“My God!” he said. “The rice! The rice!”
The French word ‘riz’ that he used was unknown to Hornblower, but he stamped his foot on the deck and pointed down through it.
“The cargo!” he said in explanation. “It — it grows bigger.”
Matthews was with them now, and without knowing a word of French he understood.
“Didn’t I hear this brig was full of rice, sir?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s it, then. The water’s got into it and it’s swelling.”
So it would. Dry rice soaked in water would double or treble its volume. The cargo was swelling and bursting the seams of the ship open. Hornblower remembered the unnatural creaks and groans below. It was a black moment; he looked round at the unfriendly sea for inspiration and support, and found neither. Several seconds passed before he was ready to speak, and ready to maintain the dignity of a naval officer in face of difficulties.
“The sooner we get that sail over that hole the better, then,” he said. It was too much to be expected that his voice should sound quite natural. “Hurry those Frenchmen up.”
He turned to pace the deck, so as to allow his feelings to subside and to set his thoughts running in an orderly fashion again, but the French captain was at his elbow, voluble as a Job’s comforter.
“I said I thought the ship was riding heavily,” he said. “She is lower in the water.”
“Go to the devil,” said Hornblower, in English — he could not think up the French for that phrase.
Even as he stood he felt a sudden sharp shock beneath his feet, as if someone had hit the deck underneath them with a mallet. The ship was springing apart bit by bit.
“Hurry with that sail!” he yelled, turning back to the working party, and then was angry with himself because the tone of his voice must have betrayed undignified agitation.
At last an area five feet square of the sail was fothered, lines were rove through the grommets, and the working party hurried forward to work the sail under the brig and drag it aft to the hole. Hornblower was taking off his clothes, not out of regard for the captain’s property but so as to keep them dry for himself.
“I’ll go over and see that it’s in place,” he said. “Matthews, get a bowline ready for me.”
Naked and wet, it seemed to him as if the wind blew clear through him; rubbing against the ship’s side as she rolled he lost a good deal of skin, and the waves passing down the ship smacked at him with a boisterous lack of consideration. But he saw the fothered sail placed against the hole, and with intense satisfaction he saw the hairy mass suck into position, dimpling over the hole to form a deep hollow so that he could be sure that the hole was plugged solid. They hauled him up again when he hailed, and awaited his orders; he stood naked, stupid with cold and fatigue and lack of sleep, struggling to form his next decision.
“Lay her on the starboard tack,” he said at length.
If the brig were going to sink, it hardly mattered if it were one hundred or two hundred miles from the French coast; if she were to stay afloat he wanted to be well clear of that lee shore and the chance of recapture. The shot hole with its fothered sail would be deeper under water to increase the risk, but it seemed to be the best chance. The French captain saw them making preparations to wear the brig round, and turned upon Hornblower with voluble protests. With this wind they could make Bordeaux easily on the other tack. Hornblower was risking all their lives, he said. Into Hornblower’s numb mind crept, uninvited, the translation of something he had previously wanted to say. He could use it now.
“Allez au diable,” he snapped, as he put the Frenchman’s stout woollen shirt on over his head.
When his head emerged the Frenchman was still protesting volubly, so violently indeed that a new doubt came into Hornblower’s mind. A word to Matthews sent him round the French prisoners to search for weapons. There was nothing to be found except the sailors’ knives, but as a matter of precaution Hornblower had them all impounded, and when he had dressed he went to special trouble with his three pistols, drawing the charges from them and reloading and repriming afresh. Three pistols in his belt looked piratical, as though he were still young enough to be playing imaginative games, but Hornblower felt in his bones that there might be a time when the Frenchmen might try to rise against their captors, and three pistols would not be too many against twelve desperate men who had makeshift weapons ready to hand, belaying pins and the like.