Hornblower and the Hotspur h-3

by Cecil Scott Forester

  Then he shook himself out of this black mood. He was in danger, and this was no time for morbid introspection. It was resolution and ingenuity that he demanded of himself. He tried to make his face a mask to hide his recent feelings as he met the gaze of Bush and Prowse.

  “Mr. Prowse,” he said. “Bring your journal. Let’s look at the chart.”

  The rough log recorded every change of course, every hourly measurement of speed, and by its aid they could calculate—or guess at—the present position of the ship starting from her last point of departure at Ar Men.

  “We’re making fully two points of leeway,” said Prowse despondently. His long face seemed to grow longer and longer as he looked down at Hornblower seated at the chart-table. Hornblower shook his head.

  “Not more than a point and a half. And the tide’s been making in our favour for the last two hours.”

  “I hope you’re right, sir,” said Prowse.

  “If I’m not,” said Hornblower, working the parallel rulers, “we’ll have to make fresh plans.”

  Despondency for the sake of despondency irritated Hornblower when displayed by other people; he knew too much about it.

  “In another two hours,” said Prowse, “the Frenchman’ll have us under his guns.”

  Hornblower looked fixedly at Prowse, and under that unwavering gaze Prowse was at length reminded of his omission, which he hastily remedied by belatedly adding the word “sir.” Hornblower was not going to allow any deviation from discipline, not in any crisis whatever—he knew well enough how these things might develop in the future. Even if there might be no future. Having made his point there was no need to labour it.

  “You can see we’ll weather Ushant,” he said, looking down at the line he had pencilled on the chart.

  “Maybe, sir,” said Prowse.

  “Comfortably,” went on Hornblower.

  “I wouldn’t say exactly comfortably, sir,” demurred Prowse.

  “The closer the better,” said Hornblower. “But we can’t dictate that. We daren’t make an inch more of leeway.”

  He had thought more than once about that possibility, of weathering Ushant so close that Loire would not be able to hold her course. Then Hotspur would free herself from pursuit like a whale scraping off a barnacle against a rock; an amusing and ingenious idea, but not practicable as long as the wind stayed steady.

  “But even if we weather Ushant, sir,” persisted Prowse, “I don’t see how it will help us. We’ll be within range by then, sir.”

  Hornblower put down his pencil. He had been about to say “Perhaps you’d advise saving trouble by hauling down our colours this minute, Mr. Prowse,” but he remembered in time that such a mention of the possibility of surrender, even with a sarcastic intention, was contrary to the Articles of War. Instead he would penalize Prowse by revealing nothing of the plan he had in mind; and that would be just as well, in case the plan should fail and he should have to fall back on yet another line of defence.

  “We’ll see when the time comes,” he said, curtly, and rose from his chair. “We’re wanted on deck. By now it’ll be time to go about again.”

  On deck there was the wind blowing as hard as ever; there was the spray flying; there was the Loire, dead to leeward and luffing up to narrow the gap by a further important trifle. The hands were at work on the pumps; in these weather conditions the pumps had to be employed for half an hour every two hours to free the ship from the sea water which made its way on board through the straining seams.

  “We’ll tack the ship, Mr. Poole, as soon as the pumps suck.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Some way ahead lay Ushant and his plan to shake off the Loire, but before that he had to tack twice more at least, each time with its possibilities of making a mistake, of handing Hotspur and himself over to the enemy. He must not stumble over an obstacle at his feet through keeping his eyes on the horizon. He made himself perform the manoeuvre as neatly as ever, and made himself ignore any feelings of relief when it was completed.

  “We gained a full cable’s length on him that time, sir,” said Bush, after watching Loire steady herself on the starboard tack on Hotspur’s beam.

  “We may not always be so lucky,” said Hornblower. “But we’ll make this leg a short one and see.”

  On the starboard tack he was heading away from his objective; when they went about on the port tack again he must hold on for a considerably longer time, but he must make it appear as though by inadvertence. If he could deceive Bush it would be an indication that he was deceiving the French captain.

  The hands seemed to be actually enjoying this sailing contest. They were light-hearted, revelling in the business of cheating the wind and getting every inch of way out of the Hotspur. It must be quite obvious to them that Loire was gaining in the race, but they did not care; they were laughing and joking as they looked across at her. They had no conception of the danger of the situation, or, rather, they made light of it. The luck of the British navy would save them, or the unhandiness of the French. Or the skill of their captain—without faith in him they would be far more frightened.

  Time to go about again and beat towards Ushant. He resumed charge of the ship and turned her about. It was only after the turn was completed that he noted, with satisfaction, that he had forgotten his nervousness in the interest he was taking in the situation.

  “We’re closing fast, sir,” said Prowse, gloomy as ever. He had his sextant in his hand and had just finished measuring the angle subtended between the Loire’s masthead and her waterline.

  “I can see that for myself, thank you, Mr. Prowse,” snapped Hornblower. For that matter the eye was as trustworthy as any instrumental observation on that heaving sea.

  “My duty, sir,” said Prowse.

  “I’m glad to see you executing your duty, Mr. Prowse,” said Hornblower. The tone he used was the equivalent of saying, ‘Damn your duty,’ which would have also been contrary to the Articles of War.

  Northward the Hotspur held her steady course. A squall engulfed her, blinding her, while the quartermasters juggled desperately at the wheel, allowing her, perforce, to pay off in the worst of the gusts, and putting down the wheel to keep her to the wind when the wind backed a point. The final gust went by, flapping Hornblower’s coat-tails. It whipped the trouser-legs of the quartermasters at the wheel so that a momentary glance would make a stranger believe that, with their swaying arms and wavering legs, they were dancing some strange ritual dance. As ever, when the squall passed on, all eyes not dedicated to present duty turned to leeward to look for the Loire.

  “Look at that!” yelled Bush. “Look at that, sir! We’ve fooled him properly!”

  Loire had gone about. There she was, just settling down on the starboard tack. The French captain had been too clever. He had decided that Hotspur would go about when concealed by the squall, and had moved to anticipate her. Hornblower watched the Loire. That French captain must be boiling with rage at having his too-great-cleverness revealed to his ship’s company in this fashion. That might cloud his judgement later. It might make him over-anxious. Even so, he showed little sign of it from here. He had been about to haul his bowlines, but he reached a rapid and sensible decision. To tack again would necessitate standing on for some time on his present course while his ship regained speed and manoeuvrability, so that instead he made use of the turning momentum she still possessed, put up his helm and completed the circle, wearing his ship round so that she momentarily presented her stern to the wind before arriving at last on her original tack again. It was a cool-headed piece of work, making the best of a bad job, but the Loire had lost a good deal of ground.

  “Two full points abaft the beam,” said Prowse.

  “And he’s farther down to looard, too,” supplemented Bush.

  The greatest gain, Hornblower decided, watching her, was that it made possible, and plausible, the long leg to the northward that his plan demanded. He could make a long beat on the port tack without the Fren
ch captain seeing anything unusual in that.

  “Keep her going, there!” he shouted to the wheel. “Let her fall off a little! Steady as you go!”

  The race was resumed, both ships plunging along, battling with the unremitting gale. Hornblower could see the wide angle from the vertical described by the Loire’s masts as she rolled; he could see her yards dipping towards the sea, and he could be sure that Hotspur was acting in the same way, rolling even a trifle more deeply, perhaps. So this very deck on which he stood was over at that fantastic angle too; he was proud of the fact that he was regaining his sea legs so rapidly. He could stand balance one knee straight and rigid, the other considerably bent, while he leaned over against the heel, and then he could straighten with the roll almost as steadily as Bush could. And his seasickness was better as well—no; a pity he had let that subject return to his mind, for he had to struggle with a qualm the moment it did so.

  “Making a long leg like this gives him a chance, sir,” grumbled Prowse, juggling with telescope and sextant. “He’s drawing up on us fast.”

  “We’re doing our best,” answered Hornblower.

  His glass could reveal many details of the Loire now, as he concentrated upon her to distract himself from his sea-sickness. Then, as he was about to lower the glass to ease his eye he saw something new. The gun ports along her weather side seemed to change their shape, and as he continued to look he saw, first from one gun-port and then from another and finally from the whole line, the muzzles of her guns come nosing their way out, as the invisible crews strained at the tackles to drag the ponderous weights up against the slope of the deck.

  “She’s running out her guns, sir,” said Bush, a little unnecessarily.

  “Yes.”

  There was no purpose in imitating her example yet. It would be the lee side guns that Hotspur would have to run out. They would increase her heel and render her by that much less weatherly. Lying over as she was she would probably take in water over the port-sills at the low point of her roll. Lastly, even at extreme elevation, they would nearly all the time be depressed by the heel below the horizontal, and would be useless, even with good timing on the part of the gun captains, against a target at any distance.

  The look-outs at the fore-topmasthead were yelling something, and then one of them launched himself into the rigging and came running aft to the quarter-deck.

  “Why don’t you use the backstay like a seaman?” demanded Bush, but Hornblower checked him.

  “What is it?”

  “Land, sir,” spluttered the seaman. He was wet to the skin with water streaming from every angle, whisked away by the wind as it dripped.

  “Where away?”

  “On the lee bow, sir.”

  “How many points?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “A good four, sir.”

  Hornblower looked across at Prowse.

  “That’ll be Ushant, sir. We ought to weather it with plenty to spare.”

  “I want to be sure of that. You’d better go aloft, Mr. Prowse. Make the best estimate you can.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  It would not do Prowse any harm to make the tiring and exacting journey to the masthead.

  “He’ll be opening fire soon, sir,” said Bush, referring to the Frenchman and not to Prowse’s departing figure. “Not much chance of replying as yet. On the other tack, maybe, sir.”

  Bush was ready for a fight against any odds, and he was unaware that Hornblower had no intention of tacking again.

  “We’ll see when the time comes,” said Hornblower.

  “He’s opening fire now, sir.”

  Hornblower whipped round, just in time to see a puff of smoke vanishing in the gale, and then others, all down the Loire’s side, enduring hardly for a second before the wind overcame the force of the powder that impelled them. That was all. No sound of the broadside reached them against the wind, and there was not a sight of the fall of shot.

  “Long range, sir,” said Bush.

  “A chance for him to exercise his guns’ crews,” said Hornblower.

  His glass showed him the Loire’s gun-muzzles disappearing back into the ship as the guns were run in again for reloading. There was a strange unreality about all this, about the silence of that broadside, about the fact that Hotspur was under fire, about the fact that he himself might be dead at any moment now as the result of a lucky hit.

  “He’s hoping for a lucky hit, I suppose, sir,” said Bush, echoing the very words of Hornblower’s thoughts in a manner that made the situation all the more uncanny and unreal.

  “Naturally.” Hornblower forced himself to say that word, and in this strange mood his voice, pitched against the gale, seemed to come from very far away.

  If the Frenchman had no objection to a prodigious waste of powder and shot he might as well open fire at this range, at extreme cannon-shot, in the hope of inflicting enough damage on Hotspur’s rigging to slow her down. Hornblower could think clearly enough, but it was as if he was looking on at someone else’s adventure.

  Now Prowse was returning to the quarter-deck.

  “We’ll weather the land by a good four miles, sir,” he said; the spray tossed up by the weather-bow had wetted him just as thoroughly as the seamen. He looked over at the Loire. “Not a chance of our paying off, I suppose, sir.”

  “Of course not,” said Hornblower. Long before such a plan could bear fruit he would be engaged in close action were he to drop down to leeward, in the hope of forcing the Loire to go about to avoid running ashore. “How long before we’re up to the land?”

  “Less than an hour, sir. Maybe half. It ought to be in sight from the deck any minute.”

  “Yes!” said Bush. “There it is, sir!”

  Over the lee bow Hornblower could see the black bold shoreline of Ushant. Now the three points of the triangle, Ushant, Hotspur and Loire, were all plain to him, and he could time his next move. He would have to hold on to his present course for some considerable time; he would have to brave further broadsides, whether he liked it or not—insane words those last, for no one could like being under fire. He trained his glass on the land, watching his ship’s movement relative to it, and then as he looked away he saw something momentarily out of the corner of his eye. It took him a couple of seconds to deduce what it was he had seen; two splashes, separated by a hundred feet in space and by a tenth of a second in time. A cannon-ball had skipped from the top of one wave crest and plunged into the next.

  “They’re firing very deliberately, sir,” said Bush.

  Hornblower’s attention was directed to the Loire in time to see the next brief puff of smoke from her side; they saw nothing of the ball. Then came the next puff.

  “I expect they have some marksman on board moving along from gun to gun,” said Hornblower.

  If that were the case the marksman must wait each time for the right conditions of roll—a slow rate of firing, but, allowing for the length of time to reload and run up, not impossibly slower than firing broadsides.

  “You can hear the guns now, sir. The sound’s carried by the water.”

  It was an ugly, flat, brief clap, following just after each puff of smoke.

  “Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower speaking slowly as he felt the excitement of the approaching crisis boiling up within him. “You know your watch—and quarter-bills off by heart, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Bush, simply.

  “I want—” Hornblower checked the position of Loire again. “I want sufficient hands at the braces and bowlines to handle the ship properly. But I want crews sufficient for the guns of one side too.”

  “Not very easy, sir.”

  “Impossible?”

  “Nearly, sir. I can do it, though.”

  “Then I want you to arrange it. Station crews at the port-side guns, if you please.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Port side.”

  The repetition was in the usual navy style to ensure against misunderstanding; there
was only the faintest questioning note in Bush’s voice, for the port side was that turned away from the enemy.

  “I want—” went on Hornblower, still slowly. “I want the portside guns run out when we go about, Mr. Bush. I’ll give the order. Then I want them run in again like lightning and the ports closed. I’ll give the order for that, too.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Run ‘em in again.”

  “Then they’re to cross to the starboard side and run those guns out ready to open fire. You understand, Mr. Bush?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  Hornblower looked round at the Loire and at Ushant again.

  “Very well, Mr. Bush. Mr. Cargill will need four hands for a special duty, but you can start stationing the rest.”

  Now he was committed. If his calculations were incorrect he would appear a fool in the eyes of the whole ship’s company. He would also be dead or a prisoner. But now he was keyed up, the fighting spirit boiling within him as it had done once when he boarded Renown to effect her recapture. There was a sudden shriek overhead, so startling that even Bush stopped short as he was moving forward. A line mysteriously parted in mid-air, the upper end blowing out horizontal in the wind, the lower end flying out to trail overside. A luckier shot than any so far had passed over the Hotspur twenty feet above her deck.