“Thirsty, poor devil,” said Bush; a gesture from Hornblower had already sent one of the hands running for water.
The castaways drank eagerly, and to Hornblower and Bush it was as if a miracle were being performed before their eyes, almost like the raising of the dead, to see the astonishing effect of the water upon them. They revived magically; the one who had lain upon the deck, and whose head had had to be supported to allow him to drink, sat up. A death’s head smile split his lean face.
“I expect they’re hungry as well,” said Bush. “They look as if they might be.”
It only called for a nod from Hornblower for somebody to go and seek for food for them.
“Who are you?” asked Hornblower.
“François,” said the stronger one. He had blue eyes which looked oddly out of place in his brown face.
“Frenchies, by God!” said Bush.
“Where do you come from?” asked Hornblower, repeating himself in limping French when he saw he was not understood.
The blue-eyed one extended an arm like a stick towards the Balearics to windward.
“Cabrera,” he said. “We were prisoners.”
Hornblower and Bush exchanged glances and Bush whistled, Bush could at least understand the gesture and the first word of the reply. Cabrera was a previously uninhabited islet which the Spaniards were using as a camp for their French prisoners of war.
The dark-eyed castaway was speaking rapidly in a hoarse voice.
“You won’t send us back there, monsieur?” he said. “Make us your prisoners instead. We cannot -”
He became unintelligible with weakness and excitement. Bush, observant as usual, was yet puzzled by what he could see.
“I can understand their being thirsty,” he said, “but they couldn’t have got as thin as that just coming from Cabrera. They could have paddled that raft of theirs here in a couple of days, even without a wind.”
“When did you leave Cabrera?” asked Hornblower.
“Yesterday.”
Hornblower translated to Bush.
“That sunburn of theirs is months old,” said Bush. “The fellows can’t have worn a pair of breeches in weeks. There must be funny doings in Cabrera.”
“Tell me,” said Hornblower to the castaways, “how did you become, like this?”
It was a long story, the longer as it was interrupted while the castaways ate and drank, and while Hornblower translated the more sensational parts to Bush.
There were twenty-thousand of the poor devils, mainly the army which had surrendered at Baylen, but prisoners taken in a hundred other skirmishes as well, who had annoyed their Spanish captors inexpressibly while they were kept on the mainland by their continual attempts to escape. Finally the Spaniards had taken the whole twenty-thousand and dumped them down on the island of Cabrera, a mere rock of only a few square miles. That had been two years ago; there was no need for any Spanish garrison on the island itself, British sea power made it impossible for any French ship to attempt a rescue, and there was nothing with which to make boats except for rare driftwood. For two years these twenty-thousand miserable wretches had lived on the rock, scraping holes for shelter from the summer sun and winter storms.
“There are only two wells, monsieur,” said the blue-eyed Frenchman, “and sometimes they run dry. But often it rains.”
Hornblower’s mathematical mind dealt with the time-problem of supplying twenty-thousand men with water from two wells. Each man would be lucky if he got one drink a day, even if the wells never ran dry.
Of course there was no fuel on the island, not one of the twenty-thousand had seen a spark of fire for two years, and no clothing had survived two years of exposure and wear.
The Spaniards landed food for them at intervals, which was eaten raw.
“It is never enough, monsieur,” explained the Frenchman, Hornblower was acquainted with Spanish methods, and could understand, “and sometimes it does not come at all. Because of the wind, monsieur. When the wind is in the east, monsieur, we starve.”
Bush was looking at the chart and the sailing directions for the Western Mediterranean.
“That’s right, sir,” he announced. “There’s only one landing beach, and that’s on the east. It’s impracticable to land in easterly winds. It mentions the two wells and says there’s no wood.”