Читать книгу Hornblower and the Crisis - Cecil Louis Troughton Smith - Страница 5

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Life in the waterhoy Princess was exceedingly uncomfortable. She was empty of her cargo of drinking water, and there was almost nothing to replace it; the empty casks were too precious to be contaminated by sea water for use as ballast, and only a few bags of sand could be squeezed between the empty casks to confer any stability on her hull. She had been designed with this very difficulty in view, the lines of her dish-shaped hull being such that even when riding light her broad beam made her hard to capsize, but she did everything short of that. Her motion was violent and, to the uninitiated, quite unpredictable, and she was hardly more weatherly than a raft, sagging off to leeward in a spineless fashion that boded ill for any prospect of working up to Plymouth while any easterly component prevailed in the wind.

Hornblower was forced to endure considerable hardship. For two days he lingered on the verge of seasickness as a result of this new motion beneath his feet; he was not actually sick, having had several uninterrupted weeks at sea already, but he told himself that it would be less unpleasant if that were to happen—although in his heart of hearts he knew that was not true. He was allotted a hammock in a compartment six feet square and five feet high; he at least had it to himself and could derive some small comfort from observing that there were arrangements for eight hammocks, in two tiers of four, to be slung there. It had been a long time since he slept in a hammock, and his spine was slow to adjust to the necessary curvature, while the extravagant leaps and rolls of the hoy were conveyed to him through it and made the memory of his cot in Hotspur nostalgically luxurious.

The wind stayed northeasterly, bringing clear skies and sunshine but no comfort to Hornblower, save that it was soon evident that he would be eating Baddlestone’s ‘cabin food’ for more than three days—a doubtful source of satisfaction. All he wished to do was to make his way to England, to London, to Whitehall, and to secure his posting as captain before anything could happen to interfere. He watched morosely as the Princess lost more and more distance to leeward, more even than the clumsy ships of the line clustered off Ushant. There was nothing to read on board, there was nothing to do, and there was nowhere comfortable where he could do that nothing.

He was coming up through the hatchway, weary of his hammock, when he saw Baddlestone whip his telescope to his eye and stare to windward.

‘Here they come!’ said Baddlestone, unusually communicative.

With the greatest possible condescension he passed the telescope over to Hornblower; there could be no more generous gesture (as Hornblower well knew) than for a captain to part with his glass even for a moment when something of interest was in sight. It was a veritable fleet bearing down on them, something far more than a mere squadron. Four frigates with every stitch of canvas spread, were racing to take the lead; behind them followed two columns of line-of-battleships, seven in one and six in the other. They were already setting studding sails as they edged into station. With the wind right astern and all sail set they were hurtling down upon the Princess. It was a magnificent sight, the commission pennants whipping out ahead, the ensigns flying forward as if in emulation. Under each bluff bow a creamy bow wave mounted and sank as the ships drove on over the blue water. Here was England’s naval might seen to its best advantage. The right central frigate came cutting close beside the wallowing waterhoy.

‘Diamond, 32,’ said Baddlestone; he had recovered his telescope by some means or other.

Hornblower stared enviously and longingly at her as she passed within long cannon shot. He saw a rush of men up the foremast rigging. The fore topgallant sail was taken in and reset in the brief space while the Diamond was passing; a smart ship that—Hornblower had not detected anything wrong with the set of the sail. The mate of the hoy had just managed to hoist a dirty red ensign in time to dip it in salute, and the blue ensign over there dipped in reply. Now came the starboard column of ships of the line, a three decker in the lead, towering over the waves, her three rows of chequered gunports revealing themselves as she approached, a blue vice-admiral’s flag blowing from her fore-topgallant mast.

‘Prince of Wales, 98. Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder, baronet,’ said Baddlestone. ‘There’s two other flags with this lot.’

The ensigns dipped in salute and the next of the line came on, plunging before the wind with the spray flying. The flags dipped time and again as the seven ships hurtled by.

‘A fair wind for Finisterre,’ said Baddlestone.

‘That looks like their course,’ said Hornblower.

It seemed obvious that Baddlestone knew as much about fleet movements as he did, and perhaps even more. Less than a week earlier Baddlestone had been in Plymouth with English newspapers to read and all the chatter of the alehouses to listen to. Hornblower himself had heard a good deal of circumstantial gossip from the Shetland, the victualler which had come alongside Hotspur a couple of days earlier than the Princess. The fact that Baddlestone suggested that Calder’s destination was merely Finisterre, and not the Straits or the West Indies was nearly convincing proof of the extent of Baddlestone’s knowledge. Hornblower asked a testing question.

‘Heading for the Strait’s mouth, do you think?’

Baddlestone eyed him with a trace of pity.

‘No farther than Finisterre,’ he vouchsafed.

‘But why?’

Baddlestone found it clearly hard to believe that Hornblower could be ignorant of what was being discussed throughout the fleet and the dockyard.

‘Villain-noove,’ he said.

That was Villeneuve, the French admiral commanding the fleet that had broken out of the Mediterranean some weeks before and fled across the Atlantic to the West Indies.

‘What about him?’ asked Hornblower.

‘He’s heading back again, making for Brest. Going to pick up the French fleet there, so Boney thinks. Then the Channel. Boney’s army’s waiting at Boulong, and Boney thinks he’ll eat his next dish of frogs in Windsor Castle.’

‘Where’s Nelson?’ demanded Hornblower.

‘Hot on Villain-noove’s trail. If Nelson don’t catch him Calder will. Boney’s going to wait a long time before he sees French tops’ls in the Channel.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Sloop came in from Nelson while I was waiting for a wind in Plymouth. The whole town knew in half an hour, bless you.’

This was the most vital and the most recent information imaginable, and yet it was common knowledge. Bonaparte at Boulogne had a quarter of a million men trained, equipped, and ready. Transporting them across the Channel might be difficult despite the thousands of flat bottomed boats that crowded the French Channel ports, but with twenty, thirty, possibly forty French and Spanish ships of the line to cover the crossing something might be achieved. In a month Bonaparte might well be eating frogs in Windsor Castle. The destiny of the world, the fate of civilisation, depended on the concerted movements of the British fleets. If so much was known in Plymouth last week it would be known in Bonaparte’s headquarters today; detailed knowledge of the British movements was vital for the French in executing what appeared to be essentially a plan of evasion.

Baddlestone was watching him curiously; Hornblower must have allowed some of his emotions to show in his expression.

‘No good ever came of worrying,’ said Baddlestone, and now it was Hornblower’s turn to return the sharp gaze.

Until this conversation the pair of them had not exchanged twenty words during this two days of waiting for a wind. Baddlestone apparently cherished hard feelings towards naval officers; maybe Hornblower’s refusal to make any advances towards intimacy had softened them.

‘Worry?’ said Hornblower bravely. ‘Why should I worry? We’ll deal with Boney when the time comes.’

Already Baddlestone seemed to regret his voluntary loquacity. As every captain should while on deck, he had been darting repeated glances at the leech of the mainsail and now he rounded on the helmsman.

‘Watch what you’re doing, blast you!’ he roared, unexpectedly. ‘Keep her full and by! D’ye want us to end up in Spain? An empty waterhoy and a ham-fisted no-seaman at the wheel letting her box the compass.’

Hornblower drifted away during this tirade. His feelings were agitated by apprehensions additional to those Baddlestone had hinted at. Here was the crisis of the naval war approaching; there were battles to be fought, and he had no ship. All he had was a promise of one, a promise of being ‘made post’ when he could call upon the Admiralty to redeem that promise. He had endured two years of hardship and danger, monotony and strain, in the blockade of Brest, and now, at the very moment when the war was reaching a climax, he was unemployed. He would be falling between two stools—the battle might well be fought, the crisis over, before he could get to sea again. Calder might intercept Villeneuve within the week, or Bonaparte might be attempting his crossing within a fortnight. Better to be a mere Commander with a ship than an ungazetted Captain without one. It was enough to drive a man perfectly frantic—and for the last two days the wind had blown steadily from the northeast, keeping him a prisoner in this accursed hoy, while allowing every opportunity to Meadows in the Hotspur to distinguish himself. After ten years of experience Hornblower should have had more sense (and he knew it) than to fret himself into a fever over winds, the uncontrollable unpredictable winds that had governed his life since boyhood. But here he was fretting himself into a fever.