied complement of officers.

  And next morning came the real triumph, no less satisfactory in that Hornblower stayed on board the ship and allowed McCullum, his arm still in a sling, to go out with launch and longboat and all the new apparatus that had been constructed for the salvage operations. Hornblower stood at the side of the ship, warmed by the newly returned sunshine, as the boats returned. McCullum pointed with his left hand to a vast heap piled between the centre thwarts of the launch, and turned and pointed to another in the longboat. Silver! The divers must have worked fast down in the depths, shovelling the coins with their hands into the lowered buckets.

  The boats came alongside and a working party prepared to hoist the mass of silver on board. A sudden sharp order by McCullum halted the three Ceylonese divers as they were about to make their way forward to their own particular lair. They looked at him a little sheepishly as he gave a further order in their strange tongue, and he repeated it. Then slowly they began to take off their clothes; Hornblower had seen them stripping themselves so often before in the days—they seemed weeks ago—when the salvage operations had begun. The voluminous cotton garments came off one by one.

  “I’ll lay a bet,” said McCullum, “they’ve got fifty pounds between them.”

  One of the garments gave out a mysterious chink as it was laid on the deck, despite the care of the owner.

  “Master at arms!” said Hornblower, “search those clothes!”

  With a grinning crew looking on the seams and folds of the clothing were emptied of coins, dozens of them.

  “They never make a dive,” said McCullum, “without trying this on.”

  Hornblower could only wonder how a naked man climbing from the sea into a boat could possibly manage to convey silver coins into his clothing unobserved, but anything was possible to human ingenuity.

  “That would have made them rich for life if they could have taken it back to Jaffra,” said McCullum. Reverting to the foreign speech he dismissed the divers, who picked up their clothes again and vanished, while McCullum turned back to Hornblower. “It might be quicker to weigh this than to count it. If we get it all up there’ll be four tons altogether.”

  Silver by the ton! The sailmaker stitched sacks out of new canvas to hold it, and just as in the lost Speedwell, the lower lazarette was cleared to store it. And Hornblower found there was a profound truth in the story of Midas, who received the gift of the Golden Touch not so very far from where Atropos swung at anchor. Just as Midas lost his happiness at a moment when the world must have deemed him the happiest man on earth, so Hornblower lost his happiness at this moment of success. For as the silver was piled in the lazarette so he came to worry about the coins. He was in no doubt about the ingenuity and persistence and skill of the seamen under his orders; nor was he in doubt about the criminal pasts of many of them, the sweepings of Newgate Gaol. Tales innumerable were told about the remarkable ways in which seamen managed to steal liquor, but the man who stole liquor inevitably revealed himself sooner or later. This was money, English coins, and there was only a frail wooden bulkhead to keep out thieves. So, as in the Speedwell, the bulkheads and decks were reinforced by stout timbers nailed across them; the careful and wellplanned arrangement of the stores in the hold had to be altered so that the biggest beef casks, the ones that could only be moved by block and tackle, were ranged outside the bulkheads to hinder thieves from breaking through. And even then Hornblower spent wakeful nights visualizing the situation of the lower lazarette and wondering first how he would set about breaking into it and second how he would defeat such an attempt. These feelings intensified each day as the piles of sacks of silver grew larger; and they grew ten times more intense on the triumphant day when McCullum’s divers reached the gold.

  McCullum knew his work, no doubt about that. One day he told Hornblower of the discovery of one of the chests of gold; the next morning Hornblower watched launch and longboat start off with strong-backs erected in their sterns, and blocks and tackles rigged on them, miles of line coiled in readiness, timbers, buckets, everything that human ingenuity could think of for use in this new task. Hornblower watched through his glass as the boats lay together over the wreck. He saw the divers go down and come up again, time after time. He saw the weighted lines lowered from the tackles; more than once he saw the hands begin to haul in on the falls and then desist while another diver went down, presumably to clear the line. Then at the end he saw the hands haul in again, and stay at work, hauling in, coiling down, until at last, between the two boats, something broke water and a yell of exultation came echoing over to the ship.

  It was something quite large which was gingerly swung into the stern of the launch—Hornblower could see the stern of the launch sink and the bows rise as the weight was transferred. His calculations had already told him that a cubic foot of gold weighed half a ton—and gold was at a premium, five guineas in paper or more to the ou
nce. That was a king’s ransom; Hornblower looked at it as the launch came pulling back alongside, a strange object lying in the bottom of the boat, half obscured by weed.

  “Those must be wrought iron bars on it,” said McCullum, standing beside him while Jones fussily supervised the transfer to the ship, “and best Sussex iron at that. Steel would have rusted to nothing a year ago, but some of those bars are still whole. The weeds growing from the oak must have been a yard long—my boys had to trim ‘em off before they got the tackles round.”

  “Easy there! Easy!” shouted Jones.

  “Vast heaving at the yardarm! “ shouted the bos’n. “Now, you at the stay tackle, walk away with it!”

  The chest dangled over the deck, balancing on its supporting lines.

  “Easy! Lower away, yardarm! Easy! Lower away stay tackle! Handsomely!”

  The chest sank to the deck; there were little dribbles of water still flowing from inside it. The gold that lay concealed inside it would have built, armed, and equipped the whole Atropos, have filled her holds with stores for a year, have provided a month’s advance pay for the crew, and still have left a handsome balance.

  “Well, that’s one of them,” said McCullum. “I have a feeling that it won’t be so easy to get up the other two. This is the easiest job I’ve ever done, so far. We’ve been lucky—inexperienced as you are, you will never know how lucky.”

  But Hornblower knew how lucky he was. Lucky that McCullum had survived a pistol shot in the ribs; lucky that the Ceylonese divers had survived the journey all round Africa from India to Asia Minor; lucky—incredibly lucky—that the Turks had been so complacent, allowing him to carry out the salvage operation in the Bay without guessing what he was doing and without interfering. It was consideration of this good fortune that reconciled him at last to the worry regarding the guarding of the treasure in the lower lazarette. He was the most fortunate man on earth; fortunate (he told himself) and yet at the same time he owed some of his success to his own merits. He had been clever in his handling of the Mudir. It had been a cunning move to accept a bribe to stay here anchored in the Bay, to appear reluctant to do the very thing he wanted most to do. Collingwood would approve, no doubt. He had recovered the silver; he had recovered onethird of the gold already. He would receive a pat on the back from authority even if McCullum should find it impossible to recover the rest.