A Ship of the Line h-8

by Cecil Scott Forester

  For a moment Hornblower wished that, contrary to etiquette he had taken command of the landing party, fearing lest a disorderly and piecemeal attack should waste all the advantages gained. No, Bush was safe enough. He could see him through his glass, leaping up on to the road and then turning to face the landing party. Hornblower could see Bush’s arms wave as he gave his orders. Someone led off a party of seamen to the right—that was Rayner, for Hornblower’s straining eyes could perceive his bald head and unmistakable round shouldered gait. Morris was taking the marines—a solid block of scarlet—off to the left. Bush was forming up the remainder in the centre—Bush was clearheaded enough. There were three gullies in the face of the cliff, marked with straggling greenery, and indicating the easiest points of ascent. As the flanking parties reached the bottom of their paths, Hornblower saw Bush’s sword flash as he called his men on. They were breasting the cliffs now, all three parties simultaneously. A tiny faint cheer crept out over the water to the ship.

  One or two of the main deck guns were making better practice now. Twice Hornblower thought he saw earth flying from the embrasures as shots struck them; so much the better, but the firing must stop now that the men were mounting the cliff. He pealed on his whistle and bellowed the order. In dead silence the ship slid on through the water while every eye watched the landing party. They were pouring over the top now. Sudden gusts of smoke showed that the guns were firing again—canister or grape, probably. Any of those parties caught in a whirlpool of canister from a forty-two pounder might well be wiped out. Weapons were sparkling on the parapet; little pinpricks of smoke indicated small arm fire. Now out on the left the red coats of the marines were on the very top of the parapet, a white clad sailor was waving from the centre. They were pouring over, although red dots and white dots littered the face of the parapet to mark where men had fallen. One anxious minute with nothing to see seemed to last for hours. And then the tricolour flag came slowly down its staff, and the hands on the main deck burst into a storm of cheering. Hornblower shut his glass with a snap.

  “Mr. Gerard, put the ship about. Send in the quarter boats to take possession of the craft in the bay.”

  There were four tantanes, a felucca, and two cutter-rigged boats clustered at anchor in the tiny bay below the battery—a fine haul especially if they were fully laden. Hornblower saw the dinghies pulling madly from them for the shore on the side away from the battery, as the crews fled to escape captivity. Hornblower was glad to see them go; he did not want to be burdened with prisoners, and he had been a prisoner himself for two weary years in Ferrol. Something fell in an avalanche down the cliff, crashing on to the road at its foot in a cloud of dust and debris. It was a forty-two pounder heaved up by brute force over the parapet; Bush had got to work quickly enough at dismantling the battery—if Bush were still alive. Another gun followed at an interval, and another after that.

  The small craft, two of them towing the quarter boats, were beating out towards the Sutherland where she lay hove-to awaiting them, and the landing party was coming down the cliff face again and forming up on the beach. Lingering groups indicated that the wounded were being brought down. All these necessary delays seemed to stretch the anticlimax into an eternity. A bellowing roar from the battery and a fountain of earth and smoke—momentarily like those volcanoes at whose foot the Lydia had anchored last commission—told that the magazine had been fired. Now at last the launch and the long boat were pulling back to the ship, and Hornblower’s telescope, trained on the sternsheets of the long boat, revealed Bush sitting there, alive and apparently well. Even then, it was a relief to see him come rolling aft, his big craggy face wreathed in smiles, to make his report.

  “The Frogs bolted out of the back door as we came in at the front,” he said. “They hardly lost a man. We lost—”

  Hornblower had to nerve himself to listen to a pitiful list. Now that the excitement was over he felt weak and ill, and it was only by an effort that he was able to keep his hands from trembling. And it was only by an effort that he could make himself smile and mouth out words of commendation first to the men whom Bush singled out for special mention and then to the whole crew drawn up on the maindeck. For hours he had been walking the quarterdeck pretending to be imperturbable, and now he was in the throes of the reaction. He left it to Bush to deal with the prizes, to allot them skeleton crews and send them off to Port Mahon, while without a word of excuse he escaped below to his cabin. He had even forgotten that the ship had been cleared for action, so that in his search for privacy he had to sit in his hammock chair at the end of the stern gallery, just out of sight from the stern windows, while the men were replacing the bulkheads and securing the guns. He lay back, his arms hanging and his eyes closed, with the water bubbling under the counter below him and the rudder pintles groaning at his side. Each time the ship went about as Bush worked her out to make an offing his head sagged over to the opposite shoulder.

  What affected him most was the memory of the risks he had run; at the thought of them little cold waves ran down his back and legs. He had been horribly reckless in his handling of the ship—only by the greatest good fortune was she not now a dismasted wreck, with half her crew killed and wounded, drifting on to a lee shore, with an exultant enemy awaiting her. It was Hornblower’s nature to discount his achievements to himself, to make no allowance for the careful precautions he had taken to ensure success, for his ingenuity in making the best of circumstances. He cursed himself for a reckless fool, and for his habit of plunging into danger and only counting the risk afterwards.

  A rattle of cutlery and crockery in the cabin recalled him to himself, and he sat up and resumed his unmoved countenance just in time as Polwheal came out into the stern gallery.

  “I’ve’ got you a mouthful to eat, sir,” he said. “You’ve had nought since yesterday.”

  Hornblower suddenly knew that he was horribly hungry, and at the same time he realised that he had forgotten the coffee Polwheal had brought him, hours ago, to the quarterdeck. Presumably that had stayed there to grow cold until Polwheal fetched it away. With real pleasure he got up and walked into the cabin; so tempting was the prospect of food and drink that he felt hardly a twinge of irritation at having Polwheal thus fussing over him and trying to mother him and probably getting ready to make overmuch advantage of his position. The cold tongue was delicious, and Polwheal with uncanny intuition had put out a half bottle of claret—not one day a month did Hornblower drink anything stronger than water when by himself, yet today he drank three glasses of claret, knowing that he wanted them, and enjoying every drop.

  And as the food and the wine strengthened him, and his fatigue dropped away, his mind began to busy itself with new plans, devising, without his conscious volition, fresh methods of harassing the enemy. As he drank his coffee the ideas began to stir within him, and yet he was not conscious of them. All he knew was the cabin was suddenly stuffy and cramped, and that he was yearning again for the fresh air and fierce sunshine outside. Polwheal, returning to clear the table, saw his captain through the stern windows pacing the gallery, and years of service under Hornblower had taught him to make the correct deductions from Hornblower’s bent, thoughtful head, and the hands which, although clasped behind him, yet twisted and turned one within the other as he worked out each prospective development.

  In consequence of what Polwheal had to tell, the lower deck all knew that another move was imminent, fully two hours before Hornblower appeared on the quarterdeck and gave the orders which precipitated it.

  Chapter XI

  “They’re shooting well, sir,” said Bush, as a fountain of water leaped suddenly and mysteriously into brief life a hundred yards from the port beam. “Who couldn’t shoot well with their advantages?” answered Gerard.

  “Forty-two pounders, on permanent mounts fifty feet above the water, and soldiers to serve ‘em ten years in the ranks?”

  “I’ve seen ‘em shoot worse, all the same,” said Crystal.

  �
�It’s a mile an’ a half if it’s a yard,” said Bush.

  “More than that,” said Crystal.

  “A scant mile,” said Gerard.

  “Nonsense,” said Bush.

  Hornblower broke into their wrangling.

  “Your attention, please, gentlemen. And I shall want Rayner and Hooker—pass the word, there, for Mr. Rayner and Mr. Hooker. Now, study the place with care.”

  A dozen telescopes trained on Port Vendres, with the sunset reddening behind. In the background Mount Canigou stood out with a startling illusion of towering height; to the left the spurs of the Pyrenees ran clean down into the sea at Cape Cerbera, marking where Spain had ended and France began. In the centre the white houses of Port Vendres showed pink under the sunset, clustering round the head of the little bay. In front of them a vessel swung at anchor, under the protection of the batteries on either side of the bay which were marked by occasional puffs of smoke as the guns there tried repeatedly, at extremely long range, to hit the insolent ship which was flaunting British colours within sight of the Empire’s coasts.

  “Mark that battery to the left, Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Mr. Rayner, you see the battery to the right—there goes a gun. Mark it well. I want no mistake made. Mr. Hooker, you see how the bay curves? You must be able to take a boat straight up to the ship there tonight.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Hooker, while the other officers exchanged glances.

  “Put the ship upon the port tack, Mr. Bush. We must stand out to sea, now. These are your orders, gentlemen.”

  Turning from one officer to another, Hornblower ran briefly through their instructions. The ship sheltering in Port Vendres was to be cut and taken that night as a climax to the twenty-four hours which had begun with the capture of the Amelie and continued with the storming of the battery at Llanza.

  “The moon rises at one o’clock. I shall take care to be back in our present position here at midnight,” said Hornblower.

  With good fortune, the garrison of Port Vendres might be lured into tranquillity by the sight of the Sutherland sailing away now, and she could return unobserved after nightfall. An hour of darkness would suffice to effect a surprise, and the rising moon would give sufficient light for the captured ship to be brought out if successful, and for the attackers to rally and escape if unsuccessful.

  “Mr. Bush will remain in command of the ship,” said Hornblower.

  “Sir!” protested Bush. “Please sir—”

  “You’ve won sufficient distinction today, Bush,” said Hornblower.

  Hornblower was going in with the attack. He knew that he would not be able to bear the anxiety of waiting outside with the firing and the fighting going on inside—he was in a fever already, now that he was allowing his mind to dwell on the prospective action, although he was taking care not to show it.

  “Every man in the boarding party must be a seaman,” said Hornblower. “Mr. Gerard and Mr. Rayner can divide the marines between them.”

  His listeners nodded, understanding. To set sail in a strange ship and get her under way in darkness would call for seamanship.

  “You all understand what is expected of you?” asked Hornblower, and they nodded again. “Mr. Hooker, repeat your orders.”

  Hooker repeated them accurately. He was a good officer as Hornblower had known when he had recommended him for promotion to lieutenant on the Lydia’s return.

  “Good,” said Hornblower. “Then, gentlemen, you will please set your watches with mine. There will be enough light from the stars to read them. What, no watch, Mr. Hooker? Perhaps Mr. Bush will be good enough to lend you his.”

  Hornblower could see, from his officers’ expressions, that this synchronisation of the watches had impressed upon them the necessity for accurately conforming to the timetable which he had laid down, in a fashion nothing else could have done. Otherwise they would have paid only casual attention to the intervals of ‘five minutes’ and ‘ten minutes’ which he had given, and he could appreciate in a manner they could not, the necessity for exact adherence to schedule in a complex operation carried out in the darkness.

  “You are all agreed now? Then perhaps all you gentlemen with the exception of the officer of the watch will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner.”

  Again the officers interchanged glances; those dinners in Hornblower’s cabin on the eve of action were famous. Savage could remember one on board the Lydia before the duel with the Natividad. The other two present then had been Galbraith the lieutenant of his division, and Clay, his best friend. And Galbraith had died of gangrene in the far Pacific, and Clay’s head had been smashed by a cannon ball.

  “There’ll be no whist tonight, Savage,” smiled Hornblower, reading his thoughts. “There will be too much to do before midnight.”

  Often before Hornblower had insisted on whist before action, and had concealed his own nervousness by criticism of the play of his preoccupied fellow players. Now he was forcing himself to be smiling, genial, and hospitable as he led the way into the cabin. His nervous tension inclined to make him talkative, and this evening, when his guests were more tongue-tied even than usual, he could for once give rein to his inclinations, and chat freely in an attempt to keep conversation going. The others eyed him, wondering as he smiled and gossiped. They never saw him in this mood except on the eve of action, and they had forgotten how human and fascinating he could be when he employed all his wiles to captivate them. For him it was a convenient way to keep his mind off the approaching action, thus to exercise himself in fascination while still drawing the rigid line which divided the captain from his subordinates.

  “I am afraid,” said Hornblower in the end, crumpling his napkin and tossing it on to the table, “it is time for us to go on deck again, gentlemen. What a mortal pity to break up this gathering!”

  They left the lamplit brilliance of the cabin for the darkness of the deck. The stars were glowing in the dark sky, and the Sutherland was stealing ghostlike over the sea which reflected them; her pyramids of canvas soared up to invisibility, and the only sounds to be heard were the rattle of the rigging and the periodic music of the water under her forefoot as she rode over the tiny invisible waves. The crew was resting on the gangways and the maindeck, conversing in whispers, and when the subdued voices of their officers called them to duty they mustered silently, each division assembling for its particular duty. Hornblower checked the position of the ship with Bush, and strained his eye through his nightglass towards the invisible shore.

  “Longboat crew here!” called Gerard softly.

  “Launch crew here!” echoed Rayner, and their allotted parties formed up quietly abreast the main mast.

  The cutters’ crews were assembling on the quarterdeck; Hornblower was taking two hundred and fifty men altogether—if the expedition were a complete disaster Bush would hardly have sufficient men to navigate the Sutherland back to the rendezvous.

  “You can heave-to, Mr. Bush,” he said.

  One by one the boats were hoisted out, and lay on their oars a few yards off. Last of all, Hornblower went down the side and seated himself beside Brown and Longley in the stern of the barge; the men at the oars pushed off at a growl from Brown, and the flotilla, with muffled oars, began to pull steadily away from the ship. The darkness was intense, and, by the usual optical illusion, seemed still more intense close to the surface of the sea than up on the deck of the Sutherland. Slowly the barge drew ahead, and as the longboat and launch diverged out on each quarter they were rapidly lost to sight. The oars seemed to touch the velvety blackness of the sea without a sound.

  Hornblower made himself sit still, his hand resting on the hilt of his fifty-guinea sword. He wanted to crane his neck round and look at the other boats; with every minute’s inaction he grew more nervous. Some fool of a marine might fiddle with the lock of his musket, or someone’s pistol, carelessly left at full cock, might go off as its owner tugged at his oar. The slightest warning given on shore would ruin the whole attack
; might mean the loss of hundreds of lives, and call down upon his head—if he survived—a withering rebuke from his admiral. Grimly he made himself sit still for five more minutes before taking up his nightglass.

  Then at last he caught the faintest possible glimpse of grey cliff. With his hand on the tiller he altered course until they were almost in the mouth of the inlet.

  “Easy!” he breathed, and the boat glided silently forward under the stars. Close astern two tiny nuclei of greater darkness indicated where the two cutters rested on their oars. Holding his watch under his nose he could just see the time—he must wait three full minutes.

  A distant sound reached his ear; there were oars pulling in the harbour. He heard them splashing two hundred yards ahead; he fancied he could see the splashes. The French were, as he expected, rowing a guard round their precious ship. Yet her captain had not realised that a guard boat rowing with muffled oars, creeping very slowly along, would be a far more dangerous obstacle to a cutting-out expedition than any boat merely busily rowing up and down across the entrance. He looked at his watch again.

  “Oars,” he whispered, and the men braced themselves ready to pull. “There’s the guard boat ahead. Remember, men, cold steel. If any man fires before I do I’ll shoot him with my own hand. Give way!”

  The barge crept forward again, stealing into the harbour. In a few more seconds she would be at the point where the batteries’ fire crossed, the point which sentries would have under constant observation, upon which the guns would be laid at nightfall so that a salvo would blow any approaching boat out of the water. For a horrible second Hornblower wondered whether launch and longboat had gone astray. Then he heard it. A loud challenge on his right, heard clearly across the water, followed by another on his left, and both instantly drowned in a wild rattle of musketry fire. Rayner and Gerard were leading their parties against the batteries, and both of them as their orders had dictated, were making an infernal noise about it so as to distract the gunners at the vital moment.