Chapter XIV
But he knew, and he told himself, at the moment of his getting to his feet, that he must not delay an instant in making the Lydia ready for action again.
“Afterguard!” he roared — his voice sounding unnatural to himself as he spoke — “Mr Clay! Benskin! Axes here! Cut that wreckage away!”
Clay came pounding aft at the head of a rush of men with axes and cutlasses. As they were chopping at the mizzen shrouds he noticed Bush sitting up on the deck with his face in his hands — apparently a falling block had struck him down but there was no time to spare for Bush. The Natividad was coming down remorselessly on them; he could see exultant figures on her deck waving their hats in triumph. To his strained senses it seemed to him that even through the din on board the Lydia he could hear the creaking of Natividad’s rigging and the rumble of her reloaded guns being run out. She was steering to pass as close as possible. Hornblower saw her bowsprit go by, felt her reefed fore topsail loom over him, and then her broadside crashed out as gun after gun bore on the Lydia’s stern. The wind caught the smoke and whipped it round Hornblower, blinding him. He felt the deck leap as the shots struck home, heard a scream from Clay’s party beside him, felt a splinter scream past his cheek, and then, just as annihilation seemed about to engulf him, the frightful succession of shots ended, the smoke was borne away, the Natividad had gone by, and he was still alive and could look round him. The slide of the aftermost carronade had been smashed, and one of Clay’s men was lying screaming on the deck with the gun across his thighs and two or three of his mates striving futilely to prise it off them.
“Stop that!” screamed Hornblower — the necessity of having to give such an order sent his voice up to the same pitch as that of the miserable wretch in his agony — “Cut that bloody wreckage away! Mr Clay, keep them at work!”
A cable’s length away, over the grey topped waves the Natividad was slowly wearing round to return and deal a fresh blow at her helpless opponent. It was lucky that the Natividad was an unhandy ship, like all those stumpy fourth rates — it gave Hornblower more time between the broadsides to try and get the Lydia into a condition so that she could face her enemy again.
“Foretop, there! Mr Galbraith! get the headsails in.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The absence of the fore-topmast-staysail and storm jib would balance to some extent the loss of the mizzen topsail and driver. He might, by juggling with the helm, get the Lydia to lie to the wind a trifle then, and hit back at his big opponent. But there was no hope of doing so while all this wreckage was trailing astern like a vast sea anchor. Until that was cut away she could only lie helpless, dead before the wind, suffering her enemy’s blows in silence. A glance showed him that the Natividad had worn round now, and was heading to cross their stern again.
“Hurry up!” he screamed to the axe men. “You, there, Holroyd, Tooms, get down into the mizzen chains.”
He suddenly realised how high-pitched and hysterical his voice had become. At all costs he must preserve before Clay and the men his reputation for imperturbability. He forced himself convulsively, to look casually at the Natividad as she came plunging down on them again, wicked with menace; he made himself grin, and shrug his shoulders, and speak in his normal voice.
“Don’t mind about her, my lads. One thing at a time. Cut this wreckage away first, and we’ll give the Dagoes their bellyful after.”
The men hacked with renewed force at the tough tangles of cordage. Something gave way, and a new extravagant plunge on the part of the Lydia as a huge wave lifted her stern caused the wreckage to run out a little farther before catching again, this time on the mizzen stay, which, sweeping the deck, tumbled three men off their feet. Hornblower seized one of the fallen axes, and fell desperately on the rope as it sawed back and forth with the roll of the ship. From the tail of his eye he saw the Natividad looming up, but he could spare no attention for her. For the moment she represented merely a tiresome interruption to his work, not a menace to his life.