Lieutenant Buckland, in acting command of HMS Renown, of seventyfour guns, was on the quarterdeck of his ship peering through his telescope at the low mountains of Santo Domingo. The ship was rolling in a fashion unnatural and disturbing, for the long Atlantic swell, driven by the northeast trades, was passing under her keel while she lay hoveto to the final puffs of the land breeze which had blown since midnight and was now dying away as the fierce sun heated the island again. The Renown was actually wallowing, rolling her lower deck gunports under, first on one side and then on the other, for what little breeze there was was along the swell and did nothing to stiffen her as she lay with her mizzen topsail backed. She would lie right over on one side, until the gun tackles creaked with the strain of holding the guns in position, until it was hard to keep a foothold on the steep-sloping deck; she would lie there for a few harrowing seconds, and then slowly right herself, making no pause at all at the moment when she was upright and her deck horizontal, and continue, with a clattering of blocks and a rattle of gear, in a sickening swoop until she was as far over in the opposite direction, gun tackles creaking and unwary men slipping and siding, and he there unresponsive until the swell had rolled under her and she repeated her behaviour.
“For God’s sake,” said Hornblower, hanging on to a belaying pin in the mizzen fife rail to save himself from sliding down the deck into the scuppers, “can’t he make up his mind?”
There was something in Hornblower’s stare that made Bush look at him more closely.
“Seasick?” he asked, with curiosity.
“Who wouldn’t be?” replied Hornblower. “How she rolls!”
Bush’s castiron stomach had never given him the least qualm, but he was aware that less fortunate men suffered from seasickness even after weeks at sea, especially when subjected to a different kind of motion. This funereal rolling was nothing like the free action of the Renown under sail.
“Buckland has to see how the land lies,” he said in an effort to cheer Hornblower up.
“How much more does he want to see?” grumbled Hornblower. “There’s the Spanish colours flying on the fort up there. Everyone on shore knows now that a ship of the line is prowling about, and the Dons won’t have to be very clever to guess that we’re not here on a yachting trip. Now they’ve all the time they need to be ready to receive us.”
“But what else could he do?”
“He could have come in in the dark with the sea breeze. Landing parties ready. Put them ashore at dawn. Storm the place before they knew there was any danger. Oh, God!”
The final exclamation had nothing to do with what went before. It was wrenched out of Hornblower by the commotion of his stomach. Despite his deep tan there was a sickly green colour in his cheeks.
“Hard luck,” said Bush.
Buckland still stood trying to keep his telescope trained on the coast despite the rolling of the ship. This was Scotchman’s Bay—the Bahia de Escocesa, as the Spanish charts had it. To the westward lay a shelving beach; the big rollers here broke far out and ran in creamy white up to the water’s edge with diminishing force, but to the eastward the shore line rose in a line of treecovered hills standing bluffly with their feet in blue water; the rollers burst against them in sheets of spray that climbed far up the cliffs before falling back in a smother of white. For thirty miles those hills ran beside the sea, almost due east and west; they constituted the Samaná peninsula, terminating in Samaná Point. According to the charts the peninsula was no more than ten miles wide; behind them, round Samaná Point, lay Samaná Bay, opening into the Mona Passage and a most convenient anchorage for privateers and small ships of war which could lie there, under the protection of the fort on the Samaná peninsula, ready to slip out and harass the West Indian convoys making use of the Mona Passage. The Renown had been given orders to clear out this raiders’ lair before going down to leeward to Jamaica—everyone in the ship could guess that—but now that Buckland confronted the problem he was not at all sure how to solve it. His indecision was apparent to all the curious lookerson who clustered on the Renown’s deck.
The main topsail suddenly flapped like thunder, and the ship began to turn slowly head to sea; the land breeze was expiring, and the trade winds, blowing eternally across the Atlantic, were resuming their dominion. Buckland shut his telescope with relief. At least that was an excuse for postponing action.
“Mr. Roberts!”
“Sir!”
“Lay her on the port tack. Full and by!”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The after guard came running to the mizzen braces, and the ship slowly paid off. Gradually the topsails caught the wind, and she began to lie over, gathering way as she did so. She met the next roller with her port bow, thrusting boldly into it in a burst of spray. The tautened weather-rigging began to sing a more cheerful note, blending with the music of her passage through the water. She was a live thing again, instead of rolling like a corpse in the trough. The roaring trade wind pressed her over, and she went surging along, rising and swooping as if with pleasure, leaving a creamy wake behind her on the blue water while the sea roared under the bows.
“Better?” asked Bush of Hornblower.
“Better in one way,” was the reply. Hornblower looked over at the distant hills of Santo Domingo. “I could wish we were going into action and not running away to think about it.”
“What a fireeater!” said Bush.
“A fireeater? Me? Nothing like that—quite the opposite. I wish—oh, I wish for too much, I suppose.”
There was no explaining some people, thought Bush, philosophically. He was content to bask in the sunshine now that its heat was tempered by the ship’s passage through the wind. If action and danger lay in the future he could await it in stolid tranquillity; and he certainly could congratulate himself that he did not have to carry Buckland’s responsibility of carrying a ship of the line and seven hundred and twenty men into action. The prospect of action at least took one’s mind off the horrid fact that confined below lay an insane captain.
At dinner in the wardroom he looked over at Hornblower, fidgety and nervous. Buckland had announced his intention of taking the bull by the horns the next morning, of rounding Samaná Point and forcing his way straight up the bay. It would not take many broadsides from the Renown to destroy any shipping that lay there at anchor. Bush thoroughly approved of the scheme. Wipe out the privateers, burn them, sink them, and then it would be time to decide what, if anything, should be done next. At the meeting in the wardroom, when Buckland asked if any officer had any questions, Smith had asked sensibly about the tides, and Carberry had given him the information; Roberts had asked a question or two about the situation on the south shore of the bay; but Hornblower at the foot of the table had kept his mouth shut, although looking with eager attention at each speaker in turn.
During the dogwatches Hornblower had paced the deck by himself, head bent in meditation; Bush noticed the fingers of the hands behind his back twisting and twining nervously, and he experienced a momentary doubt. Was it possible that this energetic young officer was lacking in physical courage? That phrase was not Bush’s own—he had heard it used maliciously somewhere or other years ago. It was better to use it now than to tell himself outright that he suspected Hornblower might be a coward. Bush was not a man of large tolerance; if a man were a coward he wanted no more to do with him.
Half way through next morning the pipes shrilled along the decks; the drums of the marines beat a rousing roll.
“Clear the decks for action! Hands to quarters! Clear for action!”
Bush came down to the lower gundeck, which was his station for action; under his command was the whole deck and the seventeen twentyfourpounders of the starboard battery, while Hornblower commanded under him those of the port side. The hands were already knocking down the screens and removing obstructions. A little group of the surgeon’s crew came along the deck; they were carrying a straitjacketed figure bound to a plank. Despite the jacket and the lashings it writhed feebly and wept pitifully—the captain being carried down to the safety of the cable tier while his cabin was cleared for action. A hand or two in the bustle found time to shake their heads over the unhappy figure, but Bush checked them soon enough. He wanted to be able to report the lower gundeck cleared for action with creditable speed.
Hornblower made his appearance, touched his hat to Bush, and stood by to supervise his guns. Most of this lower deck was in twilight, for the stout shafts of sunlight that came down the hatchways did little to illuminate the farther parts of the deck with its sombre red paint. Half a dozen ship’s boys came along, each one carrying a bucket of sand, which they scattered in handfuls over the deck. Bush kept a sharp eye on them, because the guns’ crews depended on that sand for firm foothold. The water buckets beside each gun were filled; they served a dual purpose, to dampen the swabs that cleaned out the guns and for immediate use against fire. Round the mainmast stood a ring of extra fire buckets; in tubs at either side of the ship smouldered the slow matches from which the gun captains could rekindle their linstocks when necessary. Fire and water. The marine sentries came clumping along the deck in their scarlet coats and white crossbelts, the tops of their shakos brushing the deck beams over their heads. Corporal Greenwood posted one at each hatchway, bayonet fixed and bucket loaded. Their duty was to see that no unauthorized person ran down to take shelter in the safety of that part of the ship comfortably below waterline. Mr. Hobbs, the actinggunner, with his mates and helpers made a momentary appearance on their way down to the magazine. They were all wearing list slippers to obviate any chance of setting off loose powder which would be bound to be strewn about down there in the heat of action.
Soon the powder boys came running up, each with a charge for the guns. The breechings of the guns were cast off and the crews stood by the tackles, waiting for the word to open the ports and run out the guns. Bush darted his glance along both sides. The gun captains were all at their posts. Ten men stood by every gun on the starboard side, five by every gun on the port side—maximum and minimum crews for twentyfourpounders. It was Bush’s responsibility to see to it that whichever battery came into action the guns were properly manned. If both sides had to be worked at once he had to make a fair division, and when the casualties began and guns were put out of service he had to redistribute the crews. The petty officers and warrant officers were reporting their subdivisions ready for action, and Bush turned to the midshipman beside him whose duty was to carry messages.
“Mr. Abbott, report the lower deck cleared for action. Ask if the guns should be run out.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
A moment before the ship had been full of noise and bustle, and now everything down here was still and quiet save for the creaking of the timbers; the ship was rising and swooping rhythmically over the sea—Bush as he stood by the mainmast was automatically swaying with the ship’s motion. Young Abbott came running down the ladder again.
“Mr. Buckland’s compliments, sir, and don’t run the guns out yet.”
“Very good.”
Hornblower was standing farther aft, in line with the ringbolts of the train tackles; he had looked round to hear what message Abbott bore, and now he turned back again. He stood with his feet apart, and Bush saw him put one hand into the other, behind his back, and clasp it thinly. There was a rigidity about the set of his shoulders and in the way he held his head that might be significant of anything, eagerness for action or the reverse. A gun captain addressed a remark to Hornblower, and Bush watched him turn to answer it. Even in the half light of the lower deck Bush could see there were signs of strain in his expression, and that smile might be forced. Oh well, decided Bush, as charitably as he could, men often looked like that before going into action.
Silently the ship sailed on; even Bush had his ears cocked, trying to hear what was going on above him so as to draw deductions about the situation. Faintly down the hatchway came the call of a seaman.
“No bottom, sir. No bottom with this line.”
So there was a man in the chains taking casts with the lead, and they must be drawing near the land; everyone down on the lower deck drew the same conclusion and started to remark about it to his neighbour.
“Silence, there!” snapped Bush.
Another cry from the leadsman, and then a bellowed order. Instantly the lower deck seemed to be filled solid with noise. The maindeck guns were being run out; in the confined space below every sound was multiplied and reverberated by the ship’s timbers so that the guntrucks rolling across the planking made a noise like thunder. Everyone looked to Bush for orders, but he stood steady; he had received none. Now a midshipman appeared descending the ladder.
“Mr. Buckland’s compliments, sir, and please to run your guns out.”
He had squealed his message without ever setting foot on deck, and everyone had heard it. There was an instant buzz round the deck, and excitable people began to reach for the gunports to open them.
“Still!” bellowed Bush. Guiltily all movement ceased.
“Up ports!”
The twilight of the lower deck changed to daylight as the ports opened; little rectangles of sunshine swayed about on the deck on the port side, broadening and narrowing with the motion of the ship.
“Run out!”
With the ports open the noise was not so great; the crews flung their weight on the tackles and the trucks roared as the guns thrust their muzzles out. Bush stepped to the nearest gun and stooped to peer out through the open port. There were the green hills of the island at extreme gunshot distance; here the cliffs were not nearly so abrupt, and there was a junglecovered shelf at their feet.
“Hands wear ship!”
Bush could recognise Roberts’ voice hailing from the quarterdeck. The deck under his feet steadied to the horizontal, and the distant hills seemed to swing with the vessel. The masts creaked as the yards came round. That must be Samaná Point which they were rounding. The motion of the ship had changed far more than would be the result of mere alteration of course. She was not only on an even keel but she was in quiet water, gliding along into the bay. Bush squatted down on his heels by the muzzle of a gun and peered at the shore. This was the south side of the peninsula at which he was looking, presenting a coastline towards the bay nearly as steep as the one on the seaward side. There was the fort on the crest and the Spanish flag waving over it. The excited midshipman came scuttling down the ladder like a squirrel.
“Sir! Sir! Will you try a ranging shot at the batteries when your guns bear?”
Bush ran a cold eye over him.
“Whose orders?” he asked.
“M—Mr. Buckland’s, sir.”
“Then say so. Very well. My respects to Mr. Buckland, and it will be a long time before my guns are within range.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
There was smoke rising from the fort, and not powder smoke either. Bush realised with something like a quiver of apprehension that probably it was smoke from a furnace for heating shot; soon the fort would be hurling redhot shot at them, and Bush could see no chance of retaliation; he would never be able to elevate his guns sufficiently to reach the fort, while the fort, from its commanding position on the crest, could reach the ship easily enough. He straightened himself up and walked over to the port side to where Hornblower, in a similar attitude, was peering out beside a gun.
“There’s a point running out here,” said Hornblower. “See the shallows there? The channel must bend round them. And there’s a battery on the point—look at the smoke. They’re heating shot.”
“I daresay,” said Bush.
Soon they would be under a sharp crossfire. He hoped they would not be subjected to it for too long. He could hear orders being shouted on deck, and the masts creaked as the yards came round; they were working the Renown round the bend.
“The fort’s opened fire, sir,” reported the master’s mate in charge of the forward guns on the starboard side.
“Very well, Mr. Purvis.” He crossed over and looked out. “Did you see where the shot fell?”
“No, sir.”
“They’re firing on this side, too, sir,” reported Hornblower.
“Very well.”
Bush saw the fort spurting white cannon smoke. Then straight in the line between his eye and the fort, fifty yards from the side of the ship, a pillar of water rose up from the golden surface, and within the same instant of time something crashed into the side of the ship just above Bush’s head. A ricochet had bounded from the surface and had lodged somewhere in the eighteen inches of oak that constituted the ship’s side. Then followed a devil’s tattoo of crashes; a wellaimed salvo was striking home.
“I might just reach the battery on this side now, sir,” said Hornblower.
“Then try what you can do.”
Now here was Buckland himself, hailing fretfully down the hatchway.
“Can’t you open fire yet, Mr. Bush?”
“This minute, sir.”
Hornblower was standing by the centre twentyfourpounder. The gun captain slid the rolling handspike under the gun carriage, and heaved with all his weight. Two men at each side tackle tugged under his direction to point the gun true. With the elevating coign quite free from the breech the gun was at its highest angle of elevation. The gun captain flipped up the iron apron over the touchhole, saw that the hole was filled with powder, and with a shout of “Stand clear” he thrust his smouldering linstock into it. The gun bellowed loud in the confined space; some of the smoke came drifting back through the port.
“Just below, sir,” reported Hornblower, standing at the next port. “When the guns are hot they’ll reach it.”
“Carry on, then.”
“Open fire, first division!” yelled Hornblower.
The four foremost guns crashed out almost together.
“Second division!”
Bush could feel the deck heaving under him with the shock of the discharge and the recoil. Smoke came billowing back into the confined space, acrid, bitter; and the din was paralysing.
“Try again, men!” yelled Hornblower. “Division captains, see that you point true!”
There was a frightful crash close beside Bush and something screamed past him to crash into the deck beam near kits head. Something flying through an open gunport had struck a gun on its reinforced breech. Two men had fallen close beside it, one lying still and the other twisting and turning in agony. Bush was about to give an order regarding them when his attention was drawn to something more important. There was a deep gash in the deck beam by his head and from the depths of the gash smoke was curling. It was a redhot shot that had struck the breech of the gun and had apparently flown into fragments. A large part—the largest part—had sunk deep into the beam and already the wood was smouldering.
“Fire buckets here!” roared Bush.
Ten pounds of redhot glowing metal lodged in the dry timbers of the ship could start a blaze in a few seconds. At the same time there was a rush of feet overhead, the sound of gear being moved about, and then the clankclank of pumps. So on the maindeck they were fighting fires too. Hornblower’s guns were thundering on the port side, the guntrucks roaring over the planking. Hell was unchained, and the smoke of hell was eddying about him.
The masts creaked again with the swing of the yards; despite everything, the ship had to be sailed up the tortuous channel. He peered out through a port, but his eye told him, as he forced himself to gauge the distance calmly, that the fort on the crest was still beyond range. No sense in wasting ammunition. He straightened himself and looked round the murky deck. There was something strange in the feel of the ship under his feet. He teetered on his toes to put his wild suspicions to the test. There was the slightest perceptible slope to the deck—a strange rigidity and permanence about it. Oh my God! Hornblower was looking round at him and making an urgent gesture downwards to confirm the awful thought. The Renown was aground. She must have run so smoothly and slowly up a mudbank as to lose her speed without any jerk perceptible. But she must have put her bows far up on the bank for the slope of the deck to be noticeable. There were more rending crashes as other shots from the shore struck home, a fresh hurrying and bustle as the fire parties ran to deal with the danger. Hard aground, and doomed to be slowly shot to pieces by those cursed forts, if the shots did not set them on fire to roast alive on the mudbank. Hornblower was beside him, his watch in his hand.
“Tide’s still rising,” he said. “It’s an hour before high water. But I’m afraid we’re pretty hard aground.”
Bush could only look at him and swear, pouring out filth from his mouth as the only means of relieving his overwrought feelings.
“Steady there, Duff!” yelled Hornblower, looking away from him at a gun’s crew gathered round their gun. “Swab that out properly! D’ye want your hands blown off when you load?”
By the time Hornblower looked round at Bush again the latter had regained his selfcontrol.
“An hour to high water, you say?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. According to Carberry’s calculations.”
“God help us’”
“My shot’s just reaching the battery on that point, sir. If I can keep the embrasures swept I’ll slow their rate of fire even if I don’t silence them.”
Another crash as a shot struck home, and another.
“But the one across the channel’s out of range.”
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
The powder boys were running through all the bustle with fresh charges for the guns. And here was the messenger-midshipman threading his way through them.
“Mr. Bush, sir! Will you please report to Mr. Buckland, sir? And we’re aground, under fire, sir.”
“Shut your mouth. I leave you in charge here, Mr. Hornblower.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The sunlight on the quarterdeck was blinding. Buckland was standing hatless at the rail, trying to control the working of his features. There was a roar and a spluttering of steam as someone turned the jet of a hose on a fiery fragment lodged in the bulkhead. Dead men in the scuppers; wounded being carried off. A shot, or the splinters it had sent flying, must have killed the man at the wheel so that the ship, temporarily out of control, had run aground.
“We have to kedge off,” said Buckland.
“Aye aye, sir.”
That meant putting out an anchor and heaving in on the cable with the capstan to haul the ship off the mud by main force. Bush looked round him to confirm what he had gathered regarding the ship’s position from his restricted view below. Her bows were on the mud; she would have to be hauled off stern first. A shot howled close overhead, and Bush had to exert his selfcontrol not to jump.
“You’ll have to get a cable out aft through a stern port.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Roberts’ll take the stream anchor off in the launch.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The fact that Buckland omitted the formal ‘Mister’ was significant of the strain he was undergoing and of the emergency of the occasion.
“I’ll take the men from my guns, sir,” said Bush.
“Very good.”
Now was the time for discipline and training to assert themselves; the Renown was fortunate in having a crew more than half composed of seasoned men drilled in the blockade of Brest. At Plymouth she had only been filled up with pressed men. What had merely been a drill, an evolution, when the Renown was one of the Channel Fleet, was now an operation on which the life of the ship depended, not something to be done perfunctorily in competition with the rest of the squadron. Bush gathered his guns’ crews around him and set about the task of rousing out a cable and getting it aft to a port, while overhead Roberts’ men were manning stay tackles and yard tackles to sway out the launch.
Down below the heat between the decks was greater even than above with the sun glaring down. The smoke from Hornblower’s guns was eddying thick under the beams; Hornblower was holding his hat in his hand and wiping his streaming face with his handkerchief. He nodded as Bush appeared; there was no need for Bush to explain the duty on which he was engaged. With the guns still thundering and the smoke still eddying, powder boys still running with fresh charges and fire parties bustling with their buckets, Bush’s men roused out the cable. The hundred fathoms of it weighed a trifle over a couple of tons; clear heads and skilled supervision were necessary to get the unwieldy cable laid out aft, but Bush was at his best doing work which called for single-minded attention to a single duty. He had it clear and faked down along the deck by the time the cutter was under the stern to receive the end, and then he watched the vast thing gradually snake out through the after port without a hitch. The launch came into his line of vision as he stood looking out, with the vast weight of the stream anchor dangling astern; it was a relief to know that the tricky business of getting the anchor into her had been successfully carried out. The second cutter carried the spring cable from the hawsehole. Roberts was in command; Bush heard him hail the cutter as the three boats drew off astern. There was a sudden jet of water among the boats; one or other, if not both, of the batteries ashore had shifted targets; a shot now into the launch would be a disaster, and one into a cutter would be a serious setback.
“Pardon, sir,” said Hornblower’s voice beside him, and Bush turned back from looking out over the glittering water.
“Well?”
“I could take some of the foremost guns and run ‘em aft,” said Hornblower. “Shifting the weight would help.”
“So it would,” agreed Bush; Hornblower’s face was streaked and grimy with his exertions, as Bush noted while he considered if he had sufficient authority to give the order on his own responsibility. “Better get Buckland’s permission. Ask him in my name if you like.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
These lowerdeck twentyfourpounders weighed more than two tons each; the transfer of some from forward aft would be an important factor in getting the bows off the mudbank. Bush took another glance through the port. James, the midshipman in the first cutter, was turning to look back to check that the cable was out in exact line with the length of the ship. There would be a serious loss of tractive effort if there was an angle in the cable from anchor to capstan. Launch and cutter were coming together in preparation for dropping the anchor. All round them the water suddenly boiled to a salvo from the shore; the skipping jets of the ricochets showed that it was the fort on the hill that was firing at them—and making good practice for that extreme range. The sun caught an axe blade as it turned in the air in the sternsheets of the launch; Bush saw the momentary flash. They were letting the anchor drop from where it hung from the gallows in the stern. Thank God.
Hornblower’s guns were still bellowing out, making the ship tremble with their recoil, and at the same time a splintering crash over his head told him that the other battery was still firing on the ship and still scoring hits. Everything was still going on at once; Hornblower had a gang of men at work dragging aft the foremost twentyfourpounder on the starboard side—a ticklish job with the rolling handspike under the transom of the carriage. The trucks squealed horribly as the men struggled to turn the cumbersome thing and thread their way along the crowded deck. But Bush could spare Hornblower no more than a glance as he hurried up to the maindeck to see for himself what was happening at the capstan.
The men were already taking their places at the capstan bars under the supervision of Smith and Booth; the maindeck guns were being stripped of the last of their crews to supply enough hands. Naked to the waist, the men were spitting on their hands and testing their foothold—there was no need to tell them how serious the situation was; no need for Booth’s knotted rattan.
“Heave away!” hailed Buckland from the quarterdeck.
“Heave away!” yelled Booth. “Heave, and wake the dead!”
The men flung their weight on the bars and the capstan came round, the pawls clanking rapidly as the capstan took up the slack. The boys with the nippers at the messenger had to hurry to keep pace. Then the intervals between the clanking of the pawls became longer as the capstan turned more slowly. More slowly; clank—clank—clank. Now the strain was coming; the bitts creaked as the cable tightened. Clank—clank. That was a new cable, and it could be expected to stretch a trifle.
The sudden howl of a shot—what wanton fate had directed it here of all places in the ship? Flying splinters and prostrate men; the shot had ploughed through the whole crowded mass. Red blood was pouring out, vivid in the sunshine; in understandable confusion the men drew away from the bloody wrecks.
“Stand to your posts!” yelled Smith. “You, boys! Get those men out of the way. Another capstan bar here! Smartly now!”
The ball which had wrought such fearful havoc had not spent all its force on human flesh; it had gone on to shatter the cheekpiece of a gun carriage and then to lodge in the ship’s side. Nor had human blood quenched it; smoke was rising on the instant from where it rested. Bush himself seized a fire bucket and dashed its contents on the glowing ball; steam blended with the smoke and the water spat and sputtered. No single fire bucket could quench twentyfour pounds of redhot iron, but a fire party came running up to flood the smouldering menace.
The dead and the wounded had been dragged away and the men were at the capstan bars again.
“Heave!” shouted Booth. Clank—clank—clank. Slowly and more slowly still turned the capstan. Then it came to a dead stop while the bitts groaned under the strain.
“Heave! Heave!”
Clank! Then reluctantly, and after a long interval, clank! Then no more. The merciless sun beat down upon the men’s straining backs; their horny feet sought for a grip against the cleats on the deck as they shoved and thrust against the bars. Bush went below again, leaving them straining away; he could, and did, send plenty of men up from the lower gundeck to treblebank the capstan bars. There were men still hard at work in the smoky twilight hauling the last possible gun aft, but Hornblower was back among his guns supervising the pointing. Bush set his foot on the cable. It was not like a rope, but like a wooden spar, as rigid and unyielding. Then through the sole of his shoe Bush felt the slightest tremor, the very slightest; the men at the capstan were putting their reinforced strength against the bars. The clank of one more pawl gained reverberated along the ship’s timbers; the cable shuddered a trifle more violently and then stiffened into total rigidity again. It did not creep over an eighth of an inch under Bush’s foot, although he knew that at the capstan a hundred and fifty men were straining their hearts out at the bars. One of Hornblower’s guns went off; Bush felt the jar of the recoil through the cable. Faintly down the hatchways came the shouts of encouragement from Smith and Booth at the capstan, but not an inch of gain could be noted at the cable. Hornblower came and touched his hat to Bush.
“D’you notice any movement when I fire a gun, sir?” As he asked the question he turned and waved to the captain of a midship gun which was loaded and run out. The gun captain brought the linstock down on the touchhole, and the gun roared out and came recoiling back through the smoke. Bush’s foot on the cable recorded the effect.
“Only the jar—no—yes.” Inspiration came to Bush. To the question he asked, Bush already knew the answer Hornblower would give. “What are you thinking of?”
“I could fire all my guns at once. That might break the suction, sir.”
So it might, indeed. The Renown was lying on mud, which was clutching her in a firm grip. If she could be severely shaken while the hawser was maintained at full tension the grip might be broken.
“I think it’s worth trying, by God,” said Bush.
“Very good, sir. I’ll have my guns loaded and ready in three minutes, sir.” Hornblower turned to his battery and funnelled his hands round his mouth. “Cease fire! Cease fire, all!”
“I’ll tell ‘em at the capstan,” said Bush.
“Very good, sir.” Hornblower went on giving his orders. “Load and doubleshot your guns. Prime and run out.”
That was the last that Bush heard for the moment as he went up on the maindeck and made his suggestion to Smith, who nodded in instant agreement.
“’Vast heaving!” shouted Smith, and the sweating men at the bars eased their weary backs.
An explanation was necessary to Buckland on the quarterdeck, he saw the force of the argument. The unfortunate man, who was watching the failure of his first venture in independent command, and whose ship was in such deadly peril, was gripping at the rail and wringing it with his two hands as if he would twist it like a corkscrew. In the midst of all this there was a piece of desperately important news that Smith had to give.
“Roberts is dead,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth.
“No!”
“He’s dead. A shot cut him in two in the launch.”
“Good God!”
It was to Bush’s credit that he felt sorrow at the death of Roberts before his mind recorded the fact that he was now first lieutenant of a ship of the line. But there was no time now to think of either sorrow or rejoicing, not with the Renown aground and under fire. Bush hailed down the hatchway.
“Below, there! Mr. Hornblower!”
“Sir!”
“Are your guns ready?”
“Another minute, sir.”
“Better take the strain,” said Bush to Smith; and then, louder, down the hatchway, “Await my order, Mr. Hornblower.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The men settled themselves at the capstan bars again, braced their feet, and heaved.
“Heave!” shouted Booth. “Heave!”
The men might be pushing at the side of a church, so little movement did they get from the bars after the first inch.
“Heave!”
Bush left them and ran below. He set his foot on the rigid cable and nodded to Hornblower. The fifteen guns—two had been dragged aft from the port side—were run out and ready, the crews awaiting orders.
“Captains, take your linstocks!” shouted Hornblower.
“All you others, stand clear! Now, I shall give you the words ‘one, two, three’. At ‘three’ you touch your linstocks down. Understand?”
There was a buzz of agreement.
“All ready? All linstocks glowing?” The gun captains swung them about to get them as bright as possible. “Then one—two—three!”
Down came the linstocks on the touchholes, and almost simultaneously the guns roared out; even with the inevitable variation in the amounts of powder in the touchholes there was not a second between the first and the last of the fifteen explosions. Bush, his foot on the cable, felt the ship heave with the recoil—doubleshotting the guns had increased the effect. The smoke came eddying into the sweltering heat, but Bush had no attention to give to it. The cable moved under his foot with the heave of the ship. Surely it was moving along. It was! He had to shift the position of his foot. The clank of a newly gained pawl on the windlass could be heard by everyone. Clank—clank. Someone in the smoke started to cheer and others took it up.
“Silence!” bellowed Hornblower.
Clank—clank—clank. Reluctant sounds; but the ship was moving. The cable was coming in slowly, like a mortally wounded monster. If only they could keep her on the move! Clank—clank—clank. The interval between the sounds was growing shorter—even Bush had to admit that to himself The cable was coming in faster—faster.
“Take charge here, Mr. Hornblower,” said Bush, and sprang for the maindeck. If the ship were free there would be urgent matters for the first lieutenant to attend to. The capstan pawls seemed almost to be playing a merry tune, so rapidly did they sound as the capstan turned.
Undoubtedly there was much to be attended to on deck. There were decisions which must be made at once. Bush touched his hat to Buckland.
“Any orders, sir?”
Buckland turned unhappy eyes on him.
“We’ve lost the flood,” he said.
This must be the highest moment of the tide, if they were to touch ground again, hedging would not be so simple an operation.
“Yes, sir,” said Bush.
The decision could only lie with Buckland; no one else could share the responsibility. But it was terribly hard for a man to have to admit defeat in his very first command. Buckland looked as if for inspiration round the bay, where the redandgold flags of Spain flew above the bankedup powder smoke of the batteries—no inspiration could be found there.
“We can only get out with the land breeze,” said Buckland. “Yes, sir.”
There was almost no longer for the land breeze to blow, either, thought Bush; Buckland knew it as well as he did. A shot from the fort on the hill struck into the main chains at that moment, with a jarring crash and a shower of splinters. They heard the call for the fire party, and with that Buckland reached the bitter decision.
“Heave in on the spring cable,” he ordered. “Get her round head to sea.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Retreat—defeat; that was what that order meant. But defeat had to be faced; even with that order given there was much that had to be done to work the ship out of the imminent danger in which she lay. Bush turned to give the orders.
“’Vast heaving at the capstan, there!”
The clanking ceased and the Renown rode free in the muddy, churnedup waters of the bay. To retreat she would have to turn tail, reverse herself in that confined space, and work her way out to sea. Fortunately the means were immediately available: by heaving in on the bow cable which had so far lain idle between hawsehole and anchor the ship could be brought short round.
“Cast off the stern cable messenger!”
The orders came quickly and easily; it was a routine piece of seamanship, even though it had to be carried out under the fire of a redhot shot. There were the boats still manned and afloat to drag the battered vessel out of harm’s way if the precarious breeze should die away. Round came the Renown ’s bows under the pull of the bow cable as the capstan set to work upon it. Even though the wind was dying away to a sweltering calm, movement was obvious—but the shock of defeat and the contemplation of that accursed artillery! While the capstan was dragging the ship up to her anchor the necessity for keeping the ship on the move occurred to Bush. He touched his hat to Buckland again.
“Shall I warp her down the bay, sir?”
Buckland had been standing by the binnacle staring vacantly at the fort. It was not a question of physical cowardice—that was obvious—but the shock of defeat and the contemplation of the future had made the man temporarily incapable of logical thought. But Bush’s question prodded him back into dealing with the current situation.
“Yes,” said Buckland, and Bush turned away, happy to have something useful to do which he well knew how to do.
Another anchor had to be cockbilled at the port bow, another cable roused out. A hail to James, in command of the boats since Roberts’ death, told him of the new evolution and called him under the bows for the anchor to be lowered down to the launch—the trickiest part of the whole business. Then the launch’s crew bent to their oars and towed ahead, their boat crank with the ponderous weight that it bore dangling aft and with the cable paying out astern of it. Yard by yard, to the monotonous turning of the capstan, the Renown crept up to her first anchor, and when that cable was straight up and down the flutter of a signal warned James, now far ahead in the launch, to drop the anchor his boat carried and return for the stream anchor which was about to be hauled up. The stern cable, now of no more use, had to be unhitched and got in, the effort of the capstan transferred from one cable to the other, while the two cutters were given lines by which they could contribute their tiny effort to the general result, towing the ponderous ship and giving her the smallest conceivable amount of motion which yet was valuable when it was a matter of such urgency to withdraw the ship out of range.
Down below Hornblower was at work dragging forward the guns he had previously dragged aft; the rumble and squeal of the trucks over the planking was audible through the ship over the monotonous clanking of the capstan. Overhead blazed the pitiless sun, softening the pitch in the seams, while yard after painful yard, cable’s length after cable’s length, the ship crept on down the bay out of range of the redhot shot, over the glittering still water; down the bay of Samaná until at last they were out of range and could pause while the men drank a niggardly halfpint of warm odorous water before turning back to their labours. To bury the dead, to repair the damages, and to digest the realization of defeat. Maybe to wonder if the captain’s malign influence still persisted, mad and helpless though he was.