Cecil Forester - The Commodore

“Call away my barge,” said Hornblower.

At Nonsuch ’s boat booms there already lay an assortment of the boats of the squadron, piled high with the stores which bad been taken out of the two bomb-ketches. The barge danced over the water in the sparkling dawn to where the bomb-ketches lay anchored, each with a lighter on either side, Duncan, captain of the Moth, was being rowed round the group in a jollyboat. He touched his hat as the barge approached.

“Morning, sir,” he said, and then instantly turned back to the work in hand, raising his speaking-trumpet to his lips. “Too much by the bows! Take up the for’ward cable another pawl!”

Hornblower had himself rowed on to the Harvey, and leaped from his barge to the lighter on her starboard side—not much of a leap, because she was laden down with ballast—without bothering officers or men for compliments. Mound was standing on his tiny quarter-deck, testing with his foot the tension of the big cable—one of Nonsuch ’s—which was wrapped round his own ship and both lighters, two turns round each, forward and aft.

“Carry on, port side!” he yelled.

In each of the lighters a large working party was stationed, the men equipped with shovels for the most part extemporized out of wood. At Mound’s order the men in the port-side lighter recommenced lustily shovelling sand over the side. Clouds of it drifted astern on the faint wind. Mound tested the tension again.

“Carry on, starboard side!” he yelled again, and then, perceiving his Commodore approaching, he came to the salute.

“Good morning, Mr. Mound,” said Hornblower.

“Good morning, sir. We have to do this part of it step by step, you see, sir. I have the old ketch so light she’ll roll over in the cables if I give her the chance.”

“I understand, Mr. Mound.”

“The Russians were prompt enough sending out the lighters to us, sir.”

“Can you wonder?” replied Hornblower. “D’you hear the French battery at work?”

Mound listened and apparently heard it for the first time. He had been engrossed too deeply in his work to pay any attention to it before; his face was unshaven and grey with fatigue, for his activity had not ceased since Hornblower had summoned him the afternoon before. In that time both ketches had been emptied of their stores, the cables roused out and got across to them, the lighters received and laid alongside in the dark, and each group of three vessels bound into a single mass with the cables hauled taut by the capstans.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Mound, and ran forward to examine the forward cable.

With the shovelling-out of the sand, hove overside by a hundred lusty pairs of arms, the lighters were rising in the water, lifting the ketch between them, cables and timber all a-creaking, and it was necessary to keep the cables taut as the rising of the lighters relieved the strain upon them. Hornblower turned aft to see what another working party were doing there. A large barrel half filled with water had been streamed out astern with a line to either quarter of the ketch, conducted in each case through a fair-lead to an extemporized windlass fixed to the deck. Paying out or heaving in on the lines would regulate the pull of the barrel, were the ketch under way, to one side or the other, exerting a powerful leverage. The barrel then was intended to undertake the duties of the rudder, which was already sufficiently high out of the water to be almost useless.

“It’s only a contraption, sir,” said Mound, who had returned from forward. “I had intended, as I told you, sir, to rig a Danube rudder. It was Wilson here who suggested this—I’d like to call your attention to him, sir. It’ll be much more effective, I’m sure.”

Wilson looked up from his work with a gap-toothed grin.

“What’s your rating?” asked Hornblower.

“Carpenter’s mate, sir.”

“As good a one as I’ve known, sir,” interpolated Mound.

“What service?”

“Two commissions in the old Superb, sir. One in Arethusa, an’ now this one, sir.”

“I’ll make out an acting warrant for you as carpenter,” said Hornblower.

“Thankee, sir, thankee.”

Mound could easily have taken the whole credit for devising this jury rudder to himself if he had wished. Hornblower liked him all the more for not having done so. It was good for discipline and for the spirits of the men to reward good work promptly.

“Very good, Mr. Mound. Carry on.”

Hornblower went back to his barge and rowed over to the Moth. The work here was a stage more advanced; so much sand had been shovelled out of the lighters that it was only with slow effort that the working parties could heave their shovelfuls over the side, shoulder-high. A wide streak of the Moth ’s copper was already visible, so high was she riding.

“Watch your trim, Mr. Duncan,” said Hornblower. “She’s canting a little to port.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

It called for some complicated adjustment of the cables, veering out and hauling in, to set Moth on an even keel again.

“She won’t draw more’n two feet by the time we’re finished with her, sir,” said Duncan exultantly.

“Excellent,” said Hornblower.

Duncan addressed himself to putting more men to work in the lighters, shovelling sand across from the inboard to the outboard sides, to ease the work of those actually heaving the sand over.

“Two hours more an’ they’ll be clear, sir,” reported Duncan. “Then we’ll only have to pierce the sides for sweeps.”

He glanced over at the sun, still not far above the horizon.

“We’ll be ready for action half an hour before noon, sir,” he added.

“Put the carpenters to work piercing the sides now,” said Hornblower. “So that you can rest your men and give them a chance to have breakfast. Then when they start again they can shovel through the ports and work quicker.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Half an hour before noon seemed to be a more likely sort of estimate with that improvement in the programme, yet even if the completion of the work were delayed by two hours there would still be long hours of daylight left in which the blow could be struck. While the sides of the lighters were being pierced Hornblower called Duncan and Mound to him and went over their final orders with them.

“I’ll be up in the church with the signalling party,” he said in conclusion. “I’ll see that you’re properly supported. So good luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” they answered in unison. Excitement and anticipation masked their weariness.

So Hornblower had himself rowed over to the village, where a tiny jetty saved him and the signallers from splashing through the shallows: the roar of the bombardment and the counter-bombardment grew steadily louder as they approached. Diebitch and Clausewitz came to meet them as they mounted the jetty, and led the way towards the church. As they skirted the foot of the earthworks which ringed the village on its landward side Hornblower looked up and saw the Russian artillerymen working their guns, bearded soldiers, naked to the waist in the hot sun. An officer walked from gun to gun in the battery, pointing each piece in succession.

“There are few men in our artillery who can be trusted to lay a gun,” explained Clausewitz.

The village was already badly knocked about, great holes showing in the walls and roofs of the flimsy cottages of which it was composed. As they neared the church a ricocheting ball struck the church wall, sending a cloud of chips flying, and remaining embedded in the brickwork like a plum in a cake. A moment later Hornblower swung round to a sudden unusual noise to see his two midshipmen standing staring at the headless corpse of a seaman who a moment before had been walking at their heels. A ball flying over the earthworks had shattered his head to atoms and flung his body against them. Somers was eyeing with disgust the blood and brains which had spattered his white trousers.