Lieutenant Hornblower h-2

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Silence!” bellowed Hornblower.

  Clank—clank—clank. Reluctant sounds; but the ship was moving. The cable was coming in slowly, like a mortally wounded monster. If only they could keep her on the move! Clank—clank—clank. The interval between the sounds was growing shorter—even Bush had to admit that to himself The cable was coming in faster—faster.

  “Take charge here, Mr. Hornblower,” said Bush, and sprang for the maindeck. If the ship were free there would be urgent matters for the first lieutenant to attend to. The capstan pawls seemed almost to be playing a merry tune, so rapidly did they sound as the capstan turned.

  Undoubtedly there was much to be attended to on deck. There were decisions which must be made at once. Bush touched his hat to Buckland.

  “Any orders, sir?”

  Buckland turned unhappy eyes on him.

  “We’ve lost the flood,” he said.

  This must be the highest moment of the tide, if they were to touch ground again, hedging would not be so simple an operation.

  “Yes, sir,” said Bush.

  The decision could only lie with Buckland; no one else could share the responsibility. But it was terribly hard for a man to have to admit defeat in his very first command. Buckland looked as if for inspiration round the bay, where the redandgold flags of Spain flew above the bankedup powder smoke of the batteries—no inspiration could be found there.

  “We can only get out with the land breeze,” said Buckland. “Yes, sir.”

  There was almost no longer for the land breeze to blow, either, thought Bush; Buckland knew it as well as he did. A shot from the fort on the hill struck into the main chains at that moment, with a jarring crash and a shower of splinters. They heard the call for the fire party, and with that Buckland reached the bitter decision.

  “Heave in on the spring cable,” he ordered. “Get her round head to sea.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Retreat—defeat; that was what that order meant. But defeat had to be faced; even with that order given there was much that had to be done to work the ship out of the imminent danger in which she lay. Bush turned to give the orders.

  “’Vast heaving at the capstan, there!”

  The clanking ceased and the Renown rode free in the muddy, churnedup waters of the bay. To retreat she would have to turn tail, reverse herself in that confined space, and work her way out to sea. Fortunately the means were immediately available: by heaving in on the bow cable which had so far lain idle between hawsehole and anchor the ship could be brought short round.

  “Cast off the stern cable messenger!”

  The orders came quickly and easily; it was a routine piece of seamanship, even though it had to be carried out under the fire of a redhot shot. There were the boats still manned and afloat to drag the battered vessel out of harm’s way if the precarious breeze should die away. Round came the Renown’s bows under the pull of the bow cable as the capstan set to work upon it. Even though the wind was dying away to a sweltering calm, movement was obvious—but the shock of defeat and the contemplation of that accursed artillery! While the capstan was dragging the ship up to her anchor the necessity for keeping the ship on the move occurred to Bush. He touched his hat to Buckland again.

  “Shall I warp her down the bay, sir?”

  Buckland had been standing by the binnacle staring vacantly at the fort. It was not a question of physical cowardice—that was obvious—but the shock of defeat and the contemplation of the future had made the man temporarily incapable of logical thought. But Bush’s question prodded him back into dealing with the current situation.

  “Yes,” said Buckland, and Bush turned away, happy to have something useful to do which he well knew how to do.

  Another anchor had to be cockbilled at the port bow, another cable roused out. A hail to James, in command of the boats since Roberts’ death, told him of the new evolution and called him under the bows for the anchor to be lowered down to the launch—the trickiest part of the whole business. Then the launch’s crew bent to their oars and towed ahead, their boat crank with the ponderous weight that it bore dangling aft and with the cable paying out astern of it. Yard by yard, to the monotonous turning of the capstan, the Renown crept up to her first anchor, and when that cable was straight up and down the flutter of a signal warned James, now far ahead in the launch, to drop the anchor his boat carried and return for the stream anchor which was about to be hauled up. The stern cable, now of no more use, had to be unhitched and got in, the effort of the capstan transferred from one cable to the other, while the two cutters were given lines by which they could contribute their tiny effort to the general result, towing the ponderous ship and giving her the smallest conceivable amount of motion which yet was valuable when it was a matter of such urgency to withdraw the ship out of range.

  Down below Hornblower was at work dragging forward the guns he had previously dragged aft; the rumble and squeal of the trucks over the planking was audible through the ship over the monotonous clanking of the capstan. Overhead blazed the pitiless sun, softening the pitch in the seams, while yard after painful yard, cable’s length after cable’s length, the ship crept on down the bay out of range of the redhot shot, over the glittering still water; down the bay of Samaná until at last they were out of range and could pause while the men drank a niggardly halfpint of warm odorous water before turning back to their labours. To bury the dead, to repair the damages, and to digest the realization of defeat. Maybe to wonder if the captain’s malign influence still persisted, mad and helpless though he was.

  Chapter VIII

  When the tropic night closed down upon the battered Renown, as she stood off the land under easy sail, just enough to stiffen her to ride easily over the Atlantic rollers that the trade wind, reinforced by the sea breeze, sent hurrying under her bows, Buckland sat anxiously discussing the situation with his new first lieutenant. Despite the breeze, the little cabin was like an oven; the two lanterns which hung from the deck beams to illuminate the chart on the table seemed to heat the room unbearably. Bush felt the perspiration prickling under his uniform, and his stock constricted his thick neck so that every now and again he put two fingers into it and tugged, without relief. It would have been the simplest matter in the world to take off his heavy uniform coat and unhook his stock, but it never crossed his mind that he should do so. Bodily discomfort was something that one bore without complaint in a hard world; habit and pride both helped.

  “Then you think we should bear up for Jamaica?” asked Buckland.

  “I wouldn’t go as far as to advise it, sir,” replied Bush, cautiously.

  The responsibility was Buckland’s, entirely Buckland’s, by the law of the navy, and Bush was a little irked at Buckland’s trying to share it.

  “But what else can we do?” asked Buckland. “What do you suggest?”

  Bush remembered the plan of campaign Hornblower had sketched out to him, but he did not put it instantly forward; he had not weighed it sufficiently in his mind—he did not even know if he thought it practicable. Instead he temporised.

  “If we head for Jamaica it’ll be with our tail between our legs, sir,” he said.

  “That s perfectly true,” agreed Buckland, with a helpless gesture. ‘There’s the captain.”

  “Yes,” said Bush. “There’s the captain.”

  If the Renown were to report to the admiral at Kingston with a resounding success to her record there might not be too diligent an inquiry into past events; but if she came limping in, defeated, battered, it would be far more likely that inquiry might be made into the reasons why her captain had been put under restraint, why Buckland had read the secret orders, why he had taken upon himself the responsibility of making the attack upon Samaná.

  “It was young Hornblower who said the same thing to me,” complained Buckland pettishly. “I wish I’d never listened to him.”

  “What did you ask him, sir?” asked Bush.

  “Oh, I can’t say that I asked
him anything,” replied Buckland, pettishly again. “We were yarning together on the quarterdeck one evening. It was his watch.”

  “I remember, sir,” prompted Bush.

  “We talked. The infernal little whippersnapper said just what you were saying—I don’t remember how it started. But then it was a question of going to Antigua. Hornblower said that it would be better if we had the chance to achieve something before we faced an inquiry about the captain. He said it was my opportunity. So it was, I suppose. My great chance. But with Hornblower talking you’d think I was going to be posted captain tomorrow. And now—”

  Buckland’s gesture indicated how much chance he thought he had of ever being posted captain now.

  Bush thought about the report Buckland would have to make: nine killed and twenty wounded; the Renown’s attack ignominiously beaten off; Samaná Bay as safe a refuge for privateers as ever. He was glad he was not Buckland, but at the same time he realised that there was grave danger of his being tarred with the same brush. He was first lieutenant now, he was one of the officers who had acquiesced, if nothing more, in the displacement of Sawyer from command, and it would take a victory to invest him with any virtue at all in the eyes of his superiors.

  “Damn it,” said Buckland in pathetic selfdefence, “we did our best. Anyone could run aground in that channel. It wasn’t our fault that the helmsman was killed. Nothing could get up the bay under that crossfire.”

  “Hornblower was suggesting a landing on the seaward side. In Scotchman’s Bay, sir.” Bush was speaking as cautiously as he could.

  “Another of Hornblower’s suggestions?” said Buckland.

  “I think that’s what he had in mind from the start, sirs A landing and a surprise attack.”

  Probably it was because the attempt had failed, but Bush now could see the unreason of taking a wooden ship into a situation where redhot cannon balls could be fired into her.

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, sir—”

  Bush was not sure enough about what he thought to be able to express himself with any clarity. But if they had failed once they might as well fail twice; as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. Bush was a sturdy soul; it went against his grain to yield in face of difficulties, and he was irritated at the thought of a tame retreat after a single repulse. The difficulty was to devise an alternative plan of campaign. He tried to say all these things to Buckland, and was sufficiently carried away to be incautious.

  “I see,” said Buckland. In the light of the swaying lamps the play of the shadows on his face accentuated the struggle in his expression. He came to a sudden decision. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Smith has the watch. Hornblower has the middle—I expect he has turned in until he’s called.”

  Buckland was as weary as anyone in the ship—wearier than most, it seemed likely. The thought of Hornblower stretched at ease in his cot while his superiors sat up fretting wrought Buckland up to a pitch of decision that he might not otherwise have reached, determining him to act at once instead of waiting till the morrow.

  “Pass the word for him,” he ordered.

  Hornblower came into the cabin with commendable promptitude, his hair tousled and his clothes obviously hastily thrown on. He threw a nervous glance round the cabin as he entered; obviously he suffered from not unreasonable doubts as to why he had been summoned thus into the presence of his superiors.

  “What plan is this I’ve been hearing about?” asked Buckland. “You had some suggestion for storming the fort, I understand, Mr. Hornblower.”

  Hornblower did not answer immediately; he was marshalling his arguments and reconsidering his first plan in the light of the new situation—Bush could see that it was hardly fair that Hornblower should be called upon to state his plan now that the Renown had made one attempt and had failed after sacrificing the initial advantage of surprise. But Bush could see that he was reordering his ideas.

  “I thought a landing might have more chance, sir,” he said. “But that was before the Dons knew there was a ship of the line in the neighbourhood.”

  “And now you don’t think so?”

  Buckland’s tone was a mixture of relief and disappointment—relief that he might not have to reach any further decisions, and disappointment that some easy way of gaining success was not being put forward. But Hornblower had had time now to sort out his ideas, and to think about times and distances. That showed in his face.

  “I think something might well be tried, sir, as long as it was tried at once.”

  “At once?” This was night, the crew were weary, and Buckland’s tone showed surprise at the suggestion of immediate activity. “You don’t mean tonight?”

  “Tonight might be the best time, sir. The Dons have seen us driven off with our tail between our legs—excuse me, sir, but that’s how it’ll look to them, at least. The last they saw of us was beating out of Samaná Bay at sunset. They’ll be pleased with themselves. You know how they are, sir. An attack at dawn from another quarter, overland, would be the last thing they’d expect.”

  That sounded like sense to Bush, and he made a small approving noise, the most he would venture towards making a contribution to the debate.

  “How would you make this attack, Mr. Hornblower?” asked Buckland.

  Hornblower had his ideas in order now; the weariness disappeared and there was a glow of enthusiasm in his face.

  “The wind’s fair for Scotchman’s Bay, sir. We could be back there in less than two hours—before midnight. By the time we arrive we can have the landing party told off and prepared. A hundred seamen and the marines. There’s a good landing beach there—we saw it yesterday. The country inland must be marshy, before the hills of the peninsula start again, but we can land on the peninsula side of the marsh. I marked the place yesterday, sir.”

  “Well?”

  Hornblower swallowed the realisation that it was possible for a man not to be able to continue from that point with a single leap of his imagination.

  “The landing party can make their way up to the crest without difficulty, sir. There’s no question of losing their way—the sea one side and Samaná Bay on the other. They can move forward along the crest. At dawn they can rush the fort. What with the marsh and the cliffs the Dons’ll keep a poor lookout on that side, I fancy, sir.”

  “You make it sound very easy, Mr. Hornblower. But—a hundred and eighty men?”

  “Enough, I think, sir.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “There were six guns firing at us from the fort, sir. Ninety men at most—sixty more likely. Ammunition party; men to heat the furnaces. A hundred and fifty men altogether; perhaps as few as a hundred.”

  “But why should that be all they had?”

  “The Dons have nothing to fear on that side of the island. They’re holding out against the blacks, and the French, maybe, and the English in Jamaica. There’s nothing to tempt the blacks to attack ‘em across the marshes. It’s south of Samaná Bay that the danger lies. The Dons’ll have every man that can carry a musket on that side. That’s where the cities are. That’s where this fellow Toussaint, or whatever his name is, will be threatening ‘em, sir.”

  The last word of this long speech came as a fortunate afterthought; Hornblower clearly was restraining himself from pointing out the obvious too didactically to his superior officer. And Bush could see Buckland squirm in discomfort at this casual mention of blacks and French. Those secret orders—which Bush had not been allowed to read—must lay down some drastic instructions regarding the complicated political situation in Santo Domingo, where the revolted slaves, the French, and the Spaniards (nominal allies though these last might be, elsewhere in the world) all contended for the mastery.

  “We’ll leave the blacks and the French out of this,” said Buckland, confirming Bush’s suspicions.

  “Yes, sir. But the Dons won’t,” said Hornblower, not very abashed. “They’re more afraid of the blac
ks than of us at present.”

  “So you think this attack might succeed?” asked Buckland, desperately changing the subject.

  “I think it might, sir. But time’s getting on.”

  Buckland sat looking at his two juniors in painful indecision, and Bush felt full sympathy for him. A second bloody repulse—possibly something even worse, the cutting off and capitulation of the entire landing party—would be Buckland’s certain ruin.

  “With the fort in our hands, sir,” said Hornblower, “we can deal with the privateers up the bay. They could never use it as an anchorage again.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Buckland. It would be a neat and economical fulfillment of his orders; it would restore his credit.

  The timbers of the ship creaked rhythmically as the Renown rode over the waves. The trade wind came blowing into the cabin, relieving it of some of its stuffiness, breathing cooler air on Bush’s sweaty face.

  “Damn it,” said Buckland with sudden reckless decision, “let’s do it.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Hornblower.

  Bush had to restrain himself from saying something that would express his pleasure; Hornblower had used a neutral tone—too obvious pushing of Buckland along the path of action might have a reverse effect and goad him into reversing his decision even now.

  And although this decision had been reached there was another one, almost equally important, which had to be reached at once.