‘Mr Gerard,’ said Hornblower. ‘Send for Mr Marsh and see what he can do with the long nine forward.’
It would cheer the men up to have a gun banging away occasionally instead of being merely shot at without making any reply. Marsh came waddling up from the darkness of the magazine, and blinked in the blinding sunshine. He shook his head doubtfully as he eyed the distance between the ships, but he had the gun cleared away, and he loaded it with his own hands, lovingly. He measured out the powder charge on the fullest scale, and he spent several seconds selecting the roundest and truest shot from the locker. He trained the gun with care, and then stood aside, lanyard in hand, watching the heave of the ship and the send of the bows, while a dozen telescopes were trained on the Natividad and every eye watched for the fall of the shot. Suddenly he jerked the lanyard and the cannon roared out, its report sounding flat in the heated motionless air.
‘Two cables’ lengths astern of her!’ yelled Knyvett from the fore-top. Hornblower had missed the splash – another proof, to his mind, of his own incompetence, but he concealed the fact under a mask of imperturbability.
‘Try again, Mr Marsh,’ he said.
The Natividad was firing both stern chasers together now. As Hornblower spoke there came a crash forward as one of the eighteen-pounder balls struck home close above the water line. Hornblower could hear young Savage, down in the launch hurling shrill blasphemies at the men at the oars to urge them on – that shot must have passed just over his head. Marsh stroked his beard and addressed himself to the task of reloading the long nine pounder. While he was so engaged, Hornblower was deep in the calculation of the chances of battle.
That long nine, although of smaller calibre, was of longer range than his shorter main deck guns, while the carronades which comprised half of the Lydia’s armament were useless at anything longer than close range. The Lydia would have to draw up close to her enemy before she could attack her with effect. There would be a long and damaging interval between the moment when the Natividad should be able to bring all her guns into action and the moment when the Lydia could hit back at her. There would be casualties, guns dismounted perhaps, serious losses. Hornblower balanced the arguments for and against continuing to try and close with the enemy while Mr Marsh was squinting along the sights of the nine pounder. Then Hornblower scowled to himself, and ceased tugging at his chin, his mind made up. He had started the action; he would go through with it to the end, cost what it might. His flexibility of mind could crystallise into sullen obstinacy.
The nine pounder went off as though to signal this decision.
‘Just alongside her!’ screamed Knyvett triumphantly from the foretop.
‘Well done, Mr Marsh,’ said Hornblower, and Marsh wagged his beard complacently.
The Natividad was firing faster now. Three times a splintering crash told of a shot which had been aimed true. Then suddenly a thrust as if from an invisible hand made Hornblower reel on the quarterdeck, and his ears were filled with a brief rending noise. A skimming shot had ploughed a channel along the planking of the quarterdeck. A marine was sitting near the taffrail stupidly contemplating his left leg, which no longer had a foot on the end of it; another marine dropped his musket with a clatter and clapped his hands to his face, which a splinter had torn open, with the blood spouting between his fingers.
‘Are you hurt, sir?’ cried Bush, leaping across to Hornblower.
‘No.’
Hornblower turned back to stare through his glass at the Natividad while the wounded were being dragged away. He saw a dark dot appear alongside the Natividad, and lengthen and diverge. It was the boat with which they had been trying to row – perhaps they were giving up the attempt. But the boat was not being hoisted in. For a second Hornblower was puzzled. The Natividad’s stumpy fore mast and main mast came into view. The boat was pulling the ship laboriously round so that her whole broadside would bear. Not two, but twenty-five guns would soon be opening their fire on the Lydia.
Hornblower felt his breath come a little quicker, unexpectedly, so that he had to swallow in order to regulate things again. His pulse was faster, too. He made himself keep the glass to his eye until he was certain of the enemy’s manoeuvre, and then walked forward leisurely to the gangway. He was compelling himself to appear lighthearted and carefree; he knew that the fools of men whom he commanded would fight more diligently for a captain like that.
‘They’re waiting for us now, lads,’ he said. ‘We shall have some pebbles about our ears before long. Let’s show ’em that Englishmen don’t care.’
They cheered him for that, as he expected and hoped they would do. He looked through his glass again at the Natividad. She was still turning, very slowly – it was a lengthy process to turn a clumsy two-decker in a dead calm. But he could see a hint of the broad white stripes which ornamented her side.
‘Ha – h’m,’ he said.
Forward he could hear the oars grinding away as the men in the boats laboured to drag the Lydia to grips with her enemy. Across the deck a little group of officers – Bush and Crystal among them – were academically discussing what percentage of hits might be expected from a Spanish broadside at a range of a mile. They were coldblooded about it in a fashion he could never hope to imitate with sincerity. He did not fear death so much – nor nearly as much – as defeat and the pitying contempt of his colleagues. The chiefest dread at the back of his mind was the fear of mutilation. An ex-naval officer stumping about on two wooden legs might be an object of condolence, might receive lip service as one of Britain’s heroic defenders, but he was a figure of fun, nevertheless. Hornblower dreaded the thought of being a figure of fun. He might lose his nose or his cheek and be so mutilated that people would not be able to bear to look at him. It was a horrible thought which set him shuddering while he looked through the telescope, so horrible that he did not stop to think of the associated details, of the agonies he would have to bear down there in the dark cockpit at the mercy of Laurie’s incompetence.
The Natividad was suddenly engulfed in smoke, and some seconds later the air and the water around the Lydia and the ship herself, were torn by the hurtling broadside.
‘Not more than two hits,’ said Bush, gleefully.
‘Just what I said,’ said Crystal. ‘That captain of theirs ought to go round and train every gun himself.’
‘How do you know he did not?’ argued Bush.
As punctuation the nine pounder forward banged out its defiance. Hornblower fancied that his straining eyes saw splinters fly amidships of the Natividad, unlikely though it was at that distance.
‘Well aimed, Mr Marsh!’ he called. ‘You hit him squarely.’
Another broadside came from the Natividad, and another followed it, and another after that. Time after time the Lydia’s decks were swept from end to end with shot. There were dead men laid out again on the deck, and the groaning wounded were dragged below.
‘It is obvious to anyone of a mathematical turn of mind,’ said Crystal, ‘that those guns are all laid by different hands. The shots are too scattered for it to be otherwise.’
‘Nonsense!’ maintained Bush sturdily. ‘See how long it is between broadsides. Time enough for one man to train each gun. What would they be doing in that time otherwise?’
‘A Dago crew—,’ began Crystal, but a sudden shriek of cannon balls over his head silenced him for a moment.
‘Mr Galbraith!’ shouted Bush. ‘Have that main t’gallant stay spliced directly.’ Then he turned triumphantly on Crystal. ‘Did you notice,’ he asked, ‘how every shot from that broadside went high? How does the mathematical mind explain that?’
‘They fired on the upward roll, Mr Bush. Really, Mr Bush, I think that after Trafalgar—’
Hornblower longed to order them to cease the argument which was lacerating his nerves, but he could not be such a tyrant as that.
In the still air the smoke from the Natividad’s firing had banked up around about her so that she showed ghostly through the
cloud, her solitary mizzen topmast protruding above it into the clear air.
‘Mr Bush,’ he asked, ‘at what distance do you think she is now?’
Bush gauged the distance carefully.
‘Three parts of a mile, I should say, sir.’
‘Two-thirds, more likely, sir,’ said Crystal.
‘Your opinion was not asked, Mr Crystal,’ snapped Hornblower.
At three-quarters of a mile, even at two-thirds, the Lydia’s carronades would be ineffective. She must continue running the gauntlet. Bush was evidently of the same opinion, to judge by his next orders.
‘Time for the men at the oars to be relieved,’ he said, and went forward to attend it. Hornblower heard him bustling the new crews down into the boats, anxious that the pulling should be resumed before the Lydia had time to lose what little way she carried.
It was terribly hot under the blazing sun, even though it was now long past noon. The smell of the blood which had been spilt on the decks mingled with the smell of the hot deck seams and of the powder smoke from the nine pounder with which Marsh was still steadily bombarding the enemy. Hornblower felt sick – so sick that he began to fear lest he should disgrace himself eternally by vomiting in full view of his men. When fatigue and anxiety had weakened him thus he was far more conscious of the pitching and rolling of the ship under his feet. The men at the guns were silent now, he noticed – for long they had laughed and joked at their posts, but now they were beginning to sulk under the punishment. That was a bad sign.
‘Pass the word for Sullivan and his fiddle,’ he ordered.
The red-haired Irish madman came aft, and knuckled his forehead, his fiddle and bow under his arm.
‘Give us a tune, Sullivan,’ he ordered. ‘Hey there, men, who is there among you who dances the best hornpipe?’
There was a difference of opinion about that, apparently.
‘Benskin, sir,’ said some voices.
‘Hall, sir,’ said others.
‘No, MacEvoy, sir.’
‘Then we’ll have a tournament,’ said Hornblower. ‘Here, Benskin, Hall, MacEvoy. A hornpipe from each of you, and guinea for the man who does it best.’
In later years it was a tale told and retold, how the Lydia was towed into action with hornpipes being danced on her maindeck. It was quoted as an example of Hornblower’s cool courage, and only Hornblower knew how little truth there was in the attribution. It kept the men happy, which was why he did it. No one guessed how nearly he came to vomiting when a shot came in through a forward gun-port and spattered Hall with a seaman’s brains without causing him to miss a step.
Then later in that dreadful afternoon there came a crash from forward, followed by a chorus of shouts and screams overside.
‘Launch sunk, sir!’ hailed Galbraith from the forecastle, but Hornblower was there as soon as he had uttered the words.
A round shot had dashed the launch practically into its component planks, and the men were scrambling in the water, leaping up for the bobstay or struggling to climb into the cutter, all of them who survived wild with fear of sharks.
‘The Dagoes have saved us the trouble of hoisting her in,’ he said, loudly. ‘We’re close enough now for them to feel our teeth.’
The men who heard him cheered.
‘Mr Hooker!’ he called to the midshipman in the cutter. ‘When you have picked up those men, kindly starboard your helm. We are going to open fire.’
He came aft to the quarterdeck again.
‘Hard a-starboard,’ he growled at the quartermaster. ‘Mr Gerard, you may open first when your guns bear.’
Very slowly the Lydia swung round. Another broadside from the Natividad came crashing into her before she had completed the turn, but Hornblower actually did not notice it. The period of inaction was now over. He had brought his ship within four hundred yards of the enemy, and all his duty now was to walk the deck as an example to his men. There were no more decisions to make.
‘Cock your locks!’ shouted Gerard in the waist.
‘Easy, Mr Hooker. Way enough!’ roared Hornblower.
The Lydia turned inch by inch, with Gerard squinting along one of the starboard guns to judge of the moment when it would first bear.
‘Take your aim!’ he yelled, and stood back, timing the roll of the ship in the heavy swell. ‘Fire!’
The smoke billowed out amid the thunder of the discharge, and the Lydia heaved to the recoil of the guns.
‘Give him another, lads!’ shouted Hornblower through the din. Now that action was joined he found himself exalted and happy, the dreadful fears of mutilation forgotten. In thirty seconds the guns were reloaded, run out, and fired. Again and again and again, with Gerard watching the roll of the ship and giving the word. Counting back in his mind, Hornblower reckoned five broadsides from the Lydia, and he could only remember two from the Natividad in that time. At that rate of firing the Natividad’s superiority in numbers of guns and weight of metal would be more than counterbalanced. At the sixth broadside a gun went off prematurely, a second before Gerard gave the word. Hornblower sprang forward to detect the guilty crew – it was easy enough from their furtive look and suspicious appearance of busyness. He shook his finger at them.
‘Steady, there!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll flog the next man who fires out of turn.’
It was very necessary to keep the men in hand while the range was as long as at present, because in the heat and excitement of the action the gun captains could not be trusted to judge the motion of the ship while preoccupied with loading and laying.
‘Good old Horny!’ piped up some unknown voice forward, and there was a burst of laughing and cheering, cut short by Gerard’s next order to fire.
The smoke was banked thick about the ship already – as thick as a London fog so that from the quarterdeck it was impossible to see individuals on the forecastle, and in the unnatural darkness which it brought with it one could see the long orange flashes of the guns despite the vivid sunshine outside. Of the Natividad all that could be seen was her high smoke cloud and the single topmast jutting out from it. The thick smoke, trailing about the ship in greasy wreaths, made the eyes smart and irritated the lungs, and affected the skin like thundery weather until it pricked uncomfortably.
Hornblower found Bush beside him.
‘Natividad’s feeling our fire, sir,’ he roared through the racket. ‘She’s firing very wild. Look at that, sir.’
Of the broadside fired only one or two shots struck home. Half a dozen plunged together into the sea astern of the Lydia so that the spray from the fountains which they struck up splashed round them on the quarterdeck. Hornblower nodded happily. This was his justification for closing to that range and for running the risks involved in the approach. To maintain a rapid fire, well aimed, amid the din and the smoke and the losses and the confusion of a naval battle called for discipline and practice of a sort that he knew the Natividad’s crew could not boast.
He looked down through the smoke at the Lydia’s main deck. The inexperienced eye, observing the hurry and bustle of the boys with the cartridge buckets, the mad efforts of the gun crews, the dead and the wounded, the darkness and the din, might well think it a scene of confusion, but Hornblower knew better. Everything that was being done there, every single action, was part of the scheme worked out by Hornblower seven months before when he commissioned the Lydia, and grained into the minds of all on board during the long and painful drills since. He could see Gerard standing by the mainmast, looking almost saintly in his ecstasy – gunnery was as much Gerard’s ruling passion as women; he could see the midshipmen and other warrant officers each by his subdivision of guns, each looking to Gerard for his orders and keeping his guns working rhythmically, the loaders with their rammers, the cleaners with their sponges, the gun captains crouching over the breeches, right hands raised.
The port side battery was already depleted of most of its men; there were only two men to a gun there, standing idle yet ready to spring into action i
f a shift of the fight should bring their guns to bear. The remainder were on duty round the ship – replacing casualties on the starboard side, manning the pumps, whose doleful clanking continued steadily through the fearful din, resting on their oars in the cutter, hard at work aloft repairing damages. Hornblower found time to be thankful that he had been granted seven months in which to bring his crew into its present state of training and discipline.
Something – the concussion of the guns, a faint breath of air, or the send of the sea – was causing the Lydia to turn away a trifle from her enemy. Hornblower could see that the guns were having to be trained round farther and farther so that the rate of firing was being slowed down. He raced forward, running out along the bowsprit until he was over the cutter where Hooker and his men sat staring at the fight.
‘Mr Hooker, bring her head round two points to starboard.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
The men bent to their oars and headed their boat towards the Natividad; the tow-rope tightened while another badly aimed broadside tore the water all round them into foam. Tugging and straining at the oars they would work the ship round in time. Hornblower left them and ran back to the quarterdeck. There was a white-faced ship’s boy seeking him there.
‘Mr Howell sent me, sir. Starboard side chain pump’s knocked all to pieces.’
‘Yes?’ Hornblower knew that Howell the ship’s carpenter would not merely send a message of despair.
‘He’s rigging another one, sir, but it will be an hour before it works, sir. He told me to tell you the water’s gaining a little, sir.’
‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower. The infant addressing him grew round-eyed and confidential now that the first strangeness of speaking to his captain had worn off.
‘There was fourteen men all knocked into smash at the pump, sir. ’Orrible, sir.’
‘Very good. Run back to Mr Howell and tell him the captain is sure he will do his best to get the new pump rigged.’