Hornblower and the Hotspur

Chapter XVIII

With the coming of spring a new liveliness developed in the blockade of Brest. In every French port during the winter there had been much building of flat-bottomed boats. The French army, two hundred thousand strong, was still poised on the Channel coast, waiting for its chance to invade, and it needed gun-boats by the thousand to ferry it over when that chance should come. But the invasion coast from Boulogne to Ostend could not supply one-tenth, one-hundredth of the vessels needed; these had to be built whenever there were facilities, and then had to be moved along the coast to the assembling area.

To Hornblower’s mind Bonaparte—the Emperor Napoleon, as he was beginning to call himself—was displaying a certain confusion of ideas in adopting this course of action. Seamen and shipbuilding materials were scarce enough in France; it was absurd to waste them on invasion craft when invasion was impossible without a covering fleet, and when the French navy was too small to provide such a fleet. Lord St. Vincent had raised an appreciative smile throughout the Royal Navy when he had said in the House of Lords regarding the French army, ‘I do not say they cannot come. I only say they cannot come by sea.’ The jest had called up a ludicrous picture in everyone’s mind of Bonaparte trying to transport an invading army by Montgolfier balloons, and the impossibility of such an attempt underlined the impossibility of the French building up a fleet strong enough to command the Channel even long enough for the gun-boats to row across.

It was only by the time summer was far advanced that Hornblower fully understood Bonaparte’s quandary. Bonaparte had to persist in this ridiculous venture, wasting the substance of his empire on ships and landing-craft even though a sensible man might well write off the whole project and devote his resources to some more profitable scheme. But to do so would be an admission that England was impregnable, could never be conquered, and such an admission would not only hearten his potential Continental enemies but would have a most unsettling effect on the French people themselves. He was simply compelled to continue along this road, to go on building his ships and his gun-boats to make the world believe there was a likelihood that England would soon be overthrown, leaving him dominant everywhere on earth, lord of the whole human race.

And there was always chance, even if it were not one chance in ten or one chance in a hundred, but one in a million. Some extraordinary, unpredictable combination of good fortune, of British mismanagement, of weather, and of political circumstances might give him the week he needed to get his army across. If the odds were enormous at least the stakes were fantastic. In itself that might appeal to a gambler like Bonaparte even without the force of circumstance to drive him on.

So the flat-bottomed boats were built at every little fishing-village along the coast of France, and they crept from their pieces of origin towards the great military camp of Boulogne, keeping to the shallows, moving by oar more than by sail, sheltering when necessary under the coastal batteries, each boat manned by fifty soldiers and a couple of seamen. And because Bonaparte was moving these craft, the Royal Navy felt bound to interfere with the movement as far as possible.

That was how it came about that Hotspur found herself momentarily detached from the Channel Fleet and forming a part of a small squadron under the orders of Chambers of the Naiad operating to the northward of Ushant, which was doing its best to prevent the passage of half a dozen gun-boats along the wild and rocky shore of Northern Brittany.

“Signal from the Commodore, sir,” reported Foreman.

Chambers spent a great deal of time signalling to his little squadron.

“Well?” asked Hornblower; Foreman was referring to his signal book.

“Take station within sight bearing east nor’east, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Foreman. Acknowledge. Mr. Bush, we’ll square away.”

A pleasant day, with gentle winds from the south east, and occasional white clouds coursing over a blue sky. Overside the sea was green and clear, and two miles off on the beam was the coast with its white breakers; the chart showed strange names, Aber Wrack and Aber Benoit, which told of the relationship between the Breton tongue and Welsh. Hornblower divided his attention between the Naiad and the coast as Hotspur ran down before the wind, and he experienced something of the miser’s feeling at some depletion of his gold. It might be necessary to go off like this to leeward, but every hour so spent might call for a day of beating back to windward. The decisive strategical point was outside Brest where lay the French ships of the line, not here where the little gun-boats were making their perilous passage.

“You may bring-to again, Mr. Bush.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

They were now so far from Naiad that it would calf for a sharp eye and a good glass to read her signals.

“We’re the terrier at the rat hole, sir,” said Bush, coming back to Hornblower as soon as Hotspur had lain-to with her main-topsail to the mast.

“Exactly,” agreed Hornblower.

“Boats are cleared away ready to launch, sir.”

“Thank you.”

They might have to dash in to attack the gun-boats when they came creeping along, just outside the surf.

“Commodore’s signalling, sir,” reported Foreman again. “Oh, it’s for the lugger, sir.”

“There she goes!” said Bush.

The small armed lugger was moving in towards the shore.

“That’s the ferret going down the hole, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, unwontedly conversational.

“Yes, sir. There’s a gun! There’s another!”

They could hear the reports, borne on the wind, and could see the gusts of smoke.

“Is there a battery there, sir?”

“Maybe. Maybe the gun-boats are using their own cannon.”

Each gun-boat mounted one or two heavy guns in the bows, but they laboured under the disadvantage that half a dozen discharges racked the little vessels to pieces by the recoil. The theory behind those guns was that they were to be used for clearing the beaches of defending troops where the invasion should take place and the gun-boats should be safely beached.

“Can’t make out what’s happening,” fumed Bush; a low headland cut off their view.

“Firing’s heavy,” said Hornblower. “Must be a battery there.”

He felt irritated; the Navy was expending lives and material on an objective quite valueless, in his opinion. He beat his gloved hands together in an effort to restore their warmth, for there was an appreciable chilliness in the wind.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Bush, excitedly training his telescope. “Look at that, sir! Dismasted, by God!”

Just visible round the point now was a shape that could not instantly be recognized. It was the lugger, drifting disabled and helpless. Everything about the situation indicated that she had run into a well-planned ambush.

“They’re still firing at her, sir,” remarked Prowse. The telescope just revealed the splashes round her as cannonball plunged into the sea.

“We’ll have to save her,” said Hornblower, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Square away, if you please, Mr. Prowse, and we’ll run down.”

It was extremely irritating to have to go into danger like this, to redeem someone else’s mismanagement of an expedition unjustified from the start.

“Mr. Bush, get a cable out aft ready to tow.”

“Aye eye, sir.”

“Commodore’s signalling, sir.” This was Foreman speaking. “Our number. ‘Assist damaged vessel’.”

“Acknowledge.”

Chambers had ordered that signal before he could see that Hotspur was already on the move.

Hornblower scanned the shore on this side of the headland. There was no gun-smoke on this side, no sign of any battery. With luck all he would have to do was to haul the lugger round the corner. Down in the waist the voices of Bush and Wise were urging a working party to their utmost efforts as they took the ponderous cable aft. Things were happening fast, as they always did at crises. A shot screamed overhead as Hornblower reached for the speaking-trumpet.

“Grasshopper! Stand by to take a line!”

Somebody in the disabled lugger waved a handkerchief in acknowledgement.

“Back the main-tops’l, Mr. Prowse, and we’ll go down to her.”

That was when the Grasshopper disintegrated, blew apart, in two loud explosions and a cloud of smoke. It happened right under Hornblower’s eyes, as he leaned over with his speaking-trumpet; one second there was the intact hull of the lugger, with living men working on the wreckage, and the next the smoking explosions, the flying fragments, the billowing smoke. It must have been a shell from the shore; there were howitzers or mortars mounted there. Most likely a field howitzer battery, light and easily moved across country, which had been brought up to protect the gunboats. A shell must have dropped into the lugger and burst in the magazine.

Hornblower had seen it all, and when the cloud of smoke dispersed the bow and stern did not disappear from sight. They were floating water-logged on the surface, and Hornblower could see a few living figures as well, clinging to the wreckage among the fragments.

“Lower the quarter-boat! Mr. Young, go and pick up those men.”

This was worse than ever. Shell fire was a horrible menace to a wooden ship that could so easily be set into an inextinguishable blaze. It was utterly infuriating to be exposed to these perils for no profit. The quarter-boat was on its way back when the next shell screamed overhead. Hornblower recognized the difference in the sound from that of a round-shot; he should have done so earlier. A shell from a howitzer had a belt about it, a thickening in the centre which gave its flight, as it arched across the sky, the peculiarly malevolent note he had already heard.

It was the French army that was firing at them. To fight the French navy was the essence of Hotspur’s duty, and of his own but to expose precious ships and seamen to the attack of soldiers who cost almost nothing to a government that enforced conscription was bad business, and to expose them without a chance of firing back was sheer folly. Hornblower drummed on the hammock cloths over the netting in front of him with his gloved hands in a fury of bad temper, while Young rowed about the wreckage picking up the survivors. A glance ashore coincided with the appearance of a puff of white smoke. That was one of the howitzers at least—before the wind dispersed it he could clearly see the initial upward direction of the puff; howitzers found their best range at an angle of fifty degrees, and at the end of their trajectory the shells-dropped at sixty degrees. This one was behind a low bank, or in some sort of ditch; his glass revealed an officer standing above it directing the operation of the gun at his feet.

Now came the shriek of the shell, not so far overhead; even the fountain of water that it threw up when it plunged into the sea was different in shape and duration from those flung up by round-shot from a cannon. Young brought the quarter-boat under the falls and hooked on; Bush had his men ready to tail away at the tackles, while Hornblower watched the operation and fumed at every second of delay. Most of the survivors picked up were wounded, some of them dreadfully. He would have to go and see they were properly attended to—he would have to pay a visit of courtesy—but not until Hotspur were safely out of this unnecessary peril.

“Very well, Mr. Prowse. Bring her before the wind.”

The yards creaked round; the quartermaster spun the wheel round into firm resistance, and Hotspur slowly gathered way, to leave this hateful coast behind her. Next came a sudden succession of noises, all loud, all different, distinguishable even though not two seconds elapsed between the first and the last—the shriek of a shell, a crash of timber aloft, a deep note as the main-topmast backstay parted, a thud against the hammock nettings beside Hornblower, and then a thump three yards from his feet, and there on the deck death, sizzling death, was rolling towards him and as the ship heaved death changed its course with the canting of the deck in a blundering curve as the belt round the shell deflected its roll. Hornblower saw the tiny thread of smoke, the burning fuse one-eighth of an inch long. No time to think. He sprang at it as it wobbled on its belt, and with his gloved hand he extinguished the fuse, rubbing at it to make sure the spark was out, rubbing at it again unnecessarily before he straightened up. A marine was standing by and Hornblower gestured to him.

“Throw the damned thing overboard!” he ordered; the fact that he swore indicated his bad temper.

Then he looked round. Every soul on that crowded little quarter-deck was rigid, posed in unnatural attitudes, as if some Gorgon’s head had turned them all into stone, and then with his voice and his gesture they all came back to life again, to move and relax—it was as if time had momentarily stood still for everyone except himself. His bad temper was fanned by the delay, and he lashed out with his tongue indiscriminately.

“What are you all thinking about? Quartermaster, put your helm over! Mr. Bush! Just look at that mizzen tops’l yard! Send the hands aloft this minute! Splice that backstay! You, there! Haven’t you coiled those falls yet? Move, damn you!”

“Aye aye, sir! Aye aye, sir!”

The automatic chorus of acknowledgements had a strange note, and in the midst of the bustle Hornblower saw first Bush from one angle and then Prowse from another, both looking at him with strange expressions on their faces.

“What’s the matter with you?” he blazed out, and with the last word understanding came to him.

That extinguishing of the fuse appeared to them in monstrous disproportion, as something heroic, even perhaps as something magnificent. They did not see it in its true light as the obvious thing to do, indeed the only thing to do; nor did they know of the instinctive flash of action that had followed his observation of that remaining one-eighth of an inch of fuse. All there was to his credit was that he had seen and acted quicker than they. He had not been brave, and most certainly not heroic.

He returned the glance of his subordinates, and with all his senses still keyed up to the highest pitch he realized that this was the moment of the conception of a legend, that the wildest tales would be told later about this incident, and he was suddenly hideously embarrassed. He laughed, and before the laugh was finished he knew it was a self-conscious laugh, the motiveless laugh of an idiot, and he was angrier than ever with himself and with Chambers of the Naiad and with the whole world. He wanted to be away from all this, back in the approaches to Brest doing his proper work and not engaged in these hare-brained actions that did not forward the defeat of Bonaparte an iota.

Then another thought struck him, occasioned by the discovery that the fuse had burned a hole in his right hand glove. Those were the gloves Maria had given him on that dark morning when he had walked with her from the George to take Hotspur to sea.