“It’s a stroke of luck for us, sir,” said Turner.
“Please keep your conclusions to yourself, Mr. Turner,” said Hornblower bitingly.
The tone of his voice and Turner’s crestfallen expression puzzled the Mudir, who had not ceased to watch them closely. But he waited patiently for the unbelievers to make the next move.
“No,” said Hornblower decisively, “tell him I can’t do it.”
At Hornblower’s shake of the head the Mudir actually showed a little dismay even before Turner translated. He stroked his white beard and spoke again, choosing his words carefully.
“He’s offering to bribe us, sir,” said Turner. “Five lambs or kids far every day we stay here.”
“That’s better,” said Hornblower. “Tell him I’d rather have money.”
It was the Mudir’s turn to shake his head when he heard what Turner had to say. He looked, to Hornblower’s searching eye, like a man quite sincere.
“He says there isn’t any money, sir. The Vali took all there was when he was here last.”
“He has our twenty guineas, anyway. Tell him I want them back, and six lambs a day — no kids — and I’ll stay.”
That was how it was decided in the end. With Turner escorting the Mudir back in the launch Hornblower went forward to inspect the gunner’s work. It was nearly completed. A hundred odd feet of hose, carefully coiled, lay on the deck, and one end disappeared into a powder keg covered over with canvas which the gunner was smearing thickly with pitch. Hornblower stooped to examine what must be the weakest point, where the canvas cover of the keg was sewn round the hose.
“That’s as good as I can make it, sir,” said the gunner. “But it’s a mighty long length of hose.”
At a hundred feet below water the pressures were enormous. A minute, indetectable pinprick anywhere in the fabric and water would be forced in.
“We can try it,” said Hornblower. “The sooner the better.”
That was how it always was — “the sooner the better” might be found written on a naval officer’s heart like Queen Mary’s Calais. Man the gig, see that all necessary equipment was packed into it, herd the divers into the bows after their last‑minute instructions from McCullum, and start off without a minute wasted. Drink coffee with a Turkish Mudir at one hour, and dabble in underwater explosives the next. If variety was the spice of life, thought Hornblower, his present existence must be an Oriental curry.
“Easy!” he ordered, and the gig drifted slowly up to the moored plank which marked the accessible point of the wreck underneath.
Looney knew his business. The canvas‑covered powder keg lay beside him; it was bound with line, and Looney took another short length of line, secured one end to the keg, passed the line round the mooring line of the buoy, and secured the other end to the keg again. He checked to see that the free end of the fuse‑hose was properly fastened to the empty keg that was to buoy it up, and then gave a piping order to one of his colleagues, who stood up to take off his clothes. Looney laid hold of the powder keg, but it was too heavy for his spindly arms.
“Help him, you two,” said Hornblower to the two seamen nearest. “See that the line’s clear and see that the hose is clear, too.”
Under Looney’s direction the powder keg was lifted up and lowered over the side.
“Let go! Handsomely! Handsomely!” ordered Hornblower.
It was a tense moment — one more tense moment — to watch the powder keg sink below the choppy surface. By the line attached to it the seamen lowered it slowly down, the fuse‑hose uncoiling after it as the keg sank. The loop of line which Looney had passed round the mooring line of the buoy made certain that the keg would sink to the right place.
“Bottom, sir,” said a seaman, as the lowering line went slack in his hands. Several feet of hose remained in the boat.
The diver was sitting on the opposite gunwale; he carried a sheath knife on a string round his naked waist, and he took in his hands the cannon ball that Looney gave him. Then he lowered himself over and vanished under the surface. They waited until he came up; they waited while the next diver went down and came up again, they waited while Looney took his turn too. Dive succeeded dive; apparently it was not too easy an operation to move the powder keg to exactly the right place under the break of the Speedwell’s poop. But presumably, down below the surface, the thing was achieved in the end. Looney came up from what seemed to be an extra long dive; he had to be helped over the gunwale and he lay gasping in the bows for some time recovering. Then at last he sat up and made to Hornblower the unmistakable gesture of handling flint and steel.