Hornblower and the Hotspur

Chapter XIII

Hotspur’s bell struck two double strokes; it was six o’clock in the evening, and the first dog watch had come to an end in the gathering darkness.

“Sunset, sir,” said Bush.

“Yes,” agreed Hornblower.

“Six o’clock exactly. The equinox, sir.”

“Yes,” agreed Hornblower again; he knew perfectly well what was coming.

“We’ll have a westerly gale, sir, or my name’s not William Bush.”

“Very likely,” said Hornblower, who had been sniffing the air all day long.

Hornblower was a heretic in this matter. He did not believe that the mere changing from a day a minute longer than twelve hours to one a minute shorter made gales blow from out of the west. Gales happened to blow at this time because winter was setting in, but ninety-nine men out of a hundred firmly believed in a more direct, although more mysterious causation.

“Wind’s freshening and sea’s getting up a bit, sir,” went on Bush, inexorably.

“Yes.”

Hornblower fought down the temptation to declare that it was not because the sun happened to set at six o’clock, for he knew that if he expressed such an opinion it would be received with the tolerant and concealed disagreement accorded to the opinions of children and eccentrics and captains.

“We’ve water for twenty-eight days, sir. Twenty-four allowing for spillage and ullage.”

“Thirty-six, on short allowance,” corrected Hornblower.

“Yes, sir,” said Bush, with a world of significance in those two syllables.

“I’ll give the order within a week,” said Hornblower.

No gale could be expected to blow for a month continuously, but a second gale might follow the first before the water-hoys could beat down from Plymouth to refill the casks. It was a tribute to the organization set up by Cornwallis that during nearly six continuous months at sea Hotspur had not yet had to go on short allowance for water. Should it become necessary, it would be one more irksome worry brought about by the passage of time.

“Thank you, sir,” said Bush, touching his hat and going off about his business along the darkened reeling deck.

There were worries of all sorts. Yesterday morning Doughty had pointed out to Hornblower that there were holes appearing in the elbows of his uniform coat, and he only had two coats apart from full dress. Doughty had done a neat job of patching, but a search through the ship had not revealed any material of exactly the right weather-beaten shade. Furthermore the seats of nearly all his trousers were paper-thin, and Hornblower did not fancy himself in the baggy slop-chest trousers issued to the lower-deck; yet as that store was fast running out he had had to secure a pair for himself before they should all go. He was wearing his thick winter underclothing; three sets had appeared ample last April, but now he faced the prospect, in a gale, of frequent wettings to the skin with small chance of drying anything. He cursed himself and went off to try to make sure of some sleep in anticipation of a disturbed night. At least he had a good dinner inside him; Doughty had braised an oxtail, the most despised and rejected of all the portions of the weekly ration bullock, and had made of it a dish fit for a king. It might be his last good dinner for a long time if the gale lasted—winter affected land as well as sea, so that he could expect no other vegetables than potatoes and boiled cabbage until next spring.

His anticipation of a disturbed night proved correct. He had been awake for some time, feeling the lively motion of the Hotspur and trying to make up his mind to rise and dress or to shout for a light and try to reads when they came thundering on his door.

“Signal from the Flag, sir!”

“I’ll come.”

Doughty was really the best of servants; he arrived at the same moments with a storm lantern.

“You’ll need your pea jacket, sir, and oilskins over it. Your sou’wester, sir. Better have your scarf, sir, to keep your pea jacket dry.”

A scarf round his neck absorbed spray that might otherwise drive in between sou’wester and oilskin coat and soak the pea jacket. Doughty tucked Hornblower into his clothes like a mother preparing her son for school, while they reeled and staggered on the leaping deck. Then Hornblower went out into the roaring darkness.

“A white rocket and two blue lights from the Flag, sir,” reported Young. “That means ‘take offshore stations’.”

“Thank you. What sail have we set?” Hornblower could guess the answer by the feel of the ship, but he wanted to be sure. It was too dark for his dazzled eyes to see as yet.

“Double reefed tops’ls and main course, sir.”

“Get that course in and lay her on the port tack.”

“Port tack. Aye aye, sir.”

The signal for offshore stations meant a general withdrawal of the Channel Fleet. The main body took stations seventy miles to seaward off Brest, safe from that frightful lee shore and with a clear run open to them for Tor Bay—avoiding Ushant on the one hand and the Start on the other—should the storm prove so bad as to make it impossible to keep the sea. The Inshore Squadron was to be thirty miles closer in. They were the most weatherly ships and could afford the additional risk in order to be close up to Brest should a sudden shift of wind enable the French to get out.

But there was not merely the question of the French coming out, but of other French ships coming in. Out in the Atlantic there were more than one small French squadron—Bonaparte’s own brother was on board one of them, with his American wife—seeking urgently to regain a French port before food and water should be completely exhausted. So Naiad and Doris and Hotspur had to stay close in, to intercept and report. They could best encounter the dangers of the situation. And they could best be spared if they could not. So Hotspur had to take her station only twenty miles to the west of Ushant, where French ships running before the gale could be best expected to make their landfall.

Bush loomed up in the darkness, shouting over the gale.

“The equinox, just as I said, sir.”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be worse before it’s better, sir.”

“No doubt.”

Hotspur was close-hauled now, soaring, pitching and rolling over the vast invisible waves that the gale was driving in upon her port bow. Hornblower felt resentfully that Bush was experiencing pleasure at this change of scene. A brisk gale and a struggle to windward was stimulating to Bush after long days of fair weather, while Hornblower struggled to keep his footing and felt a trifle doubtful about the behaviour of his stomach as a result of this sudden change.

The wind howled round them and the spray burst over the deck so that the black night was filled with noise. Hornblower held on to the hammock netting; the circus riders he had seen in his childhood, riding round the ring, standing upright on two horses with one foot on each, had no more difficult task than he had at present. And the circus riders were not smacked periodically in the face with bucketfuls of spray.

There were small variations in the violence of the wind. They could hardly be called gusts; Hornblower took note that they were increases in force without any corresponding decreases. Through the soles of his feet, through the palms of his hands, he was aware of a steady increase in Hotspur’s heel and a steady stiffening in her reaction. She was showing too much canvas. With his mouth a yard from Young’s ear he yelled his order.

“Four reefs in the tops’ls!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The exaggerated noises of the night were complicated now with the shrilling of the pipes of the bos’n’s mates; down in the waist the orders were bellowed at hurrying, staggering men.

“All hands reef tops’ls!”

The hands clawed their way to their stations; this was the moment when a thousand drills bore fruit, when men carried out in darkness and turmoil the duties that had been ingrained into them in easier conditions. Hornblower felt Hotspur’s momentary relief as Young set the topsails a-shiver to ease the tension on them. Now the men were going aloft to perform circus feats compared with which his maintenance of his foothold was a trifle. No trapeze artist ever had to do his work in utter darkness on something as unpredictable as a foot-rope in a gale, or had to exhibit the trained strength of the seaman passing the ear-ring while hanging fifty feet above an implacable sea. Even the lion tamer, keeping a wary eye on his treacherous brutes, did not have to encounter the ferocious enmity of the soulless canvas that tried to tear the topmost men from their precarious footing.

A touch of the helm set the sails drawing again, and Hotspur lay over in her fierce struggle with the wind. Surely there was no better example of the triumph of man’s ingenuity over the blind forces of nature than this, whereby a ship could wring advantage out of the actual attempt of the gale to push her to destruction. Hornblower clawed his way to the binnacle and studied the heading of the ship, working out mental problems of drift and leeway against the background of his mental picture of the trend of the land. Prowse was there, apparently doing the same thing.

“I should think we’ve made our offing, sir.” Prowse had to shout each syllable separately. Hornblower had to do the same when he replied.

“We’ll hold on a little longer, while we can.”

Extraordinary how rapidly time went by in these circumstances. It could not be long now until daylight. And this storm was still working up; it was nearly twenty-four hours since Hornblower had detected the premonitory symptoms, and it had not yet reached its full strength. It was likely to blow hard for a considerable time, as much as three days more, possibly even longer than that. Even when it should abate the wind might stay westerly for some considerable further time, delaying the water-hoys and the victuallers in their passage from Plymouth, and when eventually they should come, Hotspur might well be up in her station off the Goulet.

“Mr. Bush!” Hornblower had to reach out and touch Bush’s shoulder to attract his attention in the wind. “We’ll reduce the water allowance from today. Two between three.”

“Aye aye, sir. Just as well, I think, sir.”

Bush gave little thought to hardship, either for the lower-deck or for himself. It was no question of giving up a luxury; to reduce the water ration meant an increase in hardship. The standard issue of a gallon a day a head was hardship, even though a usual one; a man could just manage to survive on it. Two thirds of a gallon a day was a horrible deprivation; after a few days thirst began to colour every thought. As if in mockery the pumps were going at this moment. The elasticity and springiness that kept Hotspur from breaking up under these strains meant also that the sea had greater opportunities of penetrating her fabric, working its way in through the straining seams both above and below the water line. It would accumulate in the bilge, one—two—three feet deep. While the storm blew most of the crew would have six hours’ hard physical work a day—an hour each watch—pumping the water out.

Here was the grey dawn coming, and the wind was still increasing, and Hotspur could not battle against it any longer.

“Mr. Cargill!” Cargill was now officer of the watch. “We’ll heave to. Put her under main-topmast stays’l.”

Hornblower had to shout the order at the top of his lungs before Cargill nodded that he understood.

“All hands! All hands!”

Some minutes of hard work effected a transformation. Without the immense leverage of the topsails Hotspur ceased to lie over quite so steeply; the more gentle influence of the main-topmast stay-sail kept her reasonably steady, and now the rudder desisted from its hitherto constant effort to force the little ship to battle into the wind. Now she rose and swooped more freely, more extravagantly yet with less strain. She was leaping wildly enough, and still shipping water over her weather bow, but her behaviour was quite different as she yielded to the wind instead of defying it at the risk of being torn apart.

Bush was offering him a telescope, and pointing to windward, where there was now a grey horizon dimly to be seen—a serrated horizon, jagged with the waves hurrying towards them. Hornblower braced himself to put two hands to the telescope. Sea and then sky raced past the object glass as Hotspur tossed over successive waves. It was hard to sweep the area indicated by Bush; that had to be done in fits and starts, but after a moment something flashed across the field, was recaptured—many hours of using a telescope had developed Hornblower’s reflex skills—and soon could be submitted to intermittent yet close observation.

“Naiad, sir,” shouted Bush into his ear.

The frigate was several miles to windward, hove-to like Hotspur. She had one of those new storm-topsails spread, very shallow and without reefs. It might be of considerable advantage when lying-to, for even the reduction in height alone would be considerable, but when Hornblower turned his attention back to the Hotspur and observed her behaviour under her main-topmast stay-sail he felt no dissatisfaction. Politeness would have led him to comment on it when he handed back the glass, but politeness stood no chance against the labour of making conversation in the wind, and he contented himself with a nod. But the sight of Naiad out there to westward was confirmation that Hotspur was on her station, and beyond her Hornblower had glimpses of the Doris reeling and tossing on the horizon. He had done all there was to be done at present. A sensible man would get his breakfast while he might, and a sensible man would resolutely ignore the slight question of stomach occasioned by this new and different motion of the ship. All he had to do now was to endure it.

There was a pleasant moment when he reached his cabin and Huffnell the purser came in to make his morning report, for then it appeared that at the first indication of trouble Bush and Huffnell between them had routed out Simmonds the cook and had set him to work cooking food.

“That’s excellent, Mr. Huffnell.”

“It was laid down in your standing orders, sir.”

So it was, Hornblower remembered. He had added that paragraph after reading Cornwallis’s orders regarding stations to be assumed in westerly gales. Simmonds had boiled three hundred pounds of salt pork in Hotspur’s cauldrons, as well as three hundred pounds of dried peas, before the weather had compelled the galley fires to be extinguished.

“Pretty nigh on cooked, anyway, sir,” said Huffnell.

So that for the next three days—four at a pinch—the hands would have something more to eat than dry biscuit. They would have cold parboiled pork and cold pease porridge; the latter was what the Man in the Moon burned his mouth on according to the nursery rhyme.

“Thank you, Mr. Huffnell. It’s unlikely that this gale will last more than four days.”

That was actually the length of time that gale lasted, the gale that ushered in the worst winter in human memory, following the best summer. For those four days Hotspur lay hove-to, pounded by the sea, flogged by the wind, while Hornblower made anxious calculations regarding leeway and drift; as the wind backed northerly his attention was diverted from Ushant to the north to the Isle de Sein to the south of the approaches to Brest. It was not until the fifth day that Hotspur was able to set three-reefed top-sails and thrash her way back to station while Simmonds managed to start his galley fires again and to provide the crew—and Hornblower—with hot boiled beef as a change from cold boiled pork.

Even then that three-reefed gale maintained the long Atlantic rollers in all their original vastness, so that Hotspur soared over them and slithered unhappily down the far side, adding her own corkscrew motion as her weather-bow met the swells, her own special stagger when a rogue wave crashed into her, and the worse lurch when—infrequently—a higher wave than usual blanketed her sails so that she reeled over her decks. But an hour’s work at the pumps every watch kept the bilges dear, and by tacking every two hours Hotspur was able to beat painfully out to sea again—not more than half a mile’s gain to windward on each tack—and recover the comparative safety of her original station before the next storm.

It was as if in payment for that fair weather summer that these gales blew, and perhaps that was not an altogether fanciful thought; to Hornblower’s mind there might be some substance to the theory that prolonged local high pressure during the summer now meant that the pent-up dirty weather to the westward could exert more than its usual force. However that might be, the mere fresh gale that endured for four days after the first storm then worked up again into a tempest, blowing eternally from the westward with almost hurricane force; grey dreary days of lowering cloud, and wild black nights, with the wind howling unceasingly in the rigging until the ear was sated with the noise, until no price seemed too great to pay for five minutes of peace—and yet no price however great could buy even a second of peace. The creaking and the groaning of Hotspur’s fabric blended with the noise of the wind, and the actual woodwork of the ship vibrated with the vibration of the rigging until it seemed as if body and mind, exhausted with the din and with the fatigues of mere movement, could not endure for another minute, and yet went on to endure for days.

The tempest died down to a fresh gale, to a point when the top-sails needed only a single reef, and then, unbelievably, worked up into a tempest again, the third in a month, during which all on board renewed the bruises that covered them as a result of being flung about by the motion of the ship. And it was during that tempest that Hornblower went through a spiritual crisis. It was not a mere question of calculation, it went far deeper than that, even though he did his best to appear quite imperturbable as Bush and Huffnell and Wallis the surgeon made their daily reports. He might have called them into a formal council of war; he might have covered himself by asking for their opinions in writing, to be produced in evidence should there be a court of inquiry, but that was not in his nature. Responsibility was the air he breathed; he could no more bring himself to evade it than he could hold his breath indefinitely.

It was the first day that reefed topsails could be set that he reached his decision.

“Mr. Prowse, I’d be obliged if you would set a course to close Naiad so that she can read our signals.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Hornblower, standing on the quarter-deck in the eternal, infernal wind, hated Prowse for darting that inquiring glance at him. Of course the wardroom had discussed his problem. Of course they knew of the shortage of drinking water; of course they knew that Wallis had discovered three cases of sore gums—the earliest symptoms of scurvy in a navy that had overcome scurvy except in special conditions. Of course they had wondered about when their captain would yield to circumstances. Perhaps they had made bets on the date. The problem, the decision, had been his and not theirs.

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 staysail 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 freshwater 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 her 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 fore-tops’l.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Goose-wing it.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Stand by the sheets. Wait for me to wave my arm the second 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 oncoming 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 bowsprit, 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 to 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-top-masthead 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 were 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 staysail, which brought relief to the helmsmen even though it laid Hotspur over until her starboard gunports 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 against the renewed tendency of Hotspur to turn away from the wind. Yet the temporary success justified replacing the sail with the mizzen topmast staysail, 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.

At four in the morning Hornblower was conscious of a shift in the wind, and for a precious hour he was able to order a change of course until a sudden veering of the wind forced them back on the original course again, but he had gained, so his calculations told him, considerably to the northward; there was so much satisfaction in that that he put his forehead down on his forearms on the chart-room table and was surprised into sleep for several valuable minutes before a more extravagant leaping of the ship banged his head upon his arms and awakened him to make his way wearily out upon the quarter-deck again.

“Wish we could take a sounding, sir,” shouted Prowse.

“Yes.”

Yet now, even in the darkness, Hornblower could feel that the recent gain and the change in the character of the sea made it justifiable to heave to for a space. He could goad his mind to deal with the problem of drift and leeway; he could harden his heart to face the necessity of calling upon the exhausted top-men to make the effort to furl the goose-winged fore-topsail while he stood by, alert, to bring the ship to under the mizzen stay-sail; bring the helm over at the right moment so that she met the steep waves with her bow. Riding to the wind her motion was wilder and more extravagant than ever, but they managed to cast the deep sea lead, with the crew lined up round the ship, calling “Watch! Watch!” as each man let his portion of line loose. Thirty-eight—thirty-seven—thirty-eight fathoms again; the three casts consumed an hour, with everyone wet to the skin and exhausted. It was a fragment more of the data necessary, while heaving-to eased the labour of the worn-out quartermasters and actually imposed so much less strain on the seams that the pumps steadily gained on the water below.

At the first watery light of dawn they set the goose-winged fore-topsail again while Hornblower faced the problem of getting Hotspur round with the wind over her quarter without laying her over on her beam ends. Then they were thrashing along in the old way, decks continually under water, rolling until every timber groaned, with Orrock freezing at the fore-topmast-head with his glass. It was noon before he sighted the land; half an hour later Bush returned to the quarter-deck from the ascent he made to confirm Orrock’s findings. Bush was more weary than he would ever admit, his dirty hollow cheeks overgrown with a stubble of beard, but he could still show surprise and pleasure.

“Bolt Head, sir!” he yelled. “Fine on the port bow. And I could just make out the Start.”

“Thank you.”

Even though it meant shouting, Bush wanted to express his feelings about this feat of navigation, but Hornblower had no time for that, nor the patience, nor, for that matter, the strength. There was the question of not being blown too far to leeward at this eleventh hour, of making preparations to come to an anchor in conditions that would certainly be difficult. There was the tide rip off the Start to be borne in mind, the necessity of rounding to as close under Berry Head as possible. There was the sudden inexpressible change in wind and sea as they came under the lee of the Start; the steep choppiness here seemed nothing compared with what Hotspur had been enduring five minutes before, and the land took the edge off the hurricane wind to reduce it to the mere force of a full gale that still kept Hotspur flying before it. There was the Newstone and the Blackstones—here as well as in the Iroise—and the final tricky moment of the approach to Berry Head.

“Ships of war at anchor, sir,” reported Bush, sweeping Tor Bay with his glass as they opened it up. “That’s Dreadnought. That’s Temeraire. It’s the Channel Fleet. My God! There’s one aground in Torquay Roads. Two-decker—she must have dragged her anchors.”

“Yes. We’ll back the best bower anchor before we let go, Mr. Bush. We’ll have to use the launch’s carronade. You’ve time to see about that.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Even in Tor Bay there was a full gale blowing; where a two-decker had dragged her anchors every precaution must be taken at whatever further cost in effort. The seven hundredweight of the boat carronade, attached to the anchor-cable fifty feet back from the one ton of the best bower, might just save that anchor from lifting and dragging. And so Hotspur came in under goose-winged fore-topsail and storm mizzen stay-sail, round Berry Head, under the eyes of the Channel Fleet, to claw her way in towards Brixham pier and to round-to with her weary men furling the fore-topsail and to drop her anchors while with a last effort they sent down the topmasts and Prowse and Hornblower took careful bearings to make sure she was not dragging. It was only then that there was leisure to spare to make her number to the flag-ship.

“Flag acknowledges, sir,” croaked Foreman.

“Very well.”

It was still possible to do something more without collapsing. “Mr. Foreman, kindly make this signal. ‘Need drinking water’.”