Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

‘This has been the quickest passage I have made to these latitudes,’ said Osborn. ‘I begin to regret it now that it appears to have prevented our seeing anything of you.’

  ‘I am on the King’s service, my Lord, and under the most explicit orders from the Admiral.’

  That was an excuse against which the Governor-designate of Bombay could not argue.

  ‘I understand,’ said Lord Eastlake. ‘At least can I have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of your officers?’

  Once more that was a handsome gesture; Hornblower called them up and presented them one by one; horny-handed Bush, and Gerard handsome and elegant, Captain Morris of the marines and his two gawky subalterns, the other lieutenants and the master, down to the junior midshipman, all of them delighted and embarrassed at this encounter with a lord.

  At last Lord Eastlake turned to go.

  ‘Good-bye, Captain,’ he said, proffering his hand. ‘A prosperous voyage in the Mediterranean to you.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord. And a good passage to Bombay to you. And a successful and historic term of office.’

  Hornblower stood weighing the purse – an embroidered canvas bag at which someone had laboured hard recently – in his hand. He felt the weight of the gold, and under his fingers he felt the crackle of the banknotes. He would have liked to treat it as prize money, and take his share under prize money rules, but he knew he could not accept that sort of reward from civilians. Still, his crew must show full appreciation.

  ‘Mr Bush,’ he said, as the boat shoved off. ‘Man the yards. Have the men give three cheers.’

  Lord Eastlake and Captain Osborn acknowledged the compliment as they pulled away; Hornblower watched the boat creep back to the Lord Mornington. Four hundred guineas. It was a lot of money, but he was not going to be bought off with four hundred guineas. In that very moment he came to his decision after twenty-four hours of vacillation. He would display to the East India convoy the independence of Captain Hornblower.

  ‘Mr Rayner,’ he said. ‘Clear away the launch and the long-boat. Have the helm put up and run down to leeward of the convoy. I want those boats in the water by the time we reach them. Mr Bush. Mr Gerard. Your attention please.’

  Amid the bustle and hurry of wearing the ship, and tailing on at the stay tackles, Hornblower gave his orders briefly. For once in his life Bush ventured to demur when he realised what Hornblower had in mind.

  ‘They’re John Company’s ships, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I had myself fancied that such was the case,’ said Hornblower with elaborate irony. He knew perfectly well the risk he was running in taking men from ships of the East India Company – he would be both offending the most powerful corporation in England and contravening Admiralty orders. But he needed the men, needed them desperately, and the ships from whom he was taking them would sight no land until they reached St Helena. It would be three or four months before any protest could reach England, and six months before any censure could reach him in the Mediterranean. A crime six months old might not be prosecuted with extreme severity, and perhaps in six months’ time he would be dead.

  ‘Give the boats’ crews pistols and cutlasses,’ he said, ‘just to show that I’ll stand no nonsense. I want twenty men from each of those ships.’

  ‘Twenty!’ said Bush, gaping with admiration. This was flouting the law on the grand scale.

  ‘Twenty from each. And mark you, I’ll have only white men. No Lascars. And able seamen every one of them, men who can hand, reef, and steer. And find out who their quarter gunners are and bring them. You can use some trained gunners, Gerard?’

  ‘By God I can, sir.’

  ‘Very good.’

  Hornblower turned away. He had reached his decision unaided, and he did not want to discuss it further. The Sutherland had run down to the convoy. First the launch and then the cutter dropped into the water and pulled over to the clustered ships while the Sutherland dropped farther down to leeward to wait their return, hove to with main topsail to the mast. Through his glass Hornblower saw the flash of steel as Gerard with his boarding party ran up on to the deck of the Lord Mornington – he was displaying his armed force early so as to overawe any thought of resistance. Hornblower was in a fever of anxiety which he had to struggle hard to conceal. He shut his glass with a snap and began to pace the deck.

  ‘Boat pulling towards us from Lord Mornington, sir,’ said Rayner, who was as excited as his captain, and far more obviously.

  ‘Very good,’ said Hornblower with careful unconcern.

  That was a comfort. If Osborn had given Gerard a point blank refusal, had called his men to arms and defied him, it might give rise to a nasty situation. A court of law might call it murder if someone got killed in a scuffle while illegal demands were being enforced. But he had counted on Osborn being taken completely by surprise when the boarding party ran on to his deck. He would be able to offer no real resistance. Now Hornblower’s calculations were proving correct; Osborn was sending a protest, and he was prepared to deal with any number of protests – especially as the rest of the convoy would wait on their Commodore’s example and could be relieved of their men while the protesting was going on.

  It was Osborn himself who came in through the entry port, scarlet with rage and offended dignity.

  ‘Captain Hornblower!’ he said, as he set foot on the deck. ‘This is an outrage! I must protest against it, sir. At this very moment your lieutenant is parading my crew with a view to impressment.’

  ‘He is acting by my orders, sir,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘I could hardly believe it when he told me so. Are you aware, sir, that what you propose to do is contrary to the law? It is a flagrant violation of Admiralty regulations. A perfect outrage, sir. The ships of the Honourable East India Company are exempt from impressment, and I, as Commodore, must protest to the last breath of my body against any contravention of the law.’

  ‘I shall be glad to receive your protest when you make it, sir.’

  ‘But—but—’ spluttered Osborn. ‘I have delivered it. I have made my protest, sir.’

  ‘Oh, I understand,’ said Hornblower. ‘I thought these were only remarks preliminary to a protest.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ raved Osborn, his portly form almost dancing on the deck. ‘I have protested, sir, and I shall continue to protest. I shall call the attention of the highest in the land to this outrage. I shall come from the ends of the earth, gladly, sir, to bear witness at your court martial. I shall not rest – I shall leave no stone unturned – I shall exert all my influence to have this crime punished as it deserves. I’ll have you cast in damages, sir, as well as broke.’

  ‘But, Captain Osborn—’ began Hornblower, changing his tune just in time to delay the dramatic departure which Osborn was about to make. From the tail of his eye Hornblower had seen the Sutherland’s boats pulling towards two more victims, having presumably stripped the first two of all possible recruits. As Hornblower began to hint at a possible change of mind on his part, Osborn rapidly lost his ill temper.

  ‘If you restore the men, sir, I will gladly retract all I have said,’ said Osborn. ‘Nothing more will be heard of the incident, I assure you.’

  ‘But will you not allow me to ask for volunteers from among your crews, Captain?’ pleaded Hornblower. ‘There may be a few men who would like to join the King’s service.’

  ‘Well – yes, I will even agree to that. As you say, sir, you may find a few restless spirits.’

  That was the height of magnanimity on Osborn’s part, although he was safe in assuming that there would be few men in his fleet foolish enough to exchange the comparative comfort of the East India Company’s service for the rigours of life in the Royal Navy.

  ‘Your seamanship in that affair with the privateers, sir, was so admirable that I find it hard to refuse you anything,’ said Osborn, pacifically. The Sutherland’s boats were alongside the last of the convoy now.

  ‘That is very good of you, sir,’ said Hornblower
, bowing. ‘Allow me, then, to escort you into your gig. I will recall my boats. Since they will have taken volunteers first, we can rely upon it that they will have all the willing ones on board, and I shall return the unwilling ones. Thank you, Captain Osborn. Thank you.’

  He saw Captain Osborn over the side and walked back to the quarterdeck. Rayner was eyeing him with amazement on account of his sudden volte-face, which gave him pleasure, for Rayner would be still more amazed soon. The cutter and launch, both of them as full of men as they could be, were running down now to rejoin, passing Osborn’s gig as it was making its slow course to windward. Through his glass Hornblower could see Osborn wave his arm as he sat in his gig; presumably he was shouting something to the boats as they went by. Bush and Gerard very properly paid him no attention. In two minutes they were alongside, and the men came pouring on deck, a hundred and twenty men laden with their small possessions, escorted by thirty of the Sutherland’s hands. They were made welcome by the rest of the crew all with broad grins. It was a peculiarity of the British pressed sailor that he was always glad to see other men pressed – in the same way, thought Hornblower, as the fox who lost his brush wanted all the other foxes to lose theirs.

  Bush and Gerard had certainly secured a fine body of men; Hornblower looked them over as they stood in apathy, or bewilderment, or sullen rage, upon the Sutherland’s main deck. At no warning they had been snatched from the comfort of an Indiaman, with regular pay, ample food, and easy discipline, into the hardships of the King’s service, where the pay was problematic, the food bad, and where their backs were liable to be flogged to the bones at a simple order from their new captain. Even a sailor before the mast could look forward with pleasure to his visit to India, with all its possibilities; but these men were destined instead now to two years of monotony only varied by danger, where disease and the cannon balls of the enemy lay in wait for them.

  ‘I’ll have those boats hoisted in, Mr Rayner,’ said Hornblower.

  Rayner’s eyelids flickered for a second – he had heard Hornblower’s promise to Captain Osborn, and he knew that more than a hundred of the new arrivals would refuse to volunteer. The boats would only have to be hoisted out again to take them back. But if Hornblower’s wooden expression indicated anything at all, it was that he meant what he said.

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Rayner.

  Bush was approaching now, paper in hand, having agreed his figures regarding the recruits with Gerard.

  ‘A hundred and twenty, total, sir, as you ordered,’ said Bush. ‘One cooper’s mate – he was a volunteer, one hundred and nine able seamen – two of ’em volunteered; six quarter gunners; four landsmen, all volunteers.’

  ‘Excellent, Mr Bush, Read ’em in. Mr Rayner, square away as soon as those boats are inboard. Mr Vincent! Signal to the convoy. “All-men-have-volunteered. Thank you. Good-bye.” You’ll have to spell out “volunteered” but it’s worth it.’

  Hornblower’s high spirits had lured him into saying an unecessary sentence. But when he took himself to task for it he could readily excuse himself. He had a hundred and twenty new hands, nearly all of them able seamen – the Sutherland had nearly her full complement now. More than that, he had guarded himself against the wrath to come. When the inevitable chiding letter arrived from the Admiralty he would be able to write back and say that he had taken the men with the East India Company’s Commodore’s permission; with any good fortune he could keep the ball rolling for another six months. That would give him a year altogether in which to convince the new hands that they had volunteered – by that time some of them at least might be sufficiently enamoured of their new life to swear to that; enough of them to befog the issue, and to afford to an Admiralty, prepared of necessity to look with indulgence on breaches of the pressing regulations, a loophole of excuse not to prosecute him too hard.

  ‘Lord Mornington replying, sir,’ said Vincent. ‘“Do not understand the signal. Await boat”!’

  ‘Signal “Good-bye” again,’ said Hornblower.

  Down on the maindeck Bush had hardly finished reading through the Articles of War to the new hands – the necessary formality to make them servants of the King, submissive to the hangman and the cat.

  IX

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

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

  ‘No. 1 gun!’ bellowed Gerard. ‘Take your aim! Cock your locks! Fire – stop your vents!’

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

  ‘Over and to the right!’ announced Gerard. ‘No. 2 gun!’

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

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

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

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

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

  ‘Masthead! What do you make of the sail?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Hoist the assent,’ replied Hornblower.

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

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

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