Hornblower and the Atropos

Chapter XIII

Hornblower stood with his purse in his hand, having taken it from his sea chest where it had lain in the inner compartment. He knew exactly how many guineas there were in it, and he was trying not to wish there were more. If he were a wealthy captain he would be generous towards his ship’s company, and to the wardroom and gunroom. But as it was—He shook his head. He did not want to appear miserly or mean, but he certainly did not want to be foolish. He walked along to the wardroom door and paused there; Still caught his eye.

“Please come in, sir.”

The other officers rose from their chairs; there was nowhere for them to sit unless they sat round the table in the tiny wardroom.

“I was hoping,” said Hornblower to Carslake the purser, “that you would be kind enough to make some purchases for me.”

“Of course, sir. Honoured, I’m sure,” said Carslake. He could say nothing else, in any case.

“A few chickens—half a dozen, say, and some eggs.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it the intention of the wardroom to buy fresh meat for itself?”

“Well, sir—”

That had been the subject under discussion at his entrance.

“At this time of year there might be lambs to sell. I could have one—two young ones, if they’re cheap. But an ox—what am I to do with a whole ox?”

Everyone in the wardroom had been up against this problem at some time or other.

“If the wardroom decides to buy an ox I would be glad to pay a quarter of the price,” said Hornblower, and the wardroom cheered up perceptibly.

A captain who bought a share in an animal would always get the best cuts—that was in the course of nature. And they had all known captains who would pay no more than their share. But with five wardroom officers Hornblower’s offer was generous.

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Carslake. “I think I can sell a couple of joints to the gunroom.”

“On advantageous terms, I trust?” said Hornblower, with a grin.

He could remember well enough as a midshipman occasions when wardroom and gunroom had gone shares in an animal.

“I expect so, sir,” said Carslake and then, changing the subject, “Mr. Turner says that it’ll be goat here, mainly. Do you care for goat, sir?”

“Young kid, stewed with turnips and carrots!” said Jones. “You can do worse than that, sir.”

Jones’s lanternjawed face was alight with appetite. These grown men, continuously fed on preserved food, were like children at a gingerbread stall at a fair with the thought of fresh meat.

“Do what you can,” said Hornblower. “I’ll eat kid or lamb, or I’ll share in an ox, as you find the market provides. You know what you’re buying for the crew?”

“Yes, sir,” said Carslake.

The pennypinching clerks of a penurious government at home would scrutinize those expenditures in time. Nothing very generous could be bought for the hands.

“I don’t know what vegetables we’ll find, sir, at this time of year,” went on Carslake, “winter cabbage, I suppose.”

“Nothing wrong with winter cabbage,” interposed Jones.

“Carrots and turnips out of winter store,” said Carslake. “They’ll be pretty stringy, sir.”

“Better than nothing,” said Hornblower. “There won’t be enough in the market for all we need, nor will there be until the word goes round the countryside. So much the better. Then we’ll have an excuse to linger. You’re going to interpret, Mr. Turner?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep your eyes open. And your ears.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Mr. Jones, you will attend to the water casks, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

That was the transition between the social visit and the official issuing of orders.

“Carry on.”

Hornblower went to the bedside where McCullum lay. Sailcloth pillows supported him in a position half on his side. It was a comfort to see how comparatively well he looked. The fever and its accompanying distortion of thought had left him.

“Glad to see you looking so well, Mr. McCullum,” said Hornblower.

“Well enough,” answered McCullum.

He croaked a little, but his speech was almost normal.

“A full night’s sleep,” said Eisenbeiss, hovering on the far side of the bed. He had already made his report to Hornblower—the wound showed every sign of healing, the sutures had not at least as yet caused undue inflammation, and the draining where the bristle kept the wound in the back open had been apparently satisfactory.

“And we’ve started a full morning’s work,” said Hornblower. “You have heard that we have located the wreck?”

“No. I had not heard that.”

“It’s located and buoyed,” said Hornblower.

“Are you sure it is the wreck?” croaked McCullum. “I’ve known some queer mistakes made.”

“It is exactly where the bearings were taken when she sank,” said Hornblower. “It is the right size as far as the sweep can show. And no other obstructions were found by the sweep, either. The bottom here is firm sand, as I expect you know.”

“It sounds plausible,” said McCullum grudgingly. “I could have wished I’d had the direction of the sweeping, nevertheless.”

“You must trust me, Mr. McCullum,” said Hornblower patiently.

“’Tis little that I know about you and your capabilities,” answered McCullum.

Hornblower, swallowing his irritation at that remark, wondered how McCullum had managed to live so long without previously being shot in a duel. But McCullum was the irreplaceable expert, and even if he were not a sick man it would be both foolish and undignified to quarrel with him.

“I presume the next thing to do is to send your divers down to report on the condition of the wreck,” he said, trying to be both firm and polite.

“Undoubtedly that will be the first thing I do as soon as I am allowed out of this bed,” said McCullum.

Hornblower thought of all that Eisenbeiss had told him about McCullum’s wound, about gangrene and suppuration and general blood-poisoning, and he knew there was a fair chance that McCullum would never rise from his bed.

“Mr. McCullum,” he said, “this is an urgent matter. Once the Turks get wind of what we want to do, and can assemble sufficient force to stop us, we will never be allowed to conduct salvage operations here. It is of the first importance that we get to work as quickly as we can. I was hoping that you would instruct your divers in their duties so that they could start now, immediately.”

“So that is what you were thinking, is it?” said McCullum.

It took some minutes of patient argument to wear McCullum down, and the grudging agreement that McCullum gave was tempered by an immediate pointing out of the difficulties.

“That water’s mortal cold,” said McCullum.

“I’m afraid so,” answered Hornblower, “But we have always expected that.”

“The Eastern Mediterranean in March is nothing like the Bay of Bengal in summer. My men won’t stand it for long.”

It was a great advance that McCullum should admit that they might stand it at all.

“If they work for short intervals—?” suggested Hornblower.

“Aye. Seventeen fathoms beside the wreck?”

“Seventeen fathoms all round it,” said Hornblower.

“They can’t work for long at that depth in any case. Five dives a day will be all. Then they bleed at the nose and ears. They’ll need lines and weights—ninepounder shot will serve.”

“I’ll have them got ready,” said Hornblower.

Hornblower stood by while McCullum addressed his divers. He could guess at the point of some of the speeches. One of the divers was raising objections; it was clear, when he clasped his arms about his chest and shuddered dramatically with a rolling of his pathetic dark eyes, what he was saying. All three of them talked at once for a space in their twittering language. A sterner note came into McCullum’s voice when he replied, and he indicated Hornblower with a gesture, directing all eyes to him for a moment. All three clung to each other and shrank away from him like frightened children. McCullum went on speaking, energetically—Eisenbeiss leaned over him and restrained the left hand that gesticulated; the right was strapped into immobility against McCullum’s chest.

“Do not move,” said Eisenbeiss. “We shall have an inflammation.”

McCullum had winced more than once after an incautious movement, and his appearance of wellbeing changed quickly to one of fatigue.

“They’ll start now,” he said at length, his head back on his pillow. “You can take ‘em. Looney, here—that’s what I call him—will be in charge. I’ve told ‘em there are no sharks. Generally when one of ‘em’s down at the bottom the other two pray against sharks—they’re all three of ‘em shark doctors. A good thing they’ve seen men flogged on board here. I promised ‘em you’d give ‘em a taste of the cat if there was any nonsense.”

Hornblower had seen very plainly what the reactions of these twittering, birdlike creatures had been to that horror.

“Take ‘em away,” said McCullum, lying back on his pillow.

With longboat and launch over at the far side of the Bay for stores and water only the gig and the tiny jolly boat were available. The gig was uncomfortably crowded but it served, with four hands at the oars, Hornblower and Leadbitter in the stern—Hornblower felt he could not possibly endure not taking part in this first essay—and the Ceylonese crowded into the bows. Hornblower had formed a shrewd notion about the extent of McCullum’s ability to speak the divers’ language. He had no doubt that McCullum made no attempt to speak it accurately or with any attempt at inflection. He made his points, Hornblower guessed, with a few nouns and verbs and some energetic gestures. McCullum’s command of the Ceylonese tongue could not compare with Hornblower’s Spanish, nor even with his French. Hornblower felt a sense of grievance about that, as he sat with his hand on the tiller and steered the gig over the dancing water—already the flat calm of dawn had given way to a moderate breeze that ruffled the surface.

They reached the first of the buoys—a plank wallowing among the wavelets at the end of its line—and Hornblower stood to identify the others. A stroke or two of the oars carried the gig into the centre of the area, and Hornblower looked down the boat to where the divers huddled together.

“Looney,” he said.

Now that he had been paying special attention to them he could distinguish each of the three divers from the others. Until that time they might as well have been triplets as far as his ability went to tell them apart.

“Looney,” said Hornblower again.

Looney rose to his feet and dropped the grapnel over the side. It went down fast, taking out the coileddown line rapidly over the gunwale. Slowly Looney took off his clothes until he stood naked. He sat himself on the gunwale and swung his legs over. As his feet felt the cold of the water he cried out, and the other two joined with him in cries of alarm or commiseration.

“Shall I give ‘im a shove, sir?” asked the hand at the bow oar.

“No,” said Hornblower.

Looney was sitting systematically inflating and deflating his chest, inhaling as deeply as he could, forcing air into his lungs. Hornblower could see how widely the ribs moved at each breath. One of the other two Ceylonese put a cannonball into Looney’s hands, and be clasped it to his naked chest. Then he let himself slip from the gunwale and disappeared below the surface, leaving the gig rocking violently.

Hornblower took out his watch; it had no second hand—watches with second hands were far too expensive for him to afford—but he could measure the time roughly. He watched the tip of the minute hand creep from one mark to the next, from there to the next, and into the third minute. He was concentrating so deeply on the task that he did not hear Looney break water; his attention was called by a word from Leadbitter. Looney’s head was visible twenty yards astern, his long thick switch of black hair, tied with a string, beside his ear.

“Back water!” said Hornblower promptly. “Pay out that line, there!”

The second order was understood clearly enough by the Ceylonese, or at least they knew their business, for as a vigorous stroke or two sent the gig down to Looney one of them attended to the line over the bows. Looney put his hands up to the gunwale and the other two pulled him on board. They talked volubly, but Looney at first sat still on the thwart, his head down by his thighs. Then he lifted his head, the water streaming from his wet hair. Clearly he talked about the cold—that sharp breeze must have been icy upon his wet skin—for the others towelled him and assisted him to cover himself with his clothes.

Hornblower wondered how he would set them to work again, but there was no need for him to interfere. As soon as Looney had his white garments about his shoulders he stood up in the bows of the gig and looked about him, considering. Then he pointed to a spot in the water a few yards away, looking round at Hornblower.

“Give way!” said Hornblower.

One of the Ceylonese hauled in on the grapnel and let it go again when the boat reached the spot indicated. Now it was his turn to strip, to inflate and deflate his chest, and to take a cannonball into his hands and drop over the side. Cannonballs cost money, thought Hornblower, and a time might come when he would need them to fire at the enemy. It would be better in the future to play in a supply of small rocks gathered on the shore. The diver came up to the surface and scrambled on board, to be received by his companions just as Looney had been. There was some kind of discussion among the divers, which was ended by the third one going down in the same place, apparently to settle the point in dispute. What he discovered led on his return to Looney requesting by signs a further shifting of the gig, and then Looney took off his clothes again to go down.

The divers were working industriously and, as far as Hornblower could see, intelligently. Later on Looney and one of his mates made a simultaneous descent, and it was on this occasion that Hornblower noticed that Looney’s legs and feet, when he climbed in, were scratched and bleeding. For a moment Hornblower thought of sharks and similar underwater perils, but he revised his opinion at once. Looney must have been scrambling about on the wreck itself. There were decaying timbers down there, deep in the bright water, overgrown with barnacles and razoredged sea shells. Hornblower felt confirmed in his opinion when Looney desired to buoy this particular spot. They anchored a plank there by a grapnel, and then dived more than once again in the neighbourhood.

Now the divers were exhausted, lying doubled up and huddled together beside the bow thwart.

“Very well, Looney,” said Hornblower, and he pointed back to the ship.

Looney gave him a weary nod.

“Up anchor,” ordered Hornblower, and the gig pulled back towards Atropos.

A mile away were visible the lug sails of longboat and launch also on their return journey, coming down with the freshening wind abeam. It seemed to Hornblower as if things could never happen to him one at a time; he had hardly set foot on the deck of the Atropos before they were running alongside, and as the Ceylonese made their weary way forward to report to McCullum here were Carslake and Turner demanding his attention.

“The water casks are refilled, sir,” said Carslake. “I used the little stream that comes in half a mile from the town. I thought that would be better than those in the town.”

“Quite right, Mr. Carslake,” said Hornblower. On account of what he had seen in North Africa, Hornblower agreed with Carslake that a water supply that had not passed through a Turkish town would be preferable.

“What stores did you get?”

“Very little, sir, today, I’m afraid.”

“There was only the local market, sir,” supplemented Turner. “The Mudir has only sent out word today. The goods will be coming in for sale tomorrow.”

“The Mudir?” asked Hornblower. That was the word Turner had used before.

“The head man, sir, the local governor. The old man with the sword who came out to us in the boat yesterday.”

“And he is the Mudir?”

“Yes, sir. The Mudir is under the Kaimakam, and the Kaimakam is under the Vali, and the Vali is under the Grand Vizier, and he’s under the Sultan, or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be—all of ‘em try to be independent when they get the chance.”

“I understand that,” said Hornblower.

No one who had given any study at all to the military and naval history of the last few years in the Eastern Mediterranean could be ignorant of the anarchy and disintegration prevailing in the Turkish Empire. What Hornblower wanted to hear about was the effect these were producing locally and today. He turned back to Carslake to listen patiently first to his account of what had been bought and what would be available later.

“I bought all the eggs there were, sir. Two and a half dozen,” said Carslake in the course of his report.

“Good,” said Hornblower, but without any fervour, and that was clear proof that his mind was not on what Carslake was saying. Normally the thought of eggs, boiled, scrambled, or poached, would have excited him. The untoward events at Malta had prevented his buying any there for himself. He had not even laid in a store of pickled eggs at Deptford.

Carslake droned himself to a stop.

“Thank you, Mr. Carslake,” said Hornblower. “Mr. Turner, come below end I’ll hear what you have to say.”

Turner had apparently kept his eyes and ears open, as Hornblower had ordered him to.

“The Mudir has no force here at all worth mentioning, sir,” said Turner, his wizened old face animated and lively. “I doubt if he could raise twentyfive armed men all told. He came down with two guards as old as himself.”

“Y’ou spoke with him?”

“Y’es, sir. I gave him—Mr. Carslake and I gave him—ten guineas to open the market for us. Another ten guineas tomorrow, is what we’ve promised him.”

No, harm in keeping local authority on his side as long as possible, thought Hornblower.

“And was he friendly?” he asked.

“Weell, sir. I wouldn’t say that, not exactly, sir. Maybe it was because he wanted our money. I wouldn’t call him friendly, sir.”

He would be reserved and cautious, Hornblower decided, not anxious to commit himself without instructions from superior authority, and yet not averse to pocketing twenty pieces of gold—pickings for an average year, Hornblower guessed—when the opportunity presented itself.

“The Vali’s carried off the local army, sir,” went on Turner. “That was plain enough from the way the Mudir talked. But I don’t know why, sir. Maybe there’s trouble with the Greeks again. There’s always trouble in the Archipelago.”

Rebellion was endemic among the Greek subjects of Turkey. Fire and Sword, massacre and desolation, piracy and revolt, swept islands and mainland periodically. And nowadays with French influence penetrating from the Seven Islands, and Russia taking a suspiciously humanitarian interest in the welfare of Turkey’s Orthodox subjects, there were fresh sources of trouble and unrest.

“One point’s clear, anyway,” said Hornblower, “and that is that the Vali’s not here at present.”

“That’s so, sir.”

It would take time for a message to reach the Vali, or even the Vali’s subordinate, the—the Kaimakam, decided Hornblower, fishing the strange title out of his memory with an effort. The political situation was involved beyond any simple disentanglement. Turkey had been Britain’s enthusiastic any recently, when Bonaparte had conquered Egypt and invaded Syria and threatened Constantinople. But Russia and Turkey were chronic enemies—they had fought half a dozen wars in the last half century—and now Russia and England were allies, and Russia and France were enemies, even though since Austerlitz there was no way in which they could attack each other. There could be no doubt in the world that the French ambassador in Constantinople was doing his best to incite Turkey to a fresh war with Russia; no doubt at all that Russia since the days of Catherine the Great was casting covetous eyes on Constantinople and the Dardanelles.

The Greek unrest was an established fact. So was the ambition of the local Turkish governors. The tottering Turkish government would seize any opportunity to play off one possible enemy against the other, and would view with the deepest suspicion—there was even the religious factor to be borne in mind—any British activity amid Turkish possessions. With England and France locked in a death struggle the Turks could hardly be blamed if they suspected England of buying Russia’s continued alliance with a promise of a slice of Turkish territory; luckily France, with a far worse record, was liable to be similarly suspected. When the Sultan heard—if ever he did hear—of the presence of a British ship of war in Marmorice Bay, he would wonder what intrigues were brewing with the Vali, and if Sultan or Vali heard that a quarter of a million in gold and silver lay at the bottom of Marmorice Bay it could be taken for granted that none would be salvaged unless the lion’s share went into Turkish hands.

There was just no conclusion to be reached after all this debate, except for the one he had reached a week ago, and that was to effect as prompt a recovery of the treasure as possible and to leave the diplomats to argue over a fait accompli. He walked forward to hear from McCullum’s lips how much had been learned regarding this possibility.

McCullum had just finished hearing what the divers had reported to him. They were squatting round his cot, with all the attention of their big eyes concentrated on his face, and with all their clothes draped about them until they looked something like beehives.

“She is there,” said McCullum. Apparently he had been quite prepared to find that some gross blunder or other had been committed, either in plotting the original bearings or in the recent sweeping operations.

“I’m glad to hear it,” replied Hornblower, as politely as he could make himself endure these temperamental liberties of an expert and an invalid.

“She’s greatly overgrown, except for her copper, but she shows no sign of breaking up at all.”

A wooden ship, fastened together with wooden pegs, and untouched by storm or current, might well lie for ever on a sandy bed without disintegration.

“Did she right herself?” asked Hornblower.

“No. She’s nearly bottom up. My men could tell bow from stern.”

“That’s fortunate,” said Hornblower.

“Yes.” McCullum referred to some pages of written notes that he held in his free hand. “The money was in the lower lazarette, aft, abaft the mizzen mast and immediately below the main deck. A ton and a half of coined gold in iron chests and nearly four tons of coined silver in bags.”

“Ye-es,” said Hornblower, trying to look as if that exactly agreed with his own calculations.

“The lazarette was given an additional lining of oak to strengthen it before the treasure was put on board,” went on McCullum. “I expect the money’s still there.”

“You mean—?” asked Hornblower, quite at a loss.

“I mean it will not have fallen through the deck on to the sea bottom,” aid McCuUum, condescending to explain to this ignorant amateur.

“Of course,” said Hornblower, hastily.

“Speedwell’s main cargo was half the battering train of the army,” went on McCullum. “Ten long eighteen pounders. Bronze guns. And the shot for them. Iron shot.”

“That’s why she went down the way she did,” said Hornblower brightly. As he spoke he realized as well the implications of the words “bronze” and “iron” which McCullum had accented. Bronze would endure under water longer than iron.

“Yes,” said McCullum. “As soon as she heeled, guns and shot and all would shift. I’ll wager on that, from what I know of first mates in these days. With the war, any jumpedup apprentice is a first mate.”

“I’ve seen it myself,” said Hornblower, sorrowfully.

“But that’s neither here nor there,” went on McCullum. “Looney here says she is still, most of her, above the sand. He could get in under the break of the poop, just.”

From McCullum’s significant glance when he made this announcement Hornblower could guess that it was of great importance, but it was hard to see just why this should be.

“Yes?” said Hornblower, tentatively.

“Do you think they can break in through the ship’s side with crowbars?” asked McCullum testily. “Five minutes’ work on the bottom a day each for three men! We’d be here a year.”

Hornblower suddenly remembered the “leather fusehoses” for which McCullum had indented at Malta. He made a hasty guess, despite the fantastic nature of what he had to say.

“You’re going to blow up the wreck?” he said.

“Of course. A powder charge in that angle should open the ship at exactly the right place.”

“Naturally,” said Hornblower. He was dimly aware that it was possible to explode charges under water, but his knowledge of the technical methods to be employed was dimmer still.

“We’ll try the fusehoses first,” announced McCullum. “But I’ve little hope of them at that depth. The joints can’t resist the pressure.”

“I suppose not,” said Hornblower.

“I expect it’d mean a flying fuse in the end,” said McCullum. “These fellows here are always afraid of ‘em. But I’ll do it.”

The bulky figure of Eisenbeiss loomed up beside the cot. He put one hand on McCullum’s forehead and the other on his wrist.

“Take your hands off me!” snarled McCullum. “I’m busy.”

“You must not do too much,” said Eisenbeiss. “Excitement increases the morbid humours.”

“Morbid humours be damned!” exclaimed McCullum. “And you be damned, too.”

“Don’t be a fool, man,” said Hornblower, his patience exhausted. “He saved your life yesterday. Don’t you remember how sick you were? ‘It hurts. It hurts.’ That’s what you were saying.”

Hornblower found his voice piping in imitation of McCullum’s yesterday, and he turned his face feebly from side to side like McCullum’s on the pillow. He was aware that it was an effective bit of mimicry, and even McCullum was a trifle abashed by it.

“Sick I may have been,” he said, “but I’m well enough now.”

Hornblower looked across at Eisenbeiss.

“Let Mr. McCullum have five more minutes,” he said. “Now, Mr. McCullum, you were talking about leather fusehoses. Will you please explain how they are used?”