The gap between the ships had widened to a full half mile, and was widening further. Through his glass he could see the Natividad’s forecastle black with men struggling with the wreck of the foremast. The ship which was first ready for action again would win. He snapped the glass shut and turned to face all the problems which he knew were awaiting his immediate solution.
Chapter XV
The captain of the Lydia stood on his quarterdeck while his ship, hove to under the main staysail and three-reefed main topsail, pitched and wallowed in the fantastic sea. It was raining now, with such violence that nothing could be seen a hundred yards away, and there were deluges of spray sweeping the deck, too, so that he and his clothes were as wet as if he had been swimming in the sea, but he was not aware of it. Everyone was appealing to him for orders — first lieutenant, gunner, boatswain, carpenter, surgeon, purser. The ship had to be made fit to fight again, even though there was every doubt as to whether she would even live through the storm which shrieked round her. It was the acting-surgeon who was appealing to him at the moment.
“But what am I to do, sir?” he said pathetically, white faced, wringing his hands. This was Laurie, the purser’s steward, who had been appointed acting-surgeon when Hankey the surgeon died. He had fifty wounded down in the grim dark cockpit, maddened with pain, some with limbs torn off, and all of them begging for the assistance which he had no idea of how to give.
“What are you to do, sir?” mimicked Hornblower scornfully, beside himself with exasperation at this incompetence. “After two months in which to study your duties you have to ask what to do!”
Laurie only blenched a little more at this, and Hornblower had to make himself be a little helpful and put some heart in this lily-livered incompetent.
“See here, Laurie,” he said, in more kindly fashion. “Nobody expects miracles of you. Do what you can. Those who are going to die you must make easy. You have my orders to reckon every man who has lost a limb as one of those. Give them laudanum — twenty-five drops a man, or more if that won’t ease them. Pretend to bandage ’em. Tell ’em they’re certain to get better and draw a pension for the next fifty years. As for the others, surely your mother wit can guide you. Bandage ’em until the bleeding stops. You have rags enough to bandage the whole ship’s crew. Put splints on the broken bones. Don’t move any man more than is necessary. Keep every man quiet. A tot of rum to every wounded man, and promise ’em another at eight bells if they lie still. I never knew a Jack yet who wouldn’t go through hell fire for a tot of rum. Get below, man, and see to it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Laurie could only think of his own responsibility and duty; he scuttled away below without a thought for the hell-turned-loose on the main deck. Here one of the twelve-pounders had come adrift, its breechings shot away by the Natividad’s last broadside. With every roll of the ship it was rumbling back and forth across the deck, a ton and a half of insensate weight, threatening at any moment to burst through the ship’s side. Galbraith, with twenty men trailing ropes, and fifty men carrying mats and hammocks, was trailing it cautiously from point to point in the hope of tying it or smothering it into helplessness. As Hornblower watched them, a fresh heave of the ship canted it round and sent it thundering in a mad charge straight at them. They parted wildly before it, and it charged through them, its trucks squealing like a forest of pigs, and brought up with a shattering crash against the mainmast.
“Now’s your chance, lads! Jump to it!” yelled Hornblower.
Galbraith, running forward, risked limb and life to pass a rope’s end through an eye tackle. Yet he had no sooner done it than a new movement of the ship swung the gun round and threatened to waste his effort.