“Turn out the watch below! All hands wear ship! All hands! All hands! You, master-at-arms, take the name of the last man up the hatchway. All hands!”
The interval of peace, short as it was, and broken by Finch’s disturbing presence, was at an end. Hornblower dived over the barricade and gripped the futtock shrouds; not for him was the easy descent through the lubber’s hole, not when the first lieutenant might see him and reprimand him for unseamanlike behaviour. Finch waited for him to quit the top, but even with this length start Hornblower was easily outpaced in the descent to the deck, for Finch, like the skilled seaman he was, ran down the shrouds as lightly as a monkey. Then the thought of Finch’s curious illusions was temporarily submerged in the business of laying the ship on her new course.
But later in the day Hornblower’s mind reverted inevitably to the odd things Finch had been saying. There could be no doubt that Finch firmly believed he saw what he said he saw. Both his words and his expression made that certain. He had spoken about God’s beard—it was a pity that he had not spared a few words to describe the Devil in the cable tier. Horns, cloven hoof, and pitchfork? Hornblower wondered. And why was the Devil only loose in the cable tier during the dog watches? Strange that he should keep to a timetable. Hornblower caught his breath as the sudden thought came to him that perhaps there might be some worldly explanation. The Devil might well be loose in the cable tier in a metaphorical fashion during the dog watches. Devil’s work might be going on there. Hornblower had to decide further on what was expedient. He could report his suspicions to Eccles, the first lieutenant; but after a year of service Hornblower was under no illusions about what might happen to a junior midshipman who worried a first lieutenant with unfounded suspicions. It would be better to see for himself first, as far as that went. But he did not know what he would find—if he should find anything at all—and he did not know how he should deal with it if he found anything. Much worse than that, he did not know if he would be able to deal with it in officer-like fashion. He could make a fool of himself. He might mishandle whatever situation he found, and bring down obloquy and derision upon his head, and he might imperil the discipline of the ship—weaken the slender thread of allegiance that bound officers and men together, the discipline which kept three hundred men at the bidding of their captain suffering untold hardship without demur; which made them ready to face death at the word of command. When eight bells told the end of the afternoon watch and the beginning of the first dog watch it was with trepidation that Hornblower went below to put a candle in a lantern and make his way forward to the cable tier.
It was dark down here, stuffy, odorous; and as the ship heaved and rolled he found himself stumbling over the various obstacles that impeded his progress. Yet forward there was a faint light, a murmur of voices. Hornblower choked down his fear that perhaps mutiny was being planned. He put his hand over the horn window of the lantern, so as to obscure its light, and crept forward. Two lanterns swung from the low deck-beams, and crouching under them were a score or more of men—more than that, even—and the buzz of their talk came loudly but indistinguishably to Hornblower’s ears. Then the buzz increased to a roar, and someone in the centre of the circle rose suddenly to as near his full height as the deck-beams allowed. He was shaking himself violently from side to side for no apparent reason; his face was away from Hornblower, who saw with a gasp that his hands were tied behind him. The men roared again, like spectators at a prize-fight, and the man with his hands tied swung round so that Hornblower could see his face. It was Styles, the man who suffered from boils; Hornblower knew him at once. But that was not what made the most impression on Hornblower. Clinging to the man’s face, weird in the shifting meagre light, was a grey writhing shape, and it was to shake this off that Styles was flinging himself about so violently. It was a rat; Hornblower’s stomach turned over with horror.
With a wild jerk of his head Styles broke the grip of the rat’s teeth and flung the creature down, and then instantly plunged down on his knees, with his hands still bound behind him, to pursue it with his own teeth.
“Time!” roared a voice at that moment—the voice of Partridge, bosun’s mate. Hornblower had been roused by it often enough to recognize it at once.
“Five dead,” said another voice. “Pay all bets of evens or better.”
Hornblower plunged forward. Part of the cable had been coiled down to make a rat pit ten feet across in which knelt Styles with dead and living rats about his knees. Partridge squatted beside the ring with a sandglass—used for timing the casting of the log—in front of him.
“Six dead,” protested someone. “That ’un’s dead.”
“No, he ain’t.”
“ ’Is back’s broken. ’E’s a dead ’un.”
“ ’E ain’t a dead ’un,” said Partridge.
The man who had protested looked up at that moment and caught sight of Hornblower, and his words died away unspoken; at his silence the others followed his glance and stiffened into rigidity, and Hornblower stepped forward. He was still wondering what he should do; he was still fighting down the nausea excited by the horrible things he had seen. Desperately he mastered his horror, and, thinking fast, took his stand on discipline.
“Who’s in charge here?” he demanded.
He ran his eye round the circle. Petty officers and second-class warrant officers, mainly; bosun’s mates, carpenter’s mates. Muggridge, the surgeon’s mate—his presence explained much. But his own position was not easy. A midshipman of scant service depended for his authority on board largely on the force of his own personality. He was only a warrant officer himself; when all was said and done a midshipman was not nearly as important to the ship’s economy—and was far more easily replaced—than, say, Washburn, the cooper’s mate over there, who knew all about the making and storage of the ship’s water barrels.
“Who’s in charge here?” he demanded again, and once more received no direct reply.
“We ain’t on watch,” said a voice in the background.
Hornblower by now had mastered his horror; his indignation still flared within him, but he could appear outwardly calm.
“No, you’re not on watch,” he said coldly. “You’re gambling.”
Muggridge took up the defence at that.
“Gambling, Mr. Hornblower?” he said. “That’s a very serious charge. Just a gentlemanly competition. You’ll find it hard to sub—substantiate any charges of gambling.”
Muggridge had been drinking, quite obviously, following perhaps the example of the head of his department. There was always brandy to be got in the medical stores. A surge of wrath made Hornblower tremble; the effort necessary to keep himself standing stock still was almost too much for him. But the rise in internal pressure brought him inspiration.
“Mr. Muggridge,” he said icily, “I advise you not to say too much. There are other charges possible, Mr. Muggridge. A member of His Majesty’s forces can be charged with rendering himself unfit for service, Mr. Muggridge. And similarly there might be charges of aiding and abetting which might include you. I should consult the Articles of War if I were you, Mr. Muggridge. The punishment for such an offence is flogging round the fleet I believe.”
Hornblower pointed to Styles, with the blood streaming from his bitten face, and gave more force to his argument by the gesture. He had met the men’s arguments with a more effective one along the same lines; they had taken up a legalistic defence and he had legalistically beaten it down. He had the upper hand now and could give vent to his moral indignation.
“I could bring charges against every one of you,” he roared. “You could be court martialled—disrated—flogged—every man Jack of you. By God, one more look like that from you, Partridge, and I’ll do it. You’d all be in irons five minutes after I spoke to Mr. Eccles. I’ll have no more of these filthy games. Let those rats loose there, you, Oldroyd, and you, Lewis. Styles, get your face plastered up again. You, Partridge, take these men and coil this cable down properly
again before Mr. Waldron sees it. I’ll keep my eye on all of you in future. The next hint I have of misbehaviour and you’ll all be at the gratings. I’ve said it, and by God I mean it!”
Hornblower was surprised both at his own volubility and at his self-possession. He had not known himself capable of carrying off matters with such a high hand. He sought about in his mind for a final salvo with which to make his retirement dignified, and it came to him as he turned away so that he turned back to deliver it.
“After this I want to see you in the dog watches skylarking on deck, not skulking in the cable tiers like a lot of Frenchmen.”
That was the sort of speech to be expected of a pompous old captain, not a junior midshipman, but it served to give dignity to his retirement. There was a feverish buzz of voices as he left the group. Hornblower went up on deck, under the cheerless grey sky dark with premature night, to walk the deck to keep himself warm while the Indefatigable slashed her way to windward in the teeth of a roaring westerly, the spray flying in sheets over her bows, the straining seams leaking and her fabric groaning; the end of a day like all the preceding ones and the predecessor probably of innumerable more.
Yet the days passed, and with them came at last a break in the monotony. In the sombre dawn a hoarse bellow from the lookout turned every eye to windward, to where a dull blotch on the horizon marked the presence of a ship. The watch came running to the braces as the Indefatigable was laid as close to the wind as she would lie. Captain Pellew came on deck with a peajacket over his nightshirt, his wigless head comical in a pink nightcap; he trained his glass on the strange sail—a dozen glasses were pointing in that direction. Hornblower, look-through the glass reserved for the junior officer of the watch saw the grey rectangle split into three, saw the three grow narrow, and then broaden again to coalesce into a single rectangle again.
“She’s gone about,” said Pellew. “Hands ’bout ship!”
Round came the Indefatigable on the other tack; the watch raced aloft to shake out a reef from the topsails while from the deck the officers looked up at the straining canvas to calculate the chances of the gale which howled round their ears splitting the sails or carrying away a spar. The Indefatigable lay over until it was hard to keep one’s footing on the streaming deck; everyone without immediate duties clung to the weather rail and peered at the other ship.
“Fore- and maintop-masts exactly equal,” said Lieutenant Bolton to Hornblower, his telescope to his eye. “Topsails white as milady’s fingers. She’s a Frenchie all right.”
The sails of British ships were darkened with long service in all weathers; when a French ship escaped from harbour to run the blockade her spotless unweathered canvas disclosed her nationality without real need to take into consideration less obvious technical characteristics.
“We’re weathering on her,” said Hornblower; his eye was aching with staring through the glass, and his arms even were weary with holding the telescope to his eye, but in the excitement of the chase he could not relax.
“Not as much as I’d like,” growled Bolton.
“Hands to the mainbrace!” roared Pellew at that moment.
It was a matter of the most vital concern to trim the sails so as to lie as close as possible to the wind; a hundred yards gained to windward would count as much as a mile gained in a stern chase. Pellew was looking up at the sails, back at the fleeting wake, across at the French ship, gauging the strength of the wind, estimating the strain on the rigging. doing everything that a lifetime of experience could suggest to close the gap between the two ships. Pellew’s next order sent all hands to run out the guns on the weather side; that would in part counteract the heel and give the Indefatigable more grip upon the water.
“Now we’re walking up to her,” said Bolton with grudging optimism.
“Beat to quarters!” shouted Pellew.
The ship had been expecting that order. The roar of the marine bandsmen’s drums echoed through the ship; the pipes twittered as the bosun’s mates repeated the order, and the men ran in disciplined fashion to their duties. Hornblower, jumping for the weather mizzen shrouds, saw the eager grins on half a dozen faces—battle and the imminent possibility of death were a welcome change from the eternal monotony of the blockade. Up in the mizzen-top he looked over his men. They were uncovering the locks of their muskets and looking to the priming; satisfied with their readiness for action Hornblower turned his attention to the swivel gun. He took the tarpaulin from the breech and the tompion from the muzzle, cast off the lashings which secured it, and saw that the swivel moved freely in the socket and the trunnions freely in the crotch. A jerk of the lanyard showed him that the lock was sparkling well and there was no need for a new flint. Finch came climbing into the top with the canvas belt over his shoulder containing the charges for the gun; the bags of musket balls lay handy in a garland fixed to the barricade. Finch rammed home a cartridge down the short muzzle; Hornblower had ready a bag of balls to ram down onto it. Then he took a priming-quill and forced it down the touchhole, feeling sensitively to make sure the sharp point pierced the thin serge bag of the cartridge. Priming-quill and flintlock were necessary up here in the top, where no slow match or port-fire could be used with the danger of fire so great and where fire would be so difficult to control in the sails and the rigging. Yet musketry and swivel-gun fire from the tops were an important tactical consideration. With the ships laid yardarm to yardarm Hornblower’s men could clear the hostile quarterdeck where centred the brains and control of the enemy.
“Stop that, Finch!” said Hornblower irritably; turning, he had caught sight of him peering up at the maintop and at this moment of tension Finch’s delusions annoyed him.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Finch, resuming his duties.
But a moment later Hornblower heard Finch whispering to himself.
“Mr. Bracegirdle’s there,” whispered Finch, “an’ Oldroyd’s there, an’ all those others. But He’s there too, so He is.”
“Hands wear ship!” came the shouted order from the deck below.
The old Indefatigable was spinning round on her heel, the yards groaning as the braces swung them round. The French ship had made a bold attempt to rake her enemy as she clawed up to her, but Pellew’s prompt handling defeated the plan. Now the ships were broadside to broadside, running free before the wind at long cannon shot.
“Just look at ’im!” roared Douglas, one of the musket men in the top. “Twenty guns a side. Looks brave enough, doesn’t he?”
Standing beside Douglas Hornblower could look down on the Frenchman’s deck, her guns run out with the guns’ crews clustering round them, officers in white breeches and blue coats walking up and down, the spray flying from her bows as she drove headlong before the wind.
“She’ll look braver still when we take her into Plymouth Sound,” said the seaman on the far side of Hornblower.
The Indefatigable was slightly the faster ship; an occasional touch of starboard helm was working her in closer to the enemy, into decisive range, without allowing the Frenchman to headreach upon her. Hornblower was impressed by the silence on both sides; he had always understood that the French were likely to open fire at long range and to squander ineffectively the first carefully loaded broadside.
“When’s he goin’ to fire?” asked Douglas, echoing Hornblower’s thoughts.
“In his own good time,” piped Finch.
The gap of tossing water between the two ships was growing narrower. Hornblower swung the swivel gun round and looked along the sights. He could aim well enough at the Frenchman’s quarter-deck, but it was much too long a range for a bag of musket balls—in any case he dared not open fire until Pellew gave permission.
“Them’s the men for us!” said Douglas, pointing to the Frenchman’s mizzen-top.
It looked as if there were soldiers up there, judging by the blue uniforms and the crossbelts; the French often eked out their scanty crews of trained seamen by shipping soldiers; in the British Navy th
e marines were never employed aloft. The French soldiers saw the gesture and shook their fists, and a young officer among them drew his sword and brandished it over his head. With the ships parallel to each other like this the French mizzen-top would be Hornblower’s particular objective should he decide on trying to silence the firing there instead of sweeping the quarter-deck. He gazed curiously at the men it was his duty to kill. So interested was he that the bang of a cannon took him by surprise; before he could look down the rest of the Frenchman’s broadside had gone off in straggling fashion, and a moment later the Indefatigable lurched as all her guns went off together. The wind blew the smoke forward, so that in the mizzen-top they were not troubled by it at all. Hornblower’s glance showed him dead men flung about on the Indefatigable’s deck, dead men falling on the Frenchman’s deck. Still the range was too great—very long musket shot, his eye told him.
“They’re shootin’ at us, sir,” said Herbert.
“Let ’em,” said Hornblower.
No musket fired from a heaving masthead at that range could possibly score a hit; that was obvious—so obvious that even Hornblower, madly excited as he was, could not help but be aware of it, and his certainty was apparent in his tone. It was interesting to see how the two calm words steadied the men. Down below the guns were roaring away continuously, and the ships were nearing each other fast.
“Open fire now, men!” said Hornblower. “Finch!”
He stared down the short length of the swivel gun. In the coarse V of the notch on the muzzle he could see the Frenchman’s wheel, the two quartermasters standing behind it, the two officers beside it. He jerked the lanyard. A tenth of a second’s delay, and then the gun roared out. He was conscious, before the smoke whirled round him, of the firing quill, blown from the touchhole, flying past his temple. Finch was already sponging out the gun. The musket balls must have spread badly; only one of the helmsmen was down and someone else was already running to take his place. At that moment the whole top lurched frightfully; Hornblower felt it but he could not explain it. There was too much happening at once. The solid timbers under his feet jarred him as he stood—perhaps a shot had hit the mizzen-mast. Finch was ramming in the cartridge; something struck the breech of the gun a heavy blow and left a bright splash of metal there—a musket bullet from the Frenchman’s mizzen-top. Hornblower tried to keep his head; he took out another sharpened quill and coaxed it down into the touchhole. It had to be done purposefully and yet gently; a quill broken off in the touchhole was likely to be a maddening nuisance. He felt the point of the quill pierce the cartridge; Finch rammed home the wad on top of the musket balls. A bullet struck the barricade beside him as Hornblower trained the gun down, but he gave it no thought. Surely the top was swaying more even than the heavy sea justified? No matter. He had a clear shot at the enemy’s quarterdeck. He tugged at the lanyard. He saw men fall. He actually saw the spokes of the wheel spin round as it was left untended. Then the two ships came together with a shattering crash and his world dissolved into chaos compared with which what had gone before was orderly.