Mr. Midshipman Hornblower h-1

by Cecil Scott Forester

  When the work was advancing towards completion, Hornblower came to himself again to remember that in a few minutes he would have to set a course, and he dashed below again to set out the chart and the dividers and parallel rulers. From his pocket he extracted the crumpled scrap of paper with his position on it — he had thrust it in there so carelessly a little while back, at a time when the immediate problem before him was to transfer himself from the Indefatigable to the cutter. It made him unhappy to think how cavalierly he had treated that scrap of paper then; he began to feel that life in the Navy, although it seemed to move from one crisis to another, was really one continuous crisis, that even while dealing with one emergency it was necessary to be making plans to deal with the next. He bent over the chart, plowed his position, and laid off his course. It was a queer uncomfortable feeling to think that what had up to this moment been an academic exercise conducted under the reassuring supervision of Mr Soames was now something on which hinged his life and his reputation. He checked his working, decided on his course, and wrote it down on a scrap of paper for fear he should forget it.

  So when the foretopsail yard was re-slung, and the prisoners herded back into the forecastle, and Matthews looked to him for further orders he was ready.

  'We'll square away,' he said. 'Matthews, send a man to the wheel.'

  He himself gave a hand at the braces; the wind had moderated and he felt his men could handle the brig under her present sail.

  'What course, sir?' asked the man at the wheel, and Hornblower dived into his pocket for his scrap of paper.

  'Nor'-east by north,' he said, reading it out.

  'Nor'-east by north, sir,' said the helmsman; and the Marie Galante, running free, set her course for England.

  Night was closing in by now, and all round the circle of the horizon there was not a sail in sight. There must be plenty of ships just over the horizon, he knew, but that did not do much to ease his feeling of loneliness as darkness came on. There was so much to do, so much to bear in mind, and all the responsibility lay on his unaccustomed shoulders. The prisoners had to be battened down in the forecastle, a watch had to be set — there was even the trivial matter of hunting up flint and steel to light the binnacle lamp. A hand forward as a lookout, who could also keep an eye on the prisoners below; a hand aft at the wheel. Two hands snatching some sleep — knowing that to get in any sail would be an all-hands job — a hasty meal of water from the scuttle-butt and of biscuit from the cabin stores in the lazarette — a constant eye to be kept on the weather. Hornblower paced the deck in the darkness.

  'Why don't you get some sleep, sir?' asked the man at the wheel.

  'I will, later on, Hunter,' said Hornblower, trying not to allow his tone to reveal the fact that such a thing had never occurred to him.

  He knew it was sensible advice, and he actually tried to follow it, retiring below to fling himself down on the captain's cot; but of course he could not sleep. When he heard the lookout bawling down the companionway to rouse the other two hands to relieve the watch (they were asleep in the next cabin to him) he could not prevent himself from getting up again and coming on deck to see that all was well. With Matthews in charge he felt he should not be anxious, and he drove himself below again, but he had hardly fallen onto the cot again when a new thought brought him to his feet again, his skin cold with anxiety, and a prodigious self-contempt vying with anxiety for first glance in his emotions. He rushed on deck and walked forward to where Matthews was squatting by the knightheads.

  'Nothing has been done to see if the brig is taking in any water,' he said — he had hurriedly worked out the wording of that sentence during his walk forward, so as to cast no aspersion on Matthews and yet at the same time, for the sake of discipline, attributing no blame to himself.

  'That's so, sir,' said Matthews.

  'One of those shots fired by the Indefatigable hulled her,' went on Hornblower. 'What damage did it do?'

  'I don't rightly know, sir,' said Matthews. 'I was in the cutter at the time.'

  'We must look as soon as it's light,' said Hornblower.' And we'd better sound the well now.'

  Those were brave words; during his rapid course in seamanship aboard the Indefatigable Hornblower had had a little instruction everywhere, working under the orders of every head of department in rotation. Once he had been with the carpenter when he sounded the well — whether he could find the well in this ship and sound it he did not know.

  'Aye aye, sir,' said Matthews, without hesitation, and strolled aft to the pump. 'You'll need a light, sir. I'll get one.'

  When he came back with the lantern he shone it on the coiled sounding line hanging beside the pump, so that Hornblower recognized it at once. He lifted it down, inserted the three-foot weighted rod into the aperture of the well, and then remembered in time to take it out again and make sure it was dry. Then he let it drop, paying out the line until he felt the rod strike the ship's bottom with a satisfactory thud. He hauled out the line again, and Matthews held the lantern as Hornblower with some trepidation brought out the timber to examine it.

  'Not a drop, sir!' said Matthews. 'Dry as yesterday's pannikin.'

  Hornblower was agreeably surprised. Any ship he had ever heard of leaked to a certain extent; even in the well-found Indefatigable pumping had been necessary every day. He did not know whether this dryness was a remarkable phenomenon or a very remarkable one. He wanted to be both noncommittal and imperturbable.

  'H'm,' was the comment he eventually produced. 'Very good, Matthews. Coil that line again.'

  The knowledge that the Marie Galante was making no water at all might have encouraged him to sleep, if the wind had not chosen to veer steadily and strengthen itself somewhat soon after he retired again. It was Matthews who came down and pounded on his door with the unwelcome news.

  'We can't keep the course you set much longer, sir,' concluded Matthews. 'And the wind's coming gusty-like.'

  'Very good, I'll be up. Call all hands,' said Hornblower, with a testiness that might have been the result of a sudden awakening if it had not really disguised his inner quaverings.

  With such a small crew he dared not run the slightest risk of being taken by surprise by the weather. Nothing could be done in a hurry, as he soon found. He had to take the wheel while his four hands laboured at reefing topsails and snugging the brig down; the task took half the night, and by the time it was finished it was quite plain that with the wind veering northerly the Marie Galante could not steer north-east by north any longer. Hornblower gave up the wheel and went below to the chart, but what he saw there only confirmed the pessimistic decision he had already reached by mental calculation. As close to the wind as they could lie on this tack they could not weather Ushant. Shorthanded as he was he did not dare continue in the hope that the wind might back; all his reading and all his instruction had warned him of the terrors of a lee shore. There was nothing for it but to go about; he returned to the deck with a heavy heart.

  'All hands wear ship,' he said, trying to bellow the order in the manner of Mr Bolton, the third lieutenant of the Indefatigable.

  They brought the brig safely round, and she took up her new course, close hauled on the starboard tack. Now she was heading away from the dangerous shores of France, without a doubt, but she was heading nearly as directly away from the friendly shores of England — gone was all hope of an easy two days' run to England; gone was any hope of sleep that night for Hornblower.

  During the year before he joined the Navy Hornblower had attended classes given by a penniless French émigré in French, music, and dancing. Early enough the wretched émigré had found that Hornblower had no ear for music whatever, which made it almost impossible to teach him to dance, and so he had endeavoured to earn his fee by concentrating on French. A good deal of what he had taught Hornblower had found a permanent resting place in Hornblower's tenacious memory. He had never thought it would be of much use to him, but he discovered the contrary when the French captain at dawn insi
sted on an interview with him. The Frenchman had a little English, but it was a pleasant surprise to Hornblower to find that they actually could get along better in French, as soon as he could fight down his shyness sufficiently to produce the halting words.

  The captain drank thirstily from the scuttlebut; his cheeks were of course unshaven and he wore a bleary look after twelve hours in a crowded forecastle, where he had been battened down three parts drunk.

  'My men are hungry,' said the captain; he did not look hungry himself.

  'Mine also,' said Hornblower. 'I also.'

  It was natural when one spoke French to gesticulate, to indicate his men with a wave of the hand and himself with a tap on the chest.

  'I have a cook,' said the captain.

  It took some time to arrange the terms of a truce. The Frenchmen were to be allowed on deck, the cook was to provide food for everyone on board, and while these amenities were permitted, until noon, the French would make no attempt to take the ship.

  'Good,' said the captain at length; and when Hornblower had given the necessary orders permitting the release of the crew he shouted for the cook and entered into an urgent discussion regarding dinner. Soon smoke was issuing satisfactorily from the galley chimney.

  Then the captain looked up at the grey sky, at the close reefed topsails, and glanced into the binnacle at the compass.

  'A foul wind for England,' he remarked.

  'Yes,' said Hornblower shortly. He did not want this Frenchman to guess at his trepidation and bitterness.

  The captain seemed to be feeling the motion of the brig under his feet with attention.

  'She rides a little heavily, does she not?' he said.

  'Perhaps,' said Hornblower. He was not familiar with the Marie Galante, nor with ships at all, and he had no opinion on the subject, but he was not going to reveal his ignorance.

  'Does she leak?' asked the captain.

  'There is no water in her,' said Hornblower.

  'Ah!' said the captain. 'But you would find none in the well. We are carrying a cargo of rice, you must remember.'

  'Yes,' said Hornblower.

  He found it very hard at that moment to remain outwardly unperturbed, as his mind grasped the implications of what was being said to him. Rice would absorb every drop of water taken in by the ship, so that no leak would be apparent on rounding the well — and yet every drop of water taken in would deprive her of that much buoyancy, all the same.

  'One shot from your cursed frigate struck us in the hull,' said the captain. 'Of course you have investigated the damage?'

  'Of course,' said Hornblower, lying bravely.

  But as soon as he could he had a private conversation with Matthews on the point, and Matthews instantly looked grave.

  'Where did the shot hit her, sir?' he asked.

  'Somewhere on the port side, forrard, I should judge.'

  He and Matthews craned their necks over the ship's side.

  'Can't see nothin', sir,' said Matthews. 'Lower me over the side in a bowline and I'll see what I can find, sir.'

  Hornblower was about to agree and then changed his mind.

  'I'll go over the side myself,' he said.

  He could not analyse the motives which impelled him to say that. Partly he wanted to see things with his own eyes; partly he was influenced by the doctrine that he should never give an order he was not prepared to carry out himself — but mostly it must have been the desire to impose a penance on himself for his negligence.

  Matthews and Carson put a bowline round him and lowered him over. He found himself dangling against the ship's side, with the sea bubbling just below him; as the ship pitched the sea came up to meet him, and he was wet to the waist in the first five seconds; and as the ship rolled he was alternately swung away from the side and bumped against it. The men with the line walked steadily aft, giving him the chance to examine the whole side of the brig above water, and there was not a shot hole to be seen. He said as much to Matthews when they hauled him on deck.

  'Then it's below the waterline, sir,' said Matthews, saying just what was in Hornblower's mind. 'You're sure the shot hit her, sir?'

  'Yes, I'm sure,' snapped Hornblower.

  Lack of sleep and worry and a sense of guilt were all shortening his temper, and he had to speak sharply or break down in tears. But he had already decided on the next move — he had made up his mind about that while they were hauling him up.

  'We'll heave her to on the other tack and try again,' he said.

  On the other tack the ship would incline over to the other side, and the shot-hole, if there was one, would not be so deeply submerged. Hornblower stood with the water dripping from his clothes as they wore the brig round; the wind was keen and cold, but he was shivering with expectancy rather than cold. The heeling of the brig laid him much more definitely against the side, and they lowered him until his legs were scraping over the marine growths which she carried there between wind and water. They then walked aft with him, dragging him along the side of the ship, and just abaft the foremast he found what he was seeking.

  'Avast, there!' he yelled up to the deck, mastering the sick despair that he felt. The motion of the bowline along the ship ceased. 'Lower away! Another two feet!'

  Now he was waist-deep in the water, and when the brig swayed the water closed briefly over his head, like a momentary death. Here it was, two feet below the waterline even with the brig hove to on this tack — a splintered, jagged hole, square rather than round, and a foot across. As the sea boiled round him Hornblower even fancied he could hear it bubbling into the ship, but that might be pure fancy.

  He hailed the deck for them to haul him up again, and they stood eagerly listening for what he had to say.

  'Two feet below the waterline, sir?' said Matthews. 'She was close hauled and heeling right over, of course, when we hit her. But her bows must have lifted just as we fired. And of course she's lower in the water now.'

  That was the point. Whatever they did now, however much they heeled her, that hole would be under water. And on the other tack it would be far under water, with much additional pressure; yet on the present tack they were headed for France. And the more water they took in, the lower the brig would settle, and the greater would be the pressure forcing water in through the hole. Something must be done to plug the leak, and Hornblower's reading of the manuals of seamanship told him what it was.

  'We must fother a sail and get it over that hole,' he announced. 'Call those Frenchmen over.'

  To fother a sail was to make something like a vast hairy doormat out of it, by threading innumerable lengths of half-unravelled line through it. When this was done the sail would be lowered below the ship's bottom and placed against the hole. The inward pressure would then force the hairy mass so tightly against the hole that the entrance of water would be made at least much more difficult.

  The Frenchmen were not quick to help in the task; it was no longer their ship, and they were heading for an English prison, so that even with their lives at stake they were somewhat apathetic. It took time to get out a new topgallant sail — Hornblower felt that the stouter the canvas the better — and to set a party to work cutting lengths of line, threading them through, and unravelling them. The French captain looked at them squatting on the deck all at work.

  'Five years I spent in a prison hulk in Portsmouth during the last war,' he said. 'Five years.'

  'Yes,' said Hornblower.

  He might have felt sympathy, but he was not only preoccupied with his own problems but he was numb with cold. He not only had every intention if possible of escorting the French captain to England and to prison again but he also at that very moment intended to go below and appropriate some of his spare clothing.

  Down below it seemed to Hornblower as if the noises all about him — the creaks and groans of a wooden ship at sea — were more pronounced than usual. The brig was riding easily enough hove-to, and yet the bulkheads down below were cracking and creaking as if the brig wer
e racking herself to pieces in a storm. He dismissed the notion as a product of his over-stimulated imagination but by the time he had towelled himself into something like warmth and put on the captain's best suit it recurred to him; the brig was groaning as if in stress.

  He came on deck again to see how the working party was progressing. He had hardly been on deck two minutes when one of the Frenchmen, reaching back for another length of line, stopped in his movement to stare at the deck. He picked at a deck seam, looked up and caught Hornblower's eye, and called to him. Hornblower made no pretence of understanding the words; the gestures explained themselves. The deck seam was opening a little; the pitch was bulging out of it. Hornblower looked at the phenomenon without understanding it — only a foot or two of the seam was open, and the rest of the deck seemed solid enough. No! Now that his attention was called to it, and he looked further, there were one or two other places in the deck where the pitch had risen in ridges from out of the seams. It was something beyond his limited experience, even beyond his extensive reading. But the French captain was his side staring at the deck too.

  'My God!' he said. 'The rice! The rice!'

  The French word 'riz' that he used was unknown to Hornower, but he stamped his foot on the deck and pointed down rough it.

  'The cargo!' he said in explanation. 'It — it grows bigger.'

  Matthews was with them now, and without knowing a word of French he understood.

  'Didn't I hear this brig was full of rice, sir?' he asked.

  'Yes.'

  'That's it, then. The water's got into it and it's swelling.'

  So it would. Dry rice soaked in water would double or treble its volume. The cargo was swelling and bursting the seams of the ship open. Hornblower remembered the unnatural creaks and groans below. It was a black moment; he looked round at the unfriendly sea for inspiration and support, and found neither. Several seconds passed before he was ready to speak, and ready to maintain the dignity of a naval officer in face of difficulties.