Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  ‘Any further orders, sir?’ asked Vickery.

  ‘No,’ replied Hornblower heavily; his head poked forward to make sure it did not hit the deck beams again. He tried to keep the disappointment and the bad temper out of his voice, but he feared he had not succeeded. It irked him to have to admit that there was no chance of any successful attempt against the Frisches Haff, and yet prudence, common sense, his whole instinct dictated such a decision. There was no breaking that boom, and there was no going round it, not in any of the vessels under his command. He remembered bitterly his unnecessary words to Bush about the desirability of raiding this area from the sea. If ever he needed a lesson in keeping his mouth shut he was receiving one now. The whole flotilla was expecting action, and he was going to disappoint them, sail away without doing anything at all. In future he would double lock his jaws, treble curb his unruly tongue, for if he had not talked so light-heartedly to Bush there would not be nearly so much harm done; Bush, in the absence of orders to the contrary, would naturally have discussed the future with his officers, and hope would be running high – everyone was expecting great things of the bold Hornblower (said he to himself with a sneer) whose reputation for ingenious daring was so tremendous.

  Unhappy, he went back again over the data. At the sandspit end of the boom there was water enough for a flotilla of ship’s boats to pass. He could send in three or four launches, with four-pounders mounted in the bows and with a hundred and fifty men on board. There was not much doubt that at night they could run past the boom, and, taking everyone in the lagoon by surprise, could work swift havoc on the coasting trade. Very likely they could destroy thousands of tons of shipping. But they would never get out again. The exit would be watched far too carefully; the batteries would be manned day and night, gunboats would swarm round the end of the boom, and even gunboats manned by landsmen, if there were enough of them, would destroy the flotilla. His squadron could ill afford to lose a hundred and fifty trained seamen – one-tenth of the total ships’ complements – and yet a smaller force might well be completely wasted.

  No; no destruction of coasters would be worth a hundred and fifty seamen. He must abandon the idea; as if symbolical of that decision he began to pull on the dry trousers Vickery had provided for him. And then, with one leg in and one leg out, the idea suddenly came to him, and he checked himself, standing in his shirt with his left leg bare and his right leg covered only from ankle to knee.

  Mr Vickery,’ he said, ‘let’s have those charts out again.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Vickery.

  There was eagerness and excitement in his voice at once, echoing the emotion which must have been obvious in Hornblower’s tone – Hornblower took notice of it, and as he buckled his waistband he reaffirmed his resolution to be more careful how he spoke, for he must regain his reputation as a silent hero. He stared down at the charts which Vickery spread for him – he knew that Vickery was studying his face, and he took great care to show no sign whatever of reaching a decision one way or the other. When his mind was made up he said ‘Thank you’, in the flattest tone he could contrive, and then, suddenly remembering his most noncommittal exclamation, he cleared his throat.

  ‘Ha – h’m,’ he said, without any expression at all, and, pleased with the result, he repeated it and drew it out longer still, ‘Ha-a-a-a-h’m.’

  The bewildered look in Vickery’s face was a great delight to him.

  Next morning, back in his own cabin in Nonsuch, he took a mild revenge in watching the faces of his assembled captains as he laid the scheme before them. One and all, they thirsted for the command, hotly eager to risk life and liberty on a mission which might at first sight seem utterly harebrained. The two commanders yearned for the chance of promotion to post rank; the lieutenants hoped they might become commanders.

  ‘Mr Vickery will be in command,’ said Hornblower, and had further opportunity of watching the play of emotion over the faces of his audience. But as in this case everyone present had a right to know why he had been passed over, he gave a few words of explanation.

  ‘The two captains of the bomb-vessels are irreplaceable; there are no other lieutenants with us who can use their infernal machines as well as they can. I don’t have to explain to you why Captain Bush is irreplaceable. It was Mr Vickery who happened to go with me to investigate the boom, and so he happens to know more about the situation than Mr Cole, who’s the other obvious candidate for the command.’

  There was no harm in soothing Cole’s feelings with an excuse like that, for no good end would be served by letting people guess that he would not trust Cole with any command out of his sight – poor old Cole, grey-haired and bowed, almost too old for his work, hoping against hope for promotion to captain. Hornblower had an uneasy feeling that Cole saw through the excuse, and had to comfort himself with the trite thought that no war can be fought without someone’s feelings being hurt. He passed on hurriedly to the next point.

  ‘Having settled that question, gentlemen, I would welcome your views on who else should go as Mr Vickery’s subordinates. Mr Vickery first, as he is most concerned.’

  When those details were settled the next step was to prepare the four boats for the expedition – Nonsuch’s launch and cutter, and the cutters from Lotus and Raven. A four-pounder in the eyes of the launch, a three-pounder in the eyes of each of the cutters; food, water, ammunition, combustibles for setting captures on fire. The crews that had been told off for the expedition were paraded and inspected, the seamen with pistols and cutlasses, the marines with muskets and bayonets. At the end of the day Vickery came back on board Nonsuch for a final confirmation of the future rendezvous.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Vickery.

  He looked frankly into Hornblower’s eyes.

  ‘I have so much to thank you for, sir,’ he added.

  ‘Don’t thank me, thank yourself,’ said Hornblower testily.

  He found it particularly irksome to be thanked for risking young Vickery’s life. He calculated to himself that if he had married as a midshipman he might by now be the father of a son just Vickery’s age.

  At nightfall the squadron stood in towards the land. The wind was backing northerly a little, but it was still blowing a strong breeze, and although the night was not quite as overcast as the preceding one, there was every chance that the boats would slip through unobserved. Hornblower watched them go, just as two bells struck in the middle watch, and as they vanished into the greyness he turned away. Now he would have to wait. It interested him to discover once more that he would genuinely and sincerely have preferred to be in action himself, that he would rather be risking life and limb and liberty there in the Frisches Haff than be here safe at sea with nothing to do but await results. He looked on himself as a coward; he dreaded mutilation and he disliked the thought of death only less than that, so that it was a matter of peculiar interest to find that there were some things he disliked even more than danger. When a long enough time had elapsed for the boats to have passed the boom – or for them to have fallen into the hands of the enemy – Hornblower went below to rest for the brief interval before dawn, but he could only pretend to sleep, he could only hold himself down in his cot and prevent himself by sheer mental effort from tossing and turning. It was a positive relief to go out on the half-deck again when the sky began to grow lighter, to souse himself under the head-pump, and then to go up on the quarterdeck and drink coffee there, glancing the while over the starboard quarter where (with the ship hove-to on the port tack) lay Pillau and the entrance to the Haff.

  The growing daylight revealed it all through Hornblower’s glass. At random cannon-shot lay the yellow and green headland on which Pillau was set; the twin church steeples were clearly visible. The line of the boom showed up, lying across the entrance, marked by breaking waves and occasionally a glimpse of dark timber. Those dark mounds above the water’s edge must be the batteries thrown up there to defend the entrance
. On the other side lay the long line of the Nehrung, a yellowish green line of sandhills, rising and falling with minute variations of altitude as far as the eye could see, and beyond. But through the entrance there was nothing to see at all, nothing except grey water, flecked here and there with white where the shoals dotted the lagoon. The opposite shore of the Haff was too distant to be visible from the deck.

  ‘Captain Bush,’ ordered Hornblower, ‘would you please be good enough to send an officer with good eyes to the masthead with a glass?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Hornblower watched the young lieutenant dashing up the rigging, moving as fast as he could with his Commodore’s eye on him, hanging back downward as he scaled the futtock-shrouds, going hand over hand up the topgallant-shrouds. Hornblower knew that in his present condition he could not do that without resting in the maintop for a space, and he also knew that his eyes were not as good as they were – not as good as the lieutenant’s. He watched the lieutenant settle himself at the topgallant masthead, adjust his glass, and sweep the horizon, and he waited impatiently for a report. Unable to wait longer he grabbed his speaking-trumpet.

  ‘Masthead, there! What do you see of the shore inside?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. It’s too hazy to see plain. But I can see no sails, sir.’

  Maybe the garrison was laughing up their sleeves at him. Maybe the boats had fallen straight into their hands, and now they were amusing themselves watching the squadron beginning an endless wait for any further sight of the lost boats and seamen. Hornblower refused to allow himself to be pessimistic. He set himself to picture the state of affairs in the batteries and in the town, when the dawn revealed a British squadron lying-to just out of range. How the drums would beat and trumpets peal, as the troops were hurriedly turned out to guard against a possible landing. That was what must be going on at this very moment. The garrison, the French governor, must be still unaware as yet that wolves had slipped into their sheepfold, that British boat crews had penetrated into the waters of the Haff where no enemy had been seen since Danzig fell to the French five years back. Hornblower tried to comfort himself with thought of all the additional bustle that would develop as soon as the situation disclosed itself to the enemy; the messengers that would gallop with warnings, the gunboats that would be hastily warned, the coasters and barges which would seek the shelter of the nearest batteries – if batteries there were; Hornblower was willing to bet that there was none between Elbing and Königsberg, for none had been necessary so far.

  ‘Masthead! Can’t you see anything inshore?’

  ‘No, sir – yes, sir. There’s gunboats putting out from the town.’

  Hornblower could see those himself, a flotilla of small two-masted vessels, rigged with the sprit-mainsails usual to small Baltic craft, putting out from Elbing. They were a little like Norfolk wherries. Presumably they each carried one heavy gun, a twenty-four-pounder possibly, mounted right up in the eyes of the boat. They anchored at intervals in the shoal water, obviously as a further protection to the boom in case of an attempt upon it. Four of them moved right across and anchored to guard the shallows between the boom and the Nehrung – not exactly locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen, decided Hornblower, rejecting the simile after it came to his mind; they were locking the stable door to prevent the thief getting out, if they knew as yet (which was highly doubtful) that there was a thief inside. The haziness was fast clearing; overhead the sky was almost blue and a watery sun was showing through.

  ‘Deck, there! If you please, sir, there’s a bit of smoke in sight now, right up the bay. Can’t see more than that, sir, but it’s black smoke and might be from a burning ship.’

  Bush, measuring with his eye the dwindling distance between the ship and the boom, was giving orders to brace up and work a trifle farther out to sea again, and the two sloops conformed to the Nonsuch’s movements. Hornblower wondered whether or not he had put too much trust in young Mound with the bomb-ketches. Mound had an important rendezvous for next morning; with the Moth and the Harvey he was out of sight below the horizon. So far the garrison of Elbing had seen only the three British ships, and did not know of the existence of the ketches. That was well – as long as Mound carried out his orders correctly. Or a gale might blow up, or a shift of the wind might raise too much of a surf for the project Hornblower had in mind. Hornblower felt anxiety surge upon him. He had to force himself to relax, to appear composed. He permitted himself to walk the deck, but slowed down his nervous strides to a casual saunter.

  ‘Deck, there! There’s more smoke inshore, sir. I can see two lots of it, as if there were two ships on fire now.’

  Bush had just given orders to back the maintopsail again, and as the ship hove-to he came across to Hornblower.

  ‘It looks as if Vickery has caught something, doesn’t it, sir?’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ answered Hornblower.

  There was no sign of any anxiety in Bush’s expression; his craggy face denoted nothing more than fierce satisfaction at the thought of Vickery loose amidst the coasting trade. His sublime confidence began to reassure Hornblower until the latter suddenly realised that Bush was not really paying consideration to circumstances. Bush knew that Hornblower had planned this attack, and that was enough for him. In that case he could imagine no possibility of failure, and Hornblower found it profoundly irritating that this should be the case.

  ‘Deck, there! There’s two small sail heading across the bay close-hauled for the town. And I can’t be sure yet, sir, but I think the second one is our cutter.’

  ‘Our cutter it is, sir!’ yelled another voice. Every idle hand in the ship was perched by now at the mastheads.

  ‘That’ll be Montgomery,’ said Bush. He had fitted the toe of his wooden leg into the ring-bolt of the aftermost carronade tackle so that he could stand without effort on the gently heaving deck.

  ‘She’s caught her, sir!’ yelled the voice from the masthead. ‘Our cutter’s caught her!’

  ‘That’s one lot of beef and bread that Boney won’t get,’ said Bush.

  Very heavy destruction of the coastal shipping in the Haff might be some compensation for the loss of a hundred and fifty prime seamen. But it would be hard to convince Their Lordships of the Admiralty of that, if there was no certain evidence of the destruction.

  ‘Deck, there! The two sail are parting company. Our cutter’s going off before the wind. The other has her mains’l brailed up, I think, sir. Looks to me as if—’

  The lieutenant’s report terminated abruptly in mid-sentence.

  ‘There she goes!’ yelled another voice, and at the same moment there came a cheer from everyone aloft.

  ‘She’s blown up!’ shouted the lieutenant, forgetting in his excitement even to add ‘sir’ to his words when addressing his Commodore. ‘There’s a pillar of smoke as high as a mountain! You can see it from the deck, I think.’

  They certainly could – a mushroom-topped pillar of smoke, black and heavy, apparent as it reached above the horizon. It lasted a perceptible time before the wind blew it into strange ragged shapes and then dispersed it utterly.

  ‘That wasn’t beef and bread, by God!’ said Bush, pounding his left palm with his right fist. ‘That was powder! A bargeload of powder! Fifty tons of powder, by God!’

  ‘Masthead! What of the cutter?’

  ‘She’s all right, sir. Doesn’t look as if the explosion harmed her. She’s hull-down from here already, sir.’

  ‘Off after another one, please God,’ said Bush.

  The destruction of a powder barge was the clearest possible proof that Bonaparte was using the inland water route for the transport of military stores. Hornblower felt he had achieved something, even though Whitehall might not be fully convinced, and he found himself smiling with pleasure. He suppressed the smile as soon as he was aware of it, for his dignity demanded that triumph should leave him as unmoved as uncertainty.

  ‘It only remains to get Vic
kery and the men out tonight, sir,’ said Bush.

  ‘Yes, that is all,’ said Hornblower, as woodenly as he could manage.

  The blowing up of the powder barge was the only sure proof they had that day in the Nonsuch of success in the Haff, although more than once the lookouts hesitatingly reported smoke on the horizon inside. As evening came on another string of gunboats made their appearance, from Königsberg presumably, and took up their stations along the boom. A column of troops could be seen for a space, too, the horizontal lines of blue coats and white breeches clearly visible even from the deck as they marched in to strengthen the defences of Pillau. The entrance into the Haff was going to be stoutly defended, obviously, if the British should attempt a coup de main.

  In the evening Hornblower came up from below, where he had been making pretence at eating his dinner, and looked round him again although his senses had been so alert in his cabin that his glance told him nothing he did not know already. The wind was moderating with the dying of the day; the sun was on the point of setting, although there would be daylight for a couple of hours more at least.

  ‘Captain Bush, I’d be obliged if you would send your best gun pointers to the lower gundeck starboard-side guns.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Have the guns cleared away and run out, if you please. Then I would like it if you would allow the ship to drop down within range of the batteries there. I want to draw their fire.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Pipes twittered round the ship; bosun and bosun’s mates roared out orders, and the hands ran to their stations. A long earthquake-tremor shook the ship as the massive twenty-four-pounders of the lower gun-deck ran thunderously out.

  ‘Please see that the gun-captains are certain what their target is,’ said Hornblower.

  He knew how limited was the view afforded a man on the lower deck, looking through a gun-port only a yard or so above the water’s edge, and he did not want the enemy to jump to the conclusion that the feint he was about to make was no more than a feint. The hands at the maintopsail lee brace, walking smartly down the deck, swung the big sail round and Nonsuch came to the wind and slowly gathered way.