Hornblower and the Hotspur h-3

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Your dinner’s ready, sir.”

  Doughty stood respectfully in front of him.

  “Very well. I’ll come.”

  Hornblower sat himself down at the chart-room table. Doughty standing at his chair in the cramped space.

  “One moment, sir, while I bring your dinner from the galley. May I pour you some cider, sir?”

  “Pour me some… ?”

  But Doughty was already pouring from jug to cup, and then he vanished. Hornblower tasted gingerly. There was no doubt about it, it was excellent cider, rough and yet refined, fruity and yet in no way sweet. After water months in cask it was heavenly. He only took two preliminary sips before his head went back and the whole cupful shot delightfully down his throat. He had not begun to debate this curious phenomenon when Doughty slipped into the chart-room again.

  “The plate is hot, sir,” he said.

  “What the devil’s this?” asked Hornblower.

  “Lobster cutlets, sir,” said Doughty, pouring more cider, and then, with a gesture not quite imperceptible, he indicated the wooden saucer he had laid on the table at the same time. “Butter sauce, sir.”

  Extraordinary. There were neat brown cutlets on his plate that bore no outward resemblance to lobster, but when Hornblower cautiously added sauce and tasted, the result was excellent. Minced lobster. And when Doughty took the cover off the cracked vegetable dish there was a dream of delight revealed. New potatoes, golden and lovely. He helped himself hurriedly and very nearly burned his mouth on them. Nothing could be quite as nice as the first new potatoes of the year.

  “These came with the ship’s vegetables, sir,” explained Doughty. “I was in time to save them.”

  Hornblower did not need to ask from what those new potatoes had been saved. He knew a good deal about Huffnell the purser, and he could guess at the appetite of the wardroom mess. Lobster cutlets and new potatoes and this pleasant butter sauce; he was enjoying his dinner, resolutely putting aside the knowledge that the ship’s biscuit in the bread barge was weevily. He was used to weevils, which always showed up after the first month at sea, or earlier if the biscuit had been long in store. He told himself as he took another mouthful of lobster cutlet that he would not allow a weevil in his biscuit to be a fly in his ointment.

  He took another pull at the cider before he remembered to ask where it came from.

  “I pledged your credit for it, sir,” said Doughty. “I took the liberty of doing so, to the extent of a quarter of a pound of tobacco.”

  “Who had it?”

  “Sir,” said Doughty, “I promised not to say.”

  “Oh, very well,” said Hornblower.

  There was only one source for cider—the Camilla, the lobster-boat he had seized last night. Of course the Breton fishermen who manned it would have a keg on board, and somebody had looted it; Martin, his clerk, most likely.

  “I hope you bought the whole keg,” said Hornblower.

  “Only some of it, I am afraid, sir. All that remained.”

  Out of a two-gallon keg of cider—Hornblower hoped it might be more—Martin could hardly have downed more than a gallon in twenty-four hours. And Doughty must have noted the presence of a keg in the berth he shared with Martin; Hornblower was quite sure that more pressure than the offer of a mere quarter of a pound of tobacco had been applied to make Martin part with the keg, but he did not care.

  “Cheese, sir,” said Doughty; Hornblower had eaten everything else in sight.

  And the cheese—the ration cheese supplied for the ship’s company—was reasonably good, and the butter was fresh; a new firkin must have come in the boat and Doughty must somehow have got at it although the rancid previous assignment had not been used up. The cider jug was empty and Hornblower felt more comfortable than he had felt for days.

  “I’ll go to bed now,” he announced.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Doughty opened the chart-room door and Hornblower passed into his cabin. The lamp swayed from the deck beam. The patched nightshirt was laid out on the cot. Perhaps it was because he was full of cider that Hornblower did not resent Doughty’s presence as he brushed his teeth and made ready for bed. Doughty was at hand to take his coat as he pulled it off; Doughty retrieved his trousers when he let them fall; Doughty hovered by as he dropped into bed and pulled the blankets over him.

  “I’ll brush this coat, sir. Here’s your bed gown if you’re called in the night, sir. Shall I put out the lamp, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  It was not until next morning that Hornblower remembered again that Grimes had hanged himself in this cabin. It was not until next morning that he remembered those minutes down in the magazine with the gunpowder. Doughty had already proved his worth.

  Chapter XII

  The salutes had been fired. Pellew’s flag had been hoisted and then the Tonnant had sailed away to initiate the blockade of Rochefort. The Dreadnought had hoisted Admiral Parker’s flag, and each flag had received thirteen guns from every ship. The French on their hillsides must have seen the smoke and heard the firing, and the naval officers among them must have deduced that one more rear admiral had joined the Channel Fleet; and must have shaken their heads a little sadly at this further proof that the British Navy was increasing its lead over the French in the race to build up maritime strength.

  Hornblower, peering up the Goulet, over the black shapes of the Little Girls, could count the vessels of war swinging to their anchors in Brest Roads. Eighteen ships of the line now, and seven frigates, but with sub-minimum crews and incomplete stores; no match for the fifteen superb ships of the line under Cornwallis who waited for them outside, growing daily in efficiency and in moral ascendancy. Nelson off Toulon and now Pellew off Rochefort similarly challenged inferior French squadrons, and under their protection the merchant fleets of Britain sailed the seas unmolested except by privateers—and the merchant fleet themselves, bunched in vast convoys, received constant close cover from further British squadrons of a total strength even exceeding that of the blockading fleets. Cordage and hemp, timber and iron and copper, turpentine and salt, cotton and nitre, could all flow freely to the British Isles and be as freely distributed round them, maintaining the ship yards in constant activity, whilst the French yards were doomed to idleness, to the gangrene that follows the cutting off of the circulation.

  But the situation was nevertheless not without peril. Along the Channel Coast Bonaparte had two hundred thousand soldiers, the most formidable army in the world, and collecting in the Channel Ports, from St. Malo to Ostend and beyond was a flotilla of seven thousand flat-bottomed boats. Admiral Keith with his frigates, backed by a few ships of the line, had the Channel secure against Bonaparte’s threat; there was no chance of invasion as long as England held naval command of the Channel.

  Yet in a sense that command was precarious. If the eighteen ships of the line in Brest Roads could escape, could round Ushant and come up-Channel with Cornwallis distracted in some fashion, Keith might be driven away, might be destroyed. Three days would be sufficient to put Bonaparte’s army into the boats and across the Channel, and Bonaparte would be issuing decrees from Windsor Castle as he had already done from Milan and Brussels. Cornwallis and his squadron, Hotspur and her mightier colleagues, were what made this impossible; a moment of carelessness, a misjudged movement, and the tricolour might fly over the Tower of London.

  Hornblower counted the ships in Brest Roads, and as he did so he was very conscious that this morning routine was the ultimate, most insolent expression of the power of England at sea. England had a heart, a brain, an arm, and he and Hotspur were the final sensitive fingertip of that long arm. Nineteen ships of the line at anchor, two of them three-deckers. Seven frigates. They were the ones he had observed yesterday. Nothing had contrived to slip out unnoticed during the night, by the passage of the Four or the Raz.

  “Mr. Foreman! Signal to the Flag, if you please. ‘Enemy at anchor. Situation unchanged.�
��”

  Foreman had made that signal several times before, but, while Hornblower watched him unobtrusively, he checked the numbers in the signal book. It was Foreman’s business to know all the thousand arbitrary signals off by heart, but it was best, when time allowed, that he should corroborate what his memory told him. An error of a digit might send the warning that the enemy was coming out.

  “Flag acknowledges, sir,” reported Foreman.

  “Very well.”

  Poole, as officer of the watch, made note of the incident in the rough log. The hands were washing down the deck, the sun was lifting over the horizon. It was a beautiful day, with every promise of being a day like any other.

  “Seven bells, sir,” reported Prowse.

  Only half an hour more of the ebb; time to withdraw from this lee shore before the flood set in.

  “Mr. Poole! Wear the ship, if you please. Course west by north.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Bush.”

  Bush knew better than to indulge in further conversation, besides, he could devote his attention to watching how smartly the hands braced the main-topsail round, and how Poole handled the ship when the topsails filled. Hornblower swept the northern shore, seeking as ever for any signs of change. His attention was concentrated on the ridge beyond which Captain Jones had met his death, when Poole reported again.

  “Wind’s come westerly, sir. Can’t make west by north.”

  “Make it west nor’west,” replied Hornblower, his eye still to the telescope.

  “Aye aye, sir. West nor’west, full and bye.” There was a hint of relief in Poole’s voice; an officer is likely to be apprehensive when he has to tell his captain that the last order was impossible to execute.

  Hornblower was aware that Bush had taken his stand beside him with his telescope trained in the same direction.

  “A column of troops, sir,” said Bush.

  “Yes.”

  Hornblower had detected the head of the column crossing the ridge. He was watching now to see to what length the column would stretch. It continued interminably over the ridge, appearing through his glass like some caterpillar hurrying over the even rougher hillside. Ah! There was the explanation. Beside the caterpillar appeared a string of ants, hurrying even faster along the path. Field artillery—six guns and limbers with a wagon bringing up the rear. The head of the caterpillar was already over the farther ridge before the tail appeared over the nearer one. That was a column of infantry more than a mile long, five thousand men or more—a division of infantry with its attendant battery. It might be merely a portion of the garrison of Brest turning out for exercises and manoeuvres on the hillside, but its movements were somewhat more hurried and purposeful than would be expected in that case.

  He swept his glass farther round the coast, and then checked it with a start and a gulp of excitement. There were the unmistakable lugsails of a French coaster coming round the bold headland of Point Matthew. There was another pair—a whole cluster. Could it possibly be that a group of coasters was trying to run the blockade into Brest in broad daylight in the teeth of Hotspur? Hardly likely. Now there was a bang—bang—bang of guns, presumably from the field battery, invisible over the farther ridge. Behind the coasters appeared a British frigate, and then another, showing up at the moment when the coasters began to go about; as the coasters tacked they revealed that they had no colours flying.

  “Prizes, sir. And that’s Naiad an’ Doris,” said Bush.

  The two British frigates must have swooped down during the night by the passage of the Four inshore of Ushant and cut out these coasters from the creeks of Le Conquet where they had been huddled for shelter. A neat piece of work, undoubtedly, but bringing them out had only been made possible by the destruction of the battery on the Petit Minou. The frigates tacked in the wake of the coasters, like shepherd dogs following a flock of sheep. They were escorting their prizes in triumph back to the Inshore Squadron, whence, presumably they would be dispatched to England for sale. Bush had taken his telescope from his eye and had turned his gaze full on Hornblower, while Prowse came up to join them.

  “Six prizes, sir,” said Bush.

  “A thousand pound each, those coasters run, sir,” said Prowse. “More, if it’s naval stores, and I expect it is. Six thousand pound. Seven thousand. An’ no trouble selling ‘em, sir.”

  By the terms of the royal proclamation issued on the declaration of war, prizes taken by the Royal Navy became—as was traditional by now—the absolute property of the captors.

  “And we weren’t in sight, sir,” said Bush.

  The proclamation also laid down the proviso that the value of the prizes, after a deduction for flag officers, should be shared among those ships in sight at the moment the colours came down or possession was secured.

  “We couldn’t expect to be,” said Hornblower. He was honestly implying that Hotspur was too preoccupied with her duty of watching the Goulet, but the others misinterpreted the speech.

  “No, sir, not with—” Bush broke off what he was saying before he became guilty of mutiny. He had been about to continue ‘not with Admiral Parker in command’ but he had more sense than to say it, after Hornblower’s meaning had become clear to him.

  “One eighth’d be nigh on a thousand pounds,” said Prowse.

  An eighth of the value of the prizes was, by the proclamation, to be divided among the lieutenants and masters taking part in the capture of the ships. Hornblower was making a different calculation. The share of the captains was two-eighths; if Hotspur had been associated in the venture with Naiad and Doris he would have been richer by five hundred pounds.

  “And it was us that opened the way for ‘em sir,” went on Prowse.

  “It was you, sir, who—” Bush broke off his speech for the second time.

  “That’s the fortune of war,” said Hornblower, lightly, “or the misfortune of war.”

  Hornblower was quite convinced that the whole system of prize money was vicious, and tended towards making the navy less effective in war. He told himself that this was sour grapes, that he would think differently if he had won great amounts of prize money, but that did not soften his present conviction.

  “For’ard, there!” yelled Poole from beside the binnacle. “Get the lead going in the main chains.”

  The three senior officers beside the hammock nettings came back to the present world with a general start. Hornblower felt a chill wave of horror over his ribs as he realized his inexcusable carelessness. He had forgotten all about the course he had set. Hotspur was sailing tranquilly into peril, was in danger of running aground, and it was his fault, the result of his own inattention. He had no time for self-reproach at the present moment, all the same. He lifted his voice, trying to pitch it steadily.

  “Thank you, Mr. Poole,” he called. “Belay that order. Put the ship on the other tack, if you please.”

  Bush and Prowse were wearing guilty, hangdog looks. It had been their duty, it had been Prowse’s particular duty, to warn him when Hotspur was running into navigational dangers. They would not meet his eye; they tried to assume a pose of exaggerated interest in Poole’s handling of the ship as she went about. The yards creaked as she came round, the sails flapped and then drew again, the wind blew on their faces from a different angle.

  “Hard-a-lee!” ordered Poole, completing the manoeuvre. “Fore-tack! Haul the bowlines!”

  Hotspur settled down on her new course, away from the dangerous shore to which she had approached too close, and all danger was averted.

  “You see, gentlemen,” said Hornblower coldly, and he waited until he had the full attention of Bush and Prowse. “You see, there are many disadvantages about the system of prize money. I am aware now of a new one, and I hope you are too. Thank you, that will do.”

  He remained by the hammock netting as they slunk away; he was taking himself to task. It was his first moment of carelessness in a professional career of ten years. He had made mi
stakes through ignorance, through recklessness, but never carelessness before. If there had been a fool as officer of the watch just now utter ruin would have been possible. If Hotspur had gone aground, in clear weather and a gentle breeze, it would have been the end of everything for him. Court martial and dismissal from the service, and then… ? In his bitter self-contempt he told himself that he would not be capable even of begging his bread, to say nothing of Maria’s. He might perhaps ship before the mast, and with his clumsiness and abstraction he would be the victim of the cat, of the boatswain’s rattan. Death would be better. He shuddered with cold.

  Now he turned his attention to Poole, standing impassive by the binnacle. What had been the motives that had impelled him to order the lead into use? Had it been mere precaution, or had it been a tactful way of calling his captain’s attention to the situation of the ship? His present manner and bearing gave no hint of the answer. Hornblower had studied his officers carefully since Hotspur was commissioned; he was not aware of any depths of ingenuity or tact in Poole, but he freely admitted to himself that they might exist, unobserved. In any case, he must allow for them. He sauntered down the quarter-deck.

  “Thank you, Mr. Poole,” he said, slowly and very distinctly.

  Poole touched his hat in reply, but his homely face did not change its expression. Hornblower walked on, nettled—amused—that his questions remained unanswered. It was a momentary relief from the torments of conscience which still plagued him.