The Young Hornblower Omnibus Page 18

  “Oldroyd! Where away’s the gig?”

  “Close on the starboard bow, sir!”

  “How close?”

  “Two cable’s lengths, sir. She’s pulling for us now.”

  “Steer for her while you’ve steerage way.”

  “Aye aye sir.”

  How long would it take the gig under oars to cover a quarter of a mile? Hornblower feared anticlimax, feared a sudden revulsion of feeling among the Spaniards at this late moment. Mere waiting might occasion it, and he must not stand merely idle. He could still hear the motion of the galley through the water, and he turned to Jackson.

  “This ship carries her way well, Jackson, doesn’t she?” he said, and he made himself laugh as he spoke, as if everything in the world was a matter of sublime certainty.

  “Aye, sir, I suppose she does, sir,” said the startled Jackson; he was fidgeting nervously with his pistols.

  “And look at the man there,” went on Hornblower, pointing to a galley slave. “Did you ever see such a beard in your life?”

  “No-no, sir.”

  “Speak to me, you fool. Talk naturally.”

  “I—I dunno what to say, sir.”

  “You’ve no sense, damn you, Jackson. See the welt on that fellow’s shoulder? He must have caught it from the overseer’s whip not so long ago.”

  “Mebbe you’re right, sir.”

  Hornblower was repressing his impatience and was about to make another speech when he heard a rasping thump alongside and a moment later the gig’s crew was pouring over the bulwarks. The relief was inexpressible. Hornblower was about to relax when he remembered appearances. He stiffened himself up.

  “Glad to see you aboard, sir,” he said, as Lieutenant Chadd swung his legs over and dropped to the maindeck at the break of the forecastle.

  “Glad to see you,” said Chadd, looking about him curiously.

  “These men forrard are prisoners, sir,” said Hornblower. “It might be well to secure them. I think that is all that remains to be done.”

  Now he could not relax; it seemed to him as if he must remain strained and tense for ever. Strained and yet stupid, even when he heard the cheers of the hands in the Indefatigable as the galley came alongside her. Stupid and dull, making a stumbling report to Captain Pellew, forcing himself to remember to commend the bravery of Jackson and Oldroyd in the highest terms.

  “The Admiral will be pleased,” said Pellew, looking at Hornblower keenly.

  “I’m glad, sir,” Hornblower heard himself say.

  “Now that we’ve lost poor Soames,” went on Pellew, “we shall need another watch-keeping officer. I have it in mind to give you an order as acting-lieutenant.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower, still stupid.

  Soames had been a grey-haired officer of vast experience. He had sailed the seven seas, he had fought in a score of actions. But, faced with a new situation, he had not had the quickness of thought to keep his boat from under the ram of the galley. Soames was dead, and acting-lieutenant Hornblower would take his place. Fighting madness, sheer insanity, had won him this promise of promotion. Hornblower had never realized the black depths of lunacy into which he could sink. Like Soames, like all the rest of the crew of the Indefatigable, he had allowed himself to be carried away by his blind hatred for the galleys, and only good fortune had allowed him to live through it. That was something worth remembering.

  THE EXAMINATION FOR LIEUTENANT

  H.M.S. Indefatigable was gliding into Gibraltar Bay, with Acting-Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower stiff and self-conscious on the quarter-deck beside Captain Pellew. He kept his telescope trained over toward Algeciras; it was a strange situation, this, that major naval bases of two hostile powers should be no more than six miles apart, and while approaching the harbour it was as well to keep close watch on Algeciras, for there was always the possibility that a squadron of Spaniards might push out suddenly to pounce on an unwary frigate coming in.

  “Eight ships—nine ships with their yards crossed, sir,” reported Hornblower.

  “Thank you,” answered Pellew. “Hands ’bout ship.”

  The Indefatigable tacked and headed in toward the Mole. Gibraltar harbour was, as usual, crowded with shipping, for the whole naval effort of England in the Mediterranean was perforce based here. Pellew clewed up his topsails and put his helm over. Then the cable roared out and the Indefatigable swung at anchor.

  “Call away my gig,” ordered Pellew.

  Pellew favoured dark blue and white as the colour scheme for his boat and its crew—dark blue shirts and white trousers for the men, with white hats with blue ribbons. The boat was of dark blue picked out with white, the oars had white looms and blue blades. The general effect was very smart indeed as the drive of the oars sent the gig skimming over the water to carry Pellew to pay his respects to the port admiral. It was not long after his return that a messenger came scurrying up to Hornblower.

  “Captain’s compliments, sir, and he’d like to see you in his cabin.”

  “Examine your conscience well,” grinned Midshipman Bracegirdle. “What crimes have you committed?”

  “I wish I knew,” said Hornblower, quite genuinely.

  It is always a nervous moment going in to see the captain in reply to his summons. Hornblower swallowed as he approached the cabin door, and he had to brace himself a little to knock and enter. But there was nothing to be alarmed about; Pellew looked up with a smile from his desk.

  “Ah, Mr. Hornblower, I hope you will consider this good news. There will be an examination for lieutenant tomorrow, in the Santa Barbara there. You are ready to take it, I hope?”

  Hornblower was about to say “I suppose so, sir,” but checked himself.

  “Yes, sir,” he said—Pellew hated slipshod answers.

  “Very well, then. You report there at three P.M. with your certificates and journals.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  That was a very brief conversation for such an important subject. Hornblower had Pellew’s order as acting-lieutenant for two months now. Tomorrow he would take his examination. If he should pass the admiral would confirm the order next day, and Hornblower would be a lieutenant with two months’ seniority already. But if he should fail! That would mean he had been found unfit for lieutenant’s rank. He would revert to midshipman, the two months’ seniority would be lost, and it would be six months at least before he could try again. Eight months’ seniority was a matter of enormous importance. It would affect all his subsequent career.

  “Tell Mr. Bolton you have my permission to leave the ship tomorrow, and you may use one of the ship’s boats.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Good luck, Hornblower.”

  During the next twenty-four hours Hornblower had not merely to try to read all through Norie’s Epitome of Navigation again, and Clarke’s Complete Handbook of Seamanship, but he had to see that his number one uniform was spick and span. It cost his spirit ration to prevail on the warrant cook to allow the gunroom attendant to heat a flatiron in the galley and iron out his neck handkerchief. Bracegirdle lent him a clean shirt, but there was a feverish moment when it was discovered that the gunroom’s supply of shoe blacking had dried to a chip. Two midshipmen had to work it soft with lard, and the resultant compound, when applied to Hornblower’s buckled shoes, was stubbornly resistant to taking a polish; only much labour with the gunroom’s moulting shoebrush and then with a soft cloth brought those shoes up to a condition of brightness worthy of an examination for lieutenant. And as for the cocked hat—the life of a cocked hat in the midshipman’s berth is hard, and some of the dents could not be entirely eliminated.

  “Take it off as soon as you can and keep it under your arm,” advised Bracegirdle. “Maybe they won’t see you come up the ship’s side.”

  Everybody turned out to see Hornblower leave the ship, with his sword and his white breeches and his buckled shoes, his bundle of journals under his arm and his certificates of sobriety and good
conduct in his pocket. The winter afternoon was already far advanced as he was rowed over to the Santa Barbara and went up the ship’s side to report himself to the officer of the watch.

  The Santa Barbara was a prison hulk, one of the prizes captured in Rodney’s action off Cadiz in 1780 and kept rotting at her moorings, mastless, ever since, a storeship in time of peace and a prison in time of war. Redcoated soldiers, muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, guarded the gangways; on forecastle and quarterdeck were carronades, trained inboard and depressed to sweep the waist, wherein a few prisoners took the air, ragged and unhappy. As Hornblower came up the side he caught a whiff of the stench within, where two thousand prisoners were confined. Hornblower reported himself to the officer of the watch as come on board, and for what purpose.

  “Whoever would have guessed it?” said the officer of the watch—an elderly lieutenant with white hair hanging down to his shoulders—running his eye over Hornblower’s immaculate uniform and the portfolio under his arm. “Fifteen of your kind have already come on board, and—Holy Gemini, see there!”

  Quite a flotilla of small craft was closing in on the Santa Barbara. Each boat held at least one cocked-hatted and white-breeched midshipman, and some held four or five.

  “Every courtesy young gentleman in the Mediterranean Fleet is ambitious for an epaulette,” said the lieutenant. “Just wait until the examining board sees how many there are of you! I wouldn’t be in your shoes, young shaver, for something. Go aft, there, and wait in the port-side cabin.”

  It was already uncomfortably full; when Hornblower entered, fifteen pairs of eyes measured him up. There were officers of all ages from eighteen to forty, all in their number one’s, all nervous—one or two of them had Norie’s Epitome open on their laps and were anxiously reading passages about which they were doubtful. One little group was passing a bottle from hand to hand, presumably in an effort to keep up their courage. But no sooner had Hornblower entered than a stream of newcomers followed him. The cabin began to fill, and soon it was tightly packed. Half the forty men present found seats on the deck, and the others were forced to stand.

  “Forty years back,” said a loud voice somewhere, “my grandad marched with Clive to revenge the Black Hole of Calcutta. If he could but have witnessed the fate of his posterity!”

  “Have a drink,” said another voice “and to hell with care.”

  “Forty of us,” commented a tall, thin, clerkly officer, counting heads. “How many of us will they pass, do you think? Five?”

  “To hell with care,” repeated the bibulous voice in the corner, and lifted itself in song “Begone dull care; I prithee be gone from me—”

  “Cheese it, you fool!” rasped another voice. “Hark to that!”

  The air was filled with the long-drawn twittering of the pipes of the bos’n’s mates, and someone on deck was shouting an order.

  “A captain coming on board,” remarked someone.

  An officer had his eye at the crack of the door. “It’s Dreadnought Foster,” he reported.

  “He’s a tail twister if ever there was one,” said a fat young officer, seated comfortably with his back to the bulkhead.

  Again the pipes twittered.

  “Harvey, of the dockyard,” reported the lookout.

  The third captain followed immediately. “It’s Black Charlie Hammond,” said the lookout. “Looking as if he’d lost a guinea and found sixpence.”

  “Black Charlie?” exclaimed someone, scrambling to his feet in haste and pushing to the door. “Let’s see! So it is! Then here is one young gentleman who will not stay for an answer. I know too well what that answer would be. ‘Six months more at sea, sir, and damn your eyes for your impertinence in presenting yourself for examination in your present state of ignorance.’ Black Charlie won’t ever forget that I lost his pet poodle overside from the cutter in Port-o’-Spain when he was first of the Pegasus. Goodbye, gentlemen. Give my regards to the examining board.”

  With that he was gone, and they saw him explaining himself to the officer of the watch and hailing a shore boat to take him back to his ship. “One fewer of us, at least,” said the clerkly officer. “What is it, my man?”

  “The board’s compliments, sir,” said the marine messenger, “an’ will the first young gentleman please to come along?”

  There was a momentary hesitation; no one was anxious to be the first victim.

  “The one nearest the door,” said an elderly master’s mate. “Will you volunteer, sir?”

  “I’ll be the Daniel,” said the erstwhile lookout desperately. “Remember me in your prayers.”

  He pulled his coat smooth, twitched at his neckcloth and was gone, the remainder waiting in gloomy silence, relieved only by the glug-glug of the bottle as the bibulous midshipman took another swing. A full ten minutes passed before the candidate for promotion returned, making a brave effort to smile.

  “Six months more at sea?” asked someone.

  “No,” was the unexpected answer. “Three! … I was told to send the next man. It had better be you.”

  “But what did they ask you?”

  “They began by asking me to define a rhumb line …. But don’t keep them waiting, I advise you.” Some thirty officers had their textbooks open on the instant to reread about rhumb lines.

  “You were there ten minutes,” said the clerkly officer, looking at his watch. “Forty of us, ten minutes each—why, it’ll be midnight before the reach they last of us. They’ll never do it.”

  “They’ll be hungry,” said someone.

  “Hungry for our blood,” said another.

  “Perhaps they’ll try us in batches,” suggested a third, “like the French tribunals.”

  Listening to them, Hornblower was reminded of French aristocrats jesting at the foot of the scaffold. Candidates departed and candidates returned, some gloomy, some smiling. The cabin was already far less crowded; Hornblower was able to secure sufficient deck space to seat himself, and he stretched out his legs with a nonchalant sigh of relief, and he no sooner emitted the sigh than he realized that it was a stage effect which he had put on for his own benefit. He was as nervous as he could be. The winter night was falling, and some good Samaritan on board sent in a couple of purser’s dips to give a feeble illumination to the darkening cabin.

  “They are passing one in three,” said the clerkly officer, making ready for his turn. “May I be the third.”

  Hornblower got to his feet again when he left; it would be his turn next. He stepped out under the halfdeck into the dark night and breathed the chill fresh air. A gentle breeze was blowing from the southward, cooled, presumably, by the snow-clad Atlas Mountains of Africa across the strait. There was neither moon nor stars. Here came the clerkly officer back again.

  “Hurry,” he said. “They’re impatient.”

  Hornblower made his way past the sentry to the after cabin; it was brightly lit, so that he blinked as he entered, and stumbled over some obstruction. And it was only then that he remembered that he had not straightened his neckcloth and seen to it that his sword hung correctly at his side. He went on blinking in his nervousness at the three grim faces across the table.

  “Well, sir?” said a stern voice. “Report yourself. We have no time to waste.”

  “H-Hornblower, sir. H-Horatio H-Hornblower. M-Midshipman—I mean Acting-Lieutenant, H.M.S. Indefatigable.”

  “Your certificates, please,” said the right-hand face.

  Hornblower handed them over, and as he waited for them to be examined, the left-hand face suddenly spoke. “You are close-hauled on the port tack, Mr. Hornblower, beating up channel with a nor-easterly wind blowing hard, with Dover bearing north two miles. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now the wind veers four points and takes you flat aback. What do you do, sir? What do you do?”

  Hornblower’s mind, if it was thinking about anything at all at that moment, was thinking about rhumb lines; this question took him as much aback
as the situation it envisaged. His mouth opened and shut, but there was no word he could say.

  “By now you’re dismasted,” said the middle face—a swarthy face; Hornblower was making the deduction that it must belong to Black Charlie Hammond. He could think about that even if he could not force his mind to think at all about his examination.

  “Dismasted,” said the left-hand face, with a smile like Nero enjoying a Christian’s death agony. “With Dover cliffs under your lee. You are in serious trouble, Mr.—ah—Hornblower.”

  Serious indeed. Hornblower’s mouth opened and shut again. His dulled mind heard, without paying special attention to it, the thud of a cannon shot somewhere not too far off. The board passed no remark on it either, but a moment later there came a series of further cannon shots which brought the three captains to their feet. Unceremoniously they rushed out of the cabin, sweeping out of the way the sentry at the door. Hornblower followed them; they arrived in the waist just in time to see a rocket soar up into the night sky and burst in a shower of red stars. It was the general alarm; over the water of the anchorage they could hear the drums rolling as all the ships present beat to quarters. On the portside gangway the remainder of the candidates were clustered speaking excitedly.

  “See there!” said a voice.

  Across half a mile of dark water a yellow light grew until the ship there was wrapped in flame. She had every sail set and was heading straight into the crowded anchorage.

  “Fire ships!”

  “Officer of the watch! Call my gig!” bellowed Foster.

  A line of fire ships was running before the wind, straight at the crowd of anchored ships. The Santa Barbara was full of the wildest bustle as the seamen and marines came pouring on deck, and as captains and candidates shouted for boats to take them back to their ships. A line of orange flame lit up the water, followed at once by the roar of a broadside; some ship was firing her guns in the endeavour to sink a fire ship. Let one of those blazing hulls make contact with one of the anchored ships, even for a few seconds, and the fire would be transmitted to the dry, painted timber, to the tarred cordage, to the inflammable sails, so that nothing would put it out. To men in highly combustible ships filled with explosives fire was the deadliest and most dreaded peril of the sea.