Hornblower 05 - Hornblower and the Atropos (13 page)

Here was the lighter with the shot, coming along the starboard side. Hornblower looked down into it. Nine-pounder balls for the four long guns, two forward and two aft; twelve-pounder balls for the eighteen carronades that constituted the ship's main armament. The twenty tons of iron made a pathetically small mass lying in the bottom of the lighter, when regarded with the eye of a man who had served in a ship of the line; the old Renown would have discharged that weight of shot in a couple of hours' fighting. But this dead weight was a very considerable proportion of the load Atropos had to carry. Half of it would be distributed fairly evenly along the ship in the shot-garlands; where he decided to stow the other ten tons would make all the difference to Atropos, could add a knot to her speed or reduce it by a knot, could make her stiff in a breeze or crank, handy or awkward under sail. He could not reach a decision about that until the rest of the stores were on board and he had had an opportunity of observing her trim. Hornblower ran a keen eye over the nets in which the shot were to be swayed up at the starboard fore-yardarm, and went back through his mind in search of the data stored away there regarding the breaking strain of Manila line — this, he could tell, had been several years in service.

“Sixteen rounds to the load,” he called down into the lighter, “no more.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

It was typical of Hornblower's mind that it should spend a moment or two thinking about the effect that would be produced if one of those nets was to give way; the shot would pour down into the lighter again; falling from the height of the yardarm they could go clear through the bottom of the lighter; with all that deadweight on board, the lighter would sink like a stone, there on the edge of the fairway, to be an intolerable nuisance to London's shipping until divers had painfully cleared the sunken wreck of the shot, and camels had lifted the wreck clear of the channel. The vast shipping of the Port of London could be seriously impeded as a result of a momentary inattention regarding the condition of a cargo net.

Jones was hastening across the deck to touch his hat to him.

“The last of the powder's just coming aboard, sir.”

“Thank you. Mr. Jones. Have the hulk warped back to her moorings. Mr. Owen can send the powder boys here to put the shot in the garlands as they come on board.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

And the gig was coming back across the river with Carslake sitting in the stern.

“Well, Mr. Carslake, how did the Victualling Yard receive those indents?”

“They've accepted them, sir. They'll have the stores on the quayside tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Didn't you listen to my orders, Mr. Carslake? I don't want to have to put a black mark against your name. Mr. Jones! I'm going over to the Victualling Yard. Come back with me, Mr. Carslake.”

The Victualling Yard was a department of the Navy Office, not of the Admiralty. The officials there had to be approached differently from those of the dockyard. One might almost think the two organizations were rivals, instead of working to a common patriotic end against a deadly enemy.

“I can bring my own men to do the work,” said Hornblower. “You needn't use your own gangs at all.”

“M'm,” said the victualling superintendent.

“I'll move everything to the quayside myself, besides lightering it over.”

“M'm,” said the victualling superintendent again, a trifle more receptively.

“I would be most deeply obliged to you,” went on Hornblower. “You need only instruct one of your clerks to point out the stores to the officer in command of my working party. Everything else will be attended to. I beg of you, sir.”

It was highly gratifying to a Navy Office official to have a captain, metaphorically, on his knees to him, in this fashion. Equally gratifying was the thought that the Navy would do all the work, with a great saving of time-tallies to the Victualling Yard. Hornblower could see the satisfaction in the fellow's fat face. He wanted to wipe it off with his fist, but he kept himself humble. It did him no harm, and by this means he was bending the fellow to his will as surely as if he was using threats.

“There's the matter of those stores you have condemned,” said the superintendent.

“My court of inquiry was in due form,” said Hornblower.

“Yes,” said the superintendent thoughtfully.

“Of course I can return you the hogsheads,” suggested Hornblower. “I was intending to do so, as soon as I had emptied the beef over into the tide.”

“No, please do not go to that trouble. Return me the full hogsheads.”

The working of the minds of these government Jacks-in-office was beyond normal understanding. Hornblower could not believe — although it was just possible — that the superintendent had any personal financial interest in the matter of those condemned stores. But the fact that the condemnation had taken place presumably was a blot on his record, or on the record of the yard. If the hogsheads were returned to them no mention of the condemnation need be made officially, and presumably they could be palmed off again on some other ship — some ship that might go to sea without the opportunity of sampling the stuff first. Sailors fighting for their country might starve as long as the Victualling Yard's records were unsmirched.

“I'll return the full hogsheads gladly, sir,” said Hornblower. “I'll send them over to you in the lighter that brings the other stores over.”

“That might do very well,” said the superintendent.

“I am delighted, and, as I said, intensely obliged to you, sir. I'll have my launch over here with a working party in ten minutes.”

Hornblower bowed with all the unction he could command; this was not the moment to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar. He bowed himself out before the discussion could be reopened. But the superintendent's last words were:

“Remember to return those hogsheads, captain.”

The powder hulk had been warped back to her moorings; the other ordnance stores that were being taken on board seemed trifling in appearance, bundles of wads, and bales of empty serge cartridges, a couple of sheaves of flexible rammers, spare gun trucks, reels of slow-match — the multifarious accessories necessary to keep twenty-two guns in action. Hornblower sent off Midshipman Smiley with the working party promised to the Victualling Yard.

“Now I'll have those condemned hogsheads got up on deck, Mr. Carslake. I must keep my promise to return them.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Carslake.

Carslake was a bull-headed, youngish man with expressionless pale-blue eyes. Those eyes were even more expressionless than usual. He had been a witness of the interview between Hornblower and the superintendent, and he did not allow his feelings to show. He could not guess whether as a purser he thoroughly approved of saving the stores to be fobbed off on another ship or whether as a sailor certain to endure privations at sea he despised Hornblower's weakness in agreeing to the superintendent's demands.

“I'll mark 'em before I return 'em,” said Hornblower.

He had thought of paint when he had been so accommodating towards the superintendent, but was not quite happy in his mind about it, for turpentine would remove paint fast enough. A better idea occurred to him, marvellously, at that very moment.

“Have the cook relight the fire in the galley,” he ordered. “I'll have — I'll have a couple of iron musket ramrods heated in the fire. Get them from the armourer, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir. If you please sir, it's long past the hands' dinner-time.”

“When I've time for my own dinner the hands can have theirs,” said Hornblower.

He was glad that the deck was crowded so that those words of his could be overheard, for he had had the question of the men's dinnertime in his mind for some time although he was quite resolved not to waste a moment over it.

The first of the condemned hogsheads came creaking and swaying up from the hold and was lowered to the deck. Hornblower looked round him; there was Horrocks with the young prince, quite bewildered with all the continuous bustles trailing after him.

“You'll do, Mr. Horrocks. Come here,” said Hornblower. He took the chalk from beside the slate at the binnacle; and wrote with it, in large letters diagonally round the hogshead, the word “CONDEMNED”. “There are two irons heating in the galley fire. You and Mr. Prince can spend your time branding these hogsheads. Trace out those letters on every one. Understand?”

“Er — yes, sir.”

“Good and deep, so there is no chance of planing it off. Look sharp about it.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The next lighter for the Dockyard was alongside now, at the port side recently vacated by the powder hulk. It was full of boatswain's stores, cordage, canvas, paint; and a weary party of men were at work swaying the bundles up. There seemed no end to this business of getting Atropos fully equipped for sea. Hornblower himself felt as leg-weary as a foundered horse, and he stiffened himself up to conceal his fatigue. But as he looked across the river he could see the Victualling Yard's lighter already emerging from the Creek. Smiley had his men at work on the sweeps, straining to row the ponderous thing across the ebbing tide.

Prom the quarterdeck he could see the lighter was crammed with the hogsheads and kegs and biscuit bags. Soon Atropos would be full-gorged. And the acrid smell of the red-hot irons burning into the brine-soaked staves of the condemned hogsheads came to his nostrils. No ship would ever accept those stores. It was a queer duty for a Serene Highness to be employed upon. How had those orders read? “You will employ your diligence in instructing His Serene Highness in his new profession.” Well, perhaps it was not a bad introduction to the methods of fighting men and civilian employees.

Later — ever so much later, it seemed — Mr. Jones came up and touched his hat.

“The last of the stores are on board, sir,” he said. “Mr. Smiley's just returning the Victualling Yard's lighter.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones. Call away my gig, please.”

Hornblower stepped down into the boat conscious of many weary eyes on him. The winter afternoon was dissolving in a cold and gloomy drizzle as a small rain was beginning to fall. Hornblower had himself rowed round his ship at a convenient distance to observe her trim. He looked at her from ahead, from broadside on, from astern. In his mind's eye he was visualizing her underwater lines. He looked up at the spread of her lower yards; the wind would be pressing against the canvas there, and he worked out the balance of the forces involved, wind against lateral resistance, rudder versus headsails. He had to consider seaworthiness and handiness as well as speed. He climbed back on deck to where Jones was awaiting him.

“I want her more down by the head,” he announced. “I'll have those beef casks at the for'rard end of the tier, and the shot for'rard of the magazine. Get the hands to work, if you please.”

Once more the pipes shrilled through the ship as the hands began to move the stores ranged upon the deck. It was with anxiety that Hornblower's return was awaited from his next pull round the ship.

“She'll do for the present,” said Hornblower.

It was not a casual decision, no stage-effect. The moment Atropos should clear the land she would be in danger, she might find herself in instant action. She was only a little ship; even a well found privateer might give her a hard battle. To overtake in pursuit; to escape in flight; to handle quickly when manoeuvring for position in action; to claw off to windward should she be caught on a lee shore; she must be capable of all this, and she must be capable of it today, for tomorrow, even tomorrow, might be too late. The lives of his crew, his own life, his professional reputation, could hang on that decision.

“You can strike everything below now, Mr. Jones.”

Slowly the littered decks began to clear, while the rain grew heavier and the night began to close in round the little ship. The tiers of great casks, down against the skin of the ship, were squeezed and wedged into position; the contents of the hold had to be jammed into a solid mass, for once at sea Atropos would roll and pitch, and nothing must budge, nothing must shift, lest the fabric of the ship be damaged or even perhaps the ship might be rolled completely over by the movement of an avalanche of her cargo. The Navy still thought of Sir Edward Berry as the officer who, when captain of Nelson's own Vanguard, allowed the masts of his ship to be rolled clear out of her in a moderate gale of wind off Sardinia.

Hornblower stood aft by the taffrail while the rain streamed down on him. He had not gone below; this might be part of the penance he was inflicting on himself for not having sufficiently supervised the management of his ship.

“The decks are cleared, sir,” said Jones, looming up in the wet darkness before him.

“Very well, Mr. Jones. When everything is swabbed down the men can have their dinners.”

The little cabin down below was cold and dark and cheerless. Two canvas chairs and a trestle-table stood in the day cabin; in the night cabin there was nothing at all. The oil lamp shone gloomily over the bare planks of the deck under his feet. Hornblower could call for his gig again; it would whisk him fast enough half a mile downstream to Deptford Hard, and there at the “George” were his wife and his children. There would be a roaring fire of sea coal, a spluttering beef steak with cabbage, a feather bed with the sheets made almost too hot to bear by the application of a warming pan. His chilled body and aching legs yearned inexpressibly for that care and warmth. But in his present mood he would have none of them. Instead he dined, shivering, off ship's fare hastily laid out for him on the trestle-table. He had a hammock slung for himself in the night cabin, and he climbed into it and wrapped himself in clammy blankets. He had not lain in a hammock since he was a midshipman, and his spine had grown unused to the necessary curvature. He was too numb, both mentally and physically, to feel any glow of conscious virtue.

Hornblower and the “Atropos”

Fog in the Downs, cold, dense, and impenetrable over the surface of the sea. There was no breath of air to set it stirring; overside the surface of the sea, just visible when Hornblower looked down at it from the deck, was black and glassy. Only close against the side could be detected the faintest of ripples, showing how the tide was coursing beside the ship as she lay anchored in the Downs. Condensing on the rigging overhead the fog dripped in melancholy fashion on to the deck about him, an occasional drop landing with a dull impact on his cocked hat; the heavy frieze pea-jacket that he wore looked as if it were frosted with the moisture that hung upon it. Yet it was not freezing weather, although Hornblower felt chilled through and through inside his layers of clothing as he turned back from his gloomy contemplation of the sea.