Hornblower and the Hotspur h-3

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Meet her! Midships!”

  The tug of the sail on the foremast would put Hotspur right before the wind without the use of the rudder; indeed the rudder would only delay her acquiring all the way she could. Time enough to put the rudder to work again when she was going at her fastest. Hornblower braced himself for the impact of the wave now following them up. The seconds passed and then it came, but the stern had begun to lift and the blow was deprived of its force. Only a minor mass of water burst over the taffrail, to surge aft again as Hotspur lifted her bows. Now they were racing along with the waves; now they were travelling through the water ever so little faster. That was the most desirable point of speed; there was no need to increase or decrease even minutely the area of canvas exposed to the goose-winged fore-topsail. The situation was safe and yet unutterably precarious, balanced on a knife edge. The slightest yawing and Hotspur was lost.

  ‘Keep her from falling off!’ Hornblower yelled to the men at the wheel, and the grizzled senior quartermaster, his wet grey ringlets flapping over his cheeks from out of his sou’wester, nodded without taking his eyes from the fore-topsail. Hornblower knew—with his vivid imagination he could feel the actual sensation up his arms—how uncertain and unsatisfactory was the feel of wheel and rudder when running before a following sea, the momentary lack of response to the turning spokes, the hesitation of the ship as a mounting wave astern deprived the fore-topsail of some of the wind that filled it, the uncontrolled slithering sensation as the ship went down a slope. A moment’s inattention—a moment’s bad luck—could bring ruin.

  Yet here they were momentarily safe before the wind, and running for the Channel. Prowse was already staring into the binnacle and noting the new course on the traverse board, and at a word from him Orrock and a seaman struggled aft to cast the log and determine the speed. And here came Bush, ascending to the quarter-deck, grinning over the success of the manoeuvre and with the exhilaration of the new state of affairs.

  “Course nor’east by east, sir,” reported Prowse. “Speed better than seven knots.”

  Now there was a new set of problems to deal with. They were entering the Channel. There were shoals and headlands ahead of them; there were tides—the tricky tidal streams of the Channel—to be reckoned with. The very nature of the waves would change soon, with the effect upon the Atlantic rollers of the shallowing water and the narrowing Channel and the varying tides. There was the general problem of avoiding being blown all the way up Channel, and the particular one of trying to get into Tor Bay.

  All this called for serious calculation and reference to tide tables, especially in face of the fact that running before the wind like this it would be impossible to take soundings. “We ought to get a sight of Ushant on this course, sir,” yelled Prowse.

  That would be a decided help, a solid base for future calculations, a new departure. A shouted word sent Orrock up to the fore-top-masthead with a telescope to supplement the look-out there, while Hornblower faced the first stage of the new series of problems—the question of whether he could bring himself to leave the deck—and the second stage—the question of whether he should invite Prowse to share his calculations. The answer to both was necessarily in the affirmative. Bush was a good seaman and could be trusted to keep a vigilant eye on the wheel and on the canvas; Prowse was a fair navigator and was by law co-responsible with Hornblower for the course to be set and so would have just cause for grievance if he was not consulted, however much Hornblower wished to be free of his company.

  So it came about that Prowse was with Hornblower in the chart-room, struggling with the tide tables, when Foreman opened the door, his knocking not having been heard in the general din—and admitted all the noise of the ship in full volume.

  “Message from Mr. Bush, sir. Ushant in sight on the starboard beam, seven or eight miles, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Foreman.”

  That was a stroke of good fortune, the first they had had. Now they could plan the next struggle to bend the forces of nature to their will. It was a struggle indeed; for the men at the wheel a prolonged physical ordeal which made it necessary to relieve them every half-hour and for Hornblower a mental ordeal which was to keep him at full-strain for the next thirty hours. There was the tentative trying of the wheel, to see if it were possible to bring the wind a couple of points on her port quarter. Three times they made the attempt, to abandon it hastily as wind and wave rendered the ship unmanageable, but at the fourth try it became possible, with the shortening of the waves in their advance up-Channel and the turn of the tide over on the French coast. Now they tore through the water, speed undiminished despite the drag of the rudder as the helmsmen battled with the wheel that kicked and struggled as if it were alive and malignant under their hands, and while the whole strength of the crew handled the braces to trim the yard exactly to make certain there was no danger of sailing by the lee.

  At least the danger of running Hotspur bodily under water was now eliminated. There was no chance of her putting her bows into the slack back of a dilatory wave and never lifting them again. To balance the leverage of the fore-topsail they hauled up the mizzen staysail, which brought relief to the helmsmen even though it laid Hotspur over until her starboard gunports were level with the water. It lasted for a frantic hour, and it seemed to Hornblower that he was holding his breath during all that time, and until it burst in the centre with a report like a twelve pounder, splitting into flying pendants of canvas that cracked in the wind like coach-whips as the helmsmen fought against the renewed tendency of Hotspur to turn away from the wind. Yet the temporary success justified replacing the sail with the mizzen topmast staysail, just a corner of it showing, and the head and the tack still secured by gaskets. It was a brand new sail, and it managed to endure the strain, to compensate for the labour and difficulty of setting it.

  The short dark day drew to an end, and now everything had to be done in roaring night, while lack of sleep intensified the numbness and fatigue and the stupidity induced by the unremitting wind. With his dulled sensitivity Hornblower’s reaction was slow to the changed behaviour of Hotspur under his feet. The transition was gradual, in any case, but at last it became marked enough for him to notice it, his sense of touch substituting for his sense of sight to tell him that the waves were becoming shorter and steeper; this was the choppiness of the Channel and not the steady sweep of the Atlantic rollers.

  Hotspur’s motion was more rapid, and in a sense more violent; the waves broke over her bow more frequently though in smaller volume. Although still far below the surface the floor of the Channel was rising, from a hundred fathoms deep to forty fathoms, and there was the turn of the tide to be considered, even though this westerly tempest must have piled up the waters of the Channel far above mean level. And the Channel was narrower now; the rollers that had found ample passage between Ushant and Scilly were feeling the squeeze, and all these factors were evident in their behaviour. Hotspur was wet all the time now, and only continuous working of the pumps kept the water down below within bounds—pumps worked by weary men, thirsty men, hungry men, sleepy men, throwing their weight on the long handles each time with the feeling that they could not repeat the effort even once more.

  At four in the morning Hornblower was conscious of a shift in the wind, and for a precious hour he was able to order a change of course until a sudden veering of the wind forced them back on the original course again, but he had gained, so his calculations told him, considerably to the northward; there was so much satisfaction in that that he put his forehead down on his forearms on the chart-room table and was surprised into sleep for several valuable minutes before a more extravagant leaping of the ship banged his head upon his arms and awakened him to make his way wearily out upon the quarter-deck again.

  “Wish we could take a sounding, sir,” shouted Prowse.

  “Yes.”

  Yet now, even in the darkness, Hornblower could feel that the recent gain and the change in the character of the sea made it
justifiable to heave to for a space. He could goad his mind to deal with the problem of drift and leeway; he could harden his heart to face the necessity of calling upon the exhausted top-men to make the effort to furl the goose-winged fore-topsail while he stood by, alert, to bring the ship to under the mizzen stay-sail; bring the helm over at the right moment so that she met the steep waves with her bow. Riding to the wind her motion was wilder and more extravagant than ever, but they managed to cast the deep sea lead, with the crew lined up round the ship, calling “Watch! Watch!” as each man let his portion of line loose. Thirty-eight—thirty-seven—thirty-eight fathoms again; the three casts consumed an hour, with everyone wet to the skin and exhausted. It was a fragment more of the data necessary, while heaving-to eased the labour of the worn-out quartermasters and actually imposed so much less strain on the seams that the pumps steadily gained on the water below.

  At the first watery light of dawn they set the goose-winged fore-topsail again while Hornblower faced the problem of getting Hotspur round with the wind over her quarter without laying her over on her beam ends. Then they were thrashing along in the old way, decks continually under water, rolling until every timber groaned, with Orrock freezing at the fore-topmast-head with his glass. It was noon before he sighted the land; half an hour later Bush returned to the quarter-deck from the ascent he made to confirm Orrock’s findings. Bush was more weary than he would ever admit, his dirty hollow cheeks overgrown with a stubble of beard, but he could still show surprise and pleasure.

  “Bolt Head, sir!” he yelled. “Fine on the port bow. And I could just make out the Start.”

  “Thank you.”

  Even though it meant shouting, Bush wanted to express his feelings about this feat of navigation, but Hornblower had no time for that, nor the patience, nor, for that matter, the strength. There was the question of not being blown too far to leeward at this eleventh hour, of making preparations to come to an anchor in conditions that would certainly be difficult. There was the tide rip off the Start to be borne in mind, the necessity of rounding to as close under Berry Head as possible. There was the sudden inexpressible change in wind and sea as they came under the lee of the Start; the steep choppiness here seemed nothing compared with what Hotspur had been enduring five minutes before, and the land took the edge off the hurricane wind to reduce it to the mere force of a full gale that still kept Hotspur flying before it. There was the Newstone and the Blackstones—here as well as in the Iroise—and the final tricky moment of the approach to Berry Head.

  “Ships of war at anchor, sir,” reported Bush, sweeping Tor Bay with his glass as they opened it up. “That’s Dreadnought. That’s Temeraire. It’s the Channel Fleet. My God! There’s one aground in Torquay Roads. Two-decker—she must have dragged her anchors.”

  “Yes. We’ll back the best bower anchor before we let go, Mr. Bush. We’ll have to use the launch’s carronade. You’ve time to see about that.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Even in Tor Bay there was a full gale blowing; where a two-decker had dragged her anchors every precaution must be taken at whatever further cost in effort. The seven hundredweight of the boat carronade, attached to the anchor-cable fifty feet back from the one ton of the best bower, might just save that anchor from lifting and dragging. And so Hotspur came in under goose-winged fore-topsail and storm mizzen stay-sail, round Berry Head, under the eyes of the Channel Fleet, to claw her way in towards Brixham pier and to round-to with her weary men furling the fore-topsail and to drop her anchors while with a last effort they sent down the topmasts and Prowse and Hornblower took careful bearings to make sure she was not dragging. It was only then that there was leisure to spare to make her number to the flag-ship.

  “Flag acknowledges, sir,” croaked Foreman.

  “Very well.”

  It was still possible to do something more without collapsing. “Mr. Foreman, kindly make this signal. ‘Need drinking water’.”

  Chapter XIV

  Tor Bay was a tossing expanse of white horses. The land lessened the effect of the wind to some extent; the Channel waves were hampered in their entry to Berry Head, but all the same the wind blew violently and the waves racing up the Channel managed to wheel leftwards, much weakened, but now running across the wind, and with the tide to confuse the issue Tor Bay boiled like a cauldron. For forty hours after Hotspur’s arrival the Hibernia, Cornwallis’s big three-decker, flew the signal 715 with a negative beside it, and 715 with a negative meant that boats were not to be employed.

  Not even the Brixham fishermen, renowned for their small boat work, could venture out into Tor Bay while it was in that mood, so that until the second morning at anchor the crew of the Hotspur supported an unhappy existence on two quarts of tainted water a day. And Hornblower was the unhappiest man on board, from causes both physical and mental. The little ship almost empty of stores was the plaything of wind and wave and tide; she surged about at her anchors like a restive horse. She swung and she snubbed herself steady with a jerk; she plunged and snubbed herself again. With her topmasts sent down she developed a shallow and rapid roll. It was a mixture of motions that would test the strongest stomach, and Hornblower’s stomach was by no means the strongest, while there was the depressing association in his memory of his very first day in a ship of war, when he had made himself a laughing stock by being seasick in the old Justinian at anchor in Spithead.

  He spent those forty hours vomiting his heart out, while to the black depression of sea-sickness was added the depression resulting from the knowledge that Maria was only thirty miles away in Plymouth, and by a good road. Cornwallis’s representations had caused the government to cut that road, over the tail end of Dartmoor, so that the Channel Fleet in its rendezvous could readily be supplied from the great naval base. Half a day on a good horse and Hornblower could be holding Maria in his arms, he could be hearing news first-hand about the progress of the child, on whom (to his surprise) his thoughts were beginning to dwell increasingly. The hands spent their free moments on the forecastle, round the knightheads, gazing at Brixham and Brixham Pier; even in that wind with its deluges of rain there were women to be seen occasionally, women in skirts, at whom the crew stared like so many Tantaluses. After one good night’s sleep, and with pumping only necessary now for half an hour in each watch, those men had time and energy so that their imaginations had free play. They could think about women, and they could think about liquor—most of them dreamed dreams of swilling themselves into swinish unconsciousness on Brixham’s smuggled brandy, while Hornblower could only vomit and fret.

  But he slept during the second half of the second night, when the wind not only moderated but backed two points northerly, altering the conditions in Tor Bay like magic, so that after he had assured himself at midnight that the anchors were still holding, his fatigue took charge and he could sleep without moving for seven hours. He was still only half awake when Doughty came bursting in on him.

  “Signal from the Flag, sir.”

  There were strings of bunting flying from the halliards of the Hibernia; with the shift of wind they could be read easily enough from the quarter-deck of the Hotspur.

  “There’s our number there, sir,” said Foreman, glass at eye. “It comes first.”

  Cornwallis was giving orders for the victualling and re-watering of the fleet, establishing the order in which the ships were to be replenished, and that signal gave Hotspur priority over all the rest.

  “Acknowledge,” ordered Hornblower.

  “We’re lucky, sir,” commented Bush.

  “Possibly,” agreed Hornblower. No doubt Cornwallis had been informed about Hotspur’s appeal for drinking water, but he might have further plans, too.

  “Look at that, sir,” said Bush. “They waste no time.”

  Two lighters, each propelled by eight sweeps, and with a six-oared yawl standing by, were creeping out round the end of Brixham Pier.

  “I’ll see about the fend-offs, sir,” said Bush, departing h
astily.

  These were the water lighters, marvels of construction, each of them containing a series of vast cast-iron tanks. Hornblower had heard about them; they were of fifty-tons’ burthen each of them, and each of them carried ten thousand gallons of drinking water, while Hotspur, with every cask and hogshead brim full, could not quite store fifteen thousand.

  So now began an orgy of freshwater, clear springwater which had not lain in the cast-iron tanks for more than a few days. With the lighters chafing uneasily alongside, a party from Hotspur went down to work the beautiful modern pumps which the lighters carried, forcing the water up through four superb canvas hoses passed in through the ports and then down below. The deck scuttle butt, so long empty, was swilled out and filled, to be instantly emptied by the crew and filled again; just possibly at that moment the hands would rather have freshwater than brandy.

  It was glorious waste; down below the casks were swilled and scrubbed out with freshwater, and the swillings drained into the bilge whence the ship’s pumps would later have to force it overboard at some cost of labour. Every man drank his fill and more; Hornblower gulped down glass after glass until he was full, yet half an hour later found him drinking again. He could feel himself expanding like a desert plant after rain.

  “Look at this, sir,” said Bush, telescope in hand and gesturing towards Brixham.

  The telescope revealed a busy crowd at work there, and there were cattle visible.

  “Slaughtering,” said Bush. “Fresh meat.”

  Soon another lighter was creeping out to them; hanging from a frame down the midship line were sides of beef, carcasses of sheep and pigs.

  “I won’t mind a roast of mutton, sir,” said Bush.

  Bullocks and sheep and swine had been driven over the moors to Brixham, and slaughtered and dressed on the waterfront immediately before shipping so that the meat would last fresh as long as possible.