Hotspur clawed her way over the tossing sea to the point on Naiad’s lee bow when the signal flags would blow out at right angles to the line of sight.
‘Mr Foreman! Signal to Naiad, if you please. “Request permission to return to port.” ’
‘Request permission to return to port. Aye aye, sir.’
Naiad was the only ship of the Inshore Squadron – of the Channel Fleet – in sight, and her captain was therefore senior officer on the station. Every captain was senior to the captain of the Hotspur.
‘Naiad acknowledges, sir,’ reported Foreman, and then, after ten seconds’ wait, ‘Naiad to Hotspur, sir, “Interrogative.” ’
Somehow it might have been more politely put. Chambers of the Naiad might have signalled ‘Kindly give reasons for request,’ or something like that. But the single interrogative hoist was convenient and rapid. Hornblower framed his next signal equally tersely.
‘Hotspur to Naiad. “Eight days water.” ’
Hornblower watched the reply soar up Naiad’s signal halliards. It was not the affirmative; if it was permission, it was a qualified permission.
‘Naiad to Hotspur, sir. “Remain four more days.” ’
‘Thank you, Mr Foreman.’
Hornblower tried to keep all expression out of his voice and his face.
‘I’ll wager he has two months’ water on board, sir,’ said Bush, angrily.
‘I hope he has, Mr Bush.’
They were seventy leagues from Tor Bay; two days’ sailing with a fair wind. There was no margin for misfortune. If at the end of four days the wind should shift easterly, as was perfectly possible, they could not reach Tor Bay in a week or even more; the water-hoys might come down-channel, but might easily not find them at once, and then it was not unlikely that the sea would be too rough for boat work. There was an actual possibility that the crew of the Hotspur might die of thirst. It had not been easy for Hornblower to make his request; he had no desire to be thought one of those captains whose sole desire was to return to port, and he had waited to the last sensible moment. Chambers saw the problem differently, as a man well might do as regards the possible misfortune of other people. This was an easy way of demonstrating his resolution and firmness. An easy way, a comfortable way, a cheap way.
‘Send this signal, if you please, Mr Foreman. “Thank you. Am returning to station. Good-bye.’ Mr Prowse, we can bear away when that signal is acknowledged. Mr Bush, from today the water ration is reduced. One between two.’
Two quarts of water a day for all purposes – and such water – to men living on salted food, was far below the minimum for health. It meant sickness as well as discomfort, but the reduction also meant that the last drop of water would not be drunk until sixteen days had passed.
Captain Chambers had not foreseen the future weather, and perhaps he could not be blamed for that, seeing that on the fourth day after the exchange of signals the westerly wind worked up again, unbelievably, into the fourth tempest of that gale-ridden autumn. It was towards the end of the afternoon watch that Hornblower was called on deck again to give his permission for the reefed topsails to be got in and the storm stay-sail set once more. Significantly it was growing dark already; the days of the equinox when the sun set at six o’clock were long past, and, equally significantly, that roaring westerly gale now had a chilling quality about it. It was cold; not freezing, not icy, but cold, searchingly cold. Hornblower tried to pace the unstable deck in an endeavour to keep his circulation going; he grew warm, not because of his walking, but because the physical labour of keeping his feet was great enough for the purpose. Hotspur was leaping like a deer beneath him, and from down below, too, came the dreary sound of the pumps at work.
Six days’ water on board now; twelve at half-rations. The gloom of the night was no more gloomy than his thoughts. It was five weeks since he had last been able to send a letter to Maria, and it was six weeks since he had last heard from her, six weeks of westerly gales and westerly tempests. Anything might have happened to her or to the child, and she would be thinking that anything might have happened to the Hotspur or to him.
A more irregular wave than usual, roaring out of the darkness, burst upon Hotspur’s weather bow. Hornblower felt her sudden sluggishness, her inertia, beneath his feet. That wave must have flooded the waist to a depth of a yard or more, fifty or sixty tons of water piled up on her deck. She lay like something dead for a moment. Then she rolled, slightly at first, and then more freely; the sound of the cataracts of water pouring across could be clearly heard despite the gale. She freed herself as the water cascaded out through the overworked scuppers, and she came sluggishly back to life, to leap once more in her mad career from wave crest to trough. A blow like that could well be her death; some time she might not rise to it; some time her deck might be burst in. Another wave beat on her bow like the hammer of a mad giant, and another after that.
Next day was worse, the worst day that Hotspur had experienced in all these wild weeks. Some slight shift in the wind, or the increase in its strength, had worked up the waves to a pitch that was particularly unsuited to Hotspur’s idiosyncrasies. The waist was flooded most of the time now, so that she laboured heavily without relief, each wave catching her before she could free herself. That meant that the pumps were at work three hours out of every four, so that even with petty officers and idlers and waisters and marines all doing their share, every hand was engaged on the toilsome labour for twelve hours a day.
Bush’s glance was more direct even than usual when he came to make his report.
‘We’re still sighting Naiad now and then, sir, but not a chance of signals being read.’
This was the day when by Captain Chambers’s orders they were free to run for harbour.
‘Yes. I don’t think we can bear away in this wind and sea.’
Bush’s expression revealed a mental struggle. Hotspur’s powers of resistance to the present battering were not unlimited, but on the other hand to turn tail and run would be an operation of extreme danger.
‘Has Huffnell reported to you yet, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Hornblower.
There were nine hundred-gallon casks of fresh water left down below, which had been standing in the bottom tier for a hundred days. And now one of them had proved to be contaminated with seawater and was hardly drinkable. The others might perhaps be even less so.
‘Thank you, Mr Bush,’ said Hornblower, terminating the interview. ‘We’ll remain hove-to for today at least.’
Surely a wind of this force must moderate soon, even though Hornblower had a premonition that it would not.
Nor did it. The slow dawn of the new day found Hotspur still labouring under the dark clouds, the waves still as wild, the wind still as insane. The time had come for the final decision, as Hornblower well knew as he came out on deck in his clammy clothes. He knew the dangers, and he had spent a large part of the night preparing his mind to deal with them.
‘Mr Bush, we’ll get before the wind.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Before she could come before the wind she would have to present her vulnerable side to the waves. There would be seconds during which she could be rolled over on to her beam ends, beaten down under the waves, pounded into a wreck.
‘Mr Cargill!’
This was going to be a moment far more dangerous than being chased by the Loire, and Cargill would have to be trusted to carry out a similar duty as on a tense occasion then. Face close to face, Hornblower shouted his instructions.
‘Get for’ard. Make ready to show a bit of the fore-topmast stays’l. Haul it up when I wave my arm.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Get it in the moment I wave a second time.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Mr Bush! We shall need the for-tops’l.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Goose-wing it.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Stand by the sheets: Wait for me to wave my arm the se
cond time.’
‘The second time. Aye aye, sir.’
Hotspur’s stern was nearly as vulnerable as her side. If she presented it to the waves while stationary she would be ‘pooped’ – a wave would burst over her and sweep her from stern to stem, a blow she would probably not survive. The fore-topsail would give her the necessary way, but spreading it before she was before the wind would lay her over on her beam ends. ‘Goose-winging it’ – pulling down the lower corners while leaving the centre portion still furled – would expose less canvas than the reefed sail; enough in that gale to carry her forward at the necessary speed.
Hornblower took his station beside the wheel, where he could be clearly seen from forward. He ran his eyes aloft to make sure that the preparations for goose-winging the fore-topsail were complete, and his gaze lingered for a while longer as he observed the motion of the spars relative to the wild sky. Then he transferred his attention to the sea on the weather side, to the immense rollers hurrying towards the ship. He watched the roll and the pitch; he gauged the strength of the howling wind which was trying to tear him from his footing. That wind was trying to stupefy him, to paralyse him, too. He had to keep the hard central core of himself alert and clear thinking while his outer body was numbed by the wind.
A rogue wave burst against the weather bow in a huge but fleeting pillar of spray, the green mass pounding aft along the waist, and Hornblower swallowed nervously while it seemed as if Hotspur would never recover. But she did, slowly and wearily, rolling off the load from her deck. As she cleared herself the moment came, a moment of regularity in the on-coming waves, with her bow just lifting to the nearest one. He waved his arm, and saw the slender head of the fore-topmast stay-sail rising up the stay, and the ship lay over wildly to the pressure.
‘Hard-a-port,’ he yelled to the hands at the wheel.
The enormous leverage of the stay-sail, applied to the bow-sprit, began to swing the Hotspur round like a weather vane; as she turned, the wind thrusting more and more from aft gave her steerage way so that the rudder could bite and accelerate the turn. She was down in the trough of the wave but turning, still turning. He waved his arm again. The clews of the fore-topsail showed themselves as the hands hauled on the sheets, and Hotspur surged forward with the impact of the wind upon the canvas. The wave was almost upon them, but it disappeared out of the tail of Hornblower’s eye as Hotspur presented first her quarter and then her stern to it.
‘Meet her! Midships!’
The tug of the sail on the foremast would put Hotspur right before the wind without the use of the rudder; indeed the rudder would only delay her acquiring all the way she could. Time enough to put the rudder to work again when she was going at her fastest. Hornblower braced himself for the impact of the wave now following them up. The seconds passed and then it came, but the stern had begun to lift and the blow was deprived of its force. Only a minor mass of water burst over the taffrail, to surge aft again as Hotspur lifted her bows. Now they were racing along with the waves; now they were travelling through the water ever so little faster. That was the most desirable point of speed; there was no need to increase or decrease even minutely the area of canvas exposed by the goose-winged fore-topsail. The situation was safe and yet unutterably precarious, balanced on a knife edge. The slightest yawing and Hotspur was lost.
‘Keep her from falling off!’ Hornblower yelled to the men at the wheel, and the grizzled senior quartermaster, his wet grey ringlets flapping over his cheeks from out of his sou’wester, nodded without taking his eyes from the fore-topsail. Hornblower knew – with his vivid imagination he could feel the actual sensation up his arms – how uncertain and unsatisfactory was the feel of wheel and rudder when running before a following sea, the momentary lack of response to the turning spokes, the hesitation of the ship as a mounting wave astern deprived the fore-topsail of some of the wind that filled it, the uncontrolled slithering sensation as the ship went down a slope. A moment’s inattention – a moment’s bad luck – could bring ruin.
Yet here they were momentarily safe before the wind, and running for the Channel. Prowse was already staring into the binnacle and noting the new course on the traverse board, and at a word from him Orrock and a seaman struggled aft to cast the log and determine the speed. And here came Bush, ascending to the quarter-deck, grinning over the success of the manoeuvre and with the exhilaration of the new state of affairs.
‘Course nor’east by east, sir,’ reported Prowse. ‘Speed better than seven knots.’
Now there was a new set of problems to deal with. They were entering the Channel. There were shoals and headlands ahead of them; there were tides – the tricky tidal streams of the Channel – to be reckoned with. The very nature of the waves would change soon, with the effect upon the Atlantic rollers of the shallowing water and the narrowing Channel and the varying tides. There was the general problem of avoiding being blown all the way up Channel, and the particular one of trying to get into Tor Bay.
All this called for serious calculation and reference to tide tables, especially in face of the fact that running before the wind like this it would be impossible to take soundings.
‘We ought to get a sight of Ushant on this course, sir,’ yelled Prowse.
That would be a decided help, a solid base for future calculations, a new departure. A shouted word sent Orrock up to the fore-topmasthead with a telescope to supplement the look-out there, while Hornblower faced the first stage of the new series of problems – the question of whether he could bring himself to leave the deck – and the second stage – the question of whether he should invite Prowse to share his calculations. The answer to both was necessarily in the affirmative. Bush was a good seaman and could be trusted to keep a vigilant eye on the wheel and on the canvas; Prowse was a fair navigator and was by law co-responsible with Hornblower for the course to be set and so would have just cause for grievance if he was not consulted, however much Hornblower wished to be free of his company.
So it came about that Prowse was with Hornblower in the chart-room, struggling with the tide tables, when Foreman opened the door – his knocking not having been heard in the general din – and admitted all the noise of the ship in full volume.
‘Message from Mr Bush, sir. Ushant in sight on the starboard beam, seven or eight miles, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mr Foreman.’
That was a stroke of good fortune, the first they had had. Now they could plan the next struggle to bend the forces of nature to their will. It was a struggle indeed; for the men at the wheel a prolonged physical ordeal which made it necessary to relieve them every half-hour and for Hornblower a mental ordeal which was to keep him at full-strain for the next thirty hours. There was the tentative trying of the wheel, to see if it was possible to bring the wind a couple of points on her port quarter. Three times they made the attempt, to abandon it hastily as wind and wave rendered the ship unmanageable, but at the fourth try it became possible, with the shortening of the waves in their advance up-Channel and the turn of the tide over on the French coast. Now they tore through the water, speed undiminished despite the drag of the rudder as the helmsmen battled with the wheel that kicked and struggled as if it were alive and malignant under their hands, and while the whole strength of the crew handled the braces to trim the yard exactly to make certain there was no danger of sailing by the lee.
At least the danger of running Hotspur bodily under water was now eliminated. There was no chance of her putting her bows into the slack back of a dilatory wave and never lifting them again. To balance the leverage of the fore-topsail they hauled up the mizzen stay-sail, which brought relief to the helmsmen even though it laid Hotspur over until her starboard gun-ports were level with the water. It lasted for a frantic hour, and it seemed to Hornblower that he was holding his breath during all that time, and until it burst in the centre with a report like a twelve pounder, splitting into flying pendants of canvas that cracked in the wind like coach-whips as the helmsmen fought agains
t the renewed tendency of Hotspur to turn away from the wind. Yet the temporary success justified replacing the sail with the mizzen topmast stay-sail, just a corner of it showing, and the head and the tack still secured by gaskets. It was a brand-new sail, and it managed to endure the strain, to compensate for the labour and difficulty of setting it.
The short dark day drew to an end, and now everything had to be done in roaring night, while lack of sleep intensified the numbness and fatigue and the stupidity induced by the unremitting wind. With his dulled sensitivity Hornblower’s reaction was slow to the changed behaviour of Hotspur under his feet. The transition was gradual, in any case, but at last it became marked enough for him to notice it, his sense of touch substituting for his sense of sight to tell him that the waves were becoming shorter and steeper; this was the choppiness of the Channel and not the steady sweep of the Atlantic rollers.
Hotspur’s motion was more rapid, and in a sense more violent; the waves broke over her bow more frequently though in smaller volume. Although still far below the surface the floor of the Channel was rising, from a hundred fathoms deep to forty fathoms, and there was the turn of the tide to be considered, even though this westerly tempest must have piled up the waters of the Channel far above mean level. And the Channel was narrower now; the rollers that had found ample passage between Ushant and Scilly were feeling the squeeze, and all these factors were evident in their behaviour. Hotspur was wet all the time now, and only continuous working of the pumps kept the water down below within bounds – pumps worked by weary men, thirsty men, hungry men, sleepy men, throwing their weight on the long handles each time with the feeling that they could not repeat the effort even once more.