Hornblower and the Hotspur h-3

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Sponge your guns!” bellowed Bush through his speaking-trumpet. Bush could be relied on to maintain discipline and good order through any distraction. “Load!”

  It was hard for the men to go through the play-acting of gun drill in these circumstances; discipline on the one side, resentment, disillusionment on the other.

  “Point your guns! Mr. Cheeseman! The hand-spike man on No. 7 gun isn’t attending to his duty. I want his name.”

  Prowse was training a telescope forward; as the officer responsible for navigation that was his duty, but it was also his privilege.

  “Run your guns in!”

  Hornblower itched to follow Prowse’s example, but he restrained himself; Prowse would keep him informed of anything vital. He allowed the drill to go on through one more mock broadside before he spoke.

  “Mr. Bush, you may secure the guns now, thank you.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Prowse was offering his telescope.

  “That’s the light-tower on Ushant, sir,” he said.

  Hornblower caught a wavering glimpse of the thing, a gaunt framework topped by a cresset, where the French government in time of peace maintained a light for the benefit of the ships—half the world’s trade made a landfall off Ushant—that needed it.

  “Thank you, Mr. Prowse.” Hornblower visualized the chart again; recalled the plans he had made in the intervals of commissioning his ship, in the intervals of his honeymoon, in the intervals of sea-sickness, during the past crowded days. “Wind’s drawing westerly. But it’ll be dark before we can make Cape Matthew. We’ll stand to the s’uth’ard under easy sail until midnight. I want to be a league off the Black Stones an hour before dawn.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Bush joined them, fresh from the business of securing the guns.

  “Look at that, sir! There’s a fortune passing us by.”

  A large ship was hull-up to windward, her canvas reflecting the weltering sun.

  “French Indiaman,” commented Hornblower, turning his glass on her.

  “A quarter of a million pounds, all told!” raved Bush. “Maybe a hundred thousand for you, sir, if only war were declared. Doesn’t that tease you, sir? She’ll carry this wind all the way to Havre and she’ll be safe.”

  “There’ll be others,” replied Hornblower soothingly.

  “Not so many, sir. Trust Boney. He’ll send warnings out the moment he’s resolved on war, and every French flag’ll take refuge in neutral ports. Madeira and the Azores, Cadiz and Ferrol, while we could make our fortunes!”

  The possibilities of prize money bulked large in the thoughts of every naval officer.

  “Maybe we will,” said Hornblower. He thought of Maria and his allotment of pay; even a few hundreds of pounds would make a huge difference.

  “Maybe, sir,” said Bush, clearly discounting the possibility.

  “And there’s another side to the picture,” added Hornblower, pointing round the horizon.

  There were half a dozen other sails all visible at this time, all British. They marked the enormous extent of British maritime commerce. They bore the wealth that could support navies, sustain allies, maintain manufactories of arms—to say nothing of the fact that they provided the basic training for seamen who later would man the ships of war which kept the seas open for them and closed them to England’s enemies.

  “They’re only British, sir,” said Prowse, wonderingly. He had not the vision to see what Hornblower saw. Bush had to look hard at his captain before it dawned upon him.

  The heaving of the log, with the changing of the watch, relieved Hornblower of the temptation to preach a sermon.

  “What’s the speed, Mr. Young?”

  “Three knots and a half, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Hornblower turned back to Prowse. “Keep her on her present course.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Hornblower was training his telescope out over the port bow. There was a black dot rising and falling out there towards Molene Island. He kept it under observation.

  “I think, Mr. Prowse,” he said, his glass still at his eye, “we might edge in a little more inshore. Say two points. I’d like to pass that fishing-boat close.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  She was one of the small craft employed in the pilchard fishery, very similar to those seen off the Cornish coast. She was engaged at the moment in hauling in her seine; as Hotspur approached more closely the telescope made plain the rhythmical movements of the four men.

  “Up with the helm a little more, Mr. Prowse, if you please. I’d like to pass her closer still.”

  Now Hornblower could make out a little area of water beside the fishing-boat that was of a totally different colour. It had a metallic sheen quite unlike the rest of the grey sea; the fishing-boat had found a shoal of pilchards and her seine was now closing in on it.

  “Mr. Bush. Please try to read her name.”

  They were fast closing on her; within a few moments Bush could make out the bold white letters on her stern.

  “From Brest, sir. Duke’s Freers.”

  With that prompting Hornblower could read the name for himself, the Deux Freres, Brest.

  “Back the maintops’l, Mr. Young!” bellowed Hornblower to the officer of the watch, and then, turning back to Bush and Prowse, “I want fish for my supper tonight.”

  They looked at him in ill-concealed surprise.

  “Pilchards, sir?”

  “That’s right.”

  The seine was close in alongside the Deux Freres, and masses of silver fish were being heaved up into her. So intent were the fishermen on securing their catch that they had no knowledge of the silent approach of the Hotspur, and looked up in ludicrous astonishment at the lovely vessel towering over them in the sunset. They even displayed momentary panic, until they obviously realized that in time of peace a British ship of war would do them less harm than a French one might, a French one enforcing the Inscription Maritime.

  Hornblower took the speaking-trumpet from its beckets. He was pulsing with excitement now, and he had to be firm with himself to keep calm. This might be the first step in the making of the history of the future; besides, he had not spoken French for a considerable time and he had to concentrate on what he was going to say.

  “Good day, captain!” he yelled, and the fishermen, reassured, waved back to him in friendly fashion. “Will you sell me some fish?”

  Hurriedly they conferred, and then one of them replied.

  “How much?”

  “Oh, twenty pounds.”

  Again they conferred.

  “Very well.”

  “Captain,” went on Hornblower, searching in his mind not only for the necessary French words but also for an approach to bring about the situation he desired. “Finish your work. Then come aboard. We can drink a glass of rum to the friendship of nations.”

  The beginning of that sentence was clumsy, he knew, but he could not translate ‘Get in your catch;’ but the prospect of British navy rum he knew would be alluring—and he was a little proud of l’amitie des nations. What was the French for ‘dinghy?’ Chaloupe, he fancied. He expanded on his invitations and someone in the fishing-boat waved in assent before bending to the business of getting in the catch. With the last of it on board two of the four men scrambled into the dinghy that lay alongside the Deux Freres; it was nearly as big as the fishing-boat itself, as was to be expected when she had to lay out the seine. Two oars stoutly handled brought the dinghy rapidly towards Hotspur.

  “I’ll entertain the captain in my cabin,” said Hornblower. “Mr. Bush, see that the other man is taken forward and well looked after. See he has a drink.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  A line over the side brought up two big buckets of fish, and these were followed by two blue-jerseyed men who scrambled up easily enough despite their sea-boots.

  “A great pleasure, captain,” said Hornblower in the waist to greet him. “Please come with me.”
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br />   The captain looked curiously about him as he was led up to the quarter-deck and aft to the cabin. He sat down cautiously in the only chair while Hornblower perched on the cot. The blue jersey and trousers were spangled with fish scales—the cabin would smell of fish for a week. Hewitt brought rum and water, and Hornblower poured two generous glasses; the captain sipped appreciatively.

  “Has your fishing been successful?” asked Hornblower, politely.

  He listened while the captain told him, in his almost unintelligible Breton French, about the smallness of the profits to be earned in the pilchard fishery. The conversation drifted on. It was an easy transition from the pleasure of peace to the possibilities of war—two seamen could hardly meet without that prospect being discussed.

  “I suppose they make great efforts to man the ships of war?”

  The captain shrugged.

  “Certainly.”

  The shrug told much more than the word.

  “It marches very slowly, I imagine,” said Hornblower, and he captain nodded.

  “But of course the ships are ready to take the sea?”

  Hornblower had no idea of how to say ‘laid-up in ordinary’ in French, and so he had to ask the question in the opposite sense.

  “Oh, no,” said the captain. He went on to express his contempt for the French naval authorities. There was not a single ship of the line ready for service. Of course not.

  “Let me refill your glass, captain,” said Hornblower. “I suppose the frigates receive the first supplies of men?”

  Such supplies as there were, perhaps. The Breton captain was not sure. Of course there was—Hornblower had more than a moment’s difficulty at this point. Then he understood. The frigate Loire had been made ready for sea last week (it was the Breton pronunciation of that name which had most puzzled Hornblower) for service in Far Eastern waters, but with the usual idiocy of the naval command had now been stripped of most of her trained men to provide nuclei for the other ships. The Breton captain, whose capacity for rum was quite startling, did nothing to conceal either the smouldering Breton resentment against the atheist regime now ruling France or the contempt of a professional user of the sea for the blundering policies of the Republican Navy. Hornblower had only to nurse his glass and listen, his faculties at full stretch to catch all the implications of a conversation in a foreign language. When at last the captain rose to say good-bye there was a good deal of truth in what Hornblower said, haltingly, about his regrets at the termination of the visit.

  “Yet perhaps even if war should come, captain, we may still meet again. As I expect you know, the Royal Navy of Great Britain does not make war on fishing vessels. I shall always be glad to buy some of your catch.”

  The Frenchman was looking at him keenly now, perhaps because the subject of payment was arising. This was a most important moment, calling for accurate judgement. How much? What to say?

  “Of course I must pay for today’s supply,” said Hornblower, his hand in his pocket. He took out two ten-franc pieces and dropped them into the horny palm, and the captain could not restrain an expression of astonishment from appearing in his weather-beaten face. Astonishment, followed instantly by avarice, and then by suspicion, calculation, and finally by decision as the hand clenched and hurried the money into a trouser-pocket. Those emotions had played over the captain’s face like the colours of a dying dolphin. Twenty francs in gold, for a couple of buckets of pilchards; most likely the captain supported himself, his wife and children for a week on twenty francs. Ten francs would be a week’s wage for his hands. This was important money; either the British captain did not know the value of gold or—. At least there was the indubitable fact that the French captain was twenty francs richer, and there was at least the possibility of more gold where this came from.

  “I hope we shall meet again, captain,” said Hornblower. “As of course you understand, out here at sea we are always glad to have news of what is happening on land.”

  The two Bretons went over the side with their two empty buckets, leaving Bush ruefully contemplating the mess left on the deck.

  “That can be swabbed up, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower. “It will be a good ending to a good day.”

  Chapter V

  The cabin was quite dark when Hornblower awoke; there was not even the glimmering of light through the two stern windows. He lay curled on his side only half conscious, and then a single sharp note from the ship’s bell recalled him to the world, and he turned over on his back and stretched himself, half fretfully and half luxuriously trying to put his thoughts into order. That must be one bell in the morning watch, because one bell in the middle watch had sounded as he was getting back into bed after being roused when the ship was put about at midnight. He had had six hours of sleep, even after making allowance for that break; there were great advantages about being in command of a ship; the watch which had retired to bed at that time had been up on deck again for half an hour already.

  The cot on which he lay was swaying easily and slowly. Hotspur must be under very easy sail indeed, and, as far as he could judge, with a moderate wind on the starboard beam. That was as it should be. He would soon have to get up—he turned on to his other side and went to sleep again.

  “Two bells, sir,” said Grimes, entering the cabin with a lighted lamp. “Two bells, sir. Bit of haze, and Mr. Prowse says he’d like to go about on the other tack.” Grimes was a weedy young seaman who affirmed that he had acted as captain’s steward in a West India packet.

  “Get me my coat,” said Hornblower.

  It was cold in the misty dawn, with only a greatcoat on over his nightshirt. Hornblower found Maria’s gloves in a pocket and pulled them on gratefully.

  “Twelve fathoms, sir,” reported Prowse as the ship steadied on her new course with the lead going in the forechains.

  “Very well.”

  There was time to dress, there was time to have breakfast. There was time for—Hornblower felt a wave of temptation breaking round him. He wanted a cup of coffee. He wanted two or three cups of coffee, strong and scalding hot. Yet he had on board no more than two pounds of coffee. At seventeen shillings a pound that was all he had been able to afford to buy. The miraculous forty-five pounds had melted away which he had won at whist the night before the appearance of the King’s message regarding the fleet. There had been his seagoing clothing and his sword to get out of pawn, his cabin furniture to buy, and he had had to leave seventeen pounds with Maria for her support until she could draw his allotment of pay. So there had been little enough left over for ‘captain’s stores’. He had not bought a sheep or a pig; not a single chicken. Mrs Mason had bought six dozen eggs for him—they were packed in shavings in a tub lashed to the deck in the chart room—and six pounds of heavily salted butter. There was a loaf of sugar and some pots of jam, and then the money had run out. He had no bacon, no potted meat. He had dined yesterday on pilchards—the fact that they had been bought with secret service money was some kind of sauce for them, but pilchards were unattractive fish. And of course there was the absurd prejudice of seamen regarding fish, creatures from their own element. They hated having their eternal round of salt beef and pork interrupted by a meal of fish—allowance must be made, of course, for the fact that the cooking of fish left behind a lingering scent, hard to eradicate from utensils sketchily washed in seawater. At this very moment, in the growing dawn, one of the lambs netted down in the boat chocked in the waist emitted a lingering baa-aaa as it woke. The wardroom officers had invested in four of the creatures while the Hotspur was commissioning, and any day now they would be dining on roast lamb—Hornblower determined to get himself invited to dinner in the wardroom that day. The thought reminded him that he was hungry; but that was quite minor compared with his yearning for coffee.

  “Where’s my servant?” he suddenly roared, “Grimes! Grimes!”

  “Sir?”

  Grimes put his head round the chart-room door.

  “I’m going to dress, and I’
ll want my breakfast. I’ll have coffee.”

  “Coffee, sir?”

  “Yes.” Hornblower bit off the ‘damn you’ he nearly added. To swear at a man who could not swear back and whose only offence lay in being unoffending was not to his taste, just as some men could not shoot foxes. “You don’t know anything about coffee?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Get the oak box and bring it in to me.”

  Hornblower explained about coffee to Grimes while working up a lather with a quarter of a pint of fresh-water.

  “Count out twenty of those beans. Put them in an open jar—get that from the cook. Then you toast ‘em over the galley fire. And be careful with ‘em. Keep shaking ‘em. They’ve got to be brown, not black. Toasted, not burnt. Understand?”

  “Well, yes, sir.”

  “Then you take ‘em to the surgeon, with my compliments.”

  “The surgeon? Yes, sir.” Grimes, seeing Hornblower’s brows come together like thunderclouds, had the sense to suppress in the nick of time his astonishment at the entry of the surgeon’s name into this conversation.

  “He has a pestle and mortar to pound his jalap with. You pound those beans in that mortar. You break ‘em up small. Small, mark you, but you don’t make dust of ‘em. Like large grain gunpowder, not mealed gunpowder. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.”

  “Next you—oh go and get that done and then report to me again.”

  Grimes was clearly not a man to do things quickly. Hornblower had shaved and dressed and was pacing the quarterdeck, raging for his breakfast, before Grimes appeared again with a panful of dubious powder. Hornblower gave him brief instructions on how to make coffee with it, and Grimes listened doubtfully.

  “Go and get it done. Oh, and Grimes!”

  “Sir?”

  “I’ll have two eggs. Fried. Can you fry eggs?”

  “Er—yes, sir.”

  “Fry ‘em so the yolk’s nearly hard but not quite. And get out a crock of butter and a crock off jam.”