“Try again, Mr Marsh,” he said.
The Natividad was firing both stern chasers together now. As Hornblower spoke there came a crash forward as one of the eighteen-pounder balls struck home close above the water line. Hornblower could hear young Savage, down in the launch hurling shrill blasphemies at the men at the oars to urge them on — that shot must have passed just over his head. Marsh stroked his beard and addressed himself to the task of reloading the long nine pounder. While he was so engaged, Hornblower was deep in the calculation of the chances of battle.
That long nine, although of smaller calibre, was of longer range than his shorter main deck guns, while the carronades which comprised half of the Lydia’s armament were useless at anything longer than close range. The Lydia would have to draw up close to her enemy before she could attack her with effect. There would be a long and damaging interval between the moment when the Natividad should be able to bring all her guns into action and the moment when the Lydia could hit back at her. There would be casualties, guns dismounted perhaps, serious losses. Hornblower balanced the arguments for and against continuing to try and close with the enemy while Mr Marsh was squinting along the sights of the nine pounder. Then Hornblower scowled to himself, and ceased tugging at his chin, his mind made up. He had started the action; he would go through with it to the end, cost what it might. His flexibility of mind could crystallise into sullen obstinacy.
The nine pounder went off as though to signal this decision.
“Just alongside her!” screamed Knyvett triumphantly from the foretop.
“Well done, Mr Marsh,” said Hornblower, and Marsh wagged his beard complacently.
The Natividad was firing faster now. Three times a splintering crash told of a shot which had been aimed true. Then suddenly a thrust as if from an invisible hand made Hornblower reel on the quarterdeck, and his ears were filled with a brief rending noise. A skimming shot had ploughed a channel along the planking of the quarterdeck. A marine was sitting near the taffrail stupidly contemplating his left leg, which no longer had a foot on the end of it; another marine dropped his musket with a clatter and clapped his hands to his face, which a splinter had torn open, with the blood spouting between his fingers.
“Are you hurt, sir?” cried Bush, leaping across to Hornblower.
“No.”
Hornblower turned back to stare through his glass at the Natividad while the wounded were being dragged away. He saw a dark dot appear alongside the Natividad, and lengthen and diverge. It was the boat with which they had been trying to row — perhaps they were giving up the attempt. But the boat was not being hoisted in. For a second Hornblower was puzzled. The Natividad’s stumpy fore mast and main mast came into view. The boat was pulling the ship laboriously round so that her whole broadside would bear. Not two, but twenty-five guns would soon be opening their fire on the Lydia.
Hornblower felt his breath come a little quicker, unexpectedly, so that he had to swallow in order to regulate things again. His pulse was faster, too. He made himself keep the glass to his eye until he was certain of the enemy’s manoeuvre, and then walked forward leisurely to the gangway. He was compelling himself to appear lighthearted and carefree; he knew that the fools of men whom he commanded would fight more diligently for a captain like that.
“They’re waiting for us now, lads,” he said. “We shall have some pebbles about our ears before long. Let’s show ’em that Englishmen don’t care.”
They cheered him for that, as he expected and hoped they would do. He looked through his glass again at the Natividad. She was still turning, very slowly — it was a lengthy process to turn a clumsy two-decker in a dead calm. But he could see a hint of the broad white stripes which ornamented her side.
“Ha-h’m,” he said.
Forward he could hear the oars grinding away as the men in the boats laboured to drag the Lydia to grips with her enemy. Across the deck a little group of officers — Bush and Crystal among them — were academically discussing what percentage of hits might be expected from a Spanish broadside at a range of a mile. They were coldblooded about it in a fashion he could never hope to imitate with sincerity. He did not fear death so much — nor nearly as much — as defeat and the pitying contempt of his colleagues. The chiefest dread at the back of his mind was the fear of mutilation. An ex-naval officer stumping about on two wooden legs might be an object of condolence, might receive lip service as one of Britain’s heroic defenders, but he was a figure of fun, nevertheless. Hornblower dreaded the thought of being a figure of fun. He might lose his nose or his cheek and be so mutilated that people would not be able to bear to look at him. It was a horrible thought which set him shuddering while he looked through the telescope, so horrible that he did not stop to think of the associated details, of the agonies he would have to bear down there in the dark cockpit at the mercy of Laurie’s incompetence.