“Four hundred!” repeated Fell.
Hornblower saw a momentary calculating look pass over Fell’s face. Five pounds a head meant two thousand pounds; a quarter of that was five hundred pounds. Two years’ pay at one swoop. Fell darted glances aloft and overside.
“Keep your luff, there!” he shouted at the helmsman. “Mr Sefton! Hands to the bowlines there, for’rard.”
“She’s weathering on us,” said Gerard, the glass to his eye.
It was really only to be expected that a well-designed schooner would work to windward more efficiently than even the best of square-rigged frigates.
“She’s fore-reaching on us, too,” said Hornblower, gauging the distances and angles. She was not only lying closer to the wind but travelling faster through the water. Very little faster, it was true – a knot or perhaps two knots – but enough to render her safe from Clorinda’s pursuit.
“I’ll have her yet!” said Fell. “Mr Sefton! Call all hands! Run out the guns on the weather side. Mr James! Find Mr Noakes. Tell him to start the water. Hands to the pumps, Mr Sefton! Pump her dry.”
Hands came pouring up through the hatchways. With the gun-ports opened the guns’ crews flung their weight on the gun tackles, inch by inch dragging the guns on the weather side up the steep slope presented by the heeling deck. The rumble of the wooden wheels over the seams of the planking made a stirring sound; it had been the preliminary of many a desperate fight in the old days. Now the guns were merely being run out in order to keep the ship on a slightly more even keel, giving her a better grip on the water and minimising leeway. Hornblower watched the pumps being manned; the hands threw their weight on the handles with a will, the rapid clank-clank proving how hard they were at work, pumping overside the twenty tons of drinking water which might be thought of as the life-blood of a cruising ship. But the slight reduction of draught that would result might, combined with the running out of the weather guns, add a few yards to her speed.
The call for all hands had brought Mr Erasmus Spendlove on deck, Hornblower’s secretary. He looked round him at the organised confusion on deck with that air of Olympian superiority which always delighted Hornblower. Spendlove cultivated a pose of unruffled calm that exasperated some and amused others. Yet he was a most efficient secretary, and Hornblower had never once regretted acting on the recommendation of Lord Exmouth and appointing him to his position.
“You see the vulgar herd all hard at work, Mr Spendlove,” said Hornblower.
“Truly they appear to be, My Lord.” He looked to windward at the Estrella. “I trust their labours will not be in vain.”
Fell came bustling by, still looking up at the rigging and overside at the Estrella.
“Mr Sefton! Call the carpenter. I’ll have the wedges of the mainmast knocked loose. More play there may give us more speed.”
Hornblower caught a change of expression on Spendlove’s face, and their eyes met. Spendlove was a profound student of the theory of ship design, and Hornblower was a man with a lifetime of experience, and the glance they exchanged, brief as it was, was enough for each to know that the other thought the new plan unwise. Hornblower watched the main shrouds on the weather side taking the additional strain. It was as well that Clorinda was newly refitted.
“Can’t say we’re doing any better, My Lord,” said Gerard from behind his telescope.
The Estrella was perceptibly farther ahead and more to windward. If she wished, she would run Clorinda practically out of sight by noon. Hornblower observed an odd expression on Spendlove’s face. He was testing the air with his nose, sniffing curiously at the wind as it blew past him. It occurred to Hornblower that once or twice he had been aware, without drawing any conclusions from the phenomenon, that the clean trade wind had momentarily been tainted with a hint of a horrible stench. He himself tried the air again, and caught another musky whiff. He knew what it was – twenty years ago he had smelt the same stench when a Spanish galley crowded with galley slaves had passed to windward. The trade wind, blowing straight from the Estrella to the Clorinda, was bearing with it the reek from the crowded slave ship, tainting the air over the clean blue sea far to leeward of her.