Bush loomed up in the darkness, shouting over the gale.
“The equinox, just as I said, sir.”
“Yes.”
“It’ll be worse before it’s better, sir.”
“No doubt.”
Hotspur was close‑hauled now, soaring, pitching and rolling over the vast invisible waves that the gale was driving in upon her port bow. Hornblower felt resentfully that Bush was experiencing pleasure at this change of scene. A brisk gale and a struggle to windward was stimulating to Bush after long days of fair weather, while Hornblower struggled to keep his footing and felt a trifle doubtful about the behaviour of his stomach as a result of this sudden change.
The wind howled round them and the spray burst over the deck so that the black night was filled with noise. Hornblower held on to the hammock netting; the circus riders he had seen in his childhood, riding round the ring, standing upright on two horses with one foot on each, had no more difficult task than he had at present. And the circus riders were not smacked periodically in the face with bucketfuls of spray.
There were small variations in the violence of the wind. They could hardly be called gusts; Hornblower took note that they were increases in force without any corresponding decreases. Through the soles of his feet, through the palms of his hands, he was aware of a steady increase in Hotspur’s heel and a steady stiffening in her reaction. She was showing too much canvas. With his mouth a yard from Young’s ear he yelled his order.
“Four reefs in the tops’ls!”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The exaggerated noises of the night were complicated now with the shrilling of the pipes of the bos’n’s mates; down in the waist the orders were bellowed at hurrying, staggering men.
“All hands reef tops’ls!”
The hands clawed their way to their stations; this was the moment when a thousand drills bore fruit, when men carried out in darkness and turmoil the duties that had been ingrained into them in easier conditions. Hornblower felt Hotspur’s momentary relief as Young set the topsails a‑shiver to ease the tension on them. Now the men were going aloft to perform circus feats compared with which his maintenance of his foothold was a trifle. No trapeze artist ever had to do his work in utter darkness on something as unpredictable as a foot‑rope in a gale, or had to exhibit the trained strength of the seaman passing the ear‑ring while hanging fifty feet above an implacable sea. Even the lion tamer, keeping a wary eye on his treacherous brutes, did not have to encounter the ferocious enmity of the soulless canvas that tried to tear the topmost men from their precarious footing.
A touch of the helm set the sails drawing again, and Hotspur lay over in her fierce struggle with the wind. Surely there was no better example of the triumph of man’s ingenuity over the blind forces of nature than this, whereby a ship could wring advantage out of the actual attempt of the gale to push her to destruction. Hornblower clawed his way to the binnacle and studied the heading of the ship, working out mental problems of drift and leeway against the background of his mental picture of the trend of the land. Prowse was there, apparently doing the same thing.
“I should think we’ve made our offing, sir.” Prowse had to shout each syllable separately. Hornblower had to do the same when he replied.
“We’ll hold on a little longer, while we can.”
Extraordinary how rapidly time went by in these circumstances. It could not be long now until daylight. And this storm was still working up; it was nearly twenty‑four hours since Hornblower had detected the premonitory symptoms, and it had not yet reached its full strength. It was likely to blow hard for a considerable time, as much as three days more, possibly even longer than that. Even when it should abate the wind might stay westerly for some considerable further time, delaying the water‑hoys and the victuallers in their passage from Plymouth, and when eventually they should come, Hotspur might well be up in her station off the Goulet.
“Mr Bush!” Hornblower had to reach out and touch Bush’s shoulder to attract his attention in the wind. “We’ll reduce the water allowance from today. Two between three.”