'I shall go,' said Duras, spreading his hands in a deprecatory gesture. 'I shall go. But I beg of you, do not depart. Perhaps His Highness is busy in his harem. Then no one may disturb him. But I shall try. The grain is here ready — it lies in the Kasbah there. It is only the cattle that have to be brought in. Please be patient. I implore you. His Highness is not accustomed to commerce, as you know, sir. Still less is he accustomed to commerce after the fashion of the Franks.'
Duras wiped his streaming face with a corner of his robe.
'Pardon me,' he said, 'I do not feel well. But I shall go to His Highness. I shall go. Please wait for me.'
'Until sunset,' said Tapling implacably.
Duras called to his Negro attendant, who had been crouching huddled up under the donkey's belly to take advantage of the shade it cast. With an effort Duras hoisted his ponderous weight onto the donkey's hind quarters. He wiped his face again and looked at them with a trace of bewilderment.
'Wait for me,' were the last words he said as the donkey was led away back into the city gate.
'He is afraid of the Bey,' said Tapling watching him go. 'I would rather face twenty Beys than Admiral Sir John Jervis in a tantrum. What will he do when he hears about this further delay, with the Fleet on short rations already? He'll have my guts for a necktie.'
'One cannot expect punctuality of these people,' said Hornblower with the easy philosophy of the man who does not bear the responsibility. But he thought of the British Navy, without friends, without allies, maintaining desperately the blockade of a hostile Europe, in face of superior numbers, storms, disease, and now famine.
'Look at that!' said Tapling pointing suddenly.
It was a big grey rat which had made its appearance in the dry storm gutter that crossed the waterfront here. Regardless of the bright sunshine it sat up and looked round at the world; even when Tapling stamped his foot it showed no great signs of alarm. When he stamped a second time it slowly turned to hide itself again in the drain, missed its footing so that it lay writhing for a moment at the mouth of the drain, and then regained its feet and disappeared into the darkness.
'An old rat, I suppose,' said Tapling meditatively. 'Senile, possibly. Even blind, it may be.'
Hornblower cared nothing about rats, senile or otherwise. He took a step or two back in the direction of the longboat and the civilian officer conformed to his movements.
'Rig that mains'l so that it gives us some shade, Maxwell,' said Hornblower. 'We're here for the rest of the day.'
'A great comfort,' said Tapling, seating himself on a stone bollard beside the boat, 'to be here in a heathen port. No need to worry in case any men run off. No need to worry about liquor. Only about bullocks and barley. And how to get a spark on this tinder.'
He blew through the pipe that he took from his pocket, preparatory to filling it. The boat was shaded by the mainsail now, and the hands sat in the bows yarning in low tones, while the others made themselves as comfortable as possible in the sternsheets; the boat rolled peacefully in the tiny swell, the rhythmic sound as the fendoffs creaked between her gunwale and the jetty having a soothing effect while city and port dozed in the blazing afternoon heat. Yet it was not easy for a young man of Hornblower's active temperament to endure prolonged inaction. He climbed up on the jetty to stretch his legs, and paced up and down; a Moor in a white gown and turban came staggering in the sunshine along the waterfront. His gait was unsteady, and he walked with his legs well apart to provide a firmer base for his swaying body.
'What was it you said, sir, about liquor being abhorred by the Moslems?' said Hornblower to Tapling down in the sternsheets.
'Not necessarily abhorred,' replied Tapling, guardedly. 'But anathematized, illegal, unlawful, and hard to obtain.'
'Someone here has contrived to obtain some, sir,' said Hornblower.
'Let me see,' said Tapling, scrambling up; the hands, bored with waiting and interested as ever in liquor, landed from the bows to stare as well.
'That looks like a man who has taken drink,' agreed Tapling.
'Three sheets in the wind, sir,' said Maxwell, as the Moor staggered.
'And taken all aback,' supplemented Tapling, as the Moor swerved wildly to one side in a semicircle.
At the end of the semicircle he fell with a crash on his face; his brown legs emerged from the robe a couple of times and were drawn in again, and he lay passive, his head on his arms, his turban fallen on the ground to reveal his shaven skull with a tassel of hair on the crown.
'Totally dismasted,' said Hornblower.
'And hard aground,' said Tapling.
But the Moor now lay oblivious of everything.
'And here's Duras,' said Hornblower.
Out through the gate came the massive figure on the little donkey; another donkey bearing another portly figure followed, each donkey being led by a Negro slave, and after them came a dozen swarthy individuals whose muskets, and whose presence at uniform, indicated that they were soldiers.
'The Treasurer of His Highness,' said Duras, by way of introduction when he and the other had dismounted. 'Come to fetch the gold.'
The portly Moor looked loftily upon them; Duras was still streaming with sweat in the hot sun.
'The gold is there,' said Tapling, pointing. 'In the sternsheets of the longboat. You will have a closer view of it when we have a closer view of the stores we are to buy.'
Duras translated this speech into Arabic. There was a rapid interchange of sentences, before the Treasurer apparently yielded. He turned and waved his arms back to the gate in what was evidently a prearranged signal. A dreary procession immediately emerged — a long line of men, all of them almost naked, white, black, and mulatto, each man staggering along under the burden of a sack of grain. Overseers with sticks walked with them.
'The money,' said Duras, as a result of something said by the Treasurer.
A word from Tapling set the hands to work lifting the heavy bags of gold onto the quay.
'With the corn on the jetty I will put the gold there too,' said Tapling to Hornblower. 'Keep your eye on it while I look at some of those sacks.'
Tapling walked over to the slave gang. Here and there he opened a sack, looked into it, and inspected handfuls of the golden barley grain; other sacks he felt from the outside.
'No hope of looking over every sack in a hundred ton of barley,' he remarked, strolling back again to Hornblower. 'Much of it is sand, I expect. But that is the way of the heathen. The price is adjusted accordingly. Very well, Effendi.'
At a sign from Duras, and under the urgings of the overseers, the slaves burst into activity, trotting up to the quayside and dropping their sacks into the lighter which lay there. The first dozen men were organized into a working party to distribute the cargo evenly into the bottom of the lighter, while the others trotted off, their bodies gleaming with sweat, to fetch fresh loads. At the same time a couple of swarthy herdsmen came out through the gate driving a small herd of cattle.
'Scrubby little creatures,' said Tapling, looking them over critically, 'but that was allowed for in the price, too.'
'The gold,' said Duras.
In reply Tapling opened one of the bags at his feet, filled his hand with golden guineas, and let them cascade through his fingers into the bag again.
'Five hundred guineas there,' he said. 'Fourteen bags, as you see. They will be yours when the lighters are loaded and unmoored.'
Duras wiped his face with a weary gesture. His knees seemed to be weak, and he leaned upon the patient donkey that stood behind him.
The cattle were being driven down a gangway into another lighter, and a second herd had now appeared and was waiting.
'Things move faster than you feared,' said Hornblower.
'See how they drive the poor wretches,' replied Tapling sententiously. 'See! Things move fast when you have no concern for human flesh and blood.'
A coloured slave had fallen to the ground under his burden. He lay there disregarding the blows r
ained on him by the sticks of the overseers. There was a small movement of his legs. Someone dragged him out of the way at last and the sacks continued to be carried to the lighter. The other lighter was filling fast with cattle, packed into a tight, bellowing mass in which no movement was possible.
'His Nibs is actually keeping his word,' marvelled Tapling. 'I'd 'a settled for the half, if I had been asked beforehand.'
One of the herdsmen on the quay had sat down with his face in his hands; now he fell over limply on his side.
'Sir—' began Hornblower to Tapling, and the two men looked at each other with the same awful thought occurring to them at the same moment.
Duras began to say something, with one hand on the withers of the donkey and the other gesticulating in the air it seemed that he was making something of a speech, but there was no sense in the words he was roaring out in a hoarse voice. His face was swollen beyond its customary fatness and his expression was widely distorted, while his cheeks were so suffused with blood as to look dark under his tan. Duras quitted his hold of the donkey and began to reel about in half circles, under the eyes of Moors and Englishmen. His voice died away to a whisper, his legs gave way under him, and he fell to his hands and knees and then to his face.
'That's the plague!' said Tapling. 'The Black Death! I saw it in Smyrna in '96.'
He and the other Englishmen had shrunk back on the one side, the soldiers and the Treasurer on the other, leaving the palpitating body lying in the clear space between them.
'The plague, by St Peter!' squealed one of the young sailors. He would have headed a rush to the longboat.
'Stand still, there!' roared Hornblower, scared of the plague but with the habits of discipline so deeply engrained in him by now that he checked the panic automatically.
'I was a fool not to have thought of it before,' said Tapling. 'That dying rat — that fellow over there who we thought was drunk. I should have known!'
The soldier who appeared to be the sergeant in command of the Treasurer's escort was in explosive conversation with the chief of the overseers of the slaves, both of them staring and pointing at the dying Duras; the Treasurer himself was clutching his robe about him and looking down at the wretched man at his feet in fascinated horror.
'Well sir,' said Hornblower to Tapling, 'what do we do now?'
Hornblower was of the temperament that demands immediate action in face of a crisis.
'Do?' replied Tapling with a bitter smile. 'We stay here and rot.'
'Stay here?'
'The fleet will never have us back. Not until we have served three weeks of quarantine. Three weeks after the last case has occurred. Here in Oran.'
'Nonsense!' said Hornblower, with all the respect due to his senior startled out of him. 'No one would order that.'
'Would they not? Have you ever seen an epidemic in a fleet?'
Hornblower had not, but he had heard enough about them — fleets where nine out of ten had died of putrid fevers. Crowded ships with twenty-two inches of hammock space per man were ideal breeding places for epidemics. He realized that no captain, no admiral, would run that risk for the sake of a longboat's crew of twenty men.
The two xebecs against the jetty had suddenly cast off, and were working their way out of the harbour under sweeps.
'The plague can only have struck to-day,' mused Hornblower, the habit of deduction strong in him despite his sick fear.
The cattle herders were abandoning their work, giving a wide berth to that one of their number who was lying on the quay. Up at the town gate it appeared that the guard was employed in driving people back into the town — apparently the rumour of plague had spread sufficiently therein to cause a panic, while the guard had just received orders not to allow the population to stream out into the surrounding country. There would be frightful things happening in the town soon. The Treasurer was climbing on his donkey; the crowd of grain-carrying slaves was melting away as the overseers fled.
'I must report this to the ship,' said Hornblower; Tapling, as a civilian diplomatic officer, held no authority over him.
The whole responsibility was Hornblower's. The longboat and the longboat's crew were Hornblower's command, entrusted to him by Captain Pellew whose authority derived from the King.
Amazing how the panic was spreading. The Treasurer was gone; Duras' Negro slave had ridden off on his late master's donkey; the soldiers had hastened off in a single group. The waterfront was deserted now except for the dead and dying; along the waterfront, presumably, at the foot of the wall, lay the way to the open country which all desired to seek. The Englishmen were standing alone, with the bags of gold at their feet.
'Plague spreads through the air,' said Tapling. 'Even the rats die of it. We have been here for hours. We were near enough to — that—' he nodded at the dying Duras—'to speak to him, to catch his breath. Which of us will be the first?'
'We'll see when the time comes,' said Hornblower. It was his contrary nature to be sanguine in the face of depression; besides, he did not want the men to hear what Tapling was saying.
'And there's the fleet!' said Tapling bitterly. 'This lot'—he nodded at the deserted lighters, one almost full of cattle, the other almost full of grain sacks—'this lot would be a Godsend. The men are on two-thirds rations.'
'Damn it, we can do something about it,' said Hornblower. 'Maxwell, put the gold back in the boat, and get that awning in.'
The officer of the watch in H.M.S. Indefatigable saw the ship's longboat returning from the town. A slight breeze had swung the frigate and the Caroline (the transport brig) to their anchors, and the longboat, instead of running alongside, came up under the Indefatigable's stern to leeward.
'Mr Christie!' hailed Hornblower, standing up in the bows of the longboat.
The officer of the watch came aft to the taffrail.
'What is it?' he demanded, puzzled.
'I must speak to the Captain.'
'Then come on board and speak to him. What the devil—?'
'Please ask the Captain if I may speak to him.'
Pellew appeared at the after-cabin window; he could hardly have helped hearing the bellowed conversation.
'Yes, Mr Hornblower?'
Hornblower told him the news.
'Keep to loo'ard, Mr Hornblower.'
'Yes, sir. But the stores—'
'What about them?'
Hornblower outlined the situation and made his request.
'It's not very regular,' mused Pellew. 'Besides—'
He did not want to shout aloud his thoughts that perhaps everyone in the longboat would soon be dead of plague.
'We'll be all right, sir. It's a week's rations for the squadron.' That was the point, the vital matter. Pellew had to balance the possible loss of a transport brig against the possible gain of supplies, immeasurably more important, which would enable the squadron to maintain its watch over the outlet to the Mediterranean. Looked at in that light Hornblower's suggestion had added force.
'Oh, very well, Mr Hornblower. By the time you bring the stores out I'll have the crew transferred. I appoint you to the command of the Caroline.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Mr Tapling will continue as passenger with you.'
'Very good, sir.'
So when the crew of the longboat, toiling and sweating at the sweeps, brought the two lighters down the bay, they found the Caroline swinging deserted at her anchors, while a dozen curious telescopes from the Indefatigable watched the proceedings. Hornblower went up the brig's side with half a dozen hands.
'She's like a blooming Noah's Ark, sir,' said Maxwell.
The comparison was apt; the Caroline was flush-decked, and the whole available deck area was divided by partitions into stalls for the cattle, while to enable the ship to be worked light gangways had been laid over the stalls into a practically continuous upper deck.
'An' all the animiles, sir,' said another seaman.
'But Noah's animals walked in two by two,' said Hornbl
ower. 'We're not so lucky. And we've got to get the grain on board first. Get those hatches unbattened.'
In ordinary conditions a working party of two or three hundred men from the Indefatigable would have made short work of getting in the cargo from the lighters, but now it had to be done by the longboat's complement of eighteen. Luckily Pellew had had the forethought and kindness to have the ballast struck out of the holds, or they would have had to do that weary job first.
'Tail on to those tackles, men,' said Hornblower.
Pellew saw the first bundle of grain sacks rise slowly into the air from the lighter, and swung over and down the Caroline's hatchway.
'He'll be all right,' he decided. 'Man the capstan and get under way, if you please, Mr Bolton.'
Hornblower, directing the work on the tackles, heard Pellew's voice come to him through the speaking trumpet.
'Good luck, Mr Hornblower. Report in three weeks at Gibraltar.'
'Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.'
Hornblower turned back to find a seaman at his elbows knuckling his forehead.
'Beg pardon, sir. But can you hear those cattle bellerin', sir? 'Tis mortal hot, an' 'tis water they want, sir.'
'Hell,' said Hornblower.
He would never get the cattle on board before nightfall. He left a small party at work transferring cargo, and with the rest of the men he began to extemporize a method of watering the unfortunate cattle in the lighter. Half Caroline's hold space was filled with water barrels and fodder, but it was an awkward business getting water down to the lighter with pump and hose, and the poor brutes down there surged about uncontrollably at the prospect of water. Hornblower saw the lighter heel and almost capsize; one of his men — luckily one who could swim — went hastily overboard from the lighter to avoid being crushed to death.
'Hell,' said Hornblower again, and that was by no means the last time.
Without any skilled advice he was having to learn the business of managing livestock at sea; each moment brought its lessons. A naval officer on active service indeed found himself engaged on strange duties. It was well after dark before Hornblower called a halt to the labours of his men, and it was before dawn that he roused them up to work again. It was still early in the morning that the last of the grain sacks was stowed away and Hornblower had to face the operation of swaying up the cattle from the lighter. After their night down there, with little water and less food, they were in no mood to be trifled with, but it was easier at first while they were crowded together. A bellyband was slipped round the nearest, the tackle hooked on, and the animal was swayed up, lowered to the deck through an opening in the gangways, and herded into one of the stalls with ease. The seamen, shouting and waving their shirts, thought it was great fun, but they were not sure when the next one, released from its bellyband, went on the rampage and chased them about the deck, threatening death with its horns, until it wandered into its stall where the bar could be promptly dropped to shut it in. Hornblower, looking at the sun rising rapidly in the east, did not think it fun at all.
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