A Ship of the Line h-8

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Stand to your guns, there!” he bellowed. “Mr. Gerard! Give the lugger a broadside as we pass her!”

  The Lord Mornington was past and gone in a flash; beyond her was the Europe–she had worn round a little and seemed to be heading straight for a collision.

  “God blast her!” roared Bush. “God—” The Sutherland had shaved across her bows her jib boom almost brushing the Sutherland’s mizzen rigging. Next moment the Sutherland had dashed through the narrowing gap between two more ships. Beyond was the Walmer Castle, and alongside her the lugger taken completely by surprise at this unexpected appearance. In the stillness which prevailed on board the Sutherland they could hear the pop-popping of small arms—the Frenchmen were scrambling up to the lofty deck of the Indiaman. But as the big two-decker came hurtling down upon him the French captain tried for safety. Hornblower could see the French boarders leaping down again to the lugger and her vast mainsail rose ponderously under the united effort of two hundred frantic arms. She had boomed off from the Indiamen and came round like a top, but she was five seconds too late.

  “Back the mizzen tops’l,” snapped Hornblower to Bush. “Mr. Gerard!”

  The Sutherland steadied herself for a crashing blow. “Take your aim!” screamed Gerard, mad with excitement. He was by the forward section of guns on the main deck, which would bear first. “Wait till your guns bear! Fire!”

  The rolling broadside which followed, as the ship slowly swung round, seemed to Hornblower’s tense mind to last for at least five minutes. The intervals between the shots was ragged, and some of the guns were clearly fired before they bore. Elevation was faulty, too, as the splashes both this side of, and far beyond, the lugger bore witness. Nevertheless, some of the shot told. He saw splinters flying in the lugger, a couple of shrouds part. Two sudden swirls in the crowd on her deck showed where cannon balls had ploughed through it.

  The brisk breeze blew the smoke of the straggling broadside clear instantly, so that his view of the lugger a hundred yards away was uninterrupted. She had still a chance of getting away. Her sails were filled, and she was slipping fast through the water. He gave the orders to the helmsman which would cause the Sutherland to yaw again and bring her broadside to bear. As he did so nine puffs of smoke from the lugger’s side gave warning that she was firing her nine-pounder popguns.

  The Frenchmen were game enough. A musical tone like a brief expiring note on an organ sang in his ear as a shot passed close overhead, and a double crash below told him that the Sutherland was hit. Her thick timbers ought to keep out nine-pounder shot at that range.

  He heard the rumble of the trucks as the Sutherland’s guns were run out again, and he leaned over the rail to shout to the men on the maindeck.

  “Take your aim well!” he shouted. “Wait till your sights bear!”

  The guns went off in ones or twos down the Sutherland’s side as she yawed. There was only one old hand at each of the Sutherland’s seventy-four guns, and although the officers in charge of the port side battery had sent over some of their men to help on the starboard side they would naturally keep the trained layers in case the port side guns had to be worked suddenly. And there were not seventy-four good gun layers left over from the Lydia’s old crew—he remembered the difficulty he had experienced in drawing up the watch bill.

  “Stop your vents!” shouted Gerard, and then his voice went up into a scream of excitement. “There it goes! Well done, men!”

  The big main mast of the lugger, with the mainsail and topmast and shrouds and all, was leaning over to one side. It seemed to hang there naturally, for a whole breathing space, before it fell with a sudden swoop. Even then a single shot fired from her aftermost gun proclaimed the Frenchman’s defiance. Hornblower turned back to the helmsman to give the orders that would take the Sutherland within pistol shot and complete the little ship’s destruction. He was aflame with excitement. Just in time he remembered his duty; he was granting the other lugger time to get in among the convoy, and every second was of value. He noted his excitement as a curious and interesting phenomenon, while his orders brought the Sutherland round on the other tack. As she squared away a long shout of defiance rose from the lugger, lying rolling madly in the heavy sea, her black hull resembling some crippled water-beetle. Someone was waving a tricolour flag from the deck.

  “Good-bye, Mongseer Crapaud,” said Bush. “You’ve a long day’s work ahead of you before you see Brest again.”

  The Sutherland threshed away on her new course; the convoy had all turned and were beating up towards her, the lugger on their heels like a dog after a flock of sheep. At the sight of the Sutherland rushing down upon her she sheered off again. Obstinately, she worked round to make a dash at the Walmer Castle–steering wide as usual—but Hornblower swung the Sutherland round and the Walmer Castle scuttled towards her for protection. It was easy enough, even in a clumsy ship like the Sutherland, to fend off the attacks of a single enemy. The Frenchman realised this after a few minutes more, and bore away to the help of her crippled consort.

  Hornblower watched the big lugsail come round and fill, and the lugger lying over as she thrashed her way to windward; already the dismasted Frenchman was out of sight from the Sutherland’s quarterdeck. It was a relief to see the Frenchman go—if he had been in command of her he would have left the other to look after herself and hung on to the convoy until nightfall; it would have been strange if he had not been able to snap up a straggler in the darkness.

  “You can secure the guns, Mr. Bush,” he said, at length. Someone on the main deck started to cheer, and the cheering was taken up by the rest of the crew. They were waving their hands or their hats as if a Trafalgar had just been won.

  “Stop that noise,” shouted Hornblower, hot with rage. “Mr. Bush, send the hands aft here to me.”

  They came, all of them, grinning with excitement, pushing and playing like schoolboys; even the rawest of them had forgotten his seasickness in the excitement of the battle. Hornblower’s blood boiled as he looked down at them, the silly fools.

  “No more of that!” he rasped. “What have you done? Frightened off a couple of luggers not much bigger than our long boat! Two broadsides from a seventy-four, and you’re pleased with yourselves for knocking away a single spar! God, you ought to have blown the Frenchie out of the water! Two broadsides, you pitiful baby school! You must lay your guns better than that when it comes to real fighting, and I’ll see you learn how—me and the cat between us. And how d’you make sail? I’ve seen it done better by Portuguese niggers!”

  There was no denying the fact that words spoken from a full heart carry more weight than all the artifices of rhetoric. Hornblower’s genuine rage and sincerity had made a deep impression, so stirred up had he been at the sight of botched and bungling work. The men were hanging their heads now, and shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, as they realised that what they had done had not been so marvellous after all. And to do them justice, half their exhilaration arose from the mad excitement of the Sutherland’s rush through the convoy, with ships close on either hand. In later years, when they were spinning yarns of past commissions, the story would be embroidered until they began to affirm that Hornblower had steered a two-decker in a howling storm through a fleet of two hundred sail all on opposing courses.

  “You can pipe down now, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower. “And when the hands have had their breakfasts you can exercise them aloft.”

  In the reaction following his excitement he was yearning to get away to the solitude of the stern gallery again. But here came Walsh the surgeon, trotting up the quarterdeck and touching his hat.

  “Surgeon’s report, sir,” he said. “One warrant officer killed. No officers and no seamen wounded.”

  “Killed?” said Hornblower, his jaw dropping. “Who’s killed?”

  “John Hart, midshipman,” answered Walsh.

  Hart had been a promising seaman in the Lydia, and it was Hornblower himself who had promoted him to the quarterde
ck and obtained his warrant for him.

  “Killed?” said Hornblower again.

  “I can mark his ‘mortally wounded’, sir, if you prefer it,” said Walsh. “He lost a leg when a nine-pounder ball came in through No. 11 gun port on the lower deck. He was alive when they got him down to the cockpit, but he died the next minute. Popliteal artery.”

  Walsh was a new appointment, who had not served under Hornblower before. Otherwise he might have known better than to indulge in details of this sort with so much professional relish.

  “Get out of my road, blast you,” snarled Hornblower.

  His prospect of solitude was spoiled now. There would have to be a burial later in the day, with flag half mast and yards a-cockbill. That in itself was irksome. And it was Hart who was dead—a big gangling young man with a wide, pleasant smile. The thought of it robbed him of all pleasure in his achievements this morning. Bush was there on the quarterdeck, smiling happily both at the thought of what had been done today and at the thought of four solid hours’ exercise aloft for the hands. He would have liked to talk, and Gerard was there, eager to discuss the working of his beloved guns. Hornblower glared at them, daring them to address one single word to him; but they had served with him for years, and knew better.

  He turned and went below; the ships of the convoy were sending up flags—the sort of silly signals of congratulation one might expect of Indiamen, probably half of them mis-spelled. He could rely on Bush to hoist ‘Not understood’ until the silly fools got it right, and then to make a mere acknowledgment. He wanted nothing to do with them, or with anybody else. The one shred of comfort in a world which he hated was that, with a following wind and the convoy to leeward, he would be private in his stern gallery, concealed even from inquisitive telescopes in the other ships.

  Chapter VII

  Hornblower took a last pull at his cigar when he heard the drum beating to divisions. He exhaled a lungful of smoke, his head thrown back, looking out from under the cover of the stern gallery up at the blissful blue sky, and then down at the blue water beneath, with the dazzling white foam surging from under the Sutherland’s counter into her wake. Overhead he heard the measured tramp of the marines as they formed up across the poop deck, and then a brief shuffle of heavy boots as they dressed their line in obedience to the captain’s order. The patter of hundreds of pairs of feet acted as a subdued accompaniment as the crew formed up round the decks. When everything had fallen still again Hornblower pitched his cigar overboard, hitched his full dress coat into position, settled his cocked hat on his head, and walked with dignity, his left hand on his swordhilt, forward to the halfdeck and up the companion ladder to the quarterdeck. Bush was there, and Crystal, and the midshipman of the watch. They saluted him, and from farther aft came the snick-snack-snick of the marines presenting arms.

  Hornblower stood and looked round him in leisurely fashion; on this Sunday morning it was his duty to inspect the ship, and he could take advantage of the fact to drink in all the beauty and the artistry of the scene. Overhead the pyramids of white canvas described slow cones against the blue sky with the gentle roll of the ship. The decks were snowy white—Bush had succeeded in that in ten days’ labour—and the intense orderliness of a ship of war was still more intense on this morning of Sunday inspection. Hornblower shot a searching glance from under lowered eyelids at the crew ranged in long single lines along the gangways and on the maindeck. They were standing still, smart enough in their duck frocks and trousers. It was their bearing that he wished to study, and that could be done more effectively in a sweeping glance from the quarterdeck than at the close range of the inspection. There could be a certain hint of insolence in the way a restive crew stood to attention, and one could perceive lassitude in a dispirited crew. He could see neither now, for which he was thankful.

  Ten days of hard work, of constant drill, of unsleeping supervision, of justice tempered by good humour, had done much to settle the hands to their duty. He had had to order five floggings three days ago, forcing himself to stand apparently unmoved while the whistle and crack of the cat o’ nine tails sickened his stomach. One of those floggings might do a little good to the recipient—an old hand who had apparently forgotten what he had learned and needed a sharp reminder of it. The other four would do none to the men whose backs had been lacerated; they would never make good sailors and were mere brutes whom brutal treatment could at least make no worse. He had sacrificed them to show the wilder spirits what might happen as a result of inattention to orders—it was only by an actual demonstration that one could work on the minds of uneducated men. The dose had to be prescribed with the utmost accuracy, neither too great nor too small. He seemed, so his sweeping glance told him, to have hit it off exactly.

  Once more he looked round to enjoy the beauty of it all—the orderly ship, the white sails, the blue sky; the scarlet and pipeclay of the marines, the blue and gold of the officers; and there was consummate artistry in the subtle indications that despite the inspection the real pulsating life of the ship was going on beneath it. Where four hundred and more men stood at attention awaiting his lightest word the quartermaster at the wheel kept his mind on the binnacle and the leach of the main course, the lookouts at the masthead and the officer of the watch with his telescope were living demonstrations of the fact that the ship must still be sailed and the King’s service carried on.

  Hornblower turned aside to begin his inspection. He walked up and down the quadruple ranks of the marines, but although he ran his eye mechanically over the men he took notice of nothing. Captain Morris and his sergeants could be relied upon to attend to details like the pipeclaying of belts and the polishing of buttons. Marines could be drilled and disciplined into machines in a way sailors could not be; he could take the marines for granted and he was not interested in them. Even now, after ten days, he hardly knew the faces and names of six out of the ninety marines on board.

  He passed on to the lines of seamen, the officers of each division standing rigidly in front. This was more interesting. The men were trim and smart in their whites—Hornblower wondered how many of them ever realised that the cost of their clothing was deducted from the meagre pay they received when they were paid off. Some of the new hands were horribly sunburned, as a result of unwise exposure to the sudden blazing sun of yesterday. A blond burly figure here had lost the skin from his forearms as well as from his neck and forehead. Hornblower recognised him as Waites, condemned for sheepstealing at Exeter assizes—that explained the sunburn, for Waites had been blanched by months of imprisonment awaiting trial. The raw areas looked abominably painful.

  “See that this man Waites,” said Hornblower to the petty officer of the division, “attends the surgeon this afternoon. He is to have goose grease for those burns, and whatever lotions the surgeon prescribes.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the petty officer.

  Hornblower passed on down the line, scanning each man closely. Faces well remembered, faces it was still an effort to put a name to. Faces that he had studied two years back in the far Pacific on board the Lydia, faces he had first seen when Gerard brought back his boat load of bewildered captures from St. Ives. Swarthy faces and pale, boys and elderly men, blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes. A host of tiny impressions were collecting in Hornblower’s mind; they would be digested together later during his solitary walks in the stern gallery, to form the raw material for the plans he would make to further the efficiency of his crew.

  “That man Simms ought to be rated captain of the mizzen-top. He’s old enough now. What’s this man’s name? Dawson? No, Dawkins. He’s looking sulky. One of Goddard’s gang—it looks as if he’s still resenting Goddard’s flogging. I must remember that.”

  The sun blazed down upon them, while the ship lifted and swooped over the gentle sea. From the crew he turned his attention to the ship—the breechings of the guns, the way the falls were flemished down, the cleanliness of the decks, the galley and the forecastle. At all this he need only pr
etend to look—the skies would fall before Bush neglected his duty. But he had to go through with it, with a show of solemnity. Men were oddly influenced—the poor fools would work better for Bush if they thought Hornblower was keeping an eye on him, and they would work better for Hornblower if they thought he inspected the ship thoroughly. This wretched business of capturing men’s devotion set Hornblower smiling cynically when he was unobserved.

  “A good inspection, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, returning to the quarterdeck. “The ship is in better order than I hoped for. I shall expect the improvement to continue. You may rig the church now.”

  It was a Godfearing Admiralty who ordered church service every Sunday morning, otherwise Hornblower would have dispensed with it, as befitted a profound student of Gibbon. As it was, he had managed to evade having a chaplain on board—Hornblower hated parsons. He watched the men dragging up mess stools for themselves, and chairs for the officers. They were working diligently and cheerfully, although not with quite that disciplined purposefulness which characterised a fully trained crew. His coxswain Brown covered the compass box on the quarterdeck with a cloth, and laid on it, with due solemnity, Hornblower’s Bible and prayer book. Hornblower disliked these services; there was always the chance that some devout member of his compulsory congregation might raise objections to having to attend—Catholic or Nonconformist. Religion was the only power which could ever pit itself against the bonds of discipline; Hornblower remembered a theologically minded master’s mate who had once protested against his reading the Benediction, as though he, the King’s representative at sea—God’s representative, when all was said and done—could not read a Benediction if he chose!