Hornblower and the Crisis Page 3
‘Yes, sir.’ He could not possibly admit to any carelessness on that subject.
‘You have heard that HMS Hotspur went aground on the Black Rock with a falling tide. Have you any comments to make, Captain?’
Hornblower set his teeth.
‘It would be an easy thing to do.’
‘Perhaps you would be good enough to elaborate on that statement, Captain?’
There was plenty he could say, but he had to be careful how he said it. He must not appear to be a windbag. He must lay all necessary stress on the navigational difficulties and yet at the same time he must not rate himself over-highly for having so long evaded them. He must do all he could for the defendants but he must not overplay his hand. At least there were certain obvious points he could make which could be instantly confirmed by a glance at the ship’s logs. He talked about the steady westerly wind which had prevailed for some days earlier, and then about the brisk easterly wind which had sprung up that afternoon. In those conditions the ebb tide could be unpredictably fierce. There was likely at the same time to be a disturbing back eddy inside the rocks which could upset all calculations so that the current might reverse itself in a cable’s length. From the Black Rock extended a long reef to the southeastward where, except at the very tip, breakers were only visible at low water of spring tides and the lead gave no warning of this. It would be in no way remarkable for a ship keeping close up to the Goulet to be trapped here.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ said the President when Hornblower had finished, and he glanced over to the defendants, ‘Have you any questions?’
The President’s manner indicated that he thought none could be needed, but Meadows rose to his feet. He seemed to be wasted away; perhaps the borrowed clothes he was wearing contributed to the effect, but he was hollow eyed and his cheeks seemed sunken, the left one twitching at intervals.
‘Captain,’ he asked. ‘The wind was north-easterly and brisk?’
‘It was.’
‘The best conditions for a sortie by the French?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was Hotspur’s proper station in those conditions?’
‘As close up to the Goulet as possible.’
It was a good point that had needed accentuation.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ said Meadows sitting down, and Hornblower looked to the President for permission to retire.
But Meadows’ question had given rise to another.
‘Would you kindly tell the Court, Captain,’ asked the President, ‘how long you commanded the Hotspur on blockade service?’
‘A little over two years, sir.’ That was the literal answer that had to be given.
‘And how much of that time were you dose up to the Goulet? A rough estimate is all that is needed, Captain.’
‘I suppose half the time – one-third of the time.’
‘Thank you, Captain.’ It was a point tending very much to discount the one Meadows had made. ‘You may now retire, Captain Hornblower.’
He could glance over at Bush and the others, but it had to be a glance of complete indifference; he must not prejudice the Court by a display of sympathy. He made his bow and withdrew.
4
It was less than half an hour after Hornblower returned to the Princess that Baddlestone got the news, passed from one auxiliary to another as they wallowed waiting for a wind.
‘Guilty,’ said Baddlestone, turning to Hornblower.
This was one of the moments when Hornblower was most in need of an appearance of stolidity while finding the greatest difficulty in attaining it.
‘What about the sentence?’ he asked. Tension gave his voice a grating sound which might be interpreted as harsh indifference.
‘Reprimand,’ said Baddlestone, and Hornblower felt the relief flooding into his vitals.
‘What kind of a reprimand?’
‘Just a reprimand.’
Not a severe reprimand, then. After a ‘guilty’ verdict it was the mildest sentence a court martial could pronounce, save for mere admonishment. But with Hotspur lost every officer and warrant officer in the ship would have to apply for re-employment, and the powers that were might still have a word to say. Unless they were vindictive, however, there could be little danger to any of them except possibly Meadows. It was only then that Baddlestone doled out another fragment of information which earlier would have saved Hornblower anxiety.
‘They cleared the first lieutenant and the sailing-master,’ he said; Hornblower kept his mouth shut, determined to give no hint of his feelings.
Baddlestone had the telescope to his eye and Hornblower followed his gaze. A ship’s longboat under two balance-lugs was running before the wind in their general direction; it took no more than a glance for Hornblower to identify her as belonging to a ship of the line, and as far as he could judge from her foreshortened length she was of the largest size, belonging to a three decker, likely enough.
‘I’ll lay guineas to shillings,’ said Baddlestone, the telescope still clamped to his eye, ‘more company.’
Hornblower’s fingers fluttered with the yearning to use the telescope.
‘Yes,’ went on Baddlestone, retaining it with a cruelty possibly unconscious. ‘It looks like it.’
He turned to bellow orders for the hanging of fendoffs on the starboard side, and to bring the hoy to the wind to provide a slight lee on that side. Then there was no need for the telescope; Hornblower with the naked eye could recognize Bush sitting bare-headed in the sternsheets, and then Meadows beside him. On the next thwart forward were the warrant officers of the late Hotspur, and forward beyond those was a jumble of figures he could not identify.
The longboat surged round into the wind and came neatly alongside.
‘Boat ahoy!’ hailed Baddlestone.
‘Party with warrants for passage,’ came Bush’s voice in reply. ‘We’re coming aboard.’
Baddlestone gobbled inarticulately for a second or two at this absence of a ‘by your leave’, but already the longboat had hooked on. At once it became obvious how violently the hoy rolled; the longboat was stable by comparison. There was a moment’s delay before Meadows hauled himself on to the hoy’s deck, and a further delay before Bush appeared behind him. Hornblower hurried forward to make them welcome; it was obvious that with the loss of the Hotspur her officers were being returned to England for other appointments, while presumably the crew had been distributed round the ships of the squadron.
It was only with an effort that Hornblower brought himself to address Meadows first.
‘Glad to see you again, Captain Meadows,’ he said. ‘And you too, Mr Bush.’
Bush had a half-smile for him; Meadows not as much; he was under the shadow of a reprimand. Baddlestone watched the encounter with as much cynical amusement as his bulging red face could convey.
‘Perhaps you gentlemen will be good enough to show me your warrants,’ he said.
Bush thrust his hand into his breast pocket and produced a sheaf of papers.
‘Fourteen if you count them,’ he replied. ‘And these are ratings I’m not responsible for.’
‘You’ll be at pretty close quarters,’ said Baddlestone. ‘Cabin food a guinea a day, or you can compound for three guineas for the passage.’
Meadows entered into the conversation not with a word, but with a gesture. He turned a bleak gaze and looked behind him. The warrant officers had begun to arrive on deck, Prowse the master, Cargill and the other mates, Huffnell the purser, the boatswain and sailmaker and carpenter and cooper and cook. They were followed by a number of ratings, one of them – who seemed likely to be Meadows’ coxswain – turning to help another on board, the need for this becoming apparent when it was seen that this man had lost a hand at the wrist, presumably in one of the numerous shipboard accidents that eroded the crews of the blockading fleet. Several more men succeeded him; the reason for their return to England was not immediately apparent. Most of them were likely to be ruptured so badly as to rate discharg
e; possibly one or two others may have been illegally impressed and fortunate enough to have friends at home with sufficient influence to win their freedom. Altogether it was a large and formidable body of men mustered on the deck of the hoy, crowding it, while the longboat cast off and, with her lugsails hauled as flat as boards, set off on the long beat back to the flagship.
Baddlestone followed Meadows’ gaze and ran his eye over the crowd, and Meadows accentuated his earlier glance with a wave of his hand. Hornblower was reminded of the legendary captain of a ship of war who, when asked for his authority for some particular action, pointed to his guns and said ‘There!’
‘By the terms of your contract you victual ratings at sixpence a day,’ said Meadows. ‘This voyage you’ll victual officers at the same rate, and that’s all it’s worth.’
‘Is this piracy?’ exclaimed Baddlestone.
‘Call it anything you like,’ answered Meadows.
Baddlestone fell back a step or two, staring round him, to find no comfort in sea or sky, with the nearest ship some cables’ lengths away. Meadows’ expression was unchanging, bleak and lonely. Whatever had been the terms of the reprimand he had received he obviously felt it severely. Believing himself to be a man without a future he could well be careless about any possible charge of mutiny Baddlestone could bring against him. His officers were sheltered under his authority, while clearly they had lost all they possessed when Hotspur sank and were aware that by law they went on half-pay from that moment too. They could be dangerous men, and the ratings would obey them without hesitation. The Princess’ crew in addition to Baddlestone comprised a mate, a cook, four hands and a boy; the odds were overwhelming if there were no chance of appealing to higher authority, and Baddlestone realized it even though his words still conveyed defiance.
‘I’ll see you in the dock, Mr Captain Meadows,’ he said.
‘Captain Hornblower travels at the same rate,’ said Meadows imperturbably.
‘I’ve paid my three guineas,’ interposed Hornblower.
‘Better still. That’ll be – a hundred and twenty-six sixpences already paid. Am I right, Mr Baddlestone?’
5
In the Princess conditions were intolerably crowded. Where Hornblower’s hammock had been slung there were now seven more, so that each of the eight officers occupied no more space than might be found inside a coffin. They were packed together in an almost solid mass, but not quite solid; as the Princess leaped and bounded there was just enough play for everyone to bump against his neighbour or against a bulkhead, maddeningly, every second or two. Hornblower in the lower tier (which he had selected sensibly enough to avoid the poisonous upper air) had Meadows above him, a bulkhead on one side and Bush on the other. Sometimes the weight of the three bodies to his left compressed him against the bulkhead, and sometimes he swayed the other way and thumped Bush in the ribs; sometimes the deck below rose up to meet him and sometimes Meadows’ vast bulk above came down to impress itself on him – Meadows was an inch or two longer than the cabin and lay in a pronounced curve. Hornblower’s restless mind deduced that these latter contacts were proof of how much the Princess ‘worked’ – the cabin was pulled out of shape when she rolled, diminishing its height by an inch or two, as was confirmed by the creaking and crackling that went on all round him. Long before midnight Hornblower wriggled with difficulty out of his hammock and then, snaking along on his back under the lower tier, crawled out of the cabin to where the purer air outside fluttered his shirt-tails.
After the first night common sense dictated another arrangement whereby the passengers, officers and ratings alike, slept ‘watch and watch’, four hours in bed and four hours squatting in sheltered corners on deck. It was a system to which they were all inured, and was extended, naturally and perforce, to cooking and meals and every other activity. Even so, the Princess was not a happy ship, with the passengers likely to snarl at each other at small provocation, and potential trouble on a far greater scale only a hair’s breadth away as the experts with whom the hoy swarmed criticized Baddlestone’s handling of her. For the persistent summer breezes still blew from between north and east, and she lost distance to leeward in a manner perfectly infuriating to men who for months and years had not seen homeland or family. That wind meant sparkling and delightful weather; it might mean a splendid harvest in England, but it meant irritation in the Princess, where bitter arguments developed between those who advocated that Baddlestone should reach to the westward, into the Atlantic, in the hope of finding a favourable slant of wind there, and those who still had sufficient patience to recommend beating about where they were – but both schools were ready to agree that the trim of the sails, the handling of the helm, the course set when under way and the tack selected when lying to could and should be improved upon.
Hope came timorously to life one noontime; there had been disappointments before and, despite all the previous discussions, hardly a soul dared speak a word when, after a period of almost imperceptible easterly airs something a trifle more vigorous awoke, with a hint of south in it, backing and strengthening so that the sheets could be hauled in, with Baddlestone bellowing at the hands and the motion of the Princess changing from spiritless wallowing to a flat-footed advance, an ungainly movement over the waves like a cart horse trying to canter over wet furrow.
‘What’s her course, d’you think?’ asked Hornblower.
‘Nor’east, sir,’ said Bush, tentatively, but Prowse shook his head as his natural pessimism asserted itself.
‘Nor’east by east, sir,’ he said.
‘A trifle of north in it, anyway,’ said Hornblower.
Such a course would bring them no nearer Plymouth, but it might give them a better chance of catching a westerly slant outside the mouth of the Channel.
‘She’s making a lot of leeway,’ said Prowse, gloomily, his glance sweeping round from the set of the sails to the barely perceptible wake.
‘We can always hope,’ said Hornblower. ‘Look at those clouds building up. We’ve seen nothing like that for days.’
‘Hope’s cheap enough, sir,’ said Prowse gloomily.
Hornblower looked over towards Meadows, standing at the mainmast. His face bore that bleak expression still unchanged; he stood solitary in a crowd, yet even he was impelled to study wake and sail trim and rudder, until Hornblower’s gaze drew his glance and he looked over at them, hardly seeing them.
‘I’d give something to know what the glass is doing,’ said Bush. ‘Maybe it’s dropping, sir.’
‘Shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Hornblower.
He could remember so acutely running for Tor Bay in a howling gale. Maria was in Plymouth, and the second child was on the way.
Prowse cleared his throat; he spoke unwillingly, because he had something cheerful to say.
‘Wind’s still veering, sir,’ he said at length.
‘Freshening a trifle, too, I fancy,’ said Hornblower. ‘Something may come of this.’
In those latitudes heavy weather was likely at that time of year when the wind veered instead of backing, when it swung towards south from north-east, and when it freshened as it undoubtedly was doing, and when dark clouds began to build up as they were doing at the moment. The mate was marking up the traverse board.
‘What’s the course, Mister?’ asked Hornblower.
‘Nor’ by east-half-north.’
‘Just another point or two’s all we need,’ said Bush.
‘Got to give Ushant a wide berth anyway,’ said Prowse.
Even on this course they were actually lessening the distance that lay between them and Plymouth; it was in a quite unimportant fashion, but it was a comforting thought. The horizon was closing in on them a little with the diminishing visibility. There was still a sail or two in sight, all towards the east, for no vessel made as much leeway as the Princess. But it was indication of the vastness of the ocean that there were so few sails visible although they were in the immediate vicinity of the Channel Fleet.
‘She steers like a dray,’ commented Bush.
‘Like a wooden piggin,’ said Hornblower. ‘Sideways as easily as forwards.’
It was better when the wind veered still further round, and then came the moment when Bush struck one fist into the palm of the other hand.
‘We’re running a point free!’ he exclaimed.
That meant everything in the world. It meant that they were not running on a compromise course where as much might be lost or gained. It meant that they were steering a course direct for Plymouth, or as direct as Baddlestone’s calculations indicated; if they were correct leeway had now become a source of profit instead of loss. It meant that the wind was a trifle on the Princess’ quarter, and that would almost certainly be her best point of sailing, considering her shape. It meant that they were getting finally clear of the coast of France. Soon they would be well in the mouth of the Channel with considerable freedom of action. Finally it had to be repeated that they were running free, a fantastic, marvellous change for men who had endured for so long the depressing alternatives of lying-to or sailing close-hauled.
Someone near at hand raised his voice; Hornblower could tell that he was not hailing, or quarrelling, but singing, going through an exercise incomprehensible and purposeless for the sake of some strange pleasure it gave. ‘From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.’ That was perfectly true, and Hornblower supposed that circumstances justified making this sort of noise about it. He steeled himself to a stoical endurance as others joined in, ‘Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies’. It was very noticeable that the atmosphere in the Princess had changed metaphorically as well as actually; spirits had risen with the fall in the barometer. There were smiles, there were grins to be seen. With the wind veering another couple of points, as it did, there was a decided probability that the evening of next day would see them into Plymouth. As if she had caught the prevailing infection the Princess began to leap over the waves; in her clumsiness there was something almost lewd, like a tubby old lady showing her legs in a drunken attempt to dance.