Hornblower and the Hotspur. C. S. Forester

“Headsail sheets!” ordered Cargill again; his fingers started drumming on his thigh once more with the strain of waiting.

But Cargill’s head was clear enough to give his orders in the correct sequence. Round came Hotspur into the wind again. Sheets and braces were handled smartly. There was a paralysing moment as she baulked again, hung as though she was determined once more to miss stays, but this time she had a trifle more momentum, and in the last possible second a fortunate combination of wind and wave pushed her bows round through the vital final degrees of swing. Round she came, at last.

“Full and bye!” said Cargill to the helmsman, the relief very evident in his voice. “Fore tack, there! Sheets! Braces!”

With the operation completed he turned to face the criticism of his superiors; there was sweat trickling down his forehead. Hornblower could feel Bush beside him ready to rate him thoroughly; Bush believed sincerely that everyone was the better for a severe dressing-down in any circumstance, and he was usually right. But Hornblower had been watching Hotspur’s behaviour closely.

“Carry on, Mr Cargill,” he said, and Cargill, relieved turned away again, and Bush met Hornblower’s glance with some slight surprise.

“The ship’s trimmed too much by the head,” said Hornblower. “That makes her unhandy in stays.”

“It might do so,” agreed Bush, doubtfully.

If the bow gripped the water more firmly than the stern Hotspur would act like a weather-vane, persisting in keeping her bow to the wind.

“We’ll have to try it,” said Hornblower. “She’ll never do as she is. We’ll have to trim her so that she draws six inches more aft. At least that. Now, what is there we can shift aft?”

“Well -” began Bush.

In his mind’s eye he called up a picture of the interior of the Hotspur, with every cubic foot crammed with stores. It had been a Herculean feat to prepare her for sea; to find room for everything necessary had called for the utmost ingenuity. It seemed as if no other arrangement could be possible. Yet maybe –

“Perhaps -” went on Bush, and they were instantly deep in a highly technical discussion.

Prowse came up and touched his hat, to report that Hotspur was just able to make good the course for Ushant. Bush could hardly help but prick up his ears at the mention of the name; Prowse could hardly help but be drawn into the discussion regarding the alteration in the trim of the ship. They had to move aside to make room for the hourly casting of the log; the breeze flapped their coats round them. Here they were at sea; the nightmare days and nights of fitting out were over, and so were the – what was the right word? Delirious, perhaps – the delirious days of marriage. This was normal life. Creative life, making a living organism out of Hotspur, working out improvements in material and in personnel.

Bush and Prowse were still discussing possible alteration in the ship’s trim as Hornblower came back into his present world.

“There’s a vacant port right aft on each side,” said Hornblower; a simple solution had presented itself to his mind, as so often happened when his thoughts had strayed to other subjects. “We can bring two of the forward guns aft.”

Prowse and Bush paused while they considered the matter; Hornblower’s rapid mind was already dealing with the mathematics of it. The ship’s nine-pounders weighed twenty-six hundred-weight each. Along with the gun carriages and the ready use shot which would have to be brought aft too there would be a total transfer of four tons. Hornblower’s eye measured the distances, forward and aft of the centre of flotation, from forty feet before to thirty feet abaft. No, the leverage would be a little excessive, even though Hotspur’s dead weight was over four hundred tons.

“Maybe she’d gripe a little, sir,” suggested Prowse, reaching the same conclusions two minutes later.

“Yes. We’ll take the No. 3 guns. That should be exactly right.”

“And leave a gap, sir?” asked Bush in faint protest.

It certainly would, as conspicuous as a missing front tooth. It would break into the two ordered rows of cannon, conveying a make-shift appearance to the ship.

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