Storms awaited them in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, for that corner of the Pacific is always stormy, lashed by the wind which blows hither from the Gulf of Mexico through a gap in the sierras. Hornblower was made aware of the change by an increase in the motion of the ship. She was rising and swooping more violently than usual and a gusty wind was heeling her sharply over. It was just eight bells, and the watch was being called; he could hear the bellowings of the master’s mates – ‘Show a leg! Show a leg! Lash up and stow! Lash up and stow!’ – as he ran up to the quarterdeck. The sky was still blue overhead and the sun was hot, but the sea was grey, now, and running high, and the Lydia was beginning to labour under her press of sail.
‘I was just sending down to you, sir, for permission to shorten sail,’ said Bush.
Hornblower glanced up at the canvas, and over towards the clouds towards the coast.
‘Yes. Get the courses and t’gallants off her,’ he said.
The Lydia plunged heavily as he spoke, and then rose again, labouring, the water creaming under her bows. The whole ship was alive with the creaking of timber and the harping of the rigging. Under shortened sail she rode more easily, but the wind of her beam was growing stronger, and she was bowing down to it as she crashed over the waves. Looking round, Hornblower saw Lady Barbara standing with one hand on the taffrail. The wind was whipping her skirts about her, and with her other hand she was trying to restrain the curls that streamed round her head. Her cheeks were pink under their tan, and her eyes sparkled.
‘You ought to be below, Lady Barbara,’ he said.
‘Oh no, Captain. This is too delicious after the heat we have been enduring.’
A shower of spray came rattling over the bulwarks and wetted them both.
‘It is your health, ma’am, about which I am anxious.’
‘If salt water was harmful sailors would die young.’
Her cheeks were bright as if she had been using cosmetics. Hornblower could refuse her nothing, even though he bitterly remembered how last evening she had sat in the shadow of the mizzen rigging talking so animatedly to Gerard that no one else had been able to profit by her society.
‘Then you can stay on deck, ma’am, since you wish it, unless this gale increases – and I fancy it will.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ she replied. There was a look in her eye which seemed to indicate that the question as to what would happen if the gale increased was not nearly as decided as the captain appeared to think – but like her great brother she crossed no bridges until she came to them.
Hornblower turned away; he would clearly have liked to have stayed there talking, with the spray pattering about them, but his duty was with his ship. As he reached the wheel there came a hail from the masthead.
‘Sail ho! Deck, there, a sail right ahead. Looks like Natividad, sir.’
Hornblower gazed up. The lookout was clinging to his perch, being swung round and round in dizzy circles as the ship pitched and swooped over the waves.
‘Up you go, Knyvett,’ he snapped to the midshipman beside him. ‘Take a glass with you and tell me what you can see.’ He knew that he himself would be of no use as a lookout in that wild weather – he was ashamed of it, but he had to admit it to himself. Soon Knyvett’s boyish voice came calling down to him through the gale.
‘She’s the Natividad, sir. I can see the cut of her tops’ls.’
‘How’s she heading?’
‘On the starboard tack, sir, same course as us. Her masts are in one line. Now she’s altering course, sir. She’s wearing round. She must have seen us, sir. Now she’s on the port tack, sir, heading up to wind’ard of us, close hauled, sir.’
‘Oh, is she,’ said Hornblower to himself, grimly. It was an unusual experience to have a Spanish ship face about and challenge action – but he remembered that she was a Spanish ship no longer. He would not allow her to get the weather gauge of him, come what might.
‘Man the braces, there!’ he shouted, and then to the man at the wheel: ‘Port your helm. And mark ye, fellow, keep her as near the wind as she’ll lie. Mr Bush, beat to quarters, if you please, and clear for action.’
As the drum rolled and the hands came pouring up he remembered the woman aft by the taffrail, and his stolid fatalism changed to anxiety.
‘Your place is below, Lady Barbara,’ he said. ‘Take your maid with you. You must stay in the cockpit until the action is over – no, not the cockpit. Go to the cable tier.’
‘Captain—,’ she began, but Hornblower was not in the mood for argument – if indeed she had argument in mind.
‘Mr Clay!’ he rasped. ‘Conduct her ladyship and her maid to the cable tier. See that she is safe before you leave her. Those are my orders, Mr Clay. Ha – h’m.’
A cowardly way out, perhaps, to throw on Clay the responsibility of seeing his orders carried out. He knew it, but he was angry with the woman because of the sick feeling of worry which she was occasioning him. She left him, nevertheless, with a smile and a wave of the hand, Clay trotting before her.
For several minutes the ship was a turmoil of industry as the men went through the well-learned drill. The guns were run out, the decks sanded, the hoses rigged to the pumps, the fires extinguished, the bulkheads torn down. The Natividad could be seen from the deck now, sailing on the opposite tack towards her, obviously clawing her hardest up to windward to get the weather gauge. Hornblower looked up at the sails to mark the least shiver.
‘Steer small, blast you,’ he growled at the quartermaster.
The Lydia lay over before the gale, the waves crashing and hissing overside, the rigging playing a wild symphony. Last night she had been stealing peacefully over a calm and moonlit sea, and now here she was twelve hours later thrashing through a storm with a battle awaiting her. The wind was undoubtedly increasing, a wilder puff almost took her aback, and she staggered and rolled until the helmsman allowed her to pay off.
‘Natividad won’t be able to open her lower deck ports!’ gloated Bush beside him. Hornblower stared across the grey sea at the enemy. He saw a cloud of spray break over her bows.
‘No,’ he said heavily. He would not discuss the possibilities of the approaching action for fear lest he might be too talkative. ‘I’ll trouble you, Mr Bush, to have two reefs taken in those tops’ls.’
On opposite tacks the ships were nearing each other along the sides of an obtuse angle. Look as closely as he would, he could not decide which ship would be to windward when they met at the apex.
‘Mr Gerard,’ he called down to the lieutenant in charge of the port side maindeck battery. ‘See that the matches in your tubs are alight.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
With all this spray breaking aboard the flint lock trigger mechanism could not be relied upon until the guns grew hot and the old-fashioned method of ignition might have to be used – in the tubs on deck were coils of slow-match to meet this emergency. He stared across again at the Natividad. She, too, had reefed her topsail now, and was staggering along, closehauled, under storm canvas. She was flying the blue flag with the yellow star; Hornblower glanced up overhead to where the dingy white ensign fluttered from the peak.
‘She’s opened fire, sir,’ said Bush beside him.
Hornblower looked back at the Natividad just in time to see the last of a puff of smoke blown to shreds by the wind. The sound of the shot did not reach them, and where the ball went no one could say – the jet of water which it struck up somewhere was hidden in the tossing waves.
‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower.
It was bad policy, even with a well-drilled crew, to open fire at long range. That first broadside, discharged from guns loaded carefully and at leisure, and aimed by crews with time to think, was too precious a thing to be dissipated lightly. It should be saved up for use at the moment when it would do maximum harm, however great might be the strain of waiting inactive.
‘We’ll be passing mighty close, sir,’ said Bush.
‘Ha – h’m,’ said
Hornblower.
Still there was no means of telling which ship would hold the weather gauge when they met. It appeared as if they would meet bow to bow in collision if both captains held rigidly to their present courses. Hornblower had to exert all his willpower to keep himself standing still and apparently unemotional as the tension increased.
Another puff of smoke from the Natividad’s starboard bow, and this time they heard the sound of the shot as it passed overhead between the masts.
‘Closer!’ said Bush.
Another puff, and simultaneously a crash from the waist told where the shot had struck.
‘Two men down at number four gun,’ said Bush, stooping to look forward under the gangway, and then, eyeing the distance between the two ships: ‘Christ! It’s going to be a near thing.’
It was a situation which Hornblower had visualised several times in his solitary walks on the quarterdeck. He took a last glance up at the weathervane, and at the topsails on the point of shivering as the ship tossed on the heaving sea.
‘Stand by, Mr Rayner. Fire as your guns bear,’ he called. Rayner was in command of the starboard side maindeck battery. Then, from the corner of his mouth to the men at the wheel – ‘Put your helm a-weather. Catch her! Hold her so!’
The Lydia spun round and shot down the lee side of the Natividad and her starboard side guns went off almost simultaneously in a rolling crash that shook the ship to her keel. The billow of smoke that enveloped her momentarily was blown away instantly by the gale. Every shot crashed into the Natividad’s side; the wind brought to their ears the screams of the wounded. So unexpected had the manoeuvre been that only one single shot was fired from the Natividad, and that did no damage – her lower deck ports on this, her lee side, were closed because of the high sea.
‘Grand! Oh, grand!’ said Bush. He sniffed at the bitter powder smoke eddying round him as if it had been sweet incense.
‘Stand by to go about,’ rasped Hornblower.
A well-drilled crew, trained in months of storms under Bush’s eagle eye, was ready at sheets and braces. The Lydia tacked about, turning like a machine, before Natividad could offer any counter to this unexpected attack, and Gerard fired his battery into her helpless stern. The ship’s boys were cheering aimlessly in high piping trebles as they came running up from below with new charges for the guns. On the starboard side the guns were already loaded; on the port side the guns’ crews were thrusting wet swabs down the bore to extinguish any residual fragments of smouldering cartridge, ramming in the charges and shot, and heaving the guns up into firing position again. Hornblower stared across the tossing water at the Natividad. He could see Crespo up on her poop; the fellow actually had the insolence to wave his hand to him, airily, while in the midst of bellowing orders at his unhandy crew.
The Lydia had wrung the utmost advantage out of her manoeuvre; she had fired her two broadsides at close range and had only received a single shot in reply, but now she had to pay for it. By her possession of the weather gauge the Natividad could force close action for a space if resolutely handled. Hornblower could just see her rudder from where he stood. He saw it kick over, and next moment the two-decker had swung round and was hurtling down upon them. Gerard stood in the midst of his battery gazing with narrowed eyes into the wind at the impressive bulk close overside. His swarthy beauty was accentuated by the tenseness of the moment and the fierce concentration of his expression, but for once he was quite unconscious of his good looks.
‘Cock your locks!’ he ordered. ‘Take your aim! Fire!’
The roar of the broadside coincided exactly with that of the Natividad’s. The ship was enveloped in smoke, through which could be heard the rattling of splinters, the sound of cut rigging tumbling to the deck, and through it all Gerard’s voice continuing with his drill – ‘Stop your vents!’ The quicker the touch holes of the muzzle loaders were plugged after firing the less would be the wear caused by the rush of the acid gases through them.
The guns’ crews strained at the tackles as the heave of the ship bade fair to send them surging back against the ship’s sides. They sponged and they rammed.
‘Fire as you will, boys!’ shouted Gerard. He was up on the hammock-netting now, gazing through the smoke wreaths at the Natividad rising and swooping alongside. The next broadside crashed out raggedly, and the next more raggedly still, as the more expert gun crews got off their shots more quickly than the others; soon the sound of firing was continuous, and the Lydia was constantly a-tremble. At intervals through the roar of her cannon came the thunderous crash of the Natividad’s broadside – Crespo evidently could not trust his crew to fire independently with efficiency, and was working them to the word of command. He was doing it well, too; at intervals as the sea permitted, her lower deck ports were opening like clockwork and the big twenty-four pounders were vomiting flame and smoke.
‘Hot work, this, sir,’ said Bush.
The iron hail was sweeping the Lydia’s decks. There were dead men piled round the masts, whither they had been hastily dragged so as not to encumber the guns’ crews. Wounded men were being dragged along the deck and down the hatchways to where the horrors of the cockpit awaited them. As Hornblower looked he saw a powder boy flung across the deck, dissolved into a red inhuman mass as a twenty-four pounder ball hit him.
‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower, but the sound was drowned in the roar of the quarterdeck carronade beside him. It was hot work indeed, too hot. This five minutes of close firing was sufficient to convince him that the Natividad’s guns were too well worked for the Lydia to have any chance against her overpowering strength broadside to broadside, despite the damage done in the first few minutes of the action. He would have to win by craft if he was to win at all.
‘Hands to the braces!’ he yelled, his voice, high-pitched, cutting through the din of the guns. He stared narrow-eyed at the Natividad with the smoke pouring from her sides, he estimated the force of the wind and the speeds of the ships. His mind was making calculations with delirious rapidity, keyed up by the excitement, as he began the new manoeuvre. Throwing the main topsail aback a trifle allowed the Natividad to shoot ahead without taking so much way off the Lydia to go about again, but even as the sheets were handed and the tacked his ship about so that the waiting starboard battery was able to fire into the Natividad’s stern. The Natividad came up into the wind in the endeavour to follow her opponent round and keep broadside to broadside with her, but the frigate was far quicker in stays than the clumsy, stumpy two-decker. Hornblower, watching his enemy with his keen gaze, tacked once more, instantly, and shot past the Natividad’s stern on the opposite tack while Gerard, running from gun to gun, sent every shot crashing into the shattered timbers.
‘Glorious! Damme! Damn my eyes! Damn my soul! Glorious!’ spluttered Bush, thumping his right fist into his left hand and leaping up and down on the quarterdeck.
Hornblower had no attention to spare for Bush nor for Bush’s good opinion, although later he was to remember hearing the words and find warm comfort in them. As the ships diverged he shouted for the Lydia to go about again, but even as the sheets were handed and the helm put over the Natividad wore round to pass her to leeward. So much the better. At the cost of a single exchange of broadsides he would be able to assail that vulnerable stern again, and if the Natividad attempted to circle, his was the handier ship and he could rely on getting in at least two effective shots to his opponent’s one. He watched the Natividad come foaming up; her bulwarks were riddled with shot and there was a trickle of blood from her scuppers. He caught a glimpse of Crespo on the poop – he had hoped that he might have been killed in the last two broadsides, for that would mean, almost for certain, a slackening in the attack. But her guns were run out ready, and on this, her weather side, her lower deck ports were open.
‘For what we are about to receive—,’ said Bush, repeating the hackneyed old blasphemy quoted in every ship awaiting a broadside.
Seconds seemed as long as minutes as the
two ships neared. They were passing within a dozen yards of each other. Bow overlapped bow, foremast passed foremast and then foremast passed mainmast. Rayner was looking aft, and as soon as he saw that the aftermost gun bore on the target he shouted the order to fire. The Lydia lifted to the recoil of the guns, ears were split with the sound of the discharge, and then, even before the gale had time to blow away the smoke, came the Natividad’s crashing reply.
It seemed to Hornblower as if the heavens were falling round him. The wind of a shot made him reel; he found at his feet a palpitating red mass which represented half the starboard side carronade’s crew, and then with a thunderous crackling the mizzen mast gave way beside him. The weather mizzen rigging entangled him and flung him down into the blood on the deck, and while he struggled to free himself he felt the Lydia swing round as she paid off despite the efforts of the men at the wheel.
He got to his feet, dizzy and shaken, to find ruin all round him. The mizzen mast was gone, snapped off nine feet from the deck, taking the main top gallant mast with it, and masts and yards and sails and rigging trailed alongside and astern by the unparted shrouds. With the loss of the balancing pressure of the mizzen topsail the Lydia had been unable to keep her course on the wind and was now drifting helplessly dead before the gale. And at that very moment he saw the Natividad going about to cross his stern and repay, with a crushing broadside, the several unanswered salvoes to which earlier she had been forced to submit. His whole world seemed to be shattered. He gulped convulsively, with a sudden sick fear of defeat at the pit of his stomach.
XIV
But he knew, and he told himself, at the moment of his getting to his feet, that he must not delay an instant in making the Lydia ready for action again.
‘Afterguard!’ he roared – his voice sounding unnatural to himself as he spoke – ‘Mr Clay! Benskin! Axes here! Cut that wreckage away!’
Clay came pounding aft at the head of a rush of men with axes and cutlasses. As they were chopping at the mizzen shrouds he noticed Bush sitting up on the deck with his face in his hands – apparently a falling block had struck him down but there was no time to spare for Bush. The Natividad was coming down remorselessly on them; he could see exultant figures on her deck waving their hats in triumph. To his strained senses it seemed to him that even through the din on board the Lydia he could hear the creaking of Natividad’s rigging and the rumble of her reloaded guns being run out. She was steering to pass as close as possible. Hornblower saw her bowsprit go by, felt her reefed fore topsail loom over him, and then her broadside crashed out as gun after gun bore on the Lydia’s stern. The wind caught the smoke and whipped it round Hornblower, blinding him. He felt the deck leap as the shots struck home, heard a scream from Clay’s party beside him, felt a splinter scream past his cheek, and then, just as annihilation seemed about to engulf him, the frightful succession of shots ended, the smoke was borne away, the Natividad had gone by, and he was still alive and could look round him. The slide of the aftermost carronade had been smashed, and one of Clay’s men was lying screaming on the deck with the gun across his thighs and two or three of his mates striving futilely to prise it off them.