Hornblower and the Hotspur h-3

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “By the mark three!”

  The smoke and the lead told conflicting stories.

  “And a half three!”

  “Wind must be backing, Mr. Prowse. Keep your eye on the binnacle.”

  “Aye aye, sir. And it’s five bells, sir.”

  The tide was almost at its height; another factor to be remembered. At the port-side quarter-deck carronade the crew were slewing their weapon round to the limit of its arc, and Hornblower, looking over the quarter, could see a coaster escaping past Hotspur’s stern. Two flashes from the dark shape, and a simultaneous crash under Hornblower’s feet. That coaster had guns mounted, and was firing her pop-gun broadside, and at least one shot had told. A pop-gun broadside perhaps, but even a four-pounder could smash a hole in Hotspur’s frail side. The carronade roared out in reply.

  “Luff a little,” said Hornblower to the quartermasters; his mind was simultaneously recording the cries of the men at the leads. “Mr. Bush! Stand by with the port-side guns as we luff.”

  Hotspur came to the wind; on the main-deck there were creakings and groanings as the guns’ crews laboured with handspike and crowbar to train their weapons round.

  “Take your aim!” shouted Bush, and after some pregnant seconds, “Fire!”

  The guns went off almost together, and Hornblower thought—although he was sure he was wrong—that he could hear instantly afterwards the crash of the shot upon the coasters’ hulls. Certainly after that he heard shouts and cries from that direction while the smoke blinded him, but he had no time to spare for that. There was only half an hour of floodtide left. No more coasters could be coming along the channel, for if they did they would not be able to round the Council Rocks before the ebb set in. And it was full time to extricate Hotspur from the reefs and shoals that surrounded her. She needed what was left of the flood to carry her out, and even at half-tide she was likely to touch bottom and be left ignominiously stranded, helpless in daylight under the fire of the Toulinguet battery.

  “Time to say good-bye,” he said to Prowse. He realized with a shock that he was on the edge of being lightheaded with strain and excitement, for otherwise he would not have said such a ridiculous thing. He must keep himself under control for a long while to come. It would be far more dangerous to touch bottom on a falling tide than on a rising one. He gulped and steadied himself, regaining his self-command at the cost of one more fierce effort.

  “I’ll handle the ship, Mr. Prowse.” He raised the trumpet.

  “Hands to the braces! Hands wear ship.”

  A further order to the wheel brought the ship round on the other tack, with Prowse at the binnacle calling her heading. Now he had to thread his way out through the perils that encompassed her. The hands, completely carefree, were inclined to show their elation by noisy skylarking, but one single savage reproof from Bush silenced them, and Hotspur fell as quiet as a church as she crept out.

  “Wind’s backed three points since sunset, sir,” reported Prowse.

  “Thank you.”

  With the wind just abaft the beam Hotspur handled easily, but by this time instinct had to take the place of calculation. Hornblower had come in to the very limit of safety at high water over shallows hardly covered at high tide. He had to feel his way out, by the aid of the lead, by what could be seen of the shore and the shoals. The wheel spun over and back again as the ship nosed her way out. For a few perilous seconds she was sailing by the lee, but Hornblower was able to order the helm over again in the nick of time.

  “Slack water now, sir,” reported Prowse.

  “Thank you.”

  Slack water, if any of the incalculable factors had not intervened. The wind had been slight but steady for several days from the southeastward. He had to bear that in mind along with all the other factors.

  “By the mark five!” called the leadsman.

  “Thank God!” mustered Prowse.

  For the first time Hotspur had nearly twenty feet of water under her keel, but there were still some outlying pinnacles of rock to menace her.

  “Starboard a point,” ordered Hornblower.

  “Deep six!”

  “Mr. Bush!” Hornblower must stay steady and calm. He must betray no relief, no human feelings, although within him the desire to laugh like an idiot welled up in combat with the frightful exhaustion he felt. “Kindly secure the guns. Then you may dismiss the hands from general quarters.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “I must thank you, Mr. Prowse, for your very able assistance.”

  “Me, sir?” Prowse went on in incoherent self-depreciation. Hornblower could imagine the lantern-jaws working in surprise, and he ignored the mumblings.

  “You may heave the ship to, Mr. Prowse. We don’t want dawn to find us under the guns of Petit Minou.”

  “No, sir, of course not, sir.”

  All was well. Hotspur had gone in and come out again. The coasters from the south had received a lesson they would not forget for a long time. And now it was apparent that the night was not so dark; it was not a question of eyes becoming habituated to the darkness, but something more definite than that. Faces were now a blur of white, visible across the deck. Looking aft Hornblower could see the low hills of Quelern standing out in dark relief against a lighter sky, and while he watched a grain of silver became visible over their summits. He had actually forgotten until this moment that the moon was due to rise now; that had been one of the factors he had pointed out in his letter to Pellew. The gibbous moon rose above the hilltops and shone serenely down upon the Gulf. The topgallant masts were being sent up, topsails were being set, staysails got in.

  “What’s that noise?” asked Hornblower, referring to a dull thumping somewhere forward.

  “Carpenter plugging a shot hole, sir,” explained Bush. “That last coaster holed us just above the waterline on the starboard side right forward.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  His questions and his formal termination of the conversation were the result of one more effort of will.

  “I can trust you not to lose your way now, Mr. Bush,” he said. He could not help being jocular, although he knew it sounded a false note. The hands at the braces were backing the main-topsail, and Hotspur could lie hove-to in peace and quiet. “You may set the ordinary watches, Mr. Bush. And see that I am called at eight bells in the middle watch.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  There were four and a half hours of peace and quiet ahead of him. He yearned with all his weary mind and body for rest—for oblivion, rather than rest. An hour after dawn, at the latest, Pellew could expect him to send in his report on the events of the evening, and it would take an hour to compose it. And he must take the opportunity to write to Maria so that the letter could be sent to Tonnant along with the report and so have a chance to reach the outside world. It would take him longer to write to Maria than to Pellew. That reminded him of something else. He had to make one more effort.

  “Oh, Mr. Bush!”

  “Sir?”

  ‘I’ll be sending a boat to Tonnant during the morning watch. If any officer—or if any of the men—wish to send letters that will be their opportunity.’

  “Aye aye, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  In his cabin he faced one further effort to pull off his shoes, but the arrival of Grimes saved him the trouble. Grimes took off his shoes, eased him out of his coat, unfastened his neckcloth. Hornblower allowed him to do it; he was too weary even to be self-conscious. For one moment he luxuriated in allowing his weary feet free play in his stockings, but then he fell spreadeagled on to his cot, half-prone, half on his side, his head on his arms, and Grimes covered him up and left him.

  That was not the most sensible attitude to adopt, as he discovered when Grimes shook him awake. He ached in every joint, it seemed, while to dash cold sea water on his face did little enough to clear his head. He had to struggle out of the after-effects of a long period of strain as ot
her men had to struggle out of the after-effects of a drinking bout. But he had recovered sufficiently to move his left-handed pen when he sat down and began his report.

  ‘Sir,

  In obedience to your instructions, dated the 16th instant, I proceeded on the afternoon of the 18th…’

  He had to leave the last paragraph until the coming of daylight should reveal what he should write in it, and he laid the letter aside and took another sheet. He had to bite the end of his pen before he could even write the salutation in this second letter, and when he had written ‘My dear Wife’ he had to bite it again before he could continue. It was something of a relief to have Grimes enter at last.

  “Mr. Bush’s compliments, sir, and it’s not far off daylight.”

  That made it possible to conclude the letter.

  ‘And now, my dearest—’ Hornblower glanced at Maria’s letter to select an endearment—‘Angel, my duty calls me once more on deck, so that I must end this letter with—’ another reference—‘fondest love to my dear Wife, the loved Mother of the Child to be.

  Your affectionate Husband,

  Horatio.’

  Daylight was coming up fast when he arrived on deck.

  “Brace the maintops’l round, if you please, Mr. Young. We’ll stand to the s’uth’ard a little. Good morning, Mr. Bush.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  Bush was already trying to see to the southward through his telescope. Increasing light and diminishing distance brought rapid results.

  “There they are, sir! God, sir—one, two, three—and there are two others over on the Council Rocks. And that looks like a wreck right in the fairway—that’s one we sunk, I’ll wager, sir.”

  In the glittering dawn the half-tide revealed wrecks littering the shoals and the shore, black against the crystal light, the coasters which had paid the penalty of trying to run the blockade.

  “They’re all holed and waterlogged, sir,” said Bush. “Not a hope of salvage.”

  Hornblower was already composing in his mind the final paragraph of his report.

  “I have reason to believe that not less than ten sail of coasters were sunk or forced to run aground during this encounter. This happy result…”

  “That’s a fortune lost, sir,” grumbled Bush. “That’s a tidy sum in prize money over on those rocks.”

  No doubt, but in those decisive moments last night there could have been no question of capture. Hotspur’s duty had been to destroy everything possible, and not to fill her captain’s empty purse by sending boats to take possession, at the cost of allowing half the quarry to escape. Hornblower’s reply was cut off short, as the smooth water on the starboard beam suddenly erupted in three successive jets of water. A cannon-ball had come skipping towards them over the surface, to make its final plunge a cable’s length away. The sound of gunfire reached their ears at the same moment, and their instantly elevated telescopes revealed a cloud of smoke engulfing the Toulinguet battery.

  “Fire away, Monseer le Frog,” said Bush. “The damage is done.”

  “We may as well make sure we’re out of range,” said Hornblower. “Put the ship about, if you please.”

  He was trying as best he could to reproduce Bush’s complete indifference under fire. He told himself that he was only being sensible, and not cowardly, in making certain that there was no chance of Hotspur’s being hit by a salvo of twenty-four-pounders, but he was inclined to sneer at himself, all the same.

  Yet there was one source of self-congratulation. He had held his tongue when the subject of prize money had come up in the conversation. He had been about to burst out condemning the whole system as pernicious, but he had managed to refrain. Bush thought him a queer character in any case, and if he had divulged his opinion of prize money—of the system by which it was earned and paid—Bush would have thought him more than merely eccentric. Bush would think him actually insane, and liberal-minded, revolutionary, subversive and dangerous as well.

  Chapter IX

  Hornblower stood ready to go down the side into the waiting boat. He made the formal, legal speech.

  “Mr. Bush, you will take command.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Hornblower remembered to look about him as he prepared to make the descent. He glowered round at the sideboys in the white gloves that Bush had had made for this ceremonial purpose out of white twine by some seaman adept with a hook—‘crochet’ was the French name for this process. He ran his eyes up and down the bos’n’s mates as they piped his departing salute. Then he went over the side. The piping stopped at the same moment as his foot reached for the thwart—that was a measure of the height of Hotspur’s free-board, for by the rules of ceremonial the honours ceased the moment the departing officer’s head was at the level of the deck. Hornblower scrambled into the stern sheets, embarrassed by hat and gloves and sword and boat cloak, and he barked an order to Hewitt. The boat-hook released its hold and there was a moment of apparent disorder as the boat left the ship’s side and four brawny arms at the halliards sent the balance-lug up the mast. There was a decided strangeness at sitting here on a level with the water, with the green waves close at hand; it was over eight weeks since Hornblower had last set foot outside the ship.

  The boat settled on her course, running free because the wind had backed southerly several points, and Hornblower looked back at Hotspur lying hove-to. He ran a professional eye over her lines, noting, as an observer from the outside again, the relative heights of her masts, the distances at which they were stepped, the rake of the bowsprit. He knew a great deal now about the behaviour of the ship under sail, but there was always more to learn. Not at this moment, though, for a stronger puff of wind laid the boat over and Hornblower felt suddenly uncertain both of his surroundings and himself. The little waves of which Hotspur took no notice were monstrous when encountered in a small boat, which, besides lying over, was now rising and swooping in a most unpleasant fashion. After the reassuring solidity of Hotspur’s deck—after painfully accustoming himself to her motion—these new surroundings and these new antics were most unsettling, especially as Hornblower was excited and tense at the prospect before him. He swallowed hard, battling against the sea-sickness which had leaped out of ambush for him; to divert his mind he concentrated his attention upon the Tonnant, growing slowly nearer—much too slowly.

  At her main topgallant masthead she sported the coveted broad pendant in place of the narrow one worn by other ships in commission. It was the sign of a captain with executive powers over other ships besides his own. Pellew was not only high up in the captains’ list but clearly destined for important command as soon as he reached flag rank; there must be rear admirals in the Channel Fleet bitterly jealous of Pellew’s tenure of the Inshore Command. A boat came along her starboard side, painted white picked out with red, and of a design unlike that of the workaday boats supplied by the Navy Office. Hornblower could see the matching red and white uniforms of the boat’s crew; this must be some very dandy captain at least, paying a call—or more likely a flag officer. Hornblower saw a ribboned and epauletted figure go up the side, and across the water came the sound of the squealing of the pipes and the boomp-bump noise that to his ears indicated a band playing. Next moment the White Ensign broke out at the fore-topmasthead. A vice admiral of the White! That could be no other than Cornwallis himself.

  Hornblower realized that this meeting to which he had been summoned by the curt signal ‘All captains’, was something more than a sociable gathering. He looked down in distress at his shabby clothing, reminded as he did so to open his boat cloak and reveal the epaulette on his left shoulder—a shabby brassy thing, dating back to the time of his earlier, disallowed appointment as commander, two years ago. Hornblower distinctly saw the officer of the watch, in attendance at the gangway, turn from his telescope and give an order which sent four of the eight white-gloved sideboys there scurrying out of sight, so that a mere commander should not share the honours given a vice admiral. The
admiral’s barge had sheered off and the Hotspur’s boat took its place, with Hornblower not too seasick and nervous to worry about the way it was handled, in case it did not reflect credit on his ship. The worry, however, was instantly overlaid by the necessity for concentration on the process of going up the side. This was a lofty two-decker, and although the considerable ‘tumble-home’ was of help it was a tricky business for the gangling Hornblower to mount with dignity encumbered as he was. Somehow he reached the deck, and somehow, despite his shyness and embarrassment, he remembered to touch his hat in salute to the guard that presented arms to him.

  “Captain Hornblower?” inquired the officer of the watch. He knew him by the single epaulette on his left shoulder, the only commander in the Inshore Squadron, perhaps the only one in the Channel Fleet. “This young gentleman will act as your guide.”

  The deck of the Tonnant seemed incredibly spacious after the cramped deck of the Hotspur, for the Tonnant was no mere seventy-four. She was an eighty-four, with dimensions and scantlings worthy of a three-decker. She was a reminder of the era when the French built big ships in the hope of overpowering the British seventy-fours by brute force instead of by skill and discipline. How the venture had turned out was proved by the fact that Tonnant now flew the flag of England.

  The great poop-cabins had been thrown into a single suite for Pellew, in the absence of a flag-officer permanently on board. It was incredibly luxurious. Once past the sentry the decks were actually carpeted—Wilton carpets in which the foot sank noiselessly. There was an anteroom with a steward in dazzling white ducks to take Hornblower’s hat and gloves and cloak.

  “Captain Hornblower, sir,” announced the young gentleman, throwing open the door.

  The deck-beams above were six feet clear, over the carpet, and Pellew had grown so used to this that he advanced to shake hands with no stoop at all, in contrast with Hornblower, who instinctively crouched with his five-foot-eleven.