A Ship of the Line h-8

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Send this message,” he said abruptly to Vincent.

  Hoist after hoist the flags crept up the mast. The Cassandra was to set all sail she could carry, and to make use of her frigate’s turn of speed to turn westward, seek out the Pluto and Caligula–Hornblower could not be exact in his description of their position—and bring them down to Barcelona. Phrase by phrase the Cassandra acknowledged the signal. Then there was a pause after its completion, before Vincent, glass to eye, reported.

  “Cassandra signalling, sir. ‘Submit—’.”

  It was the first time Hornblower had ever had that word addressed to him. He had used it so often in signals to admirals and senior captains, had included it so often in reports, and now another officer was beginning a signal to him with the word ‘Submit’. It was a clear, definite proof of his growing seniority, and gave him a thrill keener even than he had known when a ship had first piped the side for him on his being posted. Yet naturally the word ‘submit’ ushered in a protest. Cooke of the Cassandra was not in the least anxious to be thus summarily dismissed from the scene of a promising action. He submitted that it would be better for the Cassandra to stay in sight of the French.

  “Signal ‘Carry out orders acknowledged’,” said Hornblower, tersely.

  Cooke was wrong and he was right—Cooke’s protest helped his decision to crystallise. A frigate’s whole function, what she was built for, was to enable the ships of the line to come into action. The Cassandra could not face a single broadside from one of the ships rolling along after her; if she could bring the Pluto and the Caligula into action she would have multiplied her own value an infinity of times. It was heart-warming to Hornblower to be not only convinced that he was right, but to be able to enforce the course of action he had decided upon. That six months’ difference in seniority made Cooke obedient to him, and would make him obedient all their lives—if ever Cooke and he flew their flags together as admirals, he would still be the senior and Cooke the junior. He watched the Cassandra shake out the reefs from her topsails and bear away westwards, with all her five knots’ superiority of speed being put to its best use now.

  “Shorten sail, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower.

  The French would see the Cassandra vanish over their horizon; there was a chance that the Sutherland might keep them under observation without being seen. He stuck his telescope into his pocket and set himself to climb the mizzen rigging, sedately—even a little laboriously; it was imperilling his dignity to do so, when every hand in the ship could climb the mast quicker than he, but he had to see with his own eyes the enemy astern of him. The ship was plunging heavily in the following sea, and the wind blew keenly about his ears. It called for resolution to continue his ascent without undignified pauses, so as to appear merely as leisurely as a captain had a right to be, and yet neither timid nor awkward.

  At last he found a secure perch on the mizzen topmast cross trees, and could train his glass on the heaving horizon. With her main topsail taken in the Sutherland’s speed was considerably reduced, and it could not be long before the French appeared. He saw them soon enough—a tiny rectangle of white just lifting over the horizon, then another beside it, and another, and another.

  “Mr. Bush!” he roared. “Set the main tops’l again, if you please. And send Mr. Savage up here.”

  The four French ships were rolling along in lubberly French fashion in a wide line abreast, half a mile apart—presumably their captains were afraid of collision if they drew closer—and it was a hundred to one that their lookouts would never notice the tiny dot which would be all they could see of the Sutherland. Savage came tumbling up beside him, hardly out of breath after his lightning scramble up the ratlines.

  “Take this glass,” said Hornblower. “You see the French squadron? I want to hear instantly if they alter course, or if they headreach upon us, or we on them.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Savage.

  He had done all he could do now, when he reached the deck again. It only remained to wait, patiently, until tomorrow. Tomorrow would see some sort of battle, hopeless or even—or if there were no battle it would mean that the French had disappeared and he would go before a court martial. He was careful to keep his expression quite composed, and to try and appear as if he did not feel the tension of waiting in the least. It would be in the old tradition if he invited his officers to dinner and whist tonight.

  Chapter XX

  The situation was one likely to disturb any captain’s sleep, with four hostile ships of the line to windward needing to be kept under observation, and with calculations continually bobbing up from the subconscious to the conscious regarding the chances of the Cassandra bringing down Admiral Leighton in time to cut off the enemy. The weather conditions were unsettling, too—the wind, having worked up nearly to a gale force towards evening, diminished until midnight, increased again, and then, with the inconsequence of Mediterranean winds, began to die away steadily.

  Certainly Hornblower never expected sleep. He was too excited, and his mind was too active. He lay down on his cot when the watch was changed in the evening to have a rest, and, being quite convinced that he had no chance of sleeping he naturally fell into a heavy dreamless sleep so heavy that Polwheal had to shake him by the shoulder at midnight to awaken him. He came on deck to find Bush standing by the binnacle.

  “Too dark for anything to be seen, sir,” said Bush, and then, excitement and exasperation getting the better of his formality, he growled, “Black as Newgate Knocker.”

  “Have you seen anything of the enemy?”

  “I thought I did, sir, half an hour back, but nothing to be sure of. Wind’s dropped a lot, too.”

  “Yes,” said Hornblower.

  As so often was the case at sea, there was nothing to do but wait. Two screened lanterns swayed down on the maindeck, where the watch lay at their stations by the guns; the keen wind harped in the rigging, and the ship rose and plunged in the following sea with a lightness and grace no one would expect of her who had only seen her with the wind abeam. Nothing to do but to wait; if he stayed on deck he would only fidget and display his nervousness, so that he might as well go and conceal his nervousness in his screened-off cot.

  “Send for me at once if you catch sight of the enemy,” he said, with elaborate carelessness, and went back again below.

  He lay on his cot with his mind busy, for he knew that having slept once there was no chance whatever of sleeping again. So perfect was this conviction that sleep ambushed him once more, leaped upon him unawares, as he lay thinking about the Cassandra, sothat it only seemed two minutes later that he heard Polwheal speaking to him as if from another world.

  “Mr. Gerard’s compliments, sir, an’ it’s beginnin’ to get lighter, sir.”

  It called for quite an effort to rouse himself and get up from his cot; only when he was drowsily on his feet did he begin to feel pleased at having been genuinely asleep each time that Polwheal came to call him. He could picture Polwheal telling his cronies about the iron nerves of the captain, who could sleep like a child on a night when the ship was aboil with the prospect of action.

  “Anything to report, Mr. Gerard?” he said, as he reached the quarterdeck.

  “No, sir. I had to reef down for an hour at two bells, it blew so hard. But it’s dropping fast now, sir, and backing sou’easterly.”

  “H’m,” said Hornblower.

  The faintest hint of light was beginning to tinge the gloomy sky, but nothing could be seen yet more than a cable’s length away. A south-easterly wind would be nearly foul for the French on their course to Barcelona; it would be dead foul for the Pluto and Caligula.

  “Thought I felt the loom o’ the land, sir, before the light came,” said Gerard.

  “Yes,” said Hornblower. Their course during the night would bring them close into Cape Creux of hated memory; he picked up the slate beside the binnacle, and, calculating from the hourly readings of the log, he made their position to be some fifteen miles off the cape
. If the French had held the same course during the night they would soon have Rosas Bay and comparative security under their lee—of course, if they had not, if they had evaded him in the darkness, the consequence to him did not bear thinking about.

  The light was broadening fast. Eastwards the watery clouds seemed to be thinning; just above the horizon. Undoubtedly they were thinning; for a second they parted, and a speck of gold could be seen through them, just where the white-flecked sea met the sky, and a long beam of sunlight shone level over the sea.

  “Land-ho!” yelled the masthead lookout, and westward they could see a bluish smudge on the horizon where the mountains of Spain loomed faintly over the curve of the world.

  And Gerard glanced anxiously at his captain, took a turn or two up and down the deck, gnawed at his knuckles, and then could restrain his impatience no longer.

  “Masthead, there! What do you see of the enemy?”

  The pause that followed seemed ages long before the reply came.

  “Northin’, sir. Northin’ in sight barrin’ the land to looard.”

  Gerard renewed his anxious glance at his captain, but Hornblower, during that pause, had set his face sternly so that his expression was unmoved. Bush was coming on to the quarterdeck now; anyone could see that he was wild with anxiety. If four French ships of the line had evaded action it would mean half pay for Hornblower for life, if nothing worse. Hornblower retained his stony expression; he was proud of being able to do so.

  “Put the ship about, Mr. Gerard, if you please, and lay her on the starboard tack.”

  The French might perhaps have altered course in the darkness, and might now be lost in the centre of the Western Mediterranean, but Hornblower still did not think it likely. His officers had made insufficient allowance for the lubberliness of the unpractised French. If Gerard had had to reef topsails in the night they might well have had to heave to; and both Bush and Gerard were over-eager—during the night the Sutherland might have gained twenty miles on the French. By retracting his course he was confident that he would sight them again.

  Confident as far as the whist-playing part of his mind was concerned, that is to say. He could not control the sick despair in his breast, nor the acceleration of his heart beats; he could only conceal them, keeping his face a mask and forcing himself to stand still instead of pacing about in his anxiety. Then he thought of an activity which would help to occupy his mind and yet not betray his nervousness.

  “Pass the word for my steward,” he said.

  His hands were just steady enough to permit him to shave, and a chill bath under the washdeck pump gave him new vigour. He put on clean clothes and parted his lessening hair with elaborate exactitude, for under the washdeck pump he had told himself that they would sight the French again before he had completed his toilet. It was with a sense of acute disappointment that he laid down the comb when he had no more smallest excuse to continue its use, and turned to put on his coat, with no news of the French. And then, with his foot on the companion, there came a wild yell from Midshipman Parker at the masthead.

  “Sail in sight! Two—three of ‘em, sir. Four! It’s the enemy!”

  Hornblower continued his progress up the companion without faltering in his step, and he hoped people noticed it. Bush was half way up the rigging with his glass, and Gerard was pacing—almost prancing—about the quarterdeck in his delight. Observing them, Hornblower was glad he had had no childish doubts about the correctness of his actions.

  “Wear the ship, if you please, Mr. Bush. Lay her on the port tack.”

  A talkative captain might supplement the order with a brief explanation of the necessity for keeping the ship between the French and Spain, but Hornblower bit off the explanation as it rose to his lips. No unnecessary words would escape him.

  “The wind’s still working round southerly, sir,” said Gerard.

  “Yes,” said Hornblower.

  And it would drop a good deal, too, as the day progressed, he decided. The sun was fast breaking through the clouds, with every prospect of a warm day—a Mediterranean autumn day, with a rising barometer and only the faintest of breezes. The hammocks had been piled in the netting, and the watch not at their stations were clattering on to the deck with buckets and holystones. The routine of the navy had to be maintained, even though there was every chance that the decks they were swabbing would be running with blood before the day was over. The men were skylarking and joking—Hornblower felt a little thrill of pride as he looked at them and remembered the sullen despondent crowd with which he had sailed. Consciousness of real achievement was some compensation for the thankless service which employed him; and it helped him to forget, too, the uneasy feeling that today or tomorrow—soon, anyway—he would know again, as the whirl of battle eddied round him, the physical fear of which he was so intolerably ashamed.

  As the sun climbed up the sky the wind dropped steadily, moving round even more southerly, and the mountains of Spain came nearer and nearer and grew more and more defined as their course brought them closer to the land. Hornblower held on as long as he could, bracing up his yards as the wind veered, and then finally heaving to while the French squadron crept up over the horizon. The shift in the wind had deprived them of the windward position; if they moved down to attack him he could escape northwards so that if they pursued him they would be running towards the Pluto and Caligula, but he had no hope that they would. French ships of the line who had evaded the blockading squadron would race to accomplish their mission first, and would only fight afterwards, however tempting the bait dangled before them. If the wind shifted no farther round they could just hold their course for Barcelona, and he had not the least doubt that they would do so if not prevented. He would hang on to them and try to attack some isolated ship during the night if no help arrived.

  “They’re signalling a lot, sir,” said Bush, his glass to his eye. They had been signalling all day, for that matter—the first flurry of bunting, Hornblower shrewdly surmised, had been occasioned by their catching sight of the Sutherland, unaware that she had been keeping company with them for fifteen hours. Frenchmen retained their talkative habits at sea, and no French captain was happy without messages passing back and forth along the squadron.

  The Sutherland was clear of the Cape Creux peninsula now, and Rosas Bay was opening out on her beam. It was in these very waters, but in very different weather conditions, that the Pluto had lost her masts and had been towed to safety by the Sutherland; over there, on those green-grey slopes, had occurred the fiasco of the attack on Rosas; through his glass Hornblower thought he could discern the precipitous face of the mesa up which Colonel Claros had led his fugitive Catalans. If the wind came farther round now, the French had a refuge open to them under the guns of Rosas, where they would be safe until the British could bring up fireships and explosion vessels to drive them out again; actually it would be a more secure refuge for them than the anchorage at Barcelona.

  He looked up at the pendant flapping at the masthead—the wind was certainly more southerly. It was growing doubtful whether the French would weather Palamos Point on their present tack, while he would certainly have to go about soon and stand out into the Frenchmen’s wake, with all his advantages of position lost by the inconstancy of the weather. And the wind was beginning to come in irregular puffs now—a sure sign of its diminishing force. He turned his glass on the French squadron again to see how they were behaving. There was a fresh series of signals fluttering at their yardarms.

  “Deck, there!” yelled Savage from the masthead.

  Then there was a pause. Savage was not too sure of what he could see.

  “What is it, Mr. Savage?”

  “I think—I’m not quite sure, sir—there’s another sail, right on the horizon, sir, abaft the enemy’s beam.”

  Another sail! It might be a stray merchant ship. Otherwise it could only be Leighton’s ships or the Cassandra.

  “Keep your eye on her, Mr. Savage.”

  It w
as impossible to wait for news. Hornblower swung himself up into the shrouds and climbed upwards. At Savage’s side he trained his glass in the direction indicated. For a second the French squadron danced in the object glass, disregarded, as he searched.

  “A bit farther round, sir. About there, I think, sir.”

  It was the tiniest flash of white, too permanent for a wave crest, of a different shade from the few clouds against the blue. Hornblower nearly spoke, but succeeded in limiting himself to “Ha-h’m.”

  “It’s nearer now, sir,” said Savage, telescope to eye. “I should say, sir, it’s a ship’s fore-royal.”

  There could be no doubt about it. Some ship under full sail was out there beyond the Frenchmen, and standing in to cross their wake.

  “Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower. He said no more, but snapped his telescope shut and addressed himself to the descent.

  Bush dropped to the deck to meet him from the shrouds he had ascended; Gerard, Crystal, they were all on the quarterdeck eyeing him anxiously.

  “The Cassandra,” said Hornblower, “standing in towards us.”

  By saying that, he was risking his dignity to demonstrate his good sight. No one could guess the new arrival to be the Cassandra from just that glimpse of her royals. But it could only be the Cassandra who would be on that course, unless his judgment were sadly at fault. Should she be revealed not to be, he would appear ridiculous—but the temptation to appear to recognise her when Savage was not even sure whether she was a ship or a cloud was too strong.

  All the implications of the Cassandra’s appearance were evident to the officers’ minds at once.