‘Keep her from falling off!’ Hornblower yelled to the men at the wheel, and the grizzled senior quartermaster, his wet grey ringlets flapping over his cheeks from out of his sou’wester, nodded without taking his eyes from the fore-topsail. Hornblower knew – with his vivid imagination he could feel the actual sensation up his arms – how uncertain and unsatisfactory was the feel of wheel and rudder when running before a following sea, the momentary lack of response to the turning spokes, the hesitation of the ship as a mounting wave astern deprived the fore-topsail of some of the wind that filled it, the uncontrolled slithering sensation as the ship went down a slope. A moment’s inattention – a moment’s bad luck – could bring ruin.
Yet here they were momentarily safe before the wind, and running for the Channel. Prowse was already staring into the binnacle and noting the new course on the traverse board, and at a word from him Orrock and a seaman struggled aft to cast the log and determine the speed. And here came Bush, ascending to the quarter-deck, grinning over the success of the manoeuvre and with the exhilaration of the new state of affairs.
“Course nor’east by east, sir,” reported Prowse. “Speed better than seven knots.”
Now there was a new set of problems to deal with. They were entering the Channel. There were shoals and headlands ahead of them; there were tides – the tricky tidal streams of the Channel – to be reckoned with. The very nature of the waves would change soon, with the effect upon the Atlantic rollers of the shallowing water and the narrowing Channel and the varying tides. There was the general problem of avoiding being blown all the way up Channel, and the particular one of trying to get into Tor Bay.
All this called for serious calculation and reference to tide tables, especially in face of the fact that running before the wind like this it would be impossible to take soundings. “We ought to get a sight of Ushant on this course, sir,” yelled Prowse.
That would be a decided help, a solid base for future calculations, a new departure. A shouted word sent Orrock up to the fore-top-masthead with a telescope to supplement the look-out there, while Hornblower faced the first stage of the new series of problems – the question of whether he could bring himself to leave the deck – and the second stage – the question of whether he should invite Prowse to share his calculations. The answer to both was necessarily in the affirmative. Bush was a good seaman and could be trusted to keep a vigilant eye on the wheel and on the canvas; Prowse was a fair navigator and was by law co-responsible with Hornblower for the course to be set and so would have just cause for grievance if he was not consulted, however much Hornblower wished to be free of his company.
So it came about that Prowse was with Hornblower in the chart-room, struggling with the tide tables, when Foreman opened the door, his knocking not having been heard in the general din – and admitted all the noise of the ship in full volume.
“Message from Mr Bush, sir. Ushant in sight on the starboard beam, seven or eight miles, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr Foreman.”
That was a stroke of good fortune, the first they had had. Now they could plan the next struggle to bend the forces of nature to their will. It was a struggle indeed; for the men at the wheel a prolonged physical ordeal which made it necessary to relieve them every half-hour and for Hornblower a mental ordeal which was to keep him at full-strain for the next thirty hours. There was the tentative trying of the wheel, to see if it were possible to bring the wind a couple of points on her port quarter. Three times they made the attempt, to abandon it hastily as wind and wave rendered the ship unmanageable, but at the fourth try it became possible, with the shortening of the waves in their advance up-Channel and the turn of the tide over on the French coast. Now they tore through the water, speed undiminished despite the drag of the rudder as the helmsmen battled with the wheel that kicked and struggled as if it were alive and malignant under their hands, and while the whole strength of the crew handled the braces to trim the yard exactly to make certain there was no danger of sailing by the lee.