When he came on deck again the wind had sensibly diminished, and over to the windward there were patches of clear sky to be seen, of a steely green-blue, and the rain had ceased, although the sea was wilder than ever.
“It’s blown itself out quick enough, sir,” said Bush.
“Yes,” answered Hornblower, but with mental reservation. That steely sky was not the blue of returning calm, and he never yet had known one of these Mediterranean storms die away without at least one expiring effort. And he was still very conscious of Cape Creux on the horizon to leeward. He looked keenly round him, at the Pluto to leeward, veiled in spray, and the Caligula far to windward and her canvas only rarely visible across the tossing grey water.
Then it happened — a sudden howling squall, which laid the Sutherland over and then veered round with astonishing quickness. Hornblower clung to the mizzen weather rigging, bellowing orders. It was wild while it lasted; for a moment it felt as if the Sutherland would never rise again, and then as if she might be driven under stern-foremost as the wind took her aback. It howled and shrieked round them with a violence which it had not yet displayed. Only after a long struggle was the ship brought to the wind again and hove to; the shift in the wind had made the sea lumpier and more erratic than ever, so that she was bucking and plunging in a senseless fashion which made it hard even for those who had spent a lifetime at sea to keep their footing. But not a spar had carried away, and not a rope had parted — clear proof of the efficient work of Plymouth Dockyard and of the seamanship of Bush and Harrison.
Bush was shouting something now, and pointing away over the quarter, and Hornblower followed the gesture with his eyes. The Pluto had vanished, and for a moment Hornblower thought she must have sunk with all hands. Then a breaking wave revealed her, right over on her beam ends, the grey waves breaking clean over her exposed bottom, her yards pointing to the sky, sails and rigging showing momentarily black through the white foam in the lee of her.
“Jesus Christ!” yelled Bush. “The poor devils have gone!”
“Set the main topmast stays’l again!” yelled Hornblower back.
She had not sunk yet; there might possibly be some survivors, who might live long enough in the wild sea to grab a rope’s end from the Sutherland’s deck and who might be hauled on board without being beaten to death; it had to be tried even though it was a hundred to one against one of the thousand men on board being saved. Horn-blower worked the Sutherland slowly over towards the Pluto. Still the latter lived, with the waves breaking over her as if she were a half tide rock. Hornblower’s imagination pictured what was happening on board — the decks nearly vertical, with everything carrying away and smashing which could. On the weather side the guns would be hanging by their breechings; the least unsoundness there and they would fall straight down the decks, to smash holes on the opposite side which would sink her in a flash. Men would be crawling about in the darkness below decks; on the main deck the men who had not been washed away would be clinging on like flies on a windowpane, soused under as the waves broke.
Through his levelled glass he caught sight of a speck on the exposed upper side of the Pluto, a speck that moved, a speck which survived the breach of a wave over it. There were other specks, too, and there was a gleam of something in swift regular movement. Some gallant soul had got a party together to hack at the weather shrouds of the mainmast, and as the Sutherland closed he saw the shrouds part, and the foremast shrouds as well. With a shuddering roll the Pluto heaved herself out of the water like a whale, water cascading from her scuppers, and as she rolled towards the Sutherland her mizzen-mast went as well, on the opposite side. Freed from the overpowering leverage of her top hamper she had managed to recover — naval discipline and courage had won her a further chance of life during the few seconds which had been granted her while she lay on her beam ends. Hornblower could see men still hard at work, hacking madly at the uncut shrouds to free the ship from the wreckage thrashing alongside.