1From the Lydia’s masthead, in the clear daylight of the Pacific, a ship might be seen at a distance of as much as twenty miles, perhaps. A circle of twenty miles’ radius, therefore, covered the extent of sea over which she had observation. It kept Hornblower occupied, during the remaining hours of darkness, to calculate the size of the circle in which the Natividad would necessarily be found next morning. She might be close at hand; she might be as much as a hundred and fifty miles away. That meant that if pure chance dictated the positions of the ships at dawn, it was almost exactly fifty to one against the Natividad being in sight; fifty to one on the ruin of Hornblower’s professional reputation and only his professional abilities to counterbalance those odds. Only if he had guessed his enemy’s plans correctly would he stand justified, and his officers knew it as well as he. Hornblower was conscious that Gerard was looking at him with interest through the darkness, and that consciousness caused him to hold himself rigid and immobile on the deck, neither walking up and down nor fidgeting, even though he could feel his heart beating faster each time he realised that dawn was approaching.

2The blackness turned to grey. Now the outlines of the ship could be ascertained. The main topsail could be seen clearly. So could the fore-topsail. Astern of them now the faintest hint of pink began to show in the greyness of the sky. Now the bulk of the grey waves overside could be seen as well as their white edges. Overhead by now the stars were invisible. The accustomed eye could pierce the greyness for a mile about the ship. And then astern, to the eastward, as the Lydia lifted on a wave, a grain of gold showed over the horizon, vanished, returned, and grew. Soon it became a great slice of the sun, sucking up greedily the faint mist which hung over the sea. Then the whole disc lifted clear, and the miracle of the dawn was accomplished.

3“Sail ho!” came pealing down from the masthead; Hornblower had calculated aright.

4Dead ahead, and ten miles distant, she was wallowing along, her appearance oddly at contrast with the one she had presented yesterday morning. Something had been done to give her a jury rig. A stumpy topmast had been erected where her foremast had stood, raked far back in clumsy fashion; her main topmast had been replaced by a slight spar—a royal mast, presumably—and on this jury rig she carried a queer collection of jibs and foresails and spritsails all badly set—“Like old Mother Brown’s washing on the line,” said Bush—to enable her to keep away from the wind with main course and mizzen-topsail and driver set.

5At sight of the Lydia she put her helm over and came round until her masts were in line, heading away from the frigate.

6“Making a stern chase of it,” said Gerard, his glass to his eye. “He had enough yesterday, I fancy.”

7Hornblower heard the remark. He could understand Crespo’s psychology better than that. If it were profitable to him to postpone action, and it undoubtedly was, he was quite right to continue doing so, even at the eleventh hour. At sea nothing was certain. Something might prevent the Lydia’s coming into action; a squall of wind, the accidental carrying away of a spar, an opportune descent of mist—any one of the myriad things which might happen at sea. There was still a chance that the Natividad might get clear away, and Crespo was exploiting that chance to the last of his ability. That was logical though unheroic, exactly as one might expect of Crespo.

8It was Hornblower’s duty to see that the chance did not occur. He examined the Natividad closely, ran his eyes over the Lydia’s sails to see that every one was drawing, and bethought himself of his crew.

9“Send the hands to breakfast,” he said—every captain of a King’s ship took his men into action with full bellies if possible.

10He remained, pacing up and down the quarterdeck, unable to keep himself still any longer. The Natividad might be running away, but he knew well that she would fight hard enough when he caught her up. Those smashing twenty-four pounders which she carried on her lower deck were heavy metal against which to oppose the frail timbers of a frigate. They had wrought enough damage yesterday—he could hear the melancholy clanking of the pumps keeping down the water which leaked through the holes they had made; that clanking sound had continued without a break since yesterday. With a jury mizzenmast, and leaking like a sieve despite the sail under her bottom, with sixty four of her attenuated crew hors de combat, the Lydia was in no condition to fight a severe battle. Defeat for her and death for him might be awaiting them across that strip of blue sea.

11Polwheal suddenly appeared beside him on the quarterdeck, a tray in his hand.

12“Your breakfast, sir,” he said, “seeing as how we’ll be in action when your usual time comes.”

13As he proffered the tray Hornblower suddenly realised how much he wanted that steaming cup of coffee. He took it eagerly and drank thirstily before he remembered that he must not display human weakness of appetite before his servant.

14“Thank you, Polwheal,” he said, sipping discreetly.

15“An’ ’er la’ship’s compliments, sir, an’ please may she stay where she is in the orlop when the action is renooed.”

16“Ha—h’m,” said Hornblower, staring at him, thrown out of his stride by this unexpected question. All through the night he had been trying to forget the problem of Lady Barbara, as a man tries to forget an aching tooth. The orlop meant that Lady Barbara would be next to the wounded, separated from them only by a canvas screen—no place for a woman. But for that matter neither was the cable tier. The obvious truth was that there was no place for a woman in a frigate about to fight a battle.

17“Put her wherever you like as long as she is out of reach of shot,” he said, irritably.

18“Aye aye, sir. An’ ’er la’ship told me to say that she wished you the best of good fortune today, sir, an’—an’—she was confident that you would meet with the success you—you deserve, sir.”

19Polwheal stumbled over this long speech in a manner which revealed that he had not been quite as successful in learning it fluently as he wished.

20“Thank you, Polwheal,” said Hornblower, gravely. He remembered Lady Barbara’s face as she looked up at him from the main deck yesterday. It was clean cut and eager—like a sword, was the absurd simile which came up in his mind.

21“Ha—h’m,” said Hornblower angrily. He was aware that his expression had softened, and he feared lest Polwheal should have noticed it, at a moment when he knew about whom he was thinking. “Get below and see that her ladyship is comfortable.”

22The hands were pouring up from breakfast now; the pumps were clanking with a faster rhythm now that a fresh crew was at work upon them. The guns’ crews were gathered about their guns, and the few idlers were crowded on the forecastle eagerly watching the progress of the chase.

23“Do you think the wind’s going to hold, sir?” asked Bush, coming onto the quarterdeck like a bird of ill omen. “Seems to me as if the sun’s swallowing it.”

24There was no doubting the fact that as the sun climbed higher in the sky the wind was diminishing in force. The sea was still short, steep, and rough, but the Lydia’s motion over it was no longer light and graceful. She was pitching and jerking inelegantly, deprived of the steady pressure of a good sailing wind. The sky overhead was fast becoming of a hard metallic blue.

25“We’re overhauling ’em fast,” said Hornblower, staring fixedly at the chase so as to ignore these portents of the elements.

26“Three hours and we’re up to ’em,” said Bush. “If the wind only holds.”

27It was fast growing hot. The heat which the sun was pouring down on them was intensified by its contrast with the comparative coolness of the night before. The crew had begun to seek the strips of shade under the gangways, and were lying there wearily. The steady clanging of the pumps seemed to sound louder now that the wind was losing its force. Hornblower suddenly realised that he would feel intensely weary if he permitted himself to think about it. He stood stubborn on the quarterdeck with the sun beating on his back, every few moments raising his telescope to stare at the Natividad, while Bush fussed about the trimming of the sails as the breeze began to waver.

28“Steer small, blast you,” he growled at the quartermaster at the wheel as the ship’s head fell away in the trough of a wave.

29“I can’t, sir, begging your pardon,” was the reply. “There aren’t enough wind.”

30It was true enough. The wind had died away so that the Lydia could not maintain the two knot speed which was sufficient to give her rudder power to act.

31“We’ll have to wet the sails. Mr. Bush, see to it, if you please,” said Hornblower.

32One division of one watch was roused up to this duty. A soaking wet sail will hold air which would escape it if it were dry. Whips were rove through the blocks on the yards, and seawater hoisted up and poured over the canvas. So hot was the sun and so rapid the evaporation that the buckets had to be kept continually in action. To the clanging of the pumps was now added the shrilling of the sheaves in the blocks. The Lydia crept, still plunging madly, over the tossing sea and under the glaring sky.

33“She’s boxing the compass now,” said Bush with a jerk of his thumb at the distant Natividad. “She can’t compare with this beauty. She won’t find that new rig of hers any help, neither.”

34The Natividad was turning idly backwards and forwards on the waves, showing sometimes her broadside and sometimes her three masts in line, unable to steer any course in the light air prevailing. Bush looked complacently up at his new mizzenmast, a pyramid of canvas, and then across at the swaying Natividad, less than five miles away. The minutes crept by, their passage marked only by the monotonous noises of the ship. Hornblower stood in the scorching sunlight, fingering his telescope.

35“Here comes the wind again, by God!” said Bush, suddenly. It was sufficient wind to make the ship heel a little, and to summon a faint harping from the rigging. “ ’Vast heaving with those buckets, there.”

36The Lydia crept steadily forward, heaving and plunging to the music of the water under her bows, while the Natividad grew perceptibly nearer.

37“It will reach him quickly enough. There! What did I say?”

38The Natividad’s sails filled as the breeze came down to her. She straightened upon her course.

39“ ’Twon’t help him as much as it helps us. God, if it only holds!” commented Bush.

40The breeze wavered and then renewed itself. The Natividad was hull up now across the water when a wave lifted her. Another hour—less than an hour—and she would be in range.

41“We’ll be trying long shots at her soon,” said Bush.

42“Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, spitefully, “I can judge of the situation without the assistance of your comments, profound though they be.”

43“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Bush, hurt. He flushed angrily for a moment until he noticed the anxiety in Hornblower’s tired eyes, and then stumped away to the opposite rail to forget his rage.

44As if by way of comment the big main-course flapped loudly, once, like a gun. The breeze was dying away as motivelessly as it had begun. And the Natividad still held it; she was holding her course steadily, drawing away once more, helped by the fluky wind. Here in the tropical Pacific one ship can have a fair wind while another two miles away lies becalmed, just as the heavy sea in which they were rolling indicated that last night’s gale was still blowing, over the horizon, at the farther side of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Hornblower stirred uneasily in the blazing sun. He feared lest he should see the Natividad sail clean away from him; the wind had died away so much that there was no point in wetting the sails, and the Lydia was rolling and sagging about aimlessly now to the send of the waves. Ten minutes passed before he was reassured by the sight of the Natividad’s similar behaviour.

45There was not a breath of wind now. The Lydia rolled wildly, to the accompaniment of a spasmodic creaking of woodwork, flapping of sails, and clattering of blocks. Only the clangour of the pumps sounded steadily through the hot air. The Natividad was four miles away now—a mile and a half beyond the farthest range of any of the Lydia’s guns.

46“Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower. “We will tow with the boats. Have the launch and the cutter hoisted out.”

47Bush looked doubtful for a moment. He feared that two could play at that game. But he realised—as Hornblower had realised before him—that the Lydia’s graceful hull would be more amenable to towing than the Natividad’s ungainly bulk, even without counting the possibility that yesterday’s action might have left her with no boat left that would swim. It was Hornblower’s duty to try every course that might bring his ship into action with the enemy.

48“Boats away!” roared Harrison. “Cutter’s crew, launch’s crew.”

49The pipes of his mates endorsed the orders. The hands tailed on to the tackles, and each boat in turn was swayed up into the air, and lowered outboard, the boats’ crews fending off as the Lydia rolled in the swell.

50There began for the boats’ crews a period of the most exhausting and exasperating labour. They would tug and strain at the oars, moving the ponderous boats over the heaving waves, until the tow ropes tightened with a jerk as the strain came upon them. Then, tug as they would, they would seem to make no progress at all, the oar blades foaming impotently through the blue water, until the Lydia consented to crawl forward a little and the whole operation could be repeated. The heaving waves were a hindrance to them—sometimes every man on one side of a boat would catch a simultaneous crab so that the boat would spin round and become a nuisance to the other one—and the Lydia, so graceful and willing when under sail, was a perfect bitch when being towed.

51She yawed and she sagged, falling away in the trough on occasions so much that the launch and the cutter were dragged, with much splashing from the oars, stern first after her wavering bows, and then changing her mind and heaving forward so fast after the two ropes that the men, flinging their weight upon the oar looms in expectation of a profitless pull, were precipitated backwards with the ease of progression while in imminent danger of being run down.

52They sat naked on the thwarts while the sweat ran in streams down their faces and chests, unable—unlike their comrades at the pumps—to forget their fatigues in the numbness of monotonous work when every moment called for vigilance and attention, tugging painfully away, their agonies of thirst hardly relieved by the allowance of water doled out to them by the petty officers in the sternsheets, tugging away until even hands calloused by years of pulling and hauling cracked and blistered so that the oars were agony to touch.

53Hornblower knew well enough the hardship they were undergoing. He went forward and looked down at the toiling seamen, knowing perfectly well that his own body would not be able to endure that labour for more than half an hour at most. He gave orders for an hourly relief at the oars, and he did his best to cheer the men on. He felt an uneasy sympathy for them—three-quarters of them had never been sailors until this commission, and had no desire to be sailors either, but had been swept up by the all-embracing press seven months ago. Hornblower was always able (rather against his will) to do what most of his officers failed to do—he saw his crew not as topmen or hands, but as what they had been before the press caught them: stevedores, wherry men, porters.

54He had waggoners and potters—he had even two draper’s assistants and a printer among his crew; men snatched without notice from their families and their employment and forced into this sort of labour, on wretched food, in hideous working conditions, haunted always by the fear of the cat or of Harrison’s rattan, and with the chance of death by drowning or by hostile action to seal the bargain. So imaginative an individualist as Hornblower was bound to feel sympathy with them even when he felt he ought not, especially as he (in common with a few other liberals) found himself growing more and more liberal minded with the progress of years. But to counterbalance this weakness of his there was his restless nervous anxiety to finish off well any task he had set himself to do. With the Natividad in sight he could not rest until he had engaged her, and when a captain of a ship cannot rest his crew certainly cannot—aching backs or bleeding hands notwithstanding.

55By careful measurement with his sextant of the subtended angles he was able to say with certainty at the end of an hour that the efforts of the boats’ crews had dragged the Lydia a little nearer to the Natividad, and Bush, who had taken the same measurements, was in agreement. The sun rose higher and the Lydia crept inch by inch towards her enemy.

56“Natividad’s hoisting out a boat, sir,” hailed Knyvett from the foretop.

57“How many oars?”

58“Twelve, sir, I think. They’re taking the ship in tow.”

59“And they’re welcome,” scoffed Bush. “Twelve oars won’t move that old tub of a Natividad very far.”

60Hornblower glared at him and Bush retired to his own side of the quarterdeck again; he had forgotten his captain was in this unconversational mood. Hornblower was fretting himself into a fever. He stood in the glaring sun while the heat was reflected up into his face from the deck under his feet. His shirt chafed him where he sweated. He felt caged, like a captive beast, within the limitations of practical details. The endless clanking of the pumps, the rolling of the ship, the rattle of the rigging, the noise of the oars in the rowlocks, were driving him mad, as though he could scream (or weep) at the slightest additional provocation.

61At noon he changed the men at the oars and pumps, and sent the crew to dinner—he remembered bitterly that he had already made them breakfast in anticipation of immediate action. At two bells he began to wonder whether the Natividad might be within extreme long range, but the mere fact of wondering told him that it was not the case—he knew his own sanguine temperament too well, and he fought down the temptation to waste powder and shot. And then, as he looked for the thousandth time through his telescope, he suddenly saw a disc of white appear on the high stern of the Natividad. The disc spread and expanded into a thin cloud, and six seconds after its first appearance the dull thud of the shot reached his ears. The Natividad was evidently willing to try the range.

62“Natividad carries two long eighteens aft on the quarterdeck,” said Gerard to Bush in Hornblower’s hearing. “Heavy metal for stern chasers.”

63Hornblower knew it already. He would have to run the gauntlet of those two guns for an hour, possibly, before he could bring the brass nine-pounder on his forecastle into action. Another puff of smoke from the Natividad, and this time Hornblower saw a spout of water rise from the breast of a wave half a mile ahead. But at that long range and on that tossing sea it did not mean that the Lydia was still half a mile beyond the Natividad’s reach. Hornblower heard the next shot arrive, and saw a brief fountain of water rise no more than fifty yards from the Lydia’s starboard quarter.

64“Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Send for Mr. Marsh and see what he can do with the long nine forward.”

65It would cheer the men up to have a gun banging away occasionally instead of being merely shot at without making any reply. Marsh came waddling up from the darkness of the magazine, and blinked in the blinding sunshine. He shook his head doubtfully as he eyed the distance between the ships, but he had the gun cleared away, and he loaded it with his own hands, lovingly. He measured out the powder charge on the fullest scale, and he spent several seconds selecting the roundest and truest shot from the locker. He trained the gun with care, and then stood aside, lanyard in hand, watching the heave of the ship and the send of the bows, while a dozen telescopes were trained on the Natividad and every eye watched for the fall of the shot. Suddenly he jerked the lanyard and the cannon roared out, its report sounding flat in the heated motionless air.

66“Two cables’ lengths astern of her!” yelled Knyvett from the foretop. Hornblower had missed the splash—another proof, to his mind, of his own incompetence, but he concealed the fact under a mask of imperturbability.

67“Try again, Mr. Marsh,” he said.

68The Natividad was firing both stern chasers together now. As Hornblower spoke there came a crash forward as one of the eighteen-pounder balls struck home close above the water line. Hornblower could hear young Savage, down in the launch, hurling shrill blasphemies at the men at the oars to urge them on—that shot must have passed just over his head. Marsh stroked his beard and addressed himself to the task of reloading the long nine-pounder. While he was so engaged, Hornblower was deep in the calculation of the chances of battle.

69That long nine, although of smaller calibre, was of longer range than his shorter main deck guns, while the carronades which comprised half of the Lydia’s armament were useless at anything longer than close range. The Lydia would have to draw up close to her enemy before she could attack her with effect. There would be a long and damaging interval between the moment when the Natividad should be able to bring all her guns into action and the moment when the Lydia could hit back at her. There would be casualties, guns dismounted perhaps, serious losses. Hornblower balanced the arguments for and against continuing to try and close with the enemy while Mr. Marsh was squinting along the sights of the nine-pounder. Then Hornblower scowled to himself, and ceased tugging at his chin, his mind made up. He had started the action; he would go through it to the end, cost what it might. His flexibility of mind could crystallise into sullen obstinacy.

70The nine-pounder went off as though to signal this decision.

71“Just alongside her!” screamed Knyvett triumphantly from the foretop.

72“Well done, Mr. Marsh,” said Hornblower, and Marsh wagged his beard complacently.

73The Natividad was firing faster now. Three times a splintering crash told of a shot which had been aimed true. Then suddenly a thrust as if from an invisible hand made Hornblower reel on the quarterdeck, and his ears were filled with a brief rending noise. A skimming shot had ploughed a channel along the planking of the quarterdeck. A marine was sitting near the taffrail stupidly contemplating his left leg, which no longer had a foot on the end of it; another marine dropped his musket with a clatter and clapped his hands to his face, which a splinter had torn open, with blood spouting between his fingers.

74“Are you hurt, sir?” cried Bush, leaping across to Hornblower.

75“No.”

76Hornblower turned back to stare through his glass at the Natividad while the wounded were being dragged away. He saw a dark dot appear alongside the Natividad, and lengthen and diverge. It was the boat with which they had been trying to tow—perhaps they were giving up the attempt. But the boat was not being hoisted in. For a second Hornblower was puzzled. The Natividad’s stumpy foremast and mainmast came into view. The boat was pulling the ship laboriously round so that her whole broadside would bear. Not two, but twenty five guns would soon be opening their fire on the Lydia.

77Hornblower felt his breath come a little quicker, unexpectedly, so that he had to swallow in order to regulate things again. His pulse was faster, too. He made himself keep the glass to his eye until he was certain of the enemy’s manœuvre, and then walked forward leisurely to the gangway. He was compelling himself to appear light-hearted and carefree; he knew that the fools of men whom he commanded would fight more diligently for a captain like that.

78“They’re waiting for us now, lads,” he said. “We shall have some pebbles about our ears before long. Let’s show ’em that Englishmen don’t care.”

79They cheered him for that, as he expected and hoped they would do. He looked through his glass again at the Natividad. She was still turning, very slowly—it was a lengthy process to turn a clumsy two-decker in a dead calm. But her three masts were fully separate from each other now, and he could see a hint of the broad white stripes which ornamented her side.

80“Ha—h’m,” he said.

81Forward he could hear the oars grinding away as the men in the boats laboured to drag the Lydia to grips with her enemy. Across the deck a little group of officers—Bush and Crystal among them—were academically discussing what percentage of hits might be expected from a Spanish broadside at a range of a mile. They were cold-blooded about it in a fashion he could never hope to imitate with sincerity. He did not fear death so much—not nearly as much—as defeat and the pitying contempt of his colleagues. The chiefest dread at the back of his mind was the fear of mutilation. An ex-naval officer stumping about on two wooden legs might be an object of condolence, might receive lip service as one of Britain’s heroic defenders, but he was a figure of fun nevertheless. Hornblower dreaded the thought of being a figure of fun. He might lose his nose or his cheek and be so mutilated that people would not be able to bear to look at him. It was a horrible thought which set him shuddering while he looked through the telescope, so horrible that he did not stop to think of the associated details, of the agonies he would have to bear down there in the dark cockpit at the mercy of Laurie’s incompetence.

82The Natividad was suddenly engulfed in smoke, and some seconds later the air and the water around the Lydia, and the ship herself, were torn by the hurtling broadside.

83“Not more than two hits,” said Bush, gleefully.

84“Just what I said,” said Crystal. “That captain of theirs ought to go round and train every gun himself.”

85“How do you know he did not?” argued Bush.

86As punctuation the nine-pounder forward banged out its defiance. Hornblower fancied that his straining eyes saw splinters fly amidships of the Natividad, unlikely though it was at that distance.

87“Well aimed, Mr. Marsh!” he called. “You hit him squarely.”

88Another broadside came from the Natividad, and another followed it, and another after that. Time after time the Lydia’s decks were swept from end to end with shot. There were dead men laid out again on the deck, and the groaning wounded were dragged below.

89“It is obvious to anyone of a mathematical turn of mind,” said Crystal, “that those guns are all laid by different hands. The shots are too scattered for it to be otherwise.”

90“Nonsense!” maintained Bush sturdily. “See how long it is between broadsides. Time enough for one man to train each gun. What would they be doing in that time otherwise?”

91“A Dago crew——” began Crystal, but a sudden shriek of cannon balls over his head silenced him for a moment.

92“Mr. Galbraith!” shouted Bush. “Have that main t’gallant stay spliced directly.” Then he turned triumphantly on Crystal. “Did you notice,” he asked, “how every shot from that broadside went high? How does the mathematical mind explain that?”

93“They fired on the upward roll, Mr. Bush. Really, Mr. Bush, I think that after Trafalgar——”

94Hornblower longed to order them to cease the argument which was lacerating his nerves, but he could not be such a tyrant as that.

95In the still air the smoke from the Natividad’s firing had banked up round about her so that she showed ghostly through the cloud, her solitary mizzen topmast protruding above it into the clear air.

96“Mr. Bush,” he asked, “at what distance do you think she is now?”

97Bush gauged the distance carefully.

98“Three parts of a mile, I should say, sir.”

99“Two thirds, more likely, sir,” said Crystal.

100“Your opinion was not asked, Mr. Crystal,” snapped Hornblower.

101At three-quarters of a mile, even at two thirds, the Lydia’s carronades would be ineffective. She must continue running the gauntlet. Bush was evidently of the same opinion, to judge by his next orders.

102“Time for the men at the oars to be relieved,” he said, and went forward to attend to it. Hornblower heard him bustling the new crews down into the boats, anxious that the pulling should be resumed before the Lydia had time to lose what little way she carried.

103It was terribly hot under the blazing sun, even though it was now long past noon. The smell of the blood which had been spilt on the decks mingled with the smell of the hot deck seams and of the powder smoke from the nine-pounder with which Marsh was still steadily bombarding the enemy. Hornblower felt sick—so sick that he began to fear lest he should disgrace himself eternally by vomiting in full view of his men. When fatigue and anxiety had weakened him thus he was far more conscious of the pitching and rolling of the ship under his feet. The men at the guns were silent now, he noticed—for long they had laughed and joked at their posts, but now they were beginning to sulk under the punishment. That was a bad sign.

104“Pass the word for Sullivan and his fiddle,” he ordered.

105The red-haired Irish madman came aft, and knuckled his forehead, his fiddle and bow under his arm.

106“Give us a tune, Sullivan,” he ordered. “Hey there, men, who is there among you who dances the best hornpipe?”

107There was a difference of opinion about that apparently.

108“Benskin, sir,” said some voices.

109“Hall, sir,” said others.

110“No, MacEvoy, sir.”

111“Then we’ll have a tournament,” said Hornblower. “Here, Benskin, Hall, MacEvoy. A hornpipe from each of you, and a guinea for the man who does it best.”

112In later years it was a tale told and retold, how the Lydia towed into action with hornpipes being danced on her main deck. It was quoted as an example of Hornblower’s cool courage, and only Hornblower knew how little truth there was in the attribution. It kept the men happy, which was why he did it. No one guessed how nearly he came to vomiting when a shot came in through a forward gunport and spattered Hall with a seaman’s brains without causing him to miss a step.

113Then later in that dreadful afternoon there came a crash from forward, followed by a chorus of shouts and screams overside.

114“Launch sunk, sir!” hailed Galbraith from the forecastle, but Hornblower was there as soon as he had uttered the words.

115A roundshot had dashed the launch practically into its component planks, and the men were scrambling in the water, leaping up for the bobstay or struggling to climb into the cutter, all of them who survived wild with the fear of sharks.

116“The Dagoes have saved us the trouble of hoisting her in,” he said, loudly. “We’re close enough now for them to feel our teeth.”

117The men who heard him cheered.

118“Mr. Hooker!” he called to the midshipman in the cutter. “When you have picked up those men, kindly starboard your helm. We are going to open fire.”

119He came aft to the quarterdeck again.

120“Hard a-starboard,” he growled at the quartermaster. “Mr. Gerard, you may open fire when your guns bear.”

121Very slowly the Lydia swung round. Another broadside from the Natividad came crashing into her before she had completed the turn, but Hornblower actually did not notice it. The period of inaction was over now. He had brought his ship within four hundred yards of the enemy, and all his duty now was to walk the deck as an example to his men. There were no more decisions to make.

122“Cock your locks!” shouted Gerard in the waist.

123“Easy, Mr. Hooker. Way enough!” roared Hornblower.

124The Lydia turned, inch by inch, with Gerard squinting along one of the starboard guns to judge of the moment when it would first bear.

125“Take your aim!” he yelled, and stood back, timing the roll of the ship in the heavy swell. “Fire!”

126The smoke billowed out amid the thunder of the discharge, and the Lydia heaved to the recoil of the guns.

127“Give him another, lads!” shouted Hornblower through the din. Now that action was joined he found himself exalted and happy, the dreadful fears of mutilation forgotten. In thirty seconds the guns were reloaded, run out, and fired. Again and again and again, with Gerard watching the roll of the ship and giving the word. Counting back in his mind, Hornblower reckoned five broadsides from the Lydia, and he could only remember two from the Natividad in that time. At that rate of firing the Natividad’s superiority in numbers of guns and weight of metal would be more than counterbalanced. At the sixth broadside a gun went off prematurely, a second before Gerard gave the word. Hornblower sprang forward to detect the guilty crew—it was easy enough from their furtive look and suspicious appearance of busyness. He shook his finger at them.

128“Steady, there!” he shouted. “I’ll flog the next man who fires out of turn.”

129It was very necessary to keep the men in hand while the range was as long as at present, because in the heat and excitement of the action the gun captains could not be trusted to judge the motion of the ship while preoccupied with loading and laying.

130“Good old Horny!” piped up some unknown voice forward, and there was a burst of laughter and cheering, cut short by Gerard’s next order to fire.

131The smoke was banked thick about the ship already—as thick as a London fog, so that from the quarterdeck it was impossible to see individuals on the forecastle, and in the unnatural darkness which it brought with it one could see the long orange flashes of the guns despite the vivid sunshine outside. Of the Natividad all that could be seen was her high smoke cloud and the single topmast jutting out from it. The thick smoke, trailing about the ship in greasy wreaths, made the eyes smart and irritated the lungs, and affected the skin like thundery weather until it pricked uncomfortably.

132Hornblower found Bush beside him.

133“Natividad’s feeling our fire, sir,” he roared through the racket. “She’s firing very wild. Look at that, sir.”

134Of the broadside fired only one or two shots struck home. Half a dozen plunged together into the sea astern of the Lydia so that the spray from the fountains which they struck up splashed round them on the quarterdeck. Hornblower nodded happily. This was his justification for closing to that range and for running the risks involved in the approach. To maintain a rapid fire, well aimed, amid the din and the smoke and the losses and the confusion of a naval battle called for discipline and practice of a sort that he knew the Natividad’s crew could not boast.

135He looked down through the smoke at the Lydia’s main deck. The inexperienced eye, observing the hurry and bustle of the boys with the cartridge buckets, the mad efforts of the gun crews, the dead and the wounded, the darkness and the din, might well think it a scene of confusion, but Hornblower knew better. Everything that was being done there, every single action, was part of the scheme worked out by Hornblower seven months before when he commissioned the Lydia, and grained into the minds of all on board during the long and painful drills since. He could see Gerard standing by the mainmast, looking almost saintly in his ecstasy—gunnery was as much Gerard’s ruling passion as women; he could see the midshipmen and other warrant officers each by his sub-division of guns, each looking to Gerard for his orders and keeping his guns working rhythmically, the loaders with their rammers, the cleaners with their sponges, the gun captains crouching over the breeches, right hands raised.

136The port side battery was already depleted of most of its men; there were only two men to a gun there, standing idle yet ready to spring into action if a shift of the fight should bring their guns to bear. The remainder were on duty round the ship—replacing casualties on the starboard side, manning the pumps whose doleful clanking continued steadily through the fearful din, resting on their oars in the cutter, hard at work aloft repairing damages. Hornblower found time to be thankful that he had been granted seven months in which to bring his crew into its present state of training and discipline.

137Something—the concussion of the guns, a faint breath of air, or the send of the sea—was causing the Lydia to turn away a trifle from her enemy. Hornblower could see that the guns were having to be trained round farther and farther so that the rate of firing was being slowed down. He raced forward, running out along the bowsprit until he was over the cutter where Hooker and his men sat staring at the fight.

138“Mr. Hooker, bring her head round two points to starboard.”

139“Aye aye, sir.”

140The men bent to their oars and headed their boat towards the Natividad; the towrope tightened while another badly aimed broadside tore the water all round them into foam. Tugging and straining at the oars they would work the ship round in time. Hornblower left them and ran back to the quarterdeck. There was a white-faced ship’s boy seeking him there.

141“Mr. Howell sent me, sir. Starboard side chain pump’s knocked all to pieces.”

142“Yes?” Hornblower knew that Howell the ship’s carpenter would not merely send a message of despair.

143“He’s rigging another one, sir, but it will be an hour before it works, sir. He told me to tell you the water’s gaining a little, sir.”

144“Ha—h’m,” said Hornblower. The infant addressing him grew round-eyed and confidential now that the first strangeness of speaking to his captain had worn off.

145“There was fourteen men all knocked into smash at the pump, sir. ’Orrible, sir.”

146“Very good. Run back to Mr. Howell and tell him the captain is sure he will do his best to get the new pump rigged.”

147“Aye aye, sir.”

148The boy dived down to the main deck, and Hornblower watched him running forward, dodging the hurrying individuals in the crowded space there. He had to explain himself to the marine sentry at the fore hatchway—no one could go below without being able to show that it was his duty which was calling him there. Hornblower felt as if the message Howell had sent did not matter at all. It called for no decision on his part. All there was to do was to go on fighting, whether the ship was sinking under their feet or not. There was a comfort in being free of all responsibility in this way.

149“One hour and a half already,” said Bush, coming up rubbing his hands. “Glorious, sir. Glorious.”

150It might have been no more than ten minutes for all Hornblower could tell, but Bush had in duty bound been watching the sand glass by the binnacle.

151“I’ve never known Dagoes stick to their guns like this before,” commented Bush. “Their aim’s poor, but they’re firing as fast as ever. And it’s my belief we’ve hit them hard, sir.”

152He tried to look through the eddying smoke, even fanning ridiculously with his hands in the attempt—a gesture which, by showing that he was not quite as calm as he appeared to be, gave Hornblower an absurd pleasure. Crystal came up as well as he spoke.

153“The smoke’s thinning a little, sir. It’s my belief that there’s a light air of wind blowing.”

154He held up a wetted finger.

155“There is indeed, sir. A trifle of breeze over the port quarter. Ah!”

156There came a stronger puff as he spoke, which rolled away the smoke in a solid mass over the starboard bow and revealed the scene as if a theatre curtain had been raised. There was the Natividad, looking like a wreck. Her jury foremast had gone the way of its predecessor, and her mainmast had followed it. Only her mizzenmast stood now, and she was rolling wildly in the swell with a huge tangle of rigging trailing over her disengaged side. Abreast her foremast three ports had been battered into one; the gap looked like a missing tooth.

157“She’s low in the water,” said Bush, but on the instant a fresh broadside vomited smoke from her battered side, and this time by some chance every shot told in the Lydia, as the crash below well indicated. The smoke billowed round the Natividad, and as it cleared the watchers saw her swinging round head to wind, helpless in the light air. The Lydia had felt the breeze. Hornblower could tell by the feel of her that she had steerage way again; the quartermaster at the wheel was twirling the spokes to hold her steady. He saw his chance on the instant.

158“Starboard a point,” he ordered. “Forward, there! Cast off the cutter.”