“Pull for the Dreadnought,” said Foster.
“Dammit, I’m the senior!” said Hammond. “Pull for Calypso.”
“Calypso it is,” said Harvey. He had his hand on the tiller, heading the boat across the dark water.
“Pull! Oh, pull!” said Foster, in agony. There can be no mental torture like that of a captain whose ship is in peril and he not on board.
“There’s one of them,” said Harvey.
Just ahead, a small brig was bearing down on them under topsails; they could see the glow of the fire, and as they watched the fire suddenly burst into roaring fury, wrapping the whole vessel in flames in a moment, like a set piece in a fireworks display. Flames spouted out of the holes in her sides and roared up through her hatchways. The very water around her glowed vivid red. They saw her halt in her career and begin to swing slowly around.
“She’s across Santa Barbara’s cable,” said Foster.
“She’s nearly clear,” added Hammond. “God help ’em on board there. She’ll be alongside her in a minute.”
Hornblower thought of two thousand Spanish and French prisoners battened down below decks in the hulk.
“With a man at her wheel she could be steered clear,” said Foster. “We ought to do it!”
Then things happened rapidly. Harvey put the tiller over. “Pull away!” he roared at the boatmen.
The latter displayed an easily understood reluctance to row up to that fiery hull.
“Pull!” said Harvey.
He whipped out his sword from its scabbard, and the blade reflected the red fire as he thrust it menacingly at the stroke oar’s throat. With a kind of sob, stroke tugged at his oar and the boat leaped forward.
“Lay us under her counter,” said Foster. “I’ll jump for it.”
At last Hornblower found his tongue. “Let me go, sir. I’ll handle her.”
“Come with me, if you like,” replied Foster. “It may need two of us.”
His nickname of Dreadnought Foster may have had its origin in the name of his ship, but it was appropriate enough in all circumstances. Harvey swung the boat under the fire ship’s stern; she was before the wind again now, and just gathering way, just heading down upon the Santa Barbara.
For a moment Hornblower was the nearest man in the boat to the brig and there was no time to be lost. He stood up on the thwart and jumped; his hands gripped something, and with a kick and a struggle he dragged his ungainly body up onto the deck. With the brig before the wind, the flames were blown forward; right aft here it was merely frightfully hot, but Hornblower’s ears were filled with the roar of the flames and the crackling and banging of the burning wood. He stepped forward to the wheel and seized the spokes, the wheel was lashed with a loop of line, and as he cast this off and took hold of the wheel again he could feel the rudder below him bite into the water. He flung his weight on the spoke and spun the wheel over. The brig was about to collide; with the Santa Barbara, starboard bow to starboard bow, and the flames lit an anxious gesticulating crowd on the Santa Barbara’s forecastle.
“Hard over!” roared Foster’s voice in Hornblower’s ear.
“Hard over it is!” said Hornblower, and the brig answered her wheel at that moment, and her bow turned away, avoiding the collision.
An immense fountain of flame poured out from the hatchway abaft the mainmast, setting mast and rigging ablaze, and at the same time a flaw of wind blew a wave of flame aft. Some instinct made Hornblower while holding the wheel with one hand snatch out his neckcloth with the other and bury his face in it. The flame whirled round him and was gone again. But the distractions had been dangerous; the brig had continued to turn under full helm, and now her stern was swinging in to bump against the Santa Barbara’s bow. Hornblower desperately spun the wheel over the other way. The flames had driven Foster aft to the taffrail, but now he returned.
“Hard‑a‑lee!”
The brig was already responding. Her starboard quarter bumped the Santa Barbara in the waist, and then bumped clear.