The mast was falling. The top swung round in a dizzy arc so that only his fortunate grip on the swivel saved him from being flung out like a stone from a sling. It wheeled round. With the shrouds on one side shot away and two cannon balls in its heart the mast tottered and rolled. Then the tug of the mizzen-stays inclined it forward, the tug of the other shrouds inclined it to starboard, and the wind in the mizzen-topsail took charge when the back stays parted. The mast crashed forward; the topmast caught against the mainyard and the whole structure hung there before it could dissolve into its constituent parts. The severed butt-end of the mast must be resting on the deck for the moment; mast and topmast were still united at the cap and the trestle-trees into one continuous length, although why the topmast had not snapped at the cap was hard to say. With the lower end of the mast resting precariously on the deck and the topmast resting against the mainyard, Hornblower and Finch still had a chance of life, but the ship’s motion, another shot from the Frenchman, or the parting of the over-strained material could all end that chance. The mast could slip outwards, the topmast could break, the butt-end of the mast could slip along the deck—they had to save themselves if they could before any one of these imminent events occurred. The maintop-mast and everything above it was involved in the general ruin. It too had fallen and was dangling, sails spars and ropes in one frightful tangle. The mizzen-topsail had torn itself free. Hornblower’s eyes met Finch’s; Finch and he were clinging to the swivel gun, and there was no one else in the steeply inclined top.
The starboard side mizzen-topmast shrouds still survived; they, as well as the topmast, were resting across the mainyard, strained taut as fiddle strings, the mainyard tightening them just as the bridge tightens the strings of a fiddle. But along those shrouds lay the only way to safety—a sloping path from the peril of the top to the comparative safety of the mainyard.
The mast began to slip, to roll, out towards the end of the yard. Even if the mainyard held, the mizzen-mast would soon fall into the sea alongside. All about them were thunderous noises—spars smashing, ropes parting; the guns were still bellowing and everyone below seemed to be yelling and screaming.
The top lurched again, frightfully. Two of the shrouds parted with the strain, with a noise clearly audible through the other din, and as they parted the mast twisted with a jerk, swinging further round the mizzen-top, the swivel gun, and the two wretched beings who clung to it. Finch’s staring blue eyes rolled with the movement of the top. Later Hornblower knew that the whole period of the fall of the mast was no longer than a few seconds, but at this time it seemed as if he had at least long minutes in which to think. Like Finch’s, his eyes stared round him, saw the chance of safety.
“The mainyard!” he screamed.
Finch’s face bore its foolish smile. Although instinct or training kept him gripping the swivel gun he seemingly had no fear, no desire to gain the safety of the mainyard.
“Finch, you fool!” yelled Hornblower.
He locked a desperate knee round the swivel so as to free a hand with which to gesticulate, but still Finch made no move.
“Jump, damn you!” raved Hornblower. “The shrouds—the yard. Jump!”
Finch only smiled.
“Jump and get to the maintop! Oh, Christ—!” Inspiration came in that frightful moment. “The maintop! God’s there, Finch! Go along to God, quick!”
Those words penetrated into Finch’s addled brain. He nodded with sublime unworldliness. Then he let go of the swivel and seemed to launch himself into the air like a frog. His body fell across the mizzen-topmast shrouds and he began to scramble along them. The mast rolled again, so that when Hornblower launched himself at the shrouds it was a longer jump. Only his shoulders reached the outermost shroud. He swung off, clung, nearly lost his grip, but regained it as a counterlurch of the leaning mast came to his assistance. Then he was scrambling along the shrouds, mad with panic. Here was the precious mainyard, and he threw himself across it, grappling its welcome solidity with his body, his feet feeling for the footrope. He was safe and steady on the yard just as the outward roll of the Indefatigable gave the balancing spars their final impetus, and the mizzen-topmast parted company from the broken mizzen-mast and the whole wreck fell down into the sea alongside. Hornblower shuffled along the yard, whither Finch had preceded him, to be received with rapture in the maintop by Midshipman Bracegirdle. Bracegirdle was not God, but as Hornblower leaned across the breastwork of the maintop he thought to himself that if he had not spoken about God being in the maintop Finch would never have made that leap.
“Thought we’d lost you,” said Bracegirdle, helping him in and thumping him on the back. “Midshipman Hornblower, our flying angel.”
Finch was in the top, too, smiling his fool’s smile and surrounded by the crew of the top. Everything seemed mad and exhilarating. It was a shock to remember that they were in the midst of a battle, and yet the firing had ceased, and even the yelling had almost died away. He staggered to the side of the top—strange how difficult it was to walk—and looked over. Bracegirdle came with him. Foreshortened by the height he could make out a crowd of figures on the Frenchman’s deck. Those check shirts must surely be worn by British sailors. Surely that was Eccles, the Indefatigable’s first lieutenant on the quarterdeck with a speaking trumpet.
“What has happened?” he asked Bracegirdle, bewildered.
“What has happened?” Bracegirdle stared for a moment before he understood. “We carried her by boarding. Eccles and the boarders were over the ship’s side the moment we touched. Why, man, didn’t you see?”
“No, I didn’t see it,” said Hornblower. He forced himself to joke. “Other matters demanded my attention at that moment.”
He remembered how the mizzen-top had lurched and swung, and he felt suddenly sick. But he did not want Bracegirdle to see it.
“I must go on deck and report,” he said.
The descent of the main shrouds was a slow, ticklish business, for neither his hands nor his feet seemed to wish to go where he tried to place them. Even when he reached the deck he still felt insecure. Bolton was on the quarterdeck supervising the clearing away of the wreck of the mizzen-mast. He gave a start of surprise as Hornblower approached.
“I thought you were overside with Davy Jones,” he said. He glanced aloft, “You reached the mainyard in time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. I think you’re born to be hanged, Hornblower.” Bolton turned away to bellow at the men. “ ’Vast heaving, there! Clynes, get down into the chains with that tackle! Steady, now, or you’ll lose it.”
He watched the labours of the men for some moments before he turned back to Hornblower.
“No more trouble with the men for a couple of months,” he said. “We’ll work ’em ’til they drop, refitting. Prize crew will leave us shorthanded, to say nothing of our butcher’s bill. It’ll be a long time before they want something new. It’ll be a long time for you, too, I fancy, Hornblower.”
“Yes, sir,” said Hornblower.
THE FROGS AND THE LOBSTERS
“They’re coming,” said Midshipman Kennedy.
Midshipman Hornblower’s unmusical ear caught the raucous sounds of a military band, and soon, with a gleam of scarlet and white and gold, the head of the column came round the corner. The hot sunshine was reflected from the brass instruments; behind them the regimental colour flapped from its staff, borne proudly by an ensign with the colour guard round him. Two mounted officers rode behind the colour, and after them came the long red serpent of the half-battalion, the fixed bayonets flashing in the sun, while all the children of Plymouth, still not sated with military pomp, ran along with them.
The sailors standing ready on the quay looked at the soldiers marching up curiously, with something of pity and something of contempt mingled with their curiosity. The rigid drill, the heavy clothing, the iron discipline, the dull routine of the soldier were in sharp contrast with the far more flexible conditions in which the
sailor lived. The sailors watched as the band ended with a flourish, and one of the mounted officers wheeled his horse to face the column. A shouted order turned every man to face the quayside, the movements being made so exactly together that five hundred boot-heels made a single sound. A huge sergeant-major, his sash gleaming on his chest, and the silver mounting of his cane winking in the sun, dressed the already perfect line. A third order brought down every musket-butt to earth.
“Unfix—bayonets!” roared the mounted officer, uttering the first words Hornblower had understood.
Hornblower positively goggled at the ensuing formalities, as the fuglemen strode their three paces forward, all exactly to time like marionettes worked by the same strings, turned their heads to look down the line, and gave the time for detaching the bayonets, for sheathing them, and for returning the muskets to the men’s sides. The fuglemen fell back into their places, exactly to time again as far as Hornblower could see, but not exactly enough apparently, as the sergeant-major bellowed his discontent and brought the fuglemen out and sent them back again.
“I’d like to see him laying aloft on a stormy night,” muttered Kennedy. “D’ye think he could take the maintops’l earring?”
“These lobsters!” said Midshipman Bracegirdle.
The scarlet lines stood rigid, all five companies, the sergeants with their halberds indicating the intervals—from halberd to halberd, the line of faces dipped down and then up again, with the men exactly sized off, the tallest men at the flanks and the shortest men in the centre of each company. Not a finger moved, not an eyebrow twitched. Down every back hung rigidly a powdered pigtail.
The mounted officer trotted down the line to where the naval party waited, and Lieutenant Bolton, in command, stepped forward with his hand to his hat brim.
“My men are ready to embark, sir,” said the army officer. “The baggage will be here immediately.”
“Aye aye, major,” said Bolton—the army title and the navy reply in strange contrast.
“It would be better to address me as ‘My lord’,” said the major.
“Aye aye, sir—my lord,” replied Bolton, caught quite off his balance.
His Lordship, the Earl of Edrington, major commanding this wing of the 43rd Foot, was a heavily built young man in his early twenties. He was a fine soldierly figure in his well-fitting uniform, and mounted on a magnificent charger, but he seemed a little young for his present responsible command. But the practice of the purchase of commissions was liable to put very young men in high command, and the Army seemed satisfied with the system.
“The French auxiliaries have their orders to report here,” went on Lord Edrington. “I suppose arrangements have been made for their transport as well?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Not one of the beggars can speak English, as far as I can make out. Have you got an officer to interpret?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Hornblower!”
“Sir!”
“You will attend to the embarkation of the French troops.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
More military music—Hornblower’s tone-deaf ear distinguished it as making a thinner noise than the British infantry band—heralded the arrival of the Frenchmen farther down the quay by a side road, and Hornblower hastened there. This was the Royal, Christian, and Catholic French Army, or a detachment of it at least—a battalion of the force raised by the émigré French nobles to fight against the Revolution. There was the white flag with the golden lilies at the head of the column, and a group of mounted officers to whom Hornblower touched his hat. One of them acknowledged his salute.
“The Marquis of Pouzauges, Brigadier General in the service of His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVII,” said this individual in French by way of introduction. He wore a glittering white uniform with a blue ribbon across it.
Stumbling over the French words, Hornblower introduced himself as an aspirant to his Britannic Majesty’s Marine, deputed to arrange the embarkation of the French troops.
“Very good,” said Pouzauges. “We are ready.”
Hornblower looked down the French column. The men were standing in all attitudes, gazing about them. They were all well enough dressed, in blue uniforms which Hornblower guessed had been supplied by the British government, but the white crossbelts were already dirty, the metal-work tarnished, the arms dull. Yet doubtless they could fight.
“Those are the transports allotted to your men, sir,” said Hornblower, pointing. “The Sophia will take three hundred, and the Dumbarton—that one over there—will take two hundred and fifty. Here at the quay are the lighters to ferry the men out.”
“Give the orders, M. de Moncoutant,” said Pouzauges to one of the officers beside him.
The hired baggage carts had now come creaking up along the column, piled high with the men’s kits, and the column broke into chattering swarms as the men hunted up their possessions. It was some time before the men were reassembled, each with his own kit-bag; and then there arose the question of detailing a fatigue party to deal with the regimental baggage, and the men who were given the task yielded up their bags with obvious reluctance to their comrades, clearly in despair of ever seeing any of the contents again. Hornblower was still giving out information.
“All horses must go to the Sophia,” he said. “She has accommodation for six chargers. The regimental baggage—”
He broke off short, for his eye had been caught by a singular jumble of apparatus lying in one of the carts.
“What is that, if you please?” he asked, curiosity overpowering him.
“That, sir,” said Pouzauges, “is a guillotine.”
“A guillotine?”
Hornblower had read much lately about this instrument. The Red Revolutionaries had set one up in Paris and kept it hard at work. The King of France, Louis XVI himself, had died under it. He did not expect to find one in the train of a counter-revolutionary army.
“Yes,” said Pouzauges, “we take it with us to France. It is in my mind to give those anarchists a taste of their own medicine.”
Hornblower did not have to make reply, fortunately, as a bellow from Bolton interrupted the conversation.
“What the hell’s all this delay for, Mr. Hornblower? D’you want us to miss the tide?”
It was of course typical of life in any service that Hornblower should be reprimanded for the time wasted by the inefficiency of the French arrangements—that was the sort of thing he had already come to expect, and he had already learned that it was better to submit silently to reprimand than to offer excuses. He addressed himself again to the task of getting the French aboard their transports. It was a weary midshipman who at last reported himself to Bolton with his tally sheets and the news that the last Frenchman and horse and pieces of baggage were safely aboard, and he was greeted with the order to get his things together quickly and transfer them and himself to the Sophia, where his services as interpreter were still needed.
The convoy dropped quickly down Plymouth Sound, rounded the Eddystone, and headed down channel, with H.M.S. Indefatigable flying her distinguishing pennant, the two gun-brigs which had been ordered to assist in convoying the expedition, and the four transports—a small enough force, it seemed to Hornblower, with which to attempt the overthrow of the French republic. There were only eleven hundred infantry; the half battalion of the 43rd and the weak battalion of Frenchmen (if they could be called that, seeing that many of them were soldiers of fortune of all nations) and although Hornblower had enough sense not to try to judge the Frenchmen as they lay in rows in the dark and stinking ’tweendecks in the agonies of seasickness he was puzzled that anyone could expect results from such a small force. His historical reading had told him of many small raids, in many wars, launched against the shores of France, and although he knew that they had once been described by an opposition statesman as “Breaking windows with guineas” he had been inclined to approve of them in principle, as bringing about a dissipation of the French strength—until
now, when he found himself part of such an expedition.
So it was with relief that he heard from Pouzauges that the troops he had seen did not constitute the whole of the force to be employed—were indeed only a minor fraction of it. A little pale with seasickness, but manfully combating it, Pouzauges laid out a map on the cabin table and explained the plan.
“The Christian Army,” explained Pouzauges, “will land here, at Quiberon. They sailed from Portsmouth—these English names are hard to pronounce—the day before we left Plymouth. There are five thousand men under the Baron de Charette. They will march on Vannes and Rennes.”
“And what is your regiment to do?” asked Hornblower.
Pouzauges pointed to the map again.
“Here is the town of Muzillac,” he said. “Twenty leagues from Quiberon. Here the main road from the south crosses the river Marais, where the tide ceases to flow. It is only a little river, as you see, but its banks are marshy, and the road passes it not only by a bridge but by a long causeway. The rebel armies are to the south, and on their northward march must come by Muzillac. We shall be there. We shall destroy the bridge and defend the crossing, delaying the rebels long enough to enable M. de Charette to raise all Brittany. He will soon have twenty thousand men in arms, the rebels will come back to their allegiance, and we shall march on Paris to restore His Most Christian Majesty to the throne.”
The Young Hornblower Omnibus Page 12
