Hornblower 05 - Hornblower and the Atropos (25 page)

Now the divers were exhausted, lying doubled up and huddled together beside the bow thwart.

“Very well, Looney,” said Hornblower, and he pointed back to the ship.

Looney gave him a weary nod.

“Up anchor,” ordered Hornblower, and the gig pulled back towards Atropos.

A mile away were visible the lug sails of longboat and launch also on their return journey, coming down with the freshening wind abeam. It seemed to Hornblower as if things could never happen to him one at a time; he had hardly set foot on the deck of the Atropos before they were running alongside, and as the Ceylonese made their weary way forward to report to McCullum here were Carslake and Turner demanding his attention.

“The water casks are refilled, sir,” said Carslake. “I used the little stream that comes in half a mile from the town. I thought that would be better than those in the town.”

“Quite right, Mr. Carslake,” said Hornblower. On account of what he had seen in North Africa, Hornblower agreed with Carslake that a water supply that had not passed through a Turkish town would be preferable.

“What stores did you get?”

“Very little, sir, today, I'm afraid.”

“There was only the local market, sir,” supplemented Turner. “The Mudir has only sent out word today. The goods will be coming in for sale tomorrow.”

“The Mudir?” asked Hornblower. That was the word Turner had used before.

“The head man, sir, the local governor. The old man with the sword who came out to us in the boat yesterday.”

“And he is the Mudir?”

“Yes, sir. The Mudir is under the Kaimakam, and the Kaimakam is under the Vali, and the Vali is under the Grand Vizier, and he's under the Sultan, or at least that's how it's supposed to be — all of 'em try to be independent when they get the chance.”

“I understand that,” said Hornblower.

No one who had given any study at all to the military and naval history of the last few years in the Eastern Mediterranean could be ignorant of the anarchy and disintegration prevailing in the Turkish Empire. What Hornblower wanted to hear about was the effect these were producing locally and today. He turned back to Carslake to listen patiently first to his account of what had been bought and what would be available later.

“I bought all the eggs there were, sir. Two and a half dozen,” said Carslake in the course of his report.

“Good,” said Hornblower, but without any fervour, and that was clear proof that his mind was not on what Carslake was saying. Normally the thought of eggs, boiled, scrambled, or poached, would have excited him. The untoward events at Malta had prevented his buying any there for himself. He had not even laid in a store of pickled eggs at Deptford.

Carslake droned himself to a stop.

“Thank you, Mr. Carslake,” said Hornblower. “Mr. Turner, come below end I'll hear what you have to say.”

Turner had apparently kept his eyes and ears open, as Hornblower had ordered him to.

“The Mudir has no force here at all worth mentioning, sir,” said Turner, his wizened old face animated and lively. “I doubt if he could raise twenty-five armed men all told. He came down with two guards as old as himself.”

“Y'ou spoke with him?”

“Y'es, sir. I gave him — Mr. Carslake and I gave him — ten guineas to open the market for us. Another ten guineas tomorrow, is what we've promised him.”

No, harm in keeping local authority on his side as long as possible, thought Hornblower.

“And was he friendly?” he asked.

“We-ell, sir. I wouldn't say that, not exactly, sir. Maybe it was because he wanted our money. I wouldn't call him friendly, sir.”

He would be reserved and cautious, Hornblower decided, not anxious to commit himself without instructions from superior authority, and yet not averse to pocketing twenty pieces of gold — pickings for an average year, Hornblower guessed — when the opportunity presented itself.

“The Vali's carried off the local army, sir,” went on Turner. “That was plain enough from the way the Mudir talked. But I don't know why, sir. Maybe there's trouble with the Greeks again. There's always trouble in the Archipelago.”

Rebellion was endemic among the Greek subjects of Turkey. Fire and Sword, massacre and desolation, piracy and revolt, swept islands and mainland periodically. And nowadays with French influence penetrating from the Seven Islands, and Russia taking a suspiciously humanitarian interest in the welfare of Turkey's Orthodox subjects, there were fresh sources of trouble and unrest.

“One point's clear, anyway,” said Hornblower, “and that is that the Vali's not here at present.”

“That's so, sir.”

It would take time for a message to reach the Vali, or even the Vali's subordinate, the — the Kaimakam, decided Hornblower, fishing the strange title out of his memory with an effort. The political situation was involved beyond any simple disentanglement. Turkey had been Britain's enthusiastic any recently, when Bonaparte had conquered Egypt and invaded Syria and threatened Constantinople. But Russia and Turkey were chronic enemies — they had fought half a dozen wars in the last half century — and now Russia and England were allies, and Russia and France were enemies, even though since Austerlitz there was no way in which they could attack each other. There could be no doubt in the world that the French ambassador in Constantinople was doing his best to incite Turkey to a fresh war with Russia; no doubt at all that Russia since the days of Catherine the Great was casting covetous eyes on Constantinople and the Dardanelles.

The Greek unrest was an established fact. So was the ambition of the local Turkish governors. The tottering Turkish government would seize any opportunity to play off one possible enemy against the other, and would view with the deepest suspicion — there was even the religious factor to be borne in mind — any British activity amid Turkish possessions. With England and France locked in a death struggle the Turks could hardly be blamed if they suspected England of buying Russia's continued alliance with a promise of a slice of Turkish territory; luckily France, with a far worse record, was liable to be similarly suspected. When the Sultan heard — if ever he did hear — of the presence of a British ship of war in Marmorice Bay, he would wonder what intrigues were brewing with the Vali, and if Sultan or Vali heard that a quarter of a million in gold and silver lay at the bottom of Marmorice Bay it could be taken for granted that none would be salvaged unless the lion's share went into Turkish hands.

There was just no conclusion to be reached after all this debate, except for the one he had reached a week ago, and that was to effect as prompt a recovery of the treasure as possible and to leave the diplomats to argue over a fait accompli. He walked forward to hear from McCullum's lips how much had been learned regarding this possibility.

McCullum had just finished hearing what the divers had reported to him. They were squatting round his cot, with all the attention of their big eyes concentrated on his face, and with all their clothes draped about them until they looked something like beehives.

“She is there,” said McCullum. Apparently he had been quite prepared to find that some gross blunder or other had been committed, either in plotting the original bearings or in the recent sweeping operations.

“I'm glad to hear it,” replied Hornblower, as politely as he could make himself endure these temperamental liberties of an expert and an invalid.

“She's greatly overgrown, except for her copper, but she shows no sign of breaking up at all.”

A wooden ship, fastened together with wooden pegs, and untouched by storm or current, might well lie for ever on a sandy bed without disintegration.

“Did she right herself?” asked Hornblower.

“No. She's nearly bottom up. My men could tell bow from stern.”

“That's fortunate,” said Hornblower.

“Yes.” McCullum referred to some pages of written notes that he held in his free hand. “The money was in the lower lazarette, aft, abaft the mizzen mast and immediately below the main deck. A ton and a half of coined gold in iron chests and nearly four tons of coined silver in bags.”

“Ye-es,” said Hornblower, trying to look as if that exactly agreed with his own calculations.

“The lazarette was given an additional lining of oak to strengthen it before the treasure was put on board,” went on McCullum. “I expect the money's still there.”

“You mean — ?” asked Hornblower, quite at a loss.

“I mean it will not have fallen through the deck on to the sea bottom,” aid McCuUum, condescending to explain to this ignorant amateur.

“Of course,” said Hornblower, hastily.

“Speedwell's main cargo was half the battering train of the army,” went on McCullum. “Ten long eighteen pounders. Bronze guns. And the shot for them. Iron shot.”

“That's why she went down the way she did,” said Hornblower brightly. As he spoke he realized as well the implications of the words “bronze” and “iron” which McCullum had accented. Bronze would endure under water longer than iron.

“Yes,” said McCullum. “As soon as she heeled, guns and shot and all would shift. I'll wager on that, from what I know of first mates in these days. With the war, any jumped-up apprentice is a first mate.”

“I've seen it myself,” said Hornblower, sorrowfully.

“But that's neither here nor there,” went on McCullum. “Looney here says she is still, most of her, above the sand. He could get in under the break of the poop, just.”

From McCullum's significant glance when he made this announcement Hornblower could guess that it was of great importance, but it was hard to see just why this should be.

“Yes?” said Hornblower, tentatively.

“Do you think they can break in through the ship's side with crowbars?” asked McCullum testily. “Five minutes' work on the bottom a day each for three men! We'd be here a year.”

Hornblower suddenly remembered the “leather fuse-hoses” for which McCullum had indented at Malta. He made a hasty guess, despite the fantastic nature of what he had to say.

“You're going to blow up the wreck?” he said.

“Of course. A powder charge in that angle should open the ship at exactly the right place.”

“Naturally,” said Hornblower. He was dimly aware that it was possible to explode charges under water, but his knowledge of the technical methods to be employed was dimmer still.

“We'll try the fuse-hoses first,” announced McCullum. “But I've little hope of them at that depth. The joints can't resist the pressure.”

“I suppose not,” said Hornblower.

“I expect it'd mean a flying fuse in the end,” said McCullum. “These fellows here are always afraid of 'em. But I'll do it.”

The bulky figure of Eisenbeiss loomed up beside the cot. He put one hand on McCullum's forehead and the other on his wrist.

“Take your hands off me!” snarled McCullum. “I'm busy.”

“You must not do too much,” said Eisenbeiss. “Excitement increases the morbid humours.”

“Morbid humours be damned!” exclaimed McCullum. “And you be damned, too.”

“Don't be a fool, man,” said Hornblower, his patience exhausted. “He saved your life yesterday. Don't you remember how sick you were? 'It hurts. It hurts.' That's what you were saying.”

Hornblower found his voice piping in imitation of McCullum's yesterday, and he turned his face feebly from side to side like McCullum's on the pillow. He was aware that it was an effective bit of mimicry, and even McCullum was a trifle abashed by it.

“Sick I may have been,” he said, “but I'm well enough now.”

Hornblower looked across at Eisenbeiss.

“Let Mr. McCullum have five more minutes,” he said. “Now, Mr. McCullum, you were talking about leather fuse-hoses. Will you please explain how they are used?”

Hornblower and the “Atropos”

Hornblower came forward to where the gunner and his mates were squatting on the deck at work upon the fuse-hose in accordance with McCullum's instructions.

“You are making a thorough job of those seams, I hope, Mr. Clout,” he said.

“Aye aye, sir,” said Clout.

They had an old sail spread out to sit on, for the purpose of saving the spotless deck from the warm pitch in the iron pot beside them.

“Five seconds to the foot, this quick match burns, sir. You said one foot of slow match, sir?”

“I did.”

Hornblower bent to look at the work. The leather hose was in irregular lengths, from three to five feet; it was typical of the cross-grained ways of nature that animals could not provide longer pieces of leather than that. One of the gunner's mates was at work with a slender wooden bodkin, dragging the end of a vast length of quick match through a section of hose. When the bodkin emerged he proceeded to slip the hose along the quick match until it joined the preceding section.

“Easy with that, now,” said Clout. “We don't want a break in that match.”

The other gunner's mate set to work with needle and palm to sew and double sew the new length to its neighbour. The joint completed, Clout proceeded to apply warm pitch liberally over the joint and down the seam of the new section. Eventually there would be a hundred and twenty feet of hose joined and pitched and with quick match threaded all the way through it.

“I've picked a couple of sound kegs, sir,” said Clout. “Fifty-pound kegs, they are. I have bags of dry sand to fill 'em up.”

“Very well,” said Hornblower.

Thirty pounds of powder was what McCullum wanted for his explosive charge, no more and no less.

“I don't want to shatter the wreck to pieces,” McCullum had said. “I only want to split her open.”

That was a part of McCullum's special knowledge; Hornblower could not possibly have guessed how much powder, at a depth of a hundred feet would achieve this result. In a long nine-pounder, he knew, three pounds of powder would throw the shot a mile and a half, random shooting, but this was something entirely different, and in the incompressible medium of water, too. With a fifty-pound keg and only thirty pounds of powder it was necessary to have some indifferent substance like sand to fill the keg full.