The Victory (53 page)

The
Cetus
was not out of danger herself: she was making
water through the shot hole below the water-line, and the
heavy seas were also coming in through the smashed lower-deck gunports. During the morning the main topsail, which
was full of shot-holes, split and was torn to ribbons by the
wind before it could be got in, and the sudden loss of it broke
away the jury topmast. The topmen worked for hours in the
reeling, heaving tops, rigging a main-topgallant-yard in its
place. The mizzen-mast, which Haworth worried about
constantly, seemed fit to carry nothing more than a scrap of
sail, simply to take some of the strain off the men at the
wheel.

When Tyler took over from him, Haworth went below and
tried to rest, knowing that it was necessary for the safety of
the ship, but anxiety made it difficult, and the injury to his
back now throbbed all the time, and he could find no position
that eased it. Down below, he knew, the injured were suffer
ing horribly in the heaving ship. Those lying on the deck were rolled helplessly back and forth by the motion, and even those
lashed in hammocks were bumped agonisingly against each
other or the bulkheads, bursting their stitches and making
their wounds bleed afresh. Many who had undergone amput
ation did not survive: being thrown about broke the artery
ligatures and they quickly bled to death.

Every time he went on deck, there was some new trouble to
be reported. The
Fougeux
suffered the same fate as the
Furie
ux,
broken adrift from her escort and driven down on to the
shore with the loss of all those on board. Two other prizes, the
Bucentaure
and the
Algeciras,
also parted company with the
ships towing them, and a little later the tricolor was rehoisted
in both of them. Evidently the Frenchmen on board had
taken the opportunity to overpower the prize crews, or to persuade them to yield in the interests of saving the ship.
They managed to get themselves under sail, and headed for
Cadiz and were soon lost to sight. No-one could be spared to
try to retake them.

During the afternoon the wind moderated a little, and five
enemy ships and a handful of frigates, which had escaped
intact from the battle, put out from Cadiz, despite the terrible
weather, and came down on the fleet to try to retake some of
the prizes. Collingwood ordered the able ships to cast off their
tows and form line of battle. Haworth brought
Cetus
before
the wind and took his place with the others, beating to
quarters as they stood towards the enemy. Seeing themselves
outnumbered, the French yielded and returned to Cadiz, but
the manoeuvre had not been without value to them: their
frigates had been able to retake two of the prizes, and were
escorting them back towards Cadiz. The prospective prize-
money was shrinking before the English captains' eyes, for
those who had time and energy to consider the matter.

The respite from the wind was as brief as it was partial.
Towards dusk it rose again, higher than ever, shrieking
through the rigging and piling up mountainous seas which
broke against the ships and sometimes washed over the decks.
It seemed Providence had no pity on the victors of a great sea-
battle; and for the third night the weary, disheartened fleet
prepared to face the same exhausting hazards of wind and
weather and lee shore.

*

Haworth struggled up froin blackness into lamplight with the
greatest reluctance. He seemed to have been asleep only
minutes. Who was this waking him, shaking his shoulder now,
since his eyes and lips would not obey his weary brain?

‘Sir. Captain, sir.’

It was Morpurgo. Haworth unglued his eyes a fraction. His
mouth was sticky with sleep. 'What time is it?'

‘Three bells, sir.' He had been asleep an hour and a half.
Oh, not enough! 'Mr Tyler's respects, sir, and the wind's
freshening, and would you come on deck, sir?'

‘
Very well,' Haworth said. His legs felt completely numb,
and when he tried to push himself up, the pain of his bruising
seized him like lion's teeth. Morpurgo helped him to his feet
and into his pea-jacket, and he limped up on deck.

The
Cetus
was close-hauled under storm jib and staysails,
leaping in the extravagant sea like a bucking horse. The
hurricane drove the sea towards her in glassy walls, and she set her head into them, her bowsprit carving them into foam
as the water broke over her bows and washed the fo'c'sle
waist-deep. She seemed weighted by the sea, as if she would
never rise, but slowly, slowly she lifted, the water fountaining
out through the scuppers as her bowsprit pointed now at the
invisible sky, corkscrewing as the water passed under her towards her port quarter, lifting her stern and dipping her
head to the next wave.

Dip — roll — lift — roll, she performed her monstrous
dance, while every timber in the ship groaned with her
working, as the tremendous pressure of wind and water bent
her this way and that like giant hands. And all the time the
wind shrieked in the rigging in twenty different pitches, like
the demented voices of demons, and the mizzen-mast
groaned and thudded with an irregular, unnatural sound.

‘
I don't like the feel of her, sir,' Tyler yelled, bringing his
mouth close to Haworth's ear so that he could hear him in the
din. The wind was hurling hatfuls of icy water over them,
breaking it into needle-fine spray against the standing
rigging. 'She feels sluggish to me; and there's something else.
I don't know what it is, but she doesn't feel right.'

‘Have you sounded the well?' Haworth yelled back.

‘
Yes sir. We're still making water. I've got the pumps going
all the time, but one of the larboard ones was knocked to
pieces in the battle, and the water's gaining. I wish we could
heave to.’

Heaving-to would ease the working of the timbers, and let
in less water; but with Cape Trafalgar dead to leeward, they
dare not risk it.

‘
If you want to wish, don't stop halfway: wish we had three
good masts,' Haworth shouted.

‘Pardon, sir?’

Haworth shook his head, and turned to speak to the
quartermaster. There were four men at the wheel now, and it
was all they could do to hold it.

‘
How does she feel to you?' he yelled, but before the man
could answer, Tyler grabbed his arm hard.

‘There, sir! Did you hear that?’

They listened tensely for the one sound in the storm's
cacophany which had struck an unnatural chord. It was a
strange sort of creaking, muted, but ugly.

‘It came from below decks,' Haworth decided.

‘There it is again!' Tyler yelled. 'I don't like it, sir.'

‘
You'd better investigate, Mr Tyler. Take Morpurgo with
you. I'll take over here.'

‘Aye aye, sir.’

It seemed a long wait on deck. The darkness lifted a little at
one point as the clouds parted for a moment, enough for
Haworth to see another sail not far from him up to windward.
It was a frigate — he thought it was the
Nemesis —
and the
sight comforted him a little before the cloud closed over
again. He strained his eyes into the darkness. Now he knew
where she was, he thought he could still see a glimmer of her,
just a faint greyness in the blackness.

‘Captain!’

Here came Tyler and Morpurgo, struggling up the sloping
deck towards him. The water streamed down Tyler's face like
tears; his face was set and white.

‘
That noise sir — it's the main mast. It's cracked nearly
right through below decks, between the orlop and the lower
deck, sir.'

‘Good God!'

‘
It must have happened when the mizzen-mast went, sir.
We'll have to heave to, and take the strain off it, sir, or it'll
snap. You can see the crack widening every time she rolls.'

‘Is it possible to repair it?'

‘
Well, sir, it's a diagonal crack, so we might whip it, sir,
with rope and a couple of yards — sort of splint it, sir. I don't
know if it'll hold.'

‘
It'll have to. Very well, Mr Tyler, we'll heave to while you
do that.’

Tyler gave the order, and the boatswains calls began to
shrill.

‘All hands! All hands to shorten sail!’

But the weary men had not even reached their posts when
the wind gusted demoniacally, laying them over, and with a
sound like the end of the world, the main mast sagged
forward, and the mizzen-mast snapped its moorings and fell
too. The
Cetus
was thrown violently aback; the staysails
exploded, the jib was whipped away in shreds, the larboard
mainstays parked, and she fell off the wind, turning to run
with the sea down to leeward, with the mass of wreckage
hanging over to port.

‘
Mr Morpurgo!' Haworth screamed into the wind. The
Nemesis
is out there somewhere. Hoist the night signal for
314 at the foretop. Clear away one of the bow-chasers, and
keep firing it until she hears us.'

‘Aye aye, sir.’

The main mast was sagging forward and to port, and the
mizzen-mast was resting against its cross-trees. Now they
must face the appallingly difficult task of cutting away the
wreckage so that it fell overboard, and hope that the
Nemesis
would be able to get a line to them and take them in tow
before the wind and sea drove them after their late prize on to
the rocks of the Spanish shore.

*

There was no time for fear, no time for weariness. Now they
were fighting for their lives against their oldest enemy, the sea
itself. The men, weary beyond thought, performed feats of
strength and endurance that would have killed a landman,
their discipline and- -the long months of training standing
them in good stead now, when all their lives depended on
their co-ordinated skill.