Hornblower and the Hotspur. C. S. Forester

The seconds crept by; perhaps the French captain was holding a council of war on his quarter‑deck; perhaps he was merely hesitating, unable to reach a decision at this moment when the fate of nations hung in the balance.

“Message from Mr Bush, sir. One gun run out ready for action, sir. The other one in five minutes.”

“Thank you, Mr Orrock. Tell Mr Bush to station the two best gun‑layers there.”

Félicité’s main‑topsail was filling again.

“Hands to the braces!”

Hotspur stood in towards her enemy. Hornblower would not yield an inch of sea room unnecessarily.

“Helm a‑weather!”

That was very long cannon shot as Hotspur wore round. Félicité’s bow was pointing straight at her; Hotspur’s stern was turned squarely to her enemy, the ships exactly in line.

“Tell Mr Bush to open fire!”

Even before the message could have reached him Bush down below had acted. There was the bang‑bang of the guns, the smoke bursting out under the counter, eddying up over the quarter‑deck with the following wind. Nothing visible to Hornblower’s straining eye at the telescope; only the beautiful lines of Félicité’s bows, her sharply‑steeved bowsprit, her gleaming canvas. The rumble of the gun‑trucks underfoot as the guns were run out again. Bang! Hornblower saw it. Standing right above the gun, looking straight along the line of flight, he saw the projectile, a lazy pencil mark against the white and blue, up and then down, before the smoke blew forward. Surely that was a hit. The smoke prevented his seeing the second shot.

The long British nine‑pounder was the best gun in the service as far as precision went. The bore was notoriously true, and the shot could be more accurately cast than the larger projectiles. And even a nine‑pounder shot, flying at a thousand feet a second, could deal lusty blows. Bang! The Frenchman would he unhappy at receiving this sort of punishment without hitting back.

“Look at that!” said Prowse.

Félicité’s fore‑staysail was out of shape, flapping in the wind; it was hard to see at first glance what had happened.

“His fore‑stay’s parted, sir,” decided Prowse.

That Prowse was correct was shown a moment later when Félicité took in the fore‑staysail. The loss of the sail itself made little difference, but the fore‑stay was a most important item in the elaborate system of checks and balances (like a French constitution before Bonaparte seized power) which kept a ship’s masts in position under the pressure of the sails.

“Mr Orrock, run below and say ‘Well done’ to Mr Bush.”

Bang! As the smoke eddied Hornblower saw Félicité round-to, and as her broadside presented itself to his sight it vanished in a great bank of leaping smoke. There was the horrid howl of a passing cannon‑ball somewhere near; there were two jets of water from the surface of the sea, one on each quarter, and that was all Hornblower saw or heard of the broadside. An excited crew, firing from a wheeling ship, could not be expected to do better than that, even with twenty‑two guns.

A ragged cheer went up from Hotspur’s crew, and Hornblower, turning, saw that every idle hand was craning out of the gun‑ports, peering aft at the Frenchman. He could hardly object to that, but when he turned back to look at Félicité again he saw enough to set the men hurriedly at work. The Frenchman had not yawed merely to fire her broadside; she was hove-to, mizzen topsail to the mast, in order to splice the fore‑stay. Lying like that, her guns would not bear. But not a second was to be lost, with Hotspur before the wind and the range increasing almost irretrievably.

“Stand by your guns to port! Hands to the braces! Hard‑a-starboard!”

Hotspur wore sweetly round on to the port‑tack. She was on Félicité’s port quarter where not a French gun would bear. Bush came running from aft to keep his eye on the port‑side guns; he strode along from gun to gun, making sure by eye that elevation and training were correct as Hotspur fired her broadside into her hapless enemy. Very long range, but some of those shots must have caused damage. Hornblower watched the bearing of Félicité altering as Hotspur drew astern of her.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *