Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  ‘Awake, dear?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes’ said Barbara.

  She did not add, ‘how could anyone sleep in this din?’ for Barbara lived up to the principle that no person of breeding should ever complain about things he was unable, or unwilling, to do anything to remedy.

  ‘I shall go out on deck if you do not mind my leaving you, dear,’ he said.

  ‘Please go if you wish to, of course, dear,’ answered Barbara, nor did she add that she wished she could go out too.

  Hornblower groped for his trousers and his shoes, and felt his way to the door. Long experience warned him to brace himself as he unfastened it, but even he was a little surprised at the raging wind that awaited him; it was wild even though, with Pretty Jane hove-to, the door on the after side was in the lee of the deck-house. He stepped over the coaming and managed to slam the door. The wind was tremendous, but what was more surprising still was its warmth; it seemed to be of brick-kiln heat as it screamed round him. He balanced himself on the heaving deck in the hot, noisy darkness, and timed his rush to the wheel, and he was only just prepared for the extra violence of the wind when he emerged from the lee of the deck-house. Out of that lee, too, the air was full of flying spray which drenched him and modified his impression of the heat of the air – he was aware of all this by the time he reached the wheel. There were shadowy figures there in the darkness; a white shirt-sleeve waved to him to acknowledge his presence, indicating that Knyvett was there. Hornblower looked into the binnacle; it was really an effort to collect his faculties and make the correct deductions from what he could see of the swinging needle. The wind was blowing from well out to the west of north. Looking up in the darkness he could just make out that the brig was hove-to under the main-topmast staysail, of which only a corner was showing. Knyvett was shouting into his ear.

  ‘Hurricane!’

  ‘Likely enough,’ shouted Hornblower in reply. ‘Worse before it’s better!’

  A hurricane had no business to appear at this time of year, a good two months earlier than one should be expected, but that hot breath, the indications of yesterday evening, the direction of the wind at present, all seemed to prove that that was what they were experiencing. It remained to be seen whether they were right in the path of it or only on its fringe. Pretty Jane shuddered and lurched drunkenly as a mass of water came in over her bow, gleaming white, almost phosphorescent, as it raced aft at them; Hornblower hung on desperately as it surged past him waist deep – a nasty warning of what might be still to come. They were in very considerable danger. Pretty Jane might not endure the pounding she would have to undergo, and in any case, with the considerable leeway she was making they might be cast ashore, and utterly destroyed, on San Domingo or Puerto Rico or some intervening cay. The wind shrieked at them, and a combination of wind and wave laid Pretty Jane over, over until the deck was almost vertical, with Hornblower hanging on as his feet could gain no hold on the planking. A wave burst against her exposed bottom clean over her, cascading round them, and then she came slowly back again. No ship would be expected to endure that sort of thing for long. A muffled bang aloft, followed by a series of sharper sounds, attracted his attention to the topmast staysail just as it blew out from its gaskets and flew into ribbons which cracked like whips while they lasted. One thundering small fragment remained, whipping from the stay, just enough to keep Pretty Jane’s starboard bow to the sea.

  Daylight was coming; there was a yellow tinge all about them, shut in by the low sky overhead. As Hornblower looked aloft he saw a hump, a bubble, appear on the main yard, and the bubble promptly burst into fragments. The wind was tearing the sail from its gaskets. The process was repeated along the yard, as the wind with fingers of steel pried into the solid roll of the sail to tear it loose, rip it open, split it into ribbons, and then tear off the ribbons to whirl them away to leeward. It was hard to believe that a wind could have such power.

  It was hard to believe, too, that waves could be so high. A glance at them explained at once the fantastic motion of the ship. They were appalling in their immensity. The one approaching the starboard bow was not as high as a mountain – Hornblower had used the expression ‘mountain high’ himself, and now, trying to estimate the height, had to admit to himself that it was an exaggeration – but it was as high as a lofty church steeple. It was a colossal ridge of water moving, not with the speed of a race-horse, but with the speed of a hurrying man, straight upon them. Pretty Jane lifted her bow to it, lurching and then climbing, rising ever more steeply as she lay upon the towering slope. Up – up – up; she seemed to be almost vertical as she reached the crest, where it was as if the end of the world awaited her. At the crest the wind, temporarily blanketed by the wave, flung itself upon her with redoubled force. Over she lay, over and over, while at the same time her stern heaved itself up as the crest passed under her. Down – down – down; the deck almost vertical, bows down, and almost vertical on her beam, and as she wallowed down the slope minor waves awaited her to burst over her. With the water surging round him waist deep, chest deep, Hornblower felt his legs carried away from under him and he had to hang on with every ounce of his strength to save himself.

  Here was the ship’s carpenter trying to say something to the captain – it was impossible to speak intelligently in that wind, but he held up one hand with the fingers spread. Five feet of water in the hold, then. But the carpenter repeated the gesture. Then he tried again. Two spreadings of the fingers – ten feet of water, then. It could hardly be the case, but it was true – the heavy heavings of the Pretty Jane showed she was waterlogged. Then Hornblower remembered the cargo with which she was laden. Logwood and coir; logwood floated only sluggishly, but coir was one of the most buoyant substances known. Coconuts falling into the sea (as they often did, thanks to the palm’s penchant for growing at the water’s edge) floated for weeks and months, carried about by the currents, so that the wide distribution of the coconut palm was readily accounted for. It was coir that was keeping Pretty Jane afloat even though she was full of water. It would keep her afloat for a long time – it would outlast the Pretty Jane, for that matter. She would work herself to fragments before the coir allowed her to sink.

  So perhaps they had another hour or two of life before them. Perhaps. Another wave, cascading green over Pretty Jane’s upturned side, brought a grim warning that it might not be as long as that. And amid the rumble and the roar of the bursting wave, even as he hung on desperately, he was conscious of a succession of other sounds, harder and sharper, and of a jarring of the deck under his feet. The deck-house! It was lifting on its bolts under the impact of the water. It could not be expected to stand that battering long; it was bound to be swept away, soon. And – Hornblower’s visual imagination was feverishly at work – before then its seams would be forced apart, it would fill with water. Barbara would be drowned inside it before the weight of water within tore the deck-house from its bolts, for the waves to hurl it overside with Barbara’s drowned body inside. Clinging to the binnacle Hornblower went through some seconds of mental agony, the worst he had ever known in his life. There had been times and times before when he had faced death for himself, when he had weighed chances, when he had staked his own life, but now it was Barbara’s life that he was staking.

  To leave her in the deck-house meant her certain death soon. The alternative was to bring her out upon the wave-swept deck. Here, tied to the mast, she would live as long as she could endure the buffeting and the exposure, until the Pretty Jane broke up into fragments, possibly. For himself he had played out a losing game to the bitter end more than once; now he had to brace himself to do the same for Barbara. He made the decision. On Barbara’s behalf he decided to struggle on as long as was possible. Forcing himself to think logically while the stupefying wind roared round him, he made his plans. He awaited a comparatively calm moment, and then made the perilous brief journey to the foot of the mainmast. Now he worked with frantic rapidity. Two lengths of the main-topsail halliards;
he had to keep his head clear to prevent his fumbling fingers from entangling them. Then two desperate journeys, first to the wheel, and then to the deck-house. He tore open the door and stumbled in over the coaming, the lines in his hands. There were two feet of water in the deck-house, surging about with the motion of the ship. Barbara was there; he saw her in the light from the door. She had wedged herself as well as she might in her bunk.

  ‘Dearest!’ he said. Within the deck-house it was just possible to be heard, despite the frantic din all round.

  ‘I’m here, dear,’ she replied.

  Another wave burst over the Pretty Jane at that moment; water came pouring in through the gaping seams of the deck-house and he could feel the whole thing lift again on its bolts and he knew a moment of wild despair at the thought that he might already be too late, that the deckhouse was going to be swept away at this moment with them in it. But it held – the surge of the water as Pretty Jane lay over the other way flung Hornblower against the other bulkhead.

  ‘I must get you out of here, dear,’ said Hornblower, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘You’ll be safer tied to the mainmast.’

  ‘As you wish, of course, dear,’ said Barbara, calmly.

  ‘I’m going to put these lines round you,’ said Hornblower.

  Barbara had managed to dress herself in his absence; at any rate she had some sort of dress or petticoat on. Hornblower made fast the lines about her while the ship rolled and swayed under their feet; she held her arms up for him to do so. He knotted the lines round her waist, below her tender bosom.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ said Hornblower, and he told her, while they were still in the comparative calm of the deck-house, what he wanted her to do, how she had to watch her chance, rush to the wheel, and from there to the mainmast.

  ‘I understand, dear,’ said Barbara. ‘Kiss me once more, my very dearest.’

  He kissed her hurriedly, his lips against her dripping cheek. It was only the most perfunctory kiss. To Hornblower’s subconscious mind Barbara in making her request was risking their lives for it – staking ten thousand future kisses against one immediate one. It was woman-like for her to do so, but odds of ten thousand to one had no appeal for Hornblower. And still she lingered.

  ‘Dearest, I’ve always loved you,’ she said; she was speaking hurriedly and yet with no proper regard for the value of time. ‘I’ve loved no one but you in all my life. I had another husband once. I couldn’t say this before because it would have been disloyal. But now – I’ve never loved anyone but you. Never. Only you, darling.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Hornblower. He heard the words, but at that urgent moment he could not give them their rightful consideration. ‘Stand here. Hold on to this. Hold on!’

  It was only a lesser wave that swept by them.

  ‘Wait for my signal!’ bellowed Hornblower into Barbara’s ear, and then he made the hurried dash to the binnacle. One group of men had bound themselves to the wheel.

  There was a frantic moment as he looked about him. He waved, and then Barbara crossed the heaving deck as he took up on the line. He had just time to fling a bight round her and pull it tight and seize hold himself as the next crest burst over the ship. Over – over – over. Sluggishly the Pretty Jane wallowed up again. He had an idea that one man at least was missing from the group at the wheel, but there was no time to think about that, for there was the passage to the mainmast still to be accomplished.

  At last that was done. There were four men there already, but he was able to make Barbara as secure as possible, and then himself. Pretty Jane lay over again, and again; it was at some time shortly after this that a fresh monstrous wave swept away the deck-house and half the ship’s rail – Hornblower saw the wreckage go off to leeward, and noted the fact, dully. He had been right in taking Barbara away from there.

  It may have been the loss of the deck-house that called his attention to the behaviour of the Pretty Jane. She was lying in the trough of the sea, not riding with her bows to the waves. The loss of the windage of the deck-house, right aft, perhaps made this more noticeable. She was rolling wildly and deeply in consequence, and was being swept by the waves more thoroughly. She could not be expected to survive this for long, nor could the miserable human beings on her deck – of whom Barbara was one and he was another. The Pretty Jane would rack herself to pieces before long. Something was needed to keep her bows to the sea. In the normal way a small area of canvas exposed right aft would bring this about, but no canvas would stand against that wind, as had been early demonstrated. In the present circumstances the pressure of the wind against the foremast and bowsprit with their standing rigging balanced that against the mainmast, keeping her lying broadside on to wind and wave. If canvas could not be exposed aft then the windage forward must be reduced instead. The foremast should be cut away. Then the pressure on the mainmast would bring her bows on to the sea, increasing her chances, while the loss of the mast would perhaps ease the roll as well. There was no doubt about it; the mast should be cut away instantly.

  Aft there was Knyvett, bound to the wheel, no more than a few feet away; it was his decision as captain. As Pretty Jane wallowed to bring her deck horizontal for a moment, with water no more than knee deep over it, Hornblower waved to him. He pointed forward to the weather foremast shrouds; he gesticulated, he thought he conveyed his meaning clearly enough, but Knyvett showed no sign of understanding. He certainly made no move to act upon the suggestion. He merely gazed stupidly and then looked away. Hornblower felt a moment of fury; the next roll and submergence made up his mind for him. The discipline of the sea might be disregarded in the face of this indifference and incompetence.

  But the other men beside him at the mainmast were as indifferent as Knyvett. He could not rouse them to join him in the effort. They had a momentary safety here at the mast, and they would not leave it; probably they could not understand what he had in mind. That outrageous wind was perfectly stupefying as it screamed round them, and the constant deluges of water, and the desperate need to struggle for a footing, gave them no chance to collect their thoughts.

  An axe would perhaps be best to cut those shrouds, but there was no axe. The man beside him had a knife in a sheath at his belt. Hornblower put his hand on the hilt, and made himself think reasonably again. He tested the edge, found it sharp, and then unbuckled belt and all and rebuckled it about his own waist – the man offering no objection, merely gazing stupidly at him as he did so. Again there was need to plan, to think clearly, in the howling wind and the driving spray and the solid water that surged round him. He cut himself two lengths of line from the raffle about him, and made each of them fast round his chest with an end hanging free. Then he looked over to the foremast shrouds, planning again. There would be no time to think things out when the moment for action began. A length of the rail still survived its battering there – presumably the weather shrouds had acted as some sort of breakwater to it. He eyed and measured the distance. He eased the knots that held him to the mast. He spared a glance at Barbara, forcing himself to smile. She was standing there in her bonds; the hurricane was blowing her long hair, wet though it was, straight out horizontally from her head. He put another line about her to make her secure. There was nothing else he could do. This was Bedlam, this was insanity, this was a wet, shrieking hell, and yet a hell in which he had to keep his head clear.

  He watched his moment. First he almost misjudged it, and had to draw back, swallowing hard in the tense excitement, before the next wave engulfed him. As it surged away he watched Pretty Jane’s motion again, set his teeth, and cast off his bonds and made the rush up the steep deck – wave and deck offering him a lee which saved him from being blown away by the wind. He reached the rail with five seconds to spare – five seconds in which to secure himself, to knot himself to the shrouds as the crest burst over him, in a torrent of water which first swept his legs from under him, and next tore his grip loose so that for a second or two only the lines held him before an eddy enabl
ed him to re-establish his grip.

  Pretty Jane wallowed clear again. It was awkward to fasten the lanyard of the sheath knife to his wrist, but he had to consume precious moments in doing so; otherwise all his efforts so far would be wasted in ridiculous failure. Now he was sawing desperately at the shroud; the soaked fibres seemed like iron, but he felt them part little by little, a few fibres at a time. He was glad he had made sure the knife was sharp. He had half-severed the rope before the next deluge burst over him. The moment his shoulders were clear of the water he continued to saw at the rope; he could feel, as he cut, a slight variation of tension as the ship rolled and the shroud faintly slackened. He wondered if, when the rope parted, it would fly dangerously, and he decided that as long as the other shrouds held the reaction would not be too violent.

  So it proved; the shroud simply vanished under his knife – the wind caught its fifty-foot length and whirled it away out of his world, presumably blowing it out as a streamer from the mast-head. He set about the next, sawing away in the intervals of being submerged under the crashing waves. He cut and he hung on; he struggled for air in the driving spray, he choked and suffocated under the green water, but one shroud after another parted under his knife. The knife was losing its edge, and now he was faced with an additional problem; he had severed nearly every shroud – the aftermost ones – within reach and soon he would have to shift his position to reach the foremost ones. But he did not have to solve that problem after all. At the next roll and the next wave, actually while he was struggling under water, he was conscious of a series of shocks transmitted through the fabric of the ship through his clutching hands – four minor ones and then a violent one. As the wave fell away from him his swimming eyes could see what had happened. The four remaining shrouds had parted under the strain, one, two, three, four, and then the mast had snapped off; looking back over his shoulder he could see the stump standing eight feet above the deck.