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“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, ru
“Hammocks, there!” shouted Hornblower. “Pile them quick! Mr. Galbraith, take a turn with that line round the mainmast. Whipple, put your rope through the breeching ring. Quick, man! Now take a turn!”
Hornblower had accomplished what Galbraith had failed to do—had correlated the efforts of the men in the nick of time so that now the gun was bound and helpless. There only remained the ticklish job of manoeuvring it back to its gun port and securing it with fresh breechings. Howell the carpenter was at his elbow now, waiting until he could spare a moment’s attention from this business with the gun.
“Four feet an’ more in the well, sir,” said Howell, knuckling his forehead. “Nearer five, an’ making fast as well as I could tell. Can I have some more men for the pumps, sir?”
“Not until that gun’s in place,” said Hornblower, grimly. “What damage have you found?”
“Seven shot holes, sir, below water line. There’s no pluggin’ of ‘em not with this sea ru
“I know that,” snapped Hornblower. “Where are they?”
“All of ‘em for’rard, somehow, sir. One clean through the third frame timber, starboard side. Two more—”
“I’ll have a sail forthered under the bottom as soon as there are enough men to spare. Your men at the pumps will have to continue pumping. Report to the first lieutenant’s party with your mates now.”
The first lieutenant and the boatswain were busily engaged upon the duty of erecting a jury mizzen mast. Already the boatswain had come ruefully to the captain with the information that half the spare spars secured between the gangways had been damaged by shot, but there was a main topsail yard left which would serve. But to sway up its fifty-five foot length into a vertical position was going to be a tricky business—hard enough in a smooth sea, dangerous and prolonged out here with the Pacific ru
Happily there was that stump of the old mizzen mast left—its nine feet of length relieved them of the tiresome complication of steeping the new mast, which they proposed instead merely to fish to the stump. The after part of the ship was alive with working parties each intent on its own contribution to the work in hand. With tackles and rollers the spar had been eased aft until its butt was solidly against the stump of the mizzen mast. Harrison was now supervising the task of noosing shrouds to the new masthead; after that he would have to prepare the masthead to receive the cap and the trussel trees which the carpenter and his mates would now have to make.
In the mizzen chains on either side Harrison’s mates were supervising the efforts of two other parties engaged upon attaching the other ends of the shrouds to the cha
A sudden flurry of rain heralded the arrival of a clear spell. Braced upon the heaving deck Hornblower set his glass to his eye; the Natividad was visible again, hull down now, across the tossing grey-flecked sea. She was hove-to as well, looking queerly lopsided in her partially dismasted condition. Hornblower’s glass could discover no sign of any immediate replacement of the missing spars; he thought it extremely probable that there was nothing left in the ship to serve as jury masts. In that case as soon as the Lydia could carry enough sail aft to enable her to beat to windward he would have the Natividad at his mercy—as long as the sea was not ru
He glowered round the horizon; at present there was no sign of the storm abating, and it was long past noon. With the coming of night he might lose the Natividad altogether, and nightfall would give his enemy a further respite in which to achieve repairs.
“How much longer, Mr. Harrison?” he rasped.
“Not long now, sir. Nearly ready, sir.”
“You’ve had long enough and to spare for a simple piece of work like that. Keep the men moving, there.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hornblower knew that the men were cursing him under their breath; he did not know they admired him as well, as men will admire a hard master despite themselves.
Now it was the cook come to report to him—the cook and his mates had been the only men in the ship who could be spared for the grisly work allotted to them.
“All ready, sir,” he said.
Without a word Hornblower strode forward down the starboard side gangway, taking his prayer book from his pocket. The fourteen dead were there, shrouded in their hammocks, two to a grating, a roundshot sewn into the foot of each hammock. Hornblower blew a long blast upon his silver whistle, and activity ceased on board while he read, compromising between haste and solemnity, the office for the burial of the dead at sea.
“We therefore commit their bodies to the deep—”
The cook and his mates tilted each grating in turn, and the bodies fell with sullen splashes overside while Hornblower read the concluding words of the service. As soon as the last words were said he blew his whistle again and all the bustle and activity recommenced. He grudged those few minutes taken from the work bitterly, but he knew that any unceremonious pitching overboard of the dead would be resented by his men, who set all the store by forms and ceremonies to be expected of the uneducated.
And now there was something else to plague him. Picking her way across the maindeck below him came Lady Barbara, the little negress clinging to her skirts.