A Ship of the Line h-8

by Cecil Scott Forester

  Bush was shouting something now, and pointing away over the quarter, and Hornblower followed the gesture with his eyes. The Pluto had vanished, and for a moment Hornblower thought she must have sunk with all hands. Then a breaking wave revealed her, right over on her beam ends, the grey waves breaking clean over her exposed bottom, her yards pointing to the sky, sails and rigging showing momentarily black through the white foam in the lee of her.

  “Jesus Christ!” yelled Bush. “The poor devils have gone!”

  “Set the main topmast stays’l again!” yelled Hornblower back.

  She had not sunk yet; there might possibly be some survivors, who might live long enough in the wild sea to grab a rope’s end from the Sutherland’s deck and who might be hauled on board without being beaten to death; it had to be tried even though it was a hundred to one against one of the thousand men on board being saved. Horn-blower worked the Sutherland slowly over towards the Pluto. Still the latter lived, with the waves breaking over her as if she were a half tide rock. Hornblower’s imagination pictured what was happening on board—the decks nearly vertical, with everything carrying away and smashing which could. On the weather side the guns would be hanging by their breechings; the least unsoundness there and they would fall straight down the decks, to smash holes on the opposite side which would sink her in a flash. Men would be crawling about in the darkness below decks; on the main deck the men who had not been washed away would be clinging on like flies on a windowpane, soused under as the waves broke.

  Through his levelled glass he caught sight of a speck on the exposed upper side of the Pluto, a speck that moved, a speck which survived the breach of a wave over it. There were other specks, too, and there was a gleam of something in swift regular movement. Some gallant soul had got a party together to hack at the weather shrouds of the mainmast, and as the Sutherland closed he saw the shrouds part, and the foremast shrouds as well. With a shuddering roll the Pluto heaved herself out of the water like a whale, water cascading from her scuppers, and as she rolled towards the Sutherland her mizzen-mast went as well, on the opposite side. Freed from the overpowering leverage of her top hamper she had managed to recover—naval discipline and courage had won her a further chance of life during the few seconds which had been granted her while she lay on her beam ends. Hornblower could see men still hard at work, hacking madly at the uncut shrouds to free the ship from the wreckage thrashing alongside.

  But she was in poor case. Her mast had gone, a few feet from the deck; even her bowsprit had disappeared. And with the loss of their steadying weight the bare hull was rolling insanely, heaving right over until her bottom copper was exposed on one side, and then rolling equally far back again taking only a few seconds to accomplish a roll which extended through far more than a right angle. The wonder was that she did not roll over and over, as a wooden ninepin might do, floating on one side. Inside the ship it must be like an inferno, like a madman’s nightmare; and yet she lived, she floated, with some at least of her crew alive on her decks. Overhead the thunder pealed a final roll. Even westward, to leeward, there was a gap visible through the clouds, and the Spanish sun was trying to break through. The wind was no more now than a strong gale. It was the last hurricane effort of the storm which had done the damage.

  And yet that last effort must have endured longer than Hornblower could have guessed. He was suddenly conscious of Cape Creux large upon the horizon, and the wind was driving nearly straight from the ship towards it. It would only be a matter of an hour or two before the dismantled hulk was in the shallows at the foot of the cape where certain destruction awaited her—and to make it doubly certain there were French guns on Cape Creux ready to pound a helpless target.

  “Mr. Vincent,” said Hornblower. “Make this signal. ‘Sutherland to flagship. Am about to give assistance’.”

  That made Bush jump. In that boiling sea, on a lee shore, the Sutherland would find it difficult to give assistance to a mastless hulk twice her size. Hornblower turned upon him.

  “Mr. Bush, I want the bower cable got out through a stern port. As quickly as you can, if you please. I am going to tow the flagship off.”

  Bush could only look his expostulations—he knew his captain too well to demur openly. But anyone could see that for the Sutherland to attempt the task was to take her into danger probably uselessly. The scheme would be practically impossible from the start, owing to the difficulty of getting the cable to the Pluto as she rolled and lunged, wildly and aimlessly, in the trough. Nevertheless, Bush was gone before Hornblower could do more than read his expression. With that wind steadily thrusting them towards the land every second was of value.

  With her flat bottom and with all her top hamper exposed to the wind the Sutherland was going off to leeward a good deal faster than the Pluto. Hornblower had to work his ship with the utmost care, fighting his way to windward close-hauled before heaving-to and allowing her to drop back again; there was only the smallest margin to spare. The gale was still blowing strongly, and the least clumsiness in handling, the slightest accident to sail, or spar, meant danger. Despite the chill of the wind and the steady rain the Sutherland’s topmen were sweating freely soon, thanks to the constant active exertion demanded of them by their captain, as he backed and filled, worked up to windward and went about, keeping his ship hovering round the dismasted Pluto like a seagull round a bit of wreckage. And Cape Creux was growing nearer and nearer. From below came a steady tramp and thumps and dragging noises as Bush’s party slaved away to haul the ponderous twenty-inch cable aft along the lower gun deck.

  Now Hornblower was measuring distances with his eye, and gauging the direction of the wind with the utmost care. He could not hope to haul the Pluto bodily out to sea—it was as much as the Sutherland could do to work herself to windward—and all he intended was to tow her aside a trifle to gain advantage of the respite, the additional sea room which would be afforded by avoiding the cape. Postponement of disaster was always a gain. The wind might drop—probably would—or change, and given time the Pluto’s crew would be able to set up jury masts and get their ship under some sort of control. Cape Creux was nearly due west, and the wind was a little north of east, the tiniest trifle north. It would be best from that point of view to drag the Pluto away southerly; in that case they stood a better chance of weathering the cape. But southwards from Cape Creux stretched Rosas Bay, limited southward by Cape Bagur, and such a course might drift them under the guns of Rosas, expose them to the annoyance of the gunboats which were probably stationed there, and end in worse disaster than before. Northwards there would be no such danger, the guns at Llanza could not be remounted yet, and there were twenty miles of clear water from the tip of the cape to Llanza anyway. Northwards was safer—if only he could be sure of weathering the cape. Hornblower’s imagination was hard at work trying to calculate, on quite insufficient data, the rate of drift he could expect and the possible distance the Sutherland would be able to tow the dismasted three-decker in the time granted. With the data insufficient, imagination was all he had to go upon. He had decided on a northward course when a young seaman came running breathless up to the quarterdeck.

  “Mr. Bush says the cable’ll be ready in five minutes, sir,” he said.

  “Right,” answered Hornblower. “Mr. Vincent, signal to the flagship ‘Stand by to receive a line.’ Mr. Morkell, pass the word for my coxswain.”

  A line! The quarterdeck officers stared at each other. The Pluto was plunging and lunging quite irrationally in the trough of the sea. She was still heeling over so as to show her copper before rolling back to bury the white streaks between her gunports, but in addition, in the irregular sea, she was lunging now forward, now aft, as incalculable whim took her. She was as dangerous to approach as a gun loose on a rolling deck. Any sort of collision between the ships might well, in that sea, send them both incontinently to the bottom.

  Hornblower ran his eyes over Brown’s bulging muscles as he stood before him.

  “Br
own,” he said, “I’ve selected you to heave a line to the flagship as we go down past her. D’you know anyone in the ship who could do it better? Frankly, now.”

  “No, sir. I can’t say as I do, sir.”

  Brown’s cheerful self confidence was like a tonic.

  “What are you going to use, then?”

  “One o’ them belayin’ pins, sir, an’ a lead line, if I can have one, sir.”

  Brown was a man of instant decision—Hornblower’s heart warmed to him, not for the first time.

  “Make ready, then. I shall lay our stern as close to the flagship’s bows as is safe.”

  At the moment the Sutherland was forging slowly ahead under storm jib and close reefed topsails, two hundred yards to windward of the Pluto. Hornblower’s mind became a calculating machine again, estimating the Sutherland’s relative drift down upon the Pluto, the latter’s drunken reelings and plungings, the Sutherland’s present headway, the send of the waves and the chances of a cross-wave intervening. He had to wait for two long minutes before the moment for which he was waiting should arrive, his eyes glued upon the Pluto until their relative positions should be exactly what he wanted.

  “Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower—his mind was too busy for him to be afraid. “Back the main tops’l.”

  The Sutherland’s way was checked. At once the gap between the two ships began to narrow, as the Sutherland drifted down upon the Pluto–a gap of grey angry water with bearded waves. Fortunately the Pluto was lying fairly constantly in the trough without yawing, only surging forward or back as some unexpected sea struck her. Brown was standing statuesquely on the taffrail, balancing superbly. The lead line was coiled on the deck at his side, attached to the belaying pin which he swung pendulum fashion, idly, from his fist. He made a magnificent picture there against the sky, with no hint of nervousness as he watched the distance dwindle. Even at that moment Hornblower felt a hint of envy of Brown’s physique and robust self-confidence. The Sutherland was coming down fast upon the Pluto–upon the latter’s wave-swept forecastle Hornblower could see a group of men waiting anxiously to catch the line. He looked to make sure that Brown’s assistants were ready with the stouter line to bend on the lead line.

  “We’ll do it, by God!” said Gerard to Crystal.

  Gerard was wrong—at the present relative rate of drift the ships would pass at least ten yards farther apart than Brown could be expected to throw the belaying pin and its hampering trailer of line.

  “Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower coldly. “Back the mizzen tops’l.”

  The hands were ready at the braces; the order was hardly given before it was executed. The Sutherland was making a tiny trifle of sternway now, and the gap was closing farther still. The Pluto’s towering bow, lifting to a wave, seemed right upon them. Gerard and Crystal were swearing softly in unison, without the slightest idea of what they were saying, as they watched, fascinated. Hornblower felt the wind blowing cold about his shoulders. He wanted to call to Brown to throw, and with difficulty checked himself. Brown was the better judge of what he could do. Then he threw, with the Sutherland’s stern lifting to a wave. The belaying pin flew with the line wavering behind it in the wind. It just reached the Pluto’s beak-head bows and caught round a remnant of the standing rigging of the bowsprit, where a ragged sailor astride the spar seized it with a wave of his arm. Next moment a wave broke clean over him, but he held on, and they saw him pass the end of the line up to the waiting group on the forecastle.

  “Done it!” shrieked Gerard. “Done it, done it, done it!”

  “Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Brace the mizzen tops’l sharp up.”

  The line was uncoiling fast from the deck as the Pluto hauled it in; soon the heavier line was on its way out to the dismasted ship. But they had not long to spare; with their different rates of drift it was impossible for Hornblower in that gale to keep the two ships that same distance apart—impossible and dangerous. The Sutherland hove-to went to leeward faster than the Pluto; closehauled she forged ahead, and it was Hornblower’s task to combine these two factors so that the increasing distance between the ships was kept down to a minimum—a nice algebraic problem in convergent series which Hornblower had to convert into mental arithmetic and solve in his head.

  When suddenly the Pluto decided irrationally to rush forward upon the Sutherland he found himself recasting his estimates at the very moment when everyone else was holding their breath and waiting for the collision. Gerard had a couple of parties standing by with spars to try to bear the Pluto off—not that they could have achieved much against her three thousand tons deadweight—and the bight of an old sail filled with hammocks as a fend-off, and there was wild activity on the forecastle of the Pluto as well, but at the very last moment, with blasphemy crackling all round, the dismasted ship suddenly sheered off and everyone breathed again more freely, except Hornblower. If the Pluto could surge in that fashion towards the Sutherland, she could surge away from her also, and if she were to do so while the line was hauling in the twenty-three inch cable she would part the line for certain and leave the whole business to be done again—and Cape Creux was looming very near now.

  “Caligula signalling, sir,” said Vincent. “How can I help?”

  “Reply ‘Wait’,” said Hornblower over his shoulder to him; he had actually forgotten the Caligula’s existence. Bolton would be a fool if he came down unnecessarily to leeward, towards a hostile lee shore.

  A mighty splash over the stern indicated that Bush down below was paying out some of the hawser through the after-port so as to provide some slack if the Pluto surged away, but the process might be overdone—it was a hemp cable, which sank in water, and to have out too much would imperil the line which was drawing it in. Hornblower leaned over the heaving stern.

  “Mr. Bush!” he bellowed.

  “Sir!” said Bush’s voice from below through the open port.

  “Avast there, now!”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The line was taking the strain now, and the cable was creeping slowly out towards the Pluto like some sea worm. Hornblower watched as it straightened—this was a business demanding calculation as close as any so far. He had to shout his orders for Bush to pay out more cable, or to wait, his eyes on the ships, on the sea, on the wind. The cable was two hundred yards long, but fifty of these lay in the Sutherland herself—the job had to be completed before the ships were a hundred and fifty yards apart. Hornblower only began to feel relieved when he saw the end of the cable curve up out of the sea on to the Pluto’s bows, and the waving of flags told him that the end had been taken inboard and made fast.

  Hornblower looked at the nearing land, felt the wind on his cheek. His earlier calculations were proving correct, and if they held on this tack they would be drifted into Rosas Bay even if they cleared the land.

  “Mr. Vincent,” he said. “Signal to the Flagship ‘I am preparing to go about on the other tack’.”

  Gerard looked his amazement. It appeared to him that Hornblower was going to unnecessary trouble and imperilling both ships by this manoeuvre—he could see no farther than Cape Creux, only the friendly sea and the dangerous land. With a seamen’s instinct he wanted to get both ships comfortably under control with sea room under their lee, and he did not stop to consider beyond that. He could see the land and feel the wind, and his reaction to those circumstances was instinctive.

  “Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Go to the wheel. When the strain comes on the hawser—”

  Gerard did not need to be told about that. With three thousand tons trailing on her stern the Sutherland would behave unlike any ship the quartermasters had ever steered, and extraordinary and unexpected measures would have to be taken to keep her from flying up into the wind. The hawser was tightening already. The bight of it rose slowly out of the sea, straightening like a bar, the water spouting out of it in fountains, while a thunderous creaking below told how the bins were feeling the strain. Then the cable slackened a trifle, the
creaking diminished, and the Sutherland had got the Pluto under way. With every yard they went, and every bit of way the Pluto received, the latter sagged less and less to leeward. As soon as she could answer the helm the strain on the Sutherland’s quartermasters would be eased.

  Bush came up on the quarterdeck again, his task below completed.

  “I want you to work the ship, Mr. Bush, when we go about.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Bush. He looked at the land, and felt the wind, and his thoughts followed an exact parallel to Gerard’s, but Bush by now never dreamed of doubting his captain’s judgment in a matter of seamanship. His mental state was now that if Hornblower thought it right, it must be so, and there was no need to wonder about it.

  “Send the hands to the braces. It must be like lightning when I give the word.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The Pluto was gathering way, and every yard after this that they made in a southerly direction would be a dead loss when they turned northerly.

  “Back the mizzen tops’l,” said Hornblower.

  The Sutherland lost way, and the Pluto came steadily forging down upon her. Hornblower could actually see Captain Elliott come running forward to see for himself what was happening. He could not guess what Hornblower was intending.

  “Have the signal ‘Tack’ bent and ready to send up, Mr. Vincent.”

  The Pluto was very near now.

  “Brace the mizzen tops’l up, Mr. Bush.”

  The Sutherland gathered speed again—she had just the distance allowed by the slackening of the hawser in which to gather way and go about before the two began to interfere. Hornblower watched the cable and estimated the speed of the ship through the water.

  “Now, Mr. Bush! That signal, Mr. Vincent!”

  The helm was put down, the yards braced up, with Rayner forward attending to the fore topmast staysail. She was coming round, her canvas volleying as she came into the wind; on board the Pluto as they read the signal they had the sense to put their own helm down too, and with steerage way upon her she began to come round a little and allow Hornblower a little more room for his manoeuvres. Now the Sutherland was over on the opposite tack, and gathering way, but the Pluto was only half way round. There would be a terrific jerk in a moment. Hornblower watched the tightening cable rising from the sea.