“Pound him, lads, pound him!” screamed Gerard, half mad with fatigue and strain.
The Lydia by virtue of her top hamper was going down to leeward fast upon the rolling hulk. At every second the range was shortening. Through the darkness, when their eyes were not blinded with gun flashes, Hornblower and Bush could see figures moving about on the Natividad’s deck. They were firing muskets now, as well. The flashes pricked the darkness and Hornblower heard a bullet thud into the rail beside him. He did not care. He was conscious now of his overmastering weariness.
The wind was fluky, coming in sudden puffs and veering unexpectedly. It was hard, especially in the darkness, to judge exactly how the two ships were nearing each other.
“The closer we are, the quicker we’ll finish it,” said Bush.
“Yes, but we’ll run on board of her soon,” said Hornblower.
He roused himself for a further effort.
“Call the hands to stand by to repel boarders,” he said, and he walked across to where the two starboard side quarterdeck carronades were thundering away. So intent were their crews on their work, so hypnotised by the monotony of loading and firing, that it took him several seconds to attract their notice. Then they stood still, sweating, while Hornblower gave his orders. The two carronades were loaded with canister brought from the reserve locker beside the taffrail. They waited, crouching beside the guns, while the two ships drifted closer and closer together, the Lydia’s main deck guns still blazing away. There were shouts and yells of defiance from the Natividad, and the musket flashes from her bows showed a dark mass of men crowding there waiting for the ships to come together. Yet the actual contact was unexpected, as a sudden combination of wind and sea closed the gap with a rush. The Natividad’s bow hit the Lydia amidships, just forward of the mizzenmast, with a jarring crash. There was a pandemonium of yells from the Natividad as they swarmed forward to board, and the captains of the carronades sprang to their lanyards.
“Wait!” shouted Homblower.
His mind was like a calculating machine, judging wind and sea, time and distance, as the Lydia slowly swung round. With hand spikes and the brute strength of the men he trained one carronade round and the other followed his example, while the mob on the Natividad’s forecastle surged along the bulwarks waiting for the moment to board. The two carronades came right up against them.
“Fire!”
A thousand musket balls were vomited from the carronades straight into the packed crowd. There was a moment of silence, and then the pandemonium of shouts and cheers was replaced by a thin chorus of screams and cries — the blast of musket balls had swept the Natividad’s forecastle clear from side to side.
For a space the two ships clung together in this position; the Lydia still had a dozen guns that would bear, and these pounded away with their muzzles almost touching the Natividad’s bow. Then wind and sea parted them again, the Lydia to leeward now, drifting away from the rolling hulk; in the English ship every gun was in action, while from the Natividad came not a gun, not even a musket shot.
Hornblower fought off his weariness again.
“Cease firing,” he shouted to Gerard on the main deck, and the guns fell silent.
Hornblower stared through the darkness at the vague mass of the Natividad, wallowing in the waves.
“Surrender!” he shouted.
“Never!” came the reply — Crespo’s voice, he could have sworn to it, thin and high pitched. It added two or three words of obscene insult.
Hornblower could afford to smile at that, even through his weariness. He had fought his battle and won it.
“You have done all that brave men could do,” he shouted.
“Not all, yet, Captain,” wailed the voice in the darkness.
Then something caught Hornblower’s eyes — a wavering glow of red about the Natividad’s vague bows.
“Crespo, you fool!” he shouted. “Your ship’s on fire! Surrender, while you can.”
“Never!”
The Lydia’s guns, hard against the Natividad’s side, had flung their flaming wads in amongst the splintered timbers. The tinder-dry wood of the old ship had taken fire from them, and the fire was spreading fast. It was brighter already than when Hornblower had noticed it; the ship would be a mass of flames soon. Hornblower’s first duty was to his own ship — when the fire should reach the powder charges on the Natividad’s decks, or when it should attain the magazine, the ship would become a volcano of flaming fragments, imperilling the Lydia.
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