A Ship of the Line

Chapter IX

The Sutherland had reached her rendezvous off Palamos Point, apparently the first of the squadron, for there was no sign as yet of the flagship or of the Caligula. As she beat slowly up under easy sail against the gentle south-easterly wind Gerard was taking advantage of this period of idleness to exercise the crew at the guns. Bush had too long had his way in drilling the crew aloft; it was time for practice with the big guns, as Hornblower had agreed. Under the scorching sun of a Mediterranean midsummer the men, naked to the waist, had sweated rivers running the guns out and in again, training round with handspikes, each man of the crew learning the knack of the flexible rammer—all the mechanical drill which every man at the guns had to learn until he could be trusted to run up, fire, clean, and reload, and to go on doing so for hour after hour, in thick powder smoke and with death all round him. Drill first, marksmanship a long way second, but all the same it was policy to allow the men to fire off the guns a few times—they found compensation in that for the arduous toil at the guns.

A thousand yards to port the quarter boat was bobbing over the glittering sea. There was a splash, and then they could see the black dot of the cask she had thrown overboard before pulling hastily out of the line of fire.

“No. 1 gun!” bellowed Gerard. “Take your aim! Cock your locks! Fire—stop your vents!”

The foremost eighteen-pounder roared out briefly while a dozen glasses looked for the splash.

“Over and to the right!” announced Gerard. “No. 2 gun!”

The maindeck eighteen-pounders, the lower deck twenty-four-pounders, spoke each in turn. Even with experienced gun layers itwould have been too much to expect to hit a cask at such a long range in thirty-seven shots; the cask still bobbed unharmed. Every gun of the port battery tried again, and still the cask survived.

“We’ll shorten the range. Mr. Bush, have the helm put up and run the ship past the cask at a cable’s length away. Now, Mr. Gerard.”

Two hundred yards was a short enough range even for carronades; the forecastle and quarterdeck carronades’ crews stood to their weapons as the Sutherland ran down to the cask. The guns went off nearly simultaneously as they bore, the ship trembling to the concussions, while the thick smoke eddied upwards round the naked men. The water boiled all round the cask, as half a ton of iron tore it up in fountains, and in the midst of the splashes the cask suddenly leaped clear of the water, dissolving into its constituent staves as it did so. All the guns’ crews cheered while Hornblower’s silver whistle split the din as a signal to cease fire, and the men clapped each other on the shoulder exultantly. They were heartily pleased with themselves. As Hornblower knew, the fun of knocking a cask to pieces was full compensation for two hours’ hard work at gun drill.

The quarter boat dropped another cask; the starboard side battery prepared to bombard it, while Hornblower stood blinking gratefully in the sunshine on the quarterdeck, feeling glad to be alive. He had as full a crew as any captain could hope for, and more trained top-men than he could ever have dared to expect. So far everyone was healthy; his landsmen were fast becoming seamen, and he would train them into gunners even quicker than that. This blessed midsummer sunshine, hot and dry, suited his health admirably. He had left off fretting over Lady Barbara, thanks to the intense pleasure which it gave him to see his crew settling down into a single efficient unit He was glad to be alive, with high spirits bubbling up within him.

“Good shot, there!” said Hornblower. An extraordinary lucky shot from one of the lower deck guns had smashed the second cask to fragments. “Mr. Bush, see that every man of that gun’s crew gets a tot of rum tonight.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Sail ho!” came from the masthead. “Deck, there. Sail right to wind’ard, an’ coming down fast.”

“Mr. Bush, have the quarter boat recalled. Heave the ship to on the starboard tack, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Even here, no more than fifty miles from France, and not more than twenty from a corner of Spain under French domination, there was very small chance of any sail being French, especially on the course this one was steering—any French vessel crept along the coast without venturing a mile to sea.

“Masthead! What do you make of the sail?”

“She’s a ship, sir, wi’ all sail set. I can see her royals an’ t’garn stuns’ls.”

“Belay!” roared the boatswain’s mate to the hands hoisting in the quarter boat.

The fact that the approaching vessel was a full-rigged ship made it more unlikely still that she was French—French commerce was confined to small craft, luggers and brigs and tartanes, now. Probably she was one of the ships the Sutherland had come to meet. A moment later the suspicion was confirmed from the masthead.

“Deck, there! Sail looks like Caligula to me, sir. I can see her torps’ls now, sir.”

So she was; Captain Bolton must have completed his task of escorting the storeships into Port Mahon. Within an hour the Caligula was within gunshot.

“Caligula signalling, sir,” said Vincent. “Captain to Captain. Delighted to see you. Will you dine with me now?”

“Hoist the assent,” replied Hornblower.

The pipes of the boatswain’s mates twittered into one last weird wail as Hornblower went up the side of the Caligula; the sideboys stood at attention; the marines presented arms; and Captain Bolton came forward, his hand held out and his craggy face wreathed in smiles.

“First at the rendezvous!” said Bolton. “Come this way, sir. It does my heart good to see you again. I’ve twelve dozen sherry here I’ll be glad to hear your opinion of. Where are those glasses, steward? Your very good health, sir!”

Captain Bolton’s after cabin was furnished with a luxury which contrasted oddly with Hornblower’s. There were satin cushions on the lockers; the swinging lamps were of silver, and so were the table appointments on the white linen cloth on the table. Bolton had been lucky in the matter of prize money when in command of a frigate—a single cruise had won him five thousand pounds—and Bolton had started life before the mast. The momentary jealousy which Hornblower experienced evaporated as he noted the poor taste of the cabin fittings, and remembered how dowdy Mrs Bolton had looked when he saw her last. More than anything else, Bolton’s obvious pleasure at seeing him, and the genuine respect he evinced in his attitude towards him, combined to give Hornblower a better opinion of himself.

“From the rapidity with which you reached the rendezvous, it appears that your passage was even quicker than ours,” said Bolton, and the conversation lapsed into technicalities, which endured even after dinner was served.

And clearly Bolton had little idea of what kind of dinner to offer in this scorching heat. There was pea soup, excellent, but heavy. Red mullet—a last minute purchase in Port Mahon at the moment of sailing. A saddle of mutton. Boiled cabbage. A Stilton cheese, now a little past its best. A syrupy port which was not to Hornblower’s taste. No salad, no fruit, not one of the more desirable products of the Minorca Bolton had just left.

“Minorquin mutton, I fear,” said Bolton, carvers in hand. “My last English sheep died mysteriously at Gibraltar and provided dinner for the gunroom. But you will take a little more, sir?”

“Thank you, no,” said Hornblower. He had eaten manfully through a vast helping, and, gorged with mutton fat, was sitting sweating now in the sweltering cabin. Bolton pushed the wine back to him, and Hornblower poured a few drops into his half empty glass. A lifetime of practice had made him adept at appearing to drink level with his host while actually drinking one glass to three. Bolton emptied his own glass and refilled it.

“And now,” said Bolton, “we must await in idleness the arrival of SirMucho Pomposo, Rear Admiral of the Red.”

Hornblower looked at Bolton quite startled. He himself would never have risked speaking of his superior officer as Mucho Pomposo to anyone. Moreover, it had not occurred to him to think of Sir Percy Leighton in that fashion. Criticism of a superior who had yet to demonstrate to him his capacity one way or the other was not Hornblower’s habit; and possibly he was specially slow to criticise a superior who was Lady Barbara’s husband.

“Mucho Pomposo, I said,” repeated Bolton. He had drunk one glass more of port than was quite wise, and was pouring himself out another one. “We can sit and polish our backsides while he works that old tub of a Pluto round from Lisbon. Wind’s sou’easterly. So it was yesterday, too. If he didn’t pass the Straits two days back it’ll be a week or more before he appears. And if he doesn’t leave all the navigation to Elliott he’ll never arrive at all.”

Hornblower looked up anxiously at the skylight. If any report of his conversation were to reach higher quarters it would do Bolton no good. The latter interpreted the gesture correctly.

“Oh, never fear,” he said. “I can trust my officers. They don’t respect an admiral who’s no seaman any more than I do. Well, what have you to say?”

Hornblower proffered the suggestion that one of the two ships might push to the northward and begin the task of harassing the French and Spanish coast while the other stayed on the rendezvous awaiting the admiral.

“That’s a worthy suggestion,” said Bolton.

Hornblower shook off the lassitude occasioned by the heat and the vast meal inside him. He wanted the Sutherland to be despatched on this duty. The prospect of immediate action was stimulating. He could feel his pulse quickening at the thought, and the more he considered it the more anxious he was that the choice should fall on him. Days of dreary beating about on and off the rendezvous made no appeal to him at all. He could bear it if necessary—twenty years in the navy would harden anyone to waiting—but he did not want to have to. He did not want to.

“Who shall it be?” said Bolton. “You or me?” Hornblower took a grip of his eagerness.

“You are the senior officer on the station, sir,” he said. “It is for you to say.”

“Yes,” said Bolton, meditatively. “Yes.”

He looked at Hornblower with a considering eye.

“You’d give three fingers to go,” he said suddenly, “and you know it. You’re the same restless devil that you were in the Indefatigable. I remember beating you for it, in ‘93, or was it ‘94?”

Hornblower flushed hotly at the reminder. The bitter humiliation of being bent over a gun and beaten by the lieutenant of the midshipman’s berth rankled to this day when it was recalled to him. But he swallowed his resentment; he had no wish to quarrel with Bolton, especially at this juncture, and he knew he was exceptional in regarding a beating as an outrage.

“’93, sir,” he said. “I’d just joined.”

“And now you’re a post captain, and most noteworthy one in the bottom half of the list,” said Bolton. “God, how time flies. I’d let you go, Hornblower, for old times’ sake, if I didn’t want to go myself.”

“Oh,” said Hornblower. His evident disappointment made his expression ludicrous. Bolton laughed.

“Fair’s fair,” he said. “I’ll spin a coin for it. Agreed?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hornblower, eagerly. Better an even chance than no chance at all.

“You’ll bear me no malice if I win?”

“No, sir. None.”

With maddening slowness Bolton reached into his fob and brought out his purse. He took out a guinea and laid it on the table, and then, with the same deliberation, while Hornblower wrestled with his eagerness, he replaced the purse. Then he took up the guinea, and poised it on his gnarled thumb and forefinger.

“King or spade?” he asked, looking across at Hornblower.

“Spade,” said Hornblower, swallowing hard.

The coin rang as Bolton spun it in the air; he caught it, and crashed it on to the table.

“Spade it is,” he said, lifting his hand.

Bolton went through all the motions once more of taking out his purse, putting the guinea back, and thrusting the purse into his fob, while Hornblower forced himself to sit still and watch him. He was cool again now, with the immediate prospect of action.

“Damn it, Hornblower,” he said. “I’m glad you won. You can speak the Dago lingo, which is more than I can. You’ve had experience with ‘em in the South Sea. It’s the sort of duty just made for you. Don’t be gone more than three days. I ought to put that in writing, in case his High Mightiness comes back. But I won’t trouble. Good luck to you, Hornblower, and fill your glass.”

Hornblower filled it two-thirds full—if he left a little in the bottom he would only have drunk half a glass more than he wanted then. He sipped, and leaned back in his chair, restraining his eagerness as long as possible. But it overcame him at last, and he rose.

“God damn it, man, you’re not going?” said Bolton. Hornblower’s attitude was unmistakable, but he could not believe the evidence of his eyes.

“If you would permit me, sir,” said Hornblower. “There’s a fair wind—”

Hornblower was actually stammering as he tried to make all his explanations at once. The wind might change; if it was worth while separating it was better to go now than later; if the Sutherland were to stand in towards the coast during the dark hours there was a chance that she might snap up a prize at dawn—every sort of explanation except the true one that he could not bear to sit still any longer with immediate action awaiting him just over the horizon.

“Have it your own way, then,” grumbled Bolton. “If you must, you must. You’re leaving me with a half empty bottle. Does that mean you don’t like my port?”

“No, sir,” said Hornblower, hastily.

“Another glass, then, while your boat’s crew is making ready. Pass the word for Captain Hornblower’s gig.”

The last sentence was bellowed towards the closed door of the cabin, and was immediately repeated by the sentry outside.

Boatswain’s pipes twittered as Hornblower went down the Caligula’s side, officers stood to attention, side boys held the lines. The gig rowed rapidly over the silver water in the fading evening; Coxswain Brown looked sidelong, anxiously, at his captain, trying to guess what this hurried and early departure meant. In the Sutherland there was similar anxiety; Bush and Gerard and Crystal and Rayner were all on the quarterdeck awaiting him—Bush had obviously turned out of bed at the news that the captain was returning.

Hornblower paid no attention to their expectant glances. He had made it a rule to offer no explanation—and there was a pleasurable selfish thrill in keeping his subordinates in ignorance of their future. Even as the gig came leaping up to the tackles he gave the orders which squared the ship away before the wind, heading back to the Spanish coast where adventure awaited them.

“Caligula’s signalling, sir,” said Vincent, “Good, luck.”

“Acknowledge,” said Hornblower.

The officers on the quarterdeck looked at each other, wondering what the future held in store for them for the commodore to wish them good luck. Hornblower noted the interchange of glances without appearing to see them.

“Ha-h’m,” he said, and walked with dignity below, to pore over his charts and plan his campaign. The timbers creaked faintly as the gentle wind urged the ship over the almost placid sea.