A Ship of the Line h-8

by Cecil Scott Forester

  Whoever was in command of the shattered field artillery battery farther along the road was a man who knew his duty. Midshipman Savage in the foretop attracted Hornblower’s attention to it with a hail. The three serviceable guns had been slewed round to point diagonally across the road straight at the ship, and they fired the moment Hornblower trained his glass on them. Wirra-wirra-wirra; one of the balls passed high over Hornblower’s head, and a hole appeared in the Sutherland’s main topsail. At the same time a crash forward told where another shot had struck home. It would be ten minutes before the Sutherland’s broadside could bear on the battery.

  “Mr. Marsh,” said Hornblower. “Turn the starboard bowchasers on that battery.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Carry on with your target practice, Mr. Gerard.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  As part of the programme for training his men into fighting machines it would be invaluable to give them firing practice while actually under fire from the enemy—no one knew better than Hornblower the difference between being fired at and not being fired at. He found himself in the act of thinking that one or two unimportant casualties might be worth receiving in these circumstances as part of the crew’s necessary experience, and then he drew back in horror from the thought that he was casually condemning some of his own men to mutilation or death—and he might himself be one of those casualties. It was intolerably easy to separate mentally the academic theories of war from the human side of it, even when one was engaged in it oneself. To his men down below the little uniformed figures scrambling over the hillside were not human beings suffering agonies from heat and thirst and fatigue; and the still figures which littered the road here were not disembowelled corpses, lately fathers or lovers. They might as well be tin soldiers for all his men thought about them. It was mad that at that moment, irrelevantly in the heat, and the din of firing, he should start thinking about Lady Barbara and her pendant of sapphires, and Maria, who must now be growing ungainly with her child within her. He shook himself free from such thoughts—while they had filled his mind the battery had fired another salvo whose effect he actually had not noticed.

  The bow-chasers were banging away at the battery; their fire might unsteady the men at the field guns. Meanwhile the broadside guns were finding few targets offered them, for the Italian division opposite them had scattered widely all over the hillside in groups of no more than half a dozen at the most—some of them were right up on the skyline. Their officers would have a difficult time reassembling them, and any who wished to desert—the ‘Account of the Present War in the Peninsula’ had laid stress on the tendency of the Italians to desert—would have ample opportunity today.

  A crash and a cry below told that a shot from the battery had caused one at least of the casualties Hornblower had been thinking about—from the high-pitched scream of agony it must have been one of the ship’s boys who had been hit; he set his lips firm as he measured the distance the ship still had to sail before bringing her broadside to bear. He would have to receive two more salvoes; it was the tiniest bit difficult to wait for them. Here came one—it passed close overhead with a sound like an infinity of bees on an urgent mission; apparently the gunners had made inadequate allowance for the rapidly decreasing range. The main top gallant backstay parted with a crack, and a gesture from Bush sent a party to splice it. The Sutherland would have to swing out now in readiness to weather the point and reef ahead.

  “Mr. Gerard! I am going to put the ship about. Be ready to open fire on the battery when the guns bear.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Bush sent the hands to the braces. Hooker was forward in charge of the headsail sheets. The Sutherland came beautifully up into the wind as her helm was put down, and Hornblower watched the field guns, now less than a quarter of a mile away, through his glass. The gunners saw the Sutherland swinging round—they had seen that before, and knew the tempest of shot that would follow. Hornblower saw one man run from the guns, and saw others follow him, clawing their way desperately up the bank on to the hillside. Others flung themselves flat on their faces—only one man was left standing, raving and gesticulating beside the guns. Then the Sutherland heaved to the recoil of her guns once more, the acrid smoke came billowing up, and the battery was blotted out of sight. Even when the smoke cleared the battery could not be seen. There were only fragments—shattered wheels, an axle tree pointing upwards, the guns themselves lying tumbled on the ground. That had been a well-aimed broadside; the men must have behaved as steadily as veterans.

  Hornblower took his ship out round the reef and stood in again for the shore. On the road just ahead was the rear of an infantry column; the leading division must have been formed up again on the road while the Sutherland was dealing with the second one. Now it was marching off down the road at a great pace, embanked in a low, heavy cloud of dust.

  “Mr. Bush! We must try and catch their column.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  But the Sutherland was a poor sailor close-hauled, and time and again when she was on the point of overtaking the rear of the column she had to go about and head out from the shore in order to weather a projecting point of land. Sometimes she was so close to the hurrying infantry that Hornblower could see through his glass the white faces above the blue tunics of the men looking back over their shoulders. And here and there along the road in the track of the division he saw men who had fallen out—men sitting by the roadside with their heads in their hands, men leaning exhausted on their muskets staring at the ship gliding by, sometimes men lying motionless and unconscious on their faces where they had fallen, overwhelmed by fatigue and heat.

  Bush was fretting and fuming as he hastened about the ship trying to coax a little more speed out of her, setting every spare man to work carrying hammocks laden with shot from the lee side to the weather side, trimming the sails to the nicest possible degree of accuracy, blaspheming wildly whenever the gap between the ship and men showed signs of lengthening.

  But Hornblower was well content. An infantry division which had been knocked about as badly as this one, and then sent flying helter skelter in panic for miles, dropping stragglers by the score, and pursued by a relentless enemy, would have such a blow to its self-respect as to be vastly weakened as a fighting force for weeks. Before he came into range of the big coastal battery on the farther side of Arens de Mar he gave over the pursuit—he did not want the flying enemy to recover any of its lost spirit by seeing the Sutherland driven off by the fire of the heavy guns there, and to circle round out of range would consume so much time that night would be upon them before they could be back on the coast again.

  “Very good, Mr. Bush. You can put the ship on the starboard tack and secure the guns.”

  The Sutherland steadied to an even keel, and then heeled over again as she paid off on the other tack.

  “Three cheers for the cap’n,” yelled someone on the maindeck—Hornblower could not be sure who it was, or he would have punished him. The storm of cheering that instantly followed drowned his voice and prevented him from checking the men, who shouted until they were tired, all grinning with enthusiasm for the captain who had led them to victory five times in three days. Bush was grinning, too, and Gerard, beside him on the quarterdeck. Little Longley was dancing and yelling with an utter disregard for an officer’s dignity, while Hornblower stood sullenly glowering down at the men below. Later he might be delighted at the recollection of this spontaneous proof of the men’s affection and devotion, but at present it merely irritated and embarrassed him.

  As the cheering died away the voice of the leadsman made itself heard again.

  “No bottom! No bottom with this line!”

  He was still doing the duty to which he had been assigned, and would continue to do it until he received orders to rest—a most vivid example of the discipline of the navy.

  “Have that man taken out of the chains at once, Mr. Bush!” snapped Hornblower, annoyed at the omission to relie
ve the man.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Bush, chagrined at having been for once remiss in his work.

  The sun was dipping in purple and red into the mountains of Spain, in a wild debauch of colour that made Hornblower catch his breath as he looked at the extravagant beauty of it. He was mazed and stupid now, in reaction from his exalted quickness of thought of the preceding hours; too stupid as yet even to be conscious of any fatigue. Yet he must still wait to receive the surgeon’s report. Someone had been killed or wounded today—he remembered vividly the crash and the cry when the shot from the field guns hit the ship.

  The gunroom steward had come up on the quarterdeck and touched his forehead to Gerard.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But Tom Cribb’s been killed.”

  “What?”

  “Yes indeed, sir. Knocked ‘is ‘ead clean off. Dretful, ‘e looks, laying there, sir.”

  “What’s this you say?” interrupted Hornblower. He could remember no man on board of the name of Tom Cribb—which was the name of the heavyweight champion of England—nor any reason why the gunroom steward should report a casualty to a lieutenant.

  “Tom Cribb’s been killed, sir,” explained the steward. “And Mrs Siddons, she’s got a splinter in ‘er—in ‘er backside, begging your pardon, sir. You could ‘ave ‘eard ‘er squeak from ‘ere, sir.”

  “I did,” said Hornblower.

  Tom Cribb and Mrs Siddons must be a pig and a sow belonging to the gunroom mess. It was a comfort to realise that.

  “She’s all right now, sir. The butcher clapped a ‘andful o’ tar on the place.”

  Here came Walsh the surgeon with his report that there had been no casualties in the action.

  “Excepting among the pigs in the manger, sir,” added Walsh, with the deprecating deference of one who proffers a joke with his superior officer.

  “I’ve just heard about them,” said Hornblower.

  Gerard was addressing the gunroom steward.

  “Right!” he was saying. “We’ll have his chitterlings fried. And you can roast the loin. See that you get the crackling crisp. If it’s leathery like the last time we killed a pig, I’ll have your grog stopped. There’s onions and there’s sage—yes, and there’s a few apples left. Sage and onions and apple sauce—and mark you this, Loughton, don’t put any cloves in that sauce. No matter what the other officers say. I won’t have ‘em. In an apple pie, yes, but not with roast pork. Get started on that at once. You can take a leg to the bos’n’s mess with my compliments, and roast the other one—it’ll serve cold for breakfast.”

  Gerard was striking the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other to accentuate his points; the light of appetite was in his face—Hornblower fancied that when there were no women available Gerard gave all the thought he could spare from his guns to his belly. A man whose eyes could go moist with appetite at the thought of fried chitterlings and roast pork for dinner on a scorching July afternoon in the Mediterranean, and who could look forward with pleasure to cold leg of pork for breakfast next day should by right have been fat like a pig himself. But Gerard was lean and handsome and elegant. Hornblower thought of the developing paunch within his own waistband with momentary jealousy.

  But Colonel Villena was wandering about the quarterdeck like a lost soul. Clearly he was simply living for the moment when he would be able to start talking again—and Hornblower was the only soul on board with enough Spanish to maintain a conversation. Moreover, as a colonel he ranked with a post captain, and could expect to share the hospitality of the captain’s cabin. Hornblower decided that he would rather be overfed with hot roast pork than have to endure Villena’s conversation.

  “You seemed to have planned a feast for tonight, Mr. Gerard,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would my presence be unwelcome in the gunroom to share it?”

  “Oh no, sir. Of course not, sir. We would be delighted if you would honour us, sir.”

  Gerard’s face lit with genuine pleasure at the prospect of acting as host to his captain. It was such a sincere tribute that Hornblower’s heart was warmed, even while his conscience pricked him at the memory of why he had invited himself.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gerard. Then Colonel Villena and myself will be guests of the gunroom tonight.”

  With any luck, Villena would be seated far enough from him to save him from the necessity for Spanish conversation.

  The marine sergeant drummer had brought out all that the ship could boast of a band—the four marine fifers and the four drummers. They were marching up and down the gangway to the thunder and the rumble of the drums while the fifes squealed away bravely at the illimitable horizon.

  “Hearts of oak are our ships

  Jolly tars are our men—”

  The bald words and the trite sentiments seemed to please the crew, although every man-jack of it would have been infuriated if he had been called a ‘jolly tar’.

  Up and down went the smart red coats, and the jaunty beat of the drums thrilled so that the crushing heat was forgotten. In the west the marvellous sky still flamed in glory, even while in the east the night was creeping up over the purple sea.

  Chapter XV

  “Eight bells, sir,” said Polwheal.

  Hornblower woke with a start. It seemed to him as if he could not have been asleep more than five minutes, while actually it had been well over an hour. He lay on his cot in his nightshirt, for he had thrown off his coverings during the sweltering heat of the night; his head ached and his mouth had a foul taste. He had retired to bed at midnight, but—thanks to roast pork for supper—he had tossed and turned in the frightful heat for two or three hours before going to sleep, and now here he was awakened at four o’clock in the morning, simply because he had to prepare his report to Captain Bolton or to the admiral (if the latter had arrived) for delivery that morning at the rendezvous. He groaned miserably with fatigue, and his joints ached as he put his feet to the deck and sat up. His eyes were gummy and hard to open, and they felt sore when he rubbed them.

  He would have groaned again except for the need to appear in Polwheal’s eyes superior to human weaknesses—at the thought of that he stood up abruptly and posed as somebody feeling perfectly wide awake. A bath under the washdeck pump, and a shave made the pose almost a reality, and then, with dawn creeping up over the misty horizon, he sat down at his desk and cut himself a new pen, licked its point meditatively before dipping it into ink, and began to write.

  ’I have the honour to report that in accordance with the orders of Captain Bolton, on the 20th inst., I proceeded—’

  Polwheal came in with his breakfast, and Hornblower turned to the steaming hot coffee for a spur to his already flagging energies. He flipped the pages of the ship’s log to refresh his memory—so much had happened latterly that he was actually vague already about the details of the capture of the Amelie. The report had to be written badly, avoiding Gibbonesque antitheses or high-flying sentiment, yet at the same time Hornblower disliked the use of the kind of phrasing which was customary in captains’ reports. When listing the prizes taken from beside the battery at Llama he was careful to write ‘as named in the margin’ instead of the irritating phrase ‘as per margin’ which had become stereotyped in the Navy since its classic use by an unlettered captain nearly a hundred years before in the War of Jenkins’ Ear. He was compelled to use the word ‘proceed’ even though he hated it—in official reports the Navy never set sail, nor went, nor put to sea, nor journeyed, but always proceeded, just as in the same way captains never suggested or advised or recommended, but always respectfully submitted. Hornblower had respectfully to submit that until the French battery was re-established at Llanza the coastal route from France to Spain was now most vulnerable between Port Vendres and Rosas Bay.

  While he struggled with the wording of his description of the raid on the Etang de Thau near Cette he was interrupted by a knock on his door. Longley entered in response to his call.

&nb
sp; “Mr. Gerard sent me, sir. The squadron’s in sight on the starboard bow.”

  “The flagship’s there, is she?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right. My compliments to Mr. Gerard, and will he please alter course to close her.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  His report would have to be addressed to the admiral, then, and not to Captain Bolton, and it would have to be finished within the next half hour. He dashed his pen into the ink and began to scribble feverishly, describing the harassing of the divisions of Pino and Lecchi on the coast road between Malgret and Arens de Mar. It came as a shock to him when he computed the casualties inflicted on the Italians—they must have numbered five or six hundred, exclusive of stragglers. He had to word that carefully, otherwise he would probably be suspected of gross exaggeration, a serious crime in the eyes of authority. Yesterday five or six hundred men were killed or mutilated who today would have been alive and well if he had not been an active and enterprising officer. The mental eyes with which Hornblower viewed his exploit saw a double image—on the one hand he saw corpses, widows and orphans, misery and pain, while on the other he saw white breeched figurines motionless on a hillside, tin soldiers knocked over, arithmetical digits recorded on paper. He cursed his analytical mind at the same time as he cursed the heat and the need for writing the report. He was even vaguely conscious of his own cross-grainedness, which always plunged him into depression after a success.