'Captain's compliments, sir, and he'd like to see you in his cabin.'
'Examine your conscience well,' grinned Midshipman Bracegirdle. 'What crimes have you committed?'
'I wish I knew,' said Hornblower, quite genuinely.
It is always a nervous moment going in to see the captain in reply to his summons. Hornblower swallowed as he approached the cabin door, and he had to brace himself a little to knock and enter. But there was nothing to be alarmed about; Pellew looked up with a smile from his desk.
'Ah, Mr Hornblower, I hope you will consider this good news. There will be an examination for lieutenant to-morrow, in the Santa Barbara there. You are ready to take it, I hope?'
Hornblower was about to say 'I suppose so, sir,' but checked himself.
'Yes, sir,' he said — Pellew hated slipshod answers.
'Very well, then. You report there at three P.M. with your certificates and journals.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
That was a very brief conversation for such an important subject. Hornblower had Pellew's order as acting-lieutenant for two months now. To-morrow he would take his examination. If he should pass the admiral would confirm the order next day, and Hornblower would be a lieutenant with two month's seniority already. But if he should fail! That would mean he had been found unfit for lieutenant's rank. He would revert to midshipman, the two months' seniority would be lost, and it would be six months at least before he could try again. Eight months' seniority was a matter of enormous importance. It would affect all his subsequent career.
'Tell Mr Bolton you have my permission to leave the ship to-morrow, and you may use one of the ship's boats.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Good luck, Hornblower.'
During the next twenty-four hours Hornblower had not merely to try to read all through Norie's Epitome of Navigation again, and Clarke's Complete Handbook of Seamanship, but he had to see that his number one uniform was spick and span. It cost his spirit ration to prevail on the warrant cook to allow the gunroom attendant to heat a flatiron in the galley and iron out his neck handkerchief Bracegirdle lent him a clean shirt, but there was a feverish moment when it was discovered that the gunroom's supply of shoe blacking had dried to a chip. Two midshipmen had to work it soft with lard, and the resultant compound, when applied to Hornblower's buckled shoes, was stubbornly resistant to taking a polish; only much labour with the gunroom's moulting shoebrush and then with a soft cloth brought those shoes up to a condition of brightness worthy of an examination for lieutenant. And as for the cocked hat — the life of a cocked hat in the midshipman's berth is hard, and some of the dents could not be entirely eliminated.
'Take it off as soon as you can and keep it under your arm,' advised Bracegirdle. 'Maybe they won't see you come up the ship's side.'
Everybody turned out to see Hornblower leave the ship, with his sword and his white breeches and his buckled shoes, his bundle of journals under his arm and his certificates of sobriety and good conduct in his pocket. The winter afternoon was already far advanced as he was rowed over to the Santa Barbara and went up the ship's side to report himself to the officer of the watch.
The Santa Barbara was a prison hulk, one of the prizes captured in Rodney's action off Cadiz in 1780 and kept rotting at her moorings, mastless, ever since, a storeship in time of peace and a prison in time of war. Redcoated soldiers, muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, guarded the gangways; on forecastle and quarterdeck were carronades, trained inboard and depressed to sweep the waist, wherein a few prisoners took the air, ragged and unhappy. As Hornblower came up the side he caught a whiff of the stench within, where two thousand prisoners were confined. Hornblower reported himself to the officer of the watch as come on board, and for what purpose.
'Whoever would have guessed it?' said the officer of the watch — an elderly lieutenant with white hair hanging down to his shoulders — running his eye over Hornblower's immaculate uniform and the portfolio under his arm. 'Fifteen of your kind have already come on board, and — Holy Gemini, see there!'
Quite a flotilla of small craft was closing in on the Santa Barbara. Each boat held at least one cocked-hatted and white-breached midshipman, and some held four or five.
'Every courtesy young gentleman in the Mediterranean Fleet is ambitious for an epaulet,' said the lieutenant. 'Just wait until the examining board sees how many there are of you! I wouldn't be in your shoes, young shaver, for something. Go aft, there, and wait in the portside cabin.'
It was already uncomfortably full; when Hornblower entered, fifteen pairs of eyes measured him up. There were officers of all ages from eighteen to forty, all in their number one's, all nervous — one or two of them had Norie's Epitome open on their laps and were anxiously reading passages about which they were doubtful. One little group was passing a bottle from hand to hand, presumably in an effort to keep up their courage. But no sooner had Hornblower entered than a stream of newcomers followed him. The cabin began to fill, and-soon it was tightly packed. Half the forty men present found seats on the deck, and the others were forced to stand.
'Forty years back,' said a loud voice somewhere, 'my grandad marched with Clive to revenge the Black Hole of Calcutta. If he could but have witnessed the fate of his posterity!'
'Have a drink,' said another voice, 'and to hell with care.'
'Forty of us,' commented a tall, thin, clerkly officer, counting heads. 'How many of us will they pass, do you think? Five?'
'To hell with care,' repeated the bibulous voice in the corner, and lifted itself in song. 'Begone, dull care; I prithee be gone from me—'
'Cheese it, you fool!' rasped another voice. 'Hark to that!'
The air was filled with the long-drawn twittering of the pipes of the bos'n's mates, and someone on deck was shouting an order.
'A captain coming on board,' remarked someone.
An officer had his eye at the crack of the door. 'It's Dreadnought Foster,' he reported.
'He's a tail twister if ever there was one,' said a fat young officer, seated comfortably with his back to the bulkhead.
Again the pipes twittered.
'Harvey, of the dockyard,' reported the lookout.
The third captain followed immediately. 'It's Black Charlie Hammond,' said the lookout. 'Looking as if he'd lost a guinea and found sixpence.'
'Black Charlie?' exclaimed someone, scrambling to his feet in haste and pushing to the door. 'Let's see! So it is! Then here is one young gentleman who will not stay for an answer. I know too well what that answer would be. ''Six months more at sea, sir, and damn your eyes for your impertinence in presenting yourself for examination in your present state of ignorance.'' Black Charlie won't ever forget that I lost his pet poodle overside from the cutter in Port-o'-Spain when he was first of the Pegasus. Good-bye, gentlemen. Give my regards to the examining board.'
With that he was gone, and they saw him explaining himself to the officer of the watch and hailing a shore boat to take him back to his ship. 'One fewer of us, at least,' said the clerkly officer. 'What is it, my man?'
'The board's compliments, sir,' said the marine messenger, 'an' will the first young gentleman please to come along?'
There was a momentary hesitation; no one was anxious to be the first victim.
'The one nearest the door,' said an elderly master's mate. 'Will you volunteer, sir?'
'I'll be the Daniel,' said the erstwhile lookout desperately. 'Remember me in your prayers.'
He pulled his coat smooth, twitched at his neckcloth, and was gone, the remainder waiting in gloomy silence, relieved only by the glug-glug of the bottle as the bibulous midshipman took another swig. A full ten minutes passed before the candidate for promotion returned, making a brave effort to smile.
'Six months more at sea?' asked someone.
'No,' was the unexpected answer. 'Three! I was told to send the next man. It had better be you.'
'But what did they ask you?'
'They began by asking me to define a r
humb line… But don't keep them waiting, I advise you.' Some thirty officers had their textbooks open on the instant to reread about thumb lines.
'You were there ten minutes,' said the clerkly officer, looking at his watch. 'Forty of us, ten minutes each — why, it'll be midnight before they reach the last of us. They'll never do it.'
'They'll be hungry.' said someone.
'Hungry for our blood,' said another.
'Perhaps they'll try us in batches,' suggested a third, 'like the French tribunals.'
Listening to them, Hornblower was reminded of French aristocrats jesting at the foot of the scaffold. Candidates departed and candidates returned, some gloomy, some smiling. The cabin was already far less crowded; Hornblower was able to secure sufficient deck space to seat himself, and he stretched out his legs with a nonchalant sigh of relief, and he no sooner emitted the sigh than he realized that it was a stage effect which he had put on for his own benefit. He was as nervous as he could be. The winter night was falling, and some good Samaritan on board sent in a couple of purser's dips to give a feeble illumination to the darkening cabin.
'They are passing one in three,' said the clerkly officer, making ready for his turn. 'May I be the third.'
Hornblower got to his feet again when he left; it would be his turn next. He stepped out under the halfdeck into the dark night and breathed the chill fresh air. A gentle breeze was blowing from the southward, cooled, presumably, by the snow-clad Atlas Mountains of Africa across the strait. There was neither moon nor stars. Here came the clerkly officer back again.
'Hurry,' he said. 'They're impatient.'
Hornblower made his way past the sentry to the after cabin; it was brightly lit, so that he blinked as he entered, and stumbled over some obstruction. And it was only then that he remembered that he had not straightened his neckcloth and seen to it that his sword hung correctly at his side. He went on blinking in his nervousness at the three grim faces across the table.
'Well, sir?' said a stern voice. 'Report yourself. We have no time to waste.'
'H-Hornblower, sir. H-Horatio H-Hornblower. M-Midshipman — I mean Acting-Lieutenant, H.M.S. Indefatigable.'
'Your certificates, please,' said the right-hand face.
Hornblower handed them over, and as he waited for them to be examined, the left-hand face suddenly spoke. 'You are close-hauled on the port tack, Mr Hornblower, beating up channel with a nor-easterly wind blowing hard, with Dover bearing north two miles. Is that clear?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Now the wind veers four points and takes you flat aback. What do you do, sir? What do you do?'
Hornblower's mind, if it was thinking about anything at all at that moment, was thinking about rhumb lines; this question took him as much aback as the situation it envisaged. His mouth opened and shut, but there was no word he could say.
'By now you're dismasted,' said the middle face — a swarthy face; Hornblower was making the deduction that it must belong to Black Charlie Hammond. He could think about that even if he could not force his mind to think at all about his examination.
'Dismasted,' said the left-hand face, with a smile like Nero enjoying a Christian's death agony. 'With Dover cliffs under your lee. You are in serious trouble, Mr — ah — Hornblower.'
Serious indeed. Hornblower's mouth opened and shut again his dulled mind heard, without paying special attention to it, the thud of a cannon shot somewhere not too far off. The board passed no remark on it either, but a moment later there came a series of further cannon shots which brought the three captains to their feet. Unceremoniously they rushed out of the cabin, sweeping out of the way the sentry at the door. Hornblower followed them; they arrived in the waist just in time to see a rocket soar up into the night sky and burst in a shower of red stars. It was the general alarm; over the water of the anchorage they could hear the drums rolling as all the ships present beat to quarters. On the portside gangway the remainder of the candidates were clustered, speaking excitedly.
'See there!' said a voice.
Across half a mile of dark water a yellow light grew until the ship there was wrapped in flame. She had every sail set and was heading straight into the crowded anchorage.
'Fire ships!'
'Officer of the watch! Call my gig!' bellowed Foster.
A line of fire ships was running before the wind, straight at the crowd of anchored ships. The Santa Barbara was full of the wildest bustle as the seamen and marines came pouring on deck, and as captains and candidates shouted for boats to take them back to their ships. A line of orange flame lit up the water, followed at once by the roar of a broadside; some ship was firing her guns in the endeavour to sink a fire ship. Let one of those blazing hulls make contact with one of the anchored ships, even for a few seconds, and the fire would be transmitted to the dry, painted timber, to the tarred cordage, to the inflammable sails, so that nothing would put it out. To men in highly combustible ships filled with explosives fire was the deadliest and most dreaded peril of the sea.
'You shore boat, there!' bellowed Hammond suddenly. 'You shore boat! Come alongside! Come alongside, blast you!'
His eye had been quick to sight the pair-oar rowing by.
'Come alongside or I'll fire into you!' supplemented Foster. 'Sentry, there, make ready to give them a shot!'
At the threat the wherry turned and glided towards the mizzen chains.
'Here you are, gentlemen,' said Hammond.
The three captains rushed to the mizzen chains and flung themselves down into the boat. Hornblower was at their heels. He knew there was small enough chance of a junior officer getting a boat to take him back to his ship, to which it was his bounden duty to go as soon as possible. After the captains had reached their destinations he could use this boat to reach the Indefatigable. He threw himself off into the sternsheets as she pushed off, knocking the breath out of Captain Harvey, his sword scabbard clattering on the gunwale. But the three captains accepted his uninvited presence there without comment.
'Pull for the Dreadnought,' said Foster.
'Dammit, I'm the senior!' said Hammond. 'Pull for Calypso.'
'Calypso it is,' said Harvey. He had his hand on the tiller, heading the boat across the dark water.
'Pull! Oh, pull!' said Foster, in agony. There can be no mental torture like that of a captain whose ship is in peril and he not on board.
'There's one of them,' said Harvey.
Just ahead, a small brig was bearing down on them under topsails; they could see the glow of the fire, and as they watched the fire suddenly burst into roaring fury, wrapping the whole vessel in flames in a moment, like a set piece in a fireworks display. Flames spouted out of the holes in her sides and roared up through her hatchways. The very water around her glowed vivid red. They saw her halt in her career and begin to swing slowly around.
'She's across Santa Barbara's cable,' said Foster.
'She's nearly clear,' added Hammond. 'God help 'em on board there. She'll be alongside her in a minute.'
Hornblower thought of two thousand Spanish and French prisoners battened down below decks in the hulk.
'With a man at her wheel she could be steered clear,' said Foster. 'We ought to do it!'
Then things happened rapidly. Harvey put the tiller over. 'Pull away!' he roared at the boatmen.
The latter displayed an easily understood reluctance to row up to that fiery hull.
'Pull!' said Harvey.
He whipped out his sword from its scabbard, and the blade reflected the red fire as he thrust it menacingly at the stroke oar's throat. With a kind of sob, stroke tugged at his oar and the boat leaped forward.
'Lay us under her counter.' said Foster. 'I'll jump for it.'
At last Hornblower found his tongue. 'Let me go, sir. I'll handle her.'
'Come with me, if you like,' replied Foster. 'It may need two of us.'
His nickname of Dreadnought Foster may have had its origin in the name of his ship, but it was appropriate enough in all ci
rcumstances. Harvey swung the boat under the fire ship's stern; she was before the wind again now, and just gathering way, just heading down upon the Santa Barbara.
For a moment Hornblower was the nearest man in the boat to the brig and there was no time to be lost. He stood up on the thwart and jumped; his hands gripped something, and with a kick and a struggle he dragged his ungainly body up onto the deck. With the brig before the wind, the flames were blown forward; right aft here it was merely frightfully hot, but Hornblower's ears were filled with the roar of the flames and the crackling and banging of the burning wood. He stepped forward to the wheel and seized the spokes, the wheel was lashed with a loop of line, and as he cast this off and took hold of the wheel again he could feel the rudder below him bite into the water. He flung his weight on the spoke and spun the wheel over. The brig was about to collide; with the Santa Barbara, starboard bow to starboard bow, and the flames lit an anxious gesticulating crowd on the Santa Barbara's forecastle.
'Hard over!' roared Foster's voice in Hornblower's ear.
'Hard over it is!' said Hornblower, and the brig answered her wheel at that moment, and her bow turned away, avoiding the collision.
An immense fountain of flame poured out from the hatchway abaft the mainmast, setting mast and rigging ablaze, and at the same time a flaw of wind blew a wave of flame aft. Some instinct made Hornblower while holding the wheel with one hand snatch out his neckcloth with the other and bury his face in it. The flame whirled round him and was gone again. But the distractions had been dangerous; the brig had continued to turn under full helm, and now her stern was swinging in to bump against the Santa Barbara's bow. Hornblower desperately spun the wheel over the other way. The flames had driven Foster aft to the taffrail, but now he returned.
'Hard-a-lee!'
The brig was already responding. Her starboard quarter bumped the Santa Barbara in the waist, and then bumped clear.
'Midships!' shouted Foster.
At a distance of only two or three yards the fire ship passed on down the Santa Barbara's side; an anxious group ran along her gangways keeping up with her as she did so. On the quarterdeck another group stood by with a spar to boom the fire ship off; Hornblower saw them out of the tail of his eye as they went by. Now they were clear.
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