The farther the better; the more hurried the Frenchman’s manoeuvre the more helpless he would be. The bowsprits were only a hundred yards apart now, and Hornblower set his teeth so as not to give the instinctive order to up helm. Then he saw a flurry on the Frenchman’s decks, and her bow swung away from him – to leeward.
‘Hold your fire!’ Hornblower shouted to Gerard, fearful lest a premature broadside should waste the opportunity. Gerard waved his hat in reply, with a flash of white teeth in his brown face. The two ships were overlapping now, not thirty yards apart, and the Frenchman’s guns were beginning to bear. In the bright sunlight Hornblower could see the flash of the epaulettes of the officers on the quarterdeck, the men at the forecastle cannonades stooping to look along the sights. This was the moment.
‘Helm a-weather, slow,’ he said to the helmsman. A glance at Bush was enough – he was anticipating this order. The Sutherland began to wear round slowly, beginning her turn to cross the Frenchman’s stern before the two ships were alongside. Bush began to bellow the orders to the men at the braces and the headsail sheets, and as he did so the Frenchman’s broadside burst into thunder and flame and smoke. The Sutherland shook and jarred with the impact of the shot; one of the mizzen shrouds above Hornblower’s head parted with a twang at the same moment as a hole appeared in the quarterdeck bulwark near him amid a shower of splinters. But the Sutherland’s bow was already almost touching the Frenchman’s stern. Hornblower could see an eddy of panic on her quarterdeck.
‘Keep her at that!’ he shouted to the helmsman.
Then with a series of heavy crashes, one following another as the Sutherland crossed her enemy’s stern and each section of guns bore in turn, she fired her broadside into her, heeling slightly at each discharge, with every shot tearing its destructive course from end to end of the ship. Gerard came leaping on to the quarterdeck, having run down the whole length of the maindeck, keeping pace with the firing. He bent eagerly over the nearest carronade, altered its elevation with a quick twist of the screw, and jerked the lanyard, with a wave of the hand to the other gun captains to do the same. The carronades roared out, sweeping the Frenchman’s quarterdeck with grape on top of the roundshot. Hornblower saw the officers there dashed to the deck like lead soldiers, saw rigging parting, and the big stern windows of the French ship disappear like a curtain jerked from its pole.
‘That’s given him a bellyful,’ said Bush.
That was the sort of broadside which won battles. That single discharge had probably knocked half the fight out of the Frenchmen, killing and wounding a hundred men or more, dismounting half a dozen guns. In a single-ship duel she would strike her flag in less than half an hour. But now she had drawn ahead while the Sutherland was completing her turn, and the second Frenchman, the one with the rear-admiral’s flag, was loose on the weather quarter. She had all plain sail set, and was overhauling them fast; in a moment she would be able to rake the Sutherland as the Sutherland had raked her consort.
‘Starboard!’ said Hornblower to the helmsman. ‘Stand to your guns on the port side!’ His voice rang uncannily loud in the stillness following the firing.
The Frenchman came on undeviating, not disdaining a broadside to broadside duel, but not attempting to manoeuvre, especially against an enemy who had proved himself alert, at a time when manoeuvring meant delay in gaining the shelter of Rosas. The ships inclined together, growing nearer and nearer as the Frenchman headreached upon the Sutherland and the Sutherland’s course approached hers. From the Sutherland’s deck they could hear the excited orders which the French officers were shouting to their men, trying to restrain their eagerness until the decisive moment.
They were not entirely successful all the same, as first one gun and then another went off as excitable gunners let fly – where the shots went Heaven alone knew. A word from Hornblower swung the Sutherland round till she lay parallel to her opponent, and as she steadied on her new course Hornblower waved his hand to Gerard as a signal to open fire. There was not more than half a second between the two broadsides; the Sutherland, heaving up her side to the recoil of her guns, heaved over farther still to the impact of the shot. As the smoke came billowing up round her the air was filled with the splintering crash of the shot striking her sides; there were screams and cries from below in proof of the damage received.
‘Keep at it now, lads! Fire as you will!’ shouted Gerard.
Those hours of drill bore fruit now. The sponges were thrust into the reeking gun muzzles, and the moment they were withdrawn the powder and the rammer and the shot were ready for insertion. Almost simultaneously the gun trucks rumbled as the crews flung themselves on the tackles and ran the guns up; almost simultaneously the guns roared out. This time there was a perceptible and measurable interval before the Frenchman replied in a straggling and irregular salvo. The gentle wind blowing on the engaged quarter kept the ship engulfed in the smoke; the gunners labouring on the main-deck were as vague as in a dense fog to Hornblower, but the masts and sails of the Frenchman still stood out clear against the blue sky. The Sutherland’s third broadside followed close on the heels of the Frenchman’s second.
‘Three to her two, as usual,’ said Bush, coolly. A shot struck the mizzen mast bitts and sprayed the deck with splinters. ‘She’s still drawing ahead, sir.’
It was hard to think clearly in this frightful din, with death all round. Captain Morris had his marines all along the port side gangway firing away at everyone visible on the other ship’s decks; the two ships were within easy musket shot. The Sutherland’s broadsides were growing irregular now, as the most efficient crews worked their guns faster than the others, while the Frenchman was delivering a running fire in which there were occasional louder explosions to be heard when several guns went off together. It was like the clattering of the hoofs of four coach horses on a hard road, sometimes in unison for a space, and then spreading out again.
‘I fancy his fire’s slackening, sir,’ said Bush. ‘It doesn’t surprise me.’
The Sutherland had not suffered mortally yet, judging by the number of dead on the maindeck. She could still fight for a long time yet.
‘See his main mast, sir!’ yelled Bush.
His main topmast was bowing forward, slow and dignified, with the topgallant mast bowing further forward still. Through the smoke they could see the main mast inclining aft. Then all dignity left the soaring mass of spars and canvas. It hung S-shaped in the air for a breathless second, and then tumbled down with a rush, fore and mizzen topmasts falling with it. Hornblower felt a grim satisfaction at the sight – there were no spare main masts to be had in Rosas. The Sutherland’s crew cheered piercingly, and hastened to fire in a few last shots as their ship drew ahead of her crippled opponent. A minute later the din of the firing ceased, the tiny breeze blew away the smoke, and the sun came shining through upon the littered deck again.
Aft lay their late antagonist, a great mass of wreckage trailing alongside, the second lower deck gun from the bow pointing out of its port at an impossible angle of elevation to show she had one gun at least knocked useless. A quarter of a mile ahead was the first ship they had fired into; she had paid no attention to the duel behind her but had continued under all sail for the safety of Rosas Bay, just like a Frenchman. And beyond her, sweeping round the horizon, were the cruel mountains of Spain, and the white roofs of Rosas were clearly visible above the golden shore. The Sutherland was close to the wide mouth of the bay; half way between her and Rosas lay two gigantic beetles on the flat blue surface – gunboats coming out of Rosas under sweeps.
And close astern of the crippled ship came the other two ships of the French squadron, the three-decker with the vice-admiral’s flag and a two-decker in her wake. It was the moment for decision.
‘Masthead there!’ hailed Hornblower. ‘Can you see anything of the flagship?’
‘No, sir. Nothing but Cassandra.’
Hornblower could see the Cassandra’s royals himself, from the deck, pearly
white on the horizon; the Pluto and Caligula must still be nearly twenty miles away – possibly becalmed. The tiny breeze which was urging the Sutherland into the bay was probably a sea breeze; the day was hot enough for that. Leighton would hardly arrive in time to take part in this battle. Hornblower could put his ship about now, and tack into safety, beating off the two enemies if they interfered with him, or he could throw himself into their path; and with every second carrying him a yard nearer Rosas he must decide quickly. If he fought, there was the faintest possible chance that Leighton might be brought up in time to pick up the cripples, but so faint a chance as to be negligible.
The Sutherland would be destroyed, but her enemies would be so knocked about as to be detained in Rosas for days or even weeks. And that was desirable, because it would be several days before preparations could be made to attack them in their anchorage, and during those days there would always be the chance of their escaping – three of them, at least – from Rosas as they had escaped from Toulon.
Hornblower balanced in his mind the loss of a seventy-four to England against the certain loss of four ships of the line to France. And then he knew, suddenly, that his cogitation had been wasted. If he withdrew, he would all the rest of his life suspect himself of having done so out of cowardice, and he foresaw with clarity the years of mental uneasiness it would bring. He would fight whether it was the right thing or not, and as he reached that decision he realised with relief that it was the correct course as well. One more second he wasted, looking up at the blue sky which he loved, and then he gulped down his muddled emotions.
‘Lay the ship on the port tack, if you please, Mr Bush,’ he said.
The crew cheered again, the poor fools, when they saw that they were about to face the rest of the French, even though it meant the certain death of half of them at least. Hornblower felt pity – or was it contempt? – for them and their fighting madness or thirst for glory. Bush was as bad as any of them, judging by the way his face had lit up at the order. He wanted the Frenchman’s blood just because they were Frenchmen, and thought nothing of the chance of being a legless cripple if he were granted the chance of smashing a few French legs first.
The crippled two-decker with the rear-admiral’s flag came drifting down on them – this sea breeze would push all wrecks into Rosas Bay under the guns of the fortress – and the men working lackadaisically at clearing the wreckage ran from their work when they looked up and saw the Sutherland’s guns swinging around towards them. The Sutherland fired three broadsides into her with hardly a gun in reply before she drifted clear – another fifty or so dead Frenchmen for Bush, thought Hornblower, viciously, as the rumble of the gun trucks died away and the men stood waiting once more, silent now, beside their guns. Here came the three-decker, now, beautiful with her towering canvas, hideous with her grinning guns. Even at that moment Hornblower marked, with professional interest, the decided tumble-home of her sides, much greater than English shipwrights allowed.
‘Let her pay off slowly, Mr Bush,’ he said. He was going to set his teeth into the three-decker like a bulldog.
Round came the Sutherland, slowly, slowly. Hornblower saw that his last manoeuvre with the Sutherland was going to be as well timed as ever he could wish. She was on the same course as the three-decker at exactly the moment the latter drew up opposite to her; the guns of both ships bore simultaneously, a hundred yards apart, and burst simultaneously into thunder and smoke.
In the earlier encounters time had seemed to pass slowly. Now it seemed to be passing fast, the infernal din of the broadsides seeming almost unintermitting, the figures hurrying about in the smoke seeming to be moving twice as fast as normally.
‘Edge in closer on her,’ said Hornblower to the helmsman, and then, his last order given, he could abandon himself to the mad inconsequence of it all. Shots seemed to be tearing up the deck all around him, smashing great gashes in the planking. With the clear unreality of a nightmare he saw Bush fall, with blood running from the stump of one leg where a foot was missing. Two men of the surgeon’s crew bent over him to carry him below.
‘Leave me on deck,’ said Bush. ‘Let go of me, you dogs.’
‘Take him away,’ said Hornblower. The harshness of his voice was a piece with the madness of everything else, for he was glad to be able to order Bush into a place of safety where he might yet live.
The mizzen topmast fell, and spars and blocks and tackle came raining all round him – death falling from the heavens as well as hurtling in from overside, but still he lived. Now the foretopsail yard was shot through in the slings; dimly through the smoke he could see Hooker leading a party aloft to repair it. Out of the tail of his eye he saw something new and strange looming through the smoke – it was the fourth French ship, coming up on the Sutherland’s disengaged side. He found himself waving his hat and shrieking some nonsense or other to his men, who cheered him back as they brought the starboard side guns into action. The smoke was thicker, and the din more tremendous, and the whole ship throbbing with every gun in action.
Little Longley was at his side now, white faced, miraculously alive after the fall of the mizzen topmast.
‘I’m not frightened. I’m not frightened,’ the boy said; his jacket was torn clean across the breast and he was trying to hold it together as he denied the evidence of the tears in his eyes.
‘No, sonny, of course you’re not,’ said Hornblower.
Then Longley was dead, hands and breast smashed into pulp. There was a maindeck gun not run out, he saw as he looked away from Longley’s body. He was about to call attention to the abandoned gun, when he noticed its slaughtered crew lying in fragments round it, and he saw that there were no longer any men to spare to get it into action again. Soon there would be more guns than one out of action. The very carronade beside him had but three men to man it – so had the next one, and the next. Down on the maindeck there were marines carrying powder and shot; Gerard must have set them to that work, and the powder boys must be mostly dead. If only this din would stop, and allow him to think!
It seemed to him as if at that the din redoubled. Foremast and mainmast came down together with a splintering crash audible high above the gunfire, the mass of wreckage tumbling over the starboard side. He ran forward, to find Hooker there already hard at work with a group of men drawn from the blinded guns hacking away at the rigging to cut it clear. The three-feet-thick end of the broken mainmast had smashed a gun carriage and killed the crew during its fall. Shots from the two-decker on that side were smashing through the men at work, and already smoke was pouring up from the canvas hanging over the side where the flame of the guns had set it on fire. Hornblower took an axe from the hand of a dead man and fell to work hacking and cutting along with the others. When the last rope was cut, and the flaring mass had dropped overside, and hasty inspection showed that the timber of the ship had not caught fire, he swept the sweat from his forehead and looked around the ship from his new point of view.
The whole deck was heaped and littered with dead men and fragments of dead men. The wheel was gone, the masts, the bulwarks were beaten flat, the very hatch coamings indicated by a mere fringe of splinters. But the guns which could still be worked were still firing, each manned by its attenuated crew. On either side the enemy loomed through the smoke, but the three-decker had lost two topmasts and the two-decker her mizzen mast, and their sails were in shreds and their rigging hanging in festoons, seen dimly in the smoke. The firing was as fierce as ever. He wondered dully by what miracle he survived to walk through the tempest of shot back to his post on the quarterdeck.
Some puff of wind was altering the relative position of the ships. The three-decker was swinging round, coming closer; Hornblower was already running forward down the port side, with seeming feet of lead, when the three-decker’s starboard bow came with a grinding bump against the Sutherland’s port bow. Frenchmen were gathering to leap down on to the Sutherland’s deck, and Hornblower drew his sword as he ran.
?
??Boarders!’ he yelled. ‘All hands repel boarders! Boom them off, there, Hooker, Crystal.’
High above his head towered the three-decker. Musketry was spattering along her bulwarks, and Hornblower heard bullets rapping into the deck around him. Men with swords and pikes in their hands were scrambling down the three-decker’s sides, and more were spewing out of the middle-deck gunport on to the Sutherland’s gangway. Hornblower found himself caught up in a wave of British sailors with cutlasses and pikes, rammers and handspikes, men naked to the waist and grey with powder smoke. Everyone was jostling and slipping and struggling. He was flung up against a dapper little French lieutenant with his hat rakishly awry. For the moment his arms were pinned to his sides by the press, and the Frenchman was struggling to pull a pistol from his waistband.
‘Rends-toi,’ he spluttered, as the weapon came free, but Hornblower brought up his knee and the Frenchman’s head went back in agony and he dropped the pistol.
And the three-decker was swinging away clear again, urged by the puff of wind and the thrust of the spar Crystal and Hooker and their party were pushing against her side. Some of the Frenchmen leaped back to the ship. Some leaped into the sea. A dozen who were left dropped their weapons – one of them too late to check the pike which was thrust into his stomach. The puff of wind was still blowing, drifting the French ships away from the dismasted Sutherland and rolling away the smoke. The sun came out and shone upon them and the hideous decks as though from behind a cloud, and the din of the firing ended magically as the guns ceased to bear.
Sword in hand, Hornblower stood while the men about him secured the prisoners. The cessation of the noise had not brought him the relief he had hoped for – on the contrary, he was amazed and stupid, and in his weariness he found it a desperate effort to think clearly. The wind had drifted the Sutherland well inside the bay, and there was no sign at all of the Pluto and Caligula – only the Cassandra, hull down over the horizon, a helpless spectator of the fight. The two battered French ships, almost as helpless as the Sutherland, thanks to the damage they had received aloft, were floating a short distance off; down the side of the three-decker, dribbling from the scuppers, Hornblower noticed a dark streak – human blood.