“Let him come,” said Hornblower. ‘“Unlace that netting just enough for him to get through.”
Down in the cabin the Mudir looked just the same as before. His lean face was as impassive as ever; at least he showed no signs of triumph. He could play a winning game like a gentleman; Hornblower, without a single trump card in his hand, was determined to show that he could play a losing game like a gentleman, too.
“Explain to him,” he said to Turner, “that I regret there is no coffee to offer him. No fires when the ship’s cleared for action.”
The Mudir was gracious about the absence of coffee, as he indicated by a gesture. There was a polite interchange of compliments which Turner hardly troubled to translate, before he approached the business in hand.
“He says the Vali is in Marmorice with his army,” reported Turner. “He says the forts at the mouth are manned and the guns loaded.”
“Tell him I know that.”
“He says that ship’s the Mejidieh, sir, with fifty-six guns and a thousand men.”
“Tell him I know that too.”
The Mudir stroked his beard before taking the next step.
“He says the Vali was very angry when he heard we’d been taking treasure from the bottom of the Bay.”
“Tell him it is British treasure.”
“He says it was lying in the Sultan’s waters, and all wrecks belong to the Sultan.”
In England all wrecks belonged to the King.
“Tell him the Sultan and King George are friends.”
The Mudir’s reply to that was lengthy.
“No good, sir,” said Turner. “He says Turkey’s at peace with France now and so is neutral. He said—he said that we have no more rights here than if we were Neapolitans, sir.”
There could not be any greater expression of contempt anywhere in the Levant.
“Ask him if he has ever seen a Neapolitan with guns run out and matches burning.”
It was a losing game that Hornblower was playing, but he was not going to throw in his cards and yield all the tricks without a struggle, even though he could see no possibility of winning even one. The Mudir stroked his beard again; with his expressionless eyes he looked straight at Hornblower, and straight through him, as he spoke.
“He must have been watching everything through a telescope from shore, sir,” commented Turner, “or it may have been those fishing boats. At any rate, he knows about the gold and the silver, and it’s my belief, sir, that they’ve known there was treasure in the wreck for years. That secret wasn’t as well kept as they thought it was in London.”
“I can draw my own conclusions, Mr. Turner, thank you.”
Whatever the Mudir knew or guessed, Hornblower was not going to admit anything.
“Tell him we have been delighted with the pleasure of his company.”
The Mudir, when that was translated to him, allowed a flicker of a change of expression to pass over his face. But when he spoke it was with the same flatness of tone.
“He says that if we hand over all we have recovered so far the Vali will allow us to remain here and keep whatever else we find,” reported Turner.
Turner displayed some small concern as he translated, but yet in his old man’s face the most noticeable expression was one of curiosity; he bore no responsibility, and he could allow himself the luxury—the pleasure—of wondering how his captain was going to receive this demand. Even in that horrid moment Hornblower found himself remembering Rochefoucauld’s cynical epigram about the pleasure we derive from the contemplation of our friends’ troubles.
“Tell him,” said Hornblower, “that my master King George will be angry when he hears that such a thing has been said to me, his servant, and that his friend the Sultan will be angry when he hears what his servant has said.”
But the Mudir was unmoved by any suggestion of international complications. It would take a long, long time for a complaint to travel from Marmorice to London and then back to Constantinople. And Hornblower could guess that a very small proportion of a quarter of a million sterling, laid out in the proper quarter, would buy the support of the Vizier for the Vali. The Mudir’s face was quite unrelenting—a frightened child might have a nightmare about a face as heartless as that.
“Damn it,” said Hornblower, “I won’t do it.”
There was nothing he wanted more in this world than to break through the iron serenity of the Mudir.
“Tell him,” said Hornblower, “I’ll drop the gold back into the Bay sooner than hand it over. By God, I will. I’ll drop it down to the bottom and they can fish for it themselves, which they can’t do. Tell him I swear that, by—by the Koran or the beard of the Prophet, or whatever they swear by.”
Turner nodded in surprised approval; that was a move he had not thought of, and he addressed himself eagerly to the task of translation. The Mudir listened with his eternal patience.
“No, it’s no good, sir,” said Turner, after the Mudir had replied. “You can’t frighten him that way. He says—”
Turner was interrupted by a fresh sentence from the Mudir.
“He says that after this ship has been seized the idolaters—that’s the Ceylonese divers, sir—will work for him just as they work for us.”
Hornblower, desperate, thought wildly of cutting the divers’ throats after throwing the treasure overboard; that would be consonant with this Oriental atmosphere, but before he could put the frightful thought into words the Mudir spoke again, and at considerable length.
“He says wouldn’t it be better to go back with some treasure, sir—whatever more we can recover—than to lose everything? He says—he says—I beg your pardon, sir, but he says that if this ship is seized for breaking the law your name would not be held in respect by King George.”
That was phrasing it elegantly. Hornblower could well imagine what their Lordships of the Admiralty would say. Even at the best, even if he fought it out to the last man, London would not look with favour on the man who had precipitated an international crisis and whose behaviour necessitated sending a squadron and an army into the Levant to restore British prestige at a moment when every ship and man was needed to fight Bonaparte. And at worst—Hornblower could picture his little ship suddenly overwhelmed by a thousand boarders, seized, emptied of the treasure, and then dismissed with contemptuous indulgence for him to take back to Malta with a tale possibly of outrage but certainly of failure.
It took every ounce of his moral strength to conceal his despair and dismay—from Turner as well as from the Mudir—and as it was he sat silent for a while, shaken, like a boxer in the ring trying to rally after a blow had slipped through his guard. Like a boxer, he needed time to recover.
“Very well,” he said at length, “tell him I must think over all this. Tell him it is too important for me to make up my mind now.”
“He says,” translated Turner when the Mudir replied, “he says he will come tomorrow morning to receive the treasure.”
XVIII
In the old days, long ago, Hornblower as a midshipman had served in the Indefatigable on cutting-out expeditions more numerous than he could remember. The frigate would find a coaster anchored under the protection of shore batteries, or would chase one into some small harbour; then at night—or even in broad day—the boats would be manned and sent in. The coaster would take all the precautions she could; she could load her guns, rig her boarding nettings, keep her crew on the alert, row guard round the ship, but to no avail. The boarders would fight their way on board, clear the decks, set sail, and carry off the prize under the nose of the defences. Often and often had Hornblower seen it close, had taken part. He had noted with small enough sympathy the pitiful precautions taken by the victim.
Now the boot was on the other leg; now it was even worse, because Atropos lay in the broad Bay of Marmorice without even the protection of shore batteries and with ten thousand enemies around her. Tomorrow, the Mudir had said, he would come for the treasure, but there was no trusting t
he Turks. That might be one more move to lull the Atropos into security. She might be rushed in the night. The Mejidieh, over there, could put into her boats more men than Atropos could boast altogether, and they could be supplemented with soldiers crammed into fishing boats from the shore. If she were attacked by twenty boats at once, from all sides, by a thousand Moslem fanatics, what could she do to defend herself?
She could rig her boarding nettings—they were already rigged. She could load her guns—they were already loaded, grape on top of round shot, depressed so as to sweep the surface of the Bay at close range round the ship. She could keep anxious watch—Hornblower was going round the ship himself, to see that the lookouts were all awake, the guns’ crews dozing no more deeply than the hard decks would allow as they lay at their posts, the remainder of the hands stationed round the bulwarks with pike and cutlass within easy reach.
It was a novel experience to be the mouse instead of the cat, to be on the defensive instead of the offensive, to wait anxiously for the moon to rise instead of hurrying to the attack while darkness endured. It might be counted as another lesson in war, to know how the waiting victim thought and felt—some day in the future Hornblower might put that lesson to use, and, paralleling the thought of the ship he was going to attack, contrive to circumvent the precautions she was taking.
That was one more proof of the levity and inconstancy of his mind, said Hornblower to himself, bitterness and despair returning in overwhelming force. Here he was thinking about the future, about some other command he might hold, when there was no future. No future. Tomorrow would see the end. He did not know for certain yet what he would do; vaguely in his mind he had the plan that at dawn he would empty the ship of her crew—non-swimmers in the boats, swimmers sent to seek refuge in the Mejidieh—while he went down below to the magazine, with a loaded pistol, to blow the ship and the treasure, himself with his dead ambitions, his love for his children and his wife, to blow it all to fragments. But would that be better than bargaining? Would it be better than returning not only with Atropos intact but with whatever further treasure McCullum could retrieve? It was his duty to save his ship if he could, and he could. Seventy thousand pounds was far less than a quarter of a million, but it would be a godsend to an England at her wits’ ends for gold. A Captain in the Navy should have no personal feelings; he had a duty to do.
That might be so, but all the same he was convulsed with anguish. This deep, dark sorrow which was rending him was something beyond his control. He looked across at the dark shape of the Mejidieh, and sorrow was joined to an intense hatred, like some ugly pattern of red and black before his mind’s eye. The vague shape of the Mejidieh was drawing back abaft the Atropos’ quarter—the soft night wind was backing round, as might be expected at this hour, and swinging the ships at their anchors. Overhead there were stars, here and there obscured by patches of cloud whose presence could just be guessed at, moving very slowly over the zenith. And over there, beyond the Mejidieh, the sky was a trifle paler; the moon must be rising above the horizon beyond the mountains. The loveliest night imaginable with the gentle breeze—this gentle breeze! Hornblower glowered round in the darkness as if he feared someone might prematurely guess the thought that was forming in his mind.
“I am going below for a few minutes, Mr. Jones,” he said, softly.
“Aye aye, sir.”
Turner, of course, had been talking. He had told the wardroom all about the quandary in which their captain found himself. One could hear curiosity in the tone of even those three words of Jones’s. Resolution came to lacquer over the pattern of red and black.
Down in the cabin the two candles he sent for lit the whole little space, save for a solid shadow here and there. But the chart that he laid out between them was brightly illuminated. He stooped over it, peering at the tiny figures that marked the soundings. He knew them already, as soon as he came to think about them; there was really no need to refresh his memory. Red Cliff Point, Passage Island, Kaia Rock; Point Sari beyond Kaia Rock—he knew them all. He could weather Kaia Rock with this breeze if it should hold. God, there was need for haste! He blew out the candles and felt his way out of the cabin.
“Mr. Jones! I want two reliable bosn’s mates. Quietly, if you please.”
That breeze was still blowing, ever so gently, a little more fitful than might be desired, and the moon had not cleared the mountains yet.
“Now, you two, pay attention. Go quietly round the ship and see that every man is awake. Not a sound—you hear me? Topmen are to assemble silently at the foot of the masts. Silently.”
“Aye aye, sir,” was the whispered reply.
“Carry on. Now, Mr. Jones—”
The gentle patter of bare feet on the deck as the men assembled acted as accompaniment to the whispered orders Hornblower was giving to Jones. Over there was the vast bulk of the Mejidiek; two thousand ears which might catch the slightest unusual noise—an axe being laid ready on the deck, for instance, or capstan bars being gently eased into their sockets. The boatswain came aft again to rejoin the little group of officers round Hornblower and to make his report in a whisper that accorded ill with his bulk and power.
“The capstan pawl’s thrown out, sir.”
“Very good. Yours is the first move. Go back, count a hundred, and take up on the spring. Six turns, and hold it. Understand?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Then off you go. You others are clear about your duties? Mr. Carslake, with the axe at the cable. I’ll attend to the axe at the spring. Mr. Smiley, fore tops’I sheets. Mr. Hunt, main tops’l sheets. Go to your stations.”
The little ship lay there quietly. A tiny rim of the moon came up over the mountains, and broadened momentarily, revealing her lying peacefully at anchor. She seemed inert, incapable of action. Silent men had swarmed up the rigging and were waiting for the signal. There was a gentle creaking as the spring to the cable tightened, but there was no clank from the capstan, for the pawl had been thrown out from the ratchet; the men at the capstan bars walked silently round, and when their six turns had been completed they stood, breasts against the bars, feet braced on the deck, holding the ship steady. Under the pull of the spring she lay at an angle to the breeze, so that when sail should be set not a moment would be wasted gathering stern way and paying off. She would be under command at once.
The moon had cleared the mountains; the seconds went slowly by.
Ting-ting went the ship’s bell—two bells; the signal.
Feet pattered in unison. Sheaves squealed in blocks, but even as the ear caught that sound topsail yards and forestay had blossomed into sail. Forward and aft came brief sullen thumpings as axe blades cut through cable and spring—with the sudden end of the resistance of the spring the capstan spun round, precipitating the men at the bars to the deck. There were bruises and grazes, but nobody paid attention to the injuries; Atropos was under way. In five seconds, without giving any warning at all, she had transformed herself from something stationary and inert to a living thing, gliding through the water towards the entrance to the Bay. She was clear of the peril of the Mejidieh’s broadside, for the Mejidieh had no spring on her cable to swing her round. She would have to weigh her anchor, or cut or slip her cable; she would have to set sail enough to give her steerage way, and then she would have to yaw round before she could fire. With an alert crew, awake and ready for the summons, it would be at least several minutes before she could turn her broadside upon Atropos, and then it would be at a range of half a mile or more.
As it was Atropos had gathered speed, and was already more than clear before Mejidieh gave her first sign of life. The deep booming of a drum came sounding over the water; not the high-pitched rattle of the Atropos’ side-drum, but the far deeper and slower tone of a bass drum monotonously beaten.
“Mr. Jones!” said Hornblower. “Rig in those boarding nettings, if you please.”
The moon was shining brightly, lighting the water ahead of them.
“S
tarboard a point,” said Hornblower to the helmsman.
“Starboard a point,” came the automatic reply.
“You’re taking the west pass, sir?” asked Turner.
As sailing master and navigator his station in action was on the quarter-deck beside his captain, and the question he asked was strictly within his province.
“I don’t think so,” said Hornblower.
The booming of the Mejidieh’s drum was still audible; if the sound reached the batteries the guns’ crews there would be on the alert. And when he reached that conclusion there was an orange flash from far astern, as if momentarily a furnace door had been opened and then closed. Seconds later came the heavy report; the Mejidieh had fired a gun. There was no sound of the passage of the shot—but if it had even been a blank charge it would serve to warn the batteries.
“I’m going under Sari Point,” said Hornblower.
“Sari Point, sir!”
“Yes.”
It was surprise and not discipline that limited Turner’s protests to that single exclamation. Thirty years of service in the merchant navy had trained Turner’s mind so that nothing could induce him to contemplate subjecting his ship voluntarily to navigational hazards; his years of service as sailing master in the Royal Navy had done little to change that mental attitude. It was his duty to keep the ship safe from shoal and storm and let the captain worry about cannon-balls. He would never have thought for a moment of trying to take Atropos through the narrow channel between Sari Point and Kaia Rock, not even by daylight, and ten times never by night, and the fact that he had not thought of it left him without words.
Another orange flash showed astern; another report reached their ears.
“Take a night glass and go for’rard,” said Hornblower. “Look out for the surf.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Take a speaking trumpet as well. Make sure I hear you.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The gunfire from Mejidieh would have warned the garrisons of the batteries; there would be plenty of time for the men to rouse themselves to wakefulness at their guns, to get their linstocks well alight, so as to sweep the channels with their salvos. Turkish gunners might not be efficient, but the cross fire at East Pass could hardly miss. The West Pass, between Kaia Rock and Passage Island, would not be so efficiently swept; but on the other hand the range was negligible, and with the double turn that had to be made (Atropos would be like a sitting duck) there would be no chance of coming through uninjured. Dismasted, or even only crippled, Atropos would fall an easy prey to Mejidieh coming down through East Pass at her leisure. And, crippled and out of control, Atropos might run aground; and she was only a little ship, her scantlings were frail—a salvo from the huge stone cannon-balls that the Turks favoured, plunging from a height, could tear her to pieces, tear open her bottom and sink her in a minute. He would have to take her under Sari Point; that would double, treble the range from the guns on Passage Island; it would be a surprise move; and very likely the guns there would be trained upon Kaia Rock to sweep the narrowest passage—their aim would have to be hurriedly changed and for a moment at least he would have the rock itself to shelter him. It was his best chance.