A Ship of the Line

“Mr. Bush says the cable’ll be ready in five minutes, sir,” he said.

“Right,” answered Hornblower. “Mr. Vincent, signal to the flagship ‘Stand by to receive a line.’ Mr. Morkell, pass the word for my coxswain.”

A line! The quarterdeck officers stared at each other. The Pluto was plunging and lunging quite irrationally in the trough of the sea. She was still heeling over so as to show her copper before rolling back to bury the white streaks between her gunports, but in addition, in the irregular sea, she was lunging now forward, now aft, as incalculable whim took her. She was as dangerous to approach as a gun loose on a rolling deck. Any sort of collision between the ships might well, in that sea, send them both incontinently to the bottom.

Hornblower ran his eyes over Brown’s bulging muscles as he stood before him.

“Brown,” he said, “I’ve selected you to heave a line to the flagship as we go down past her. D’you know anyone in the ship who could do it better? Frankly, now.”

“No, sir. I can’t say as I do, sir.”

Brown’s cheerful self confidence was like a tonic.

“What are you going to use, then?”

“One o’ them belayin’ pins, sir, an’ a lead line, if I can have one, sir.”

Brown was a man of instant decision—Hornblower’s heart warmed to him, not for the first time.

“Make ready, then. I shall lay our stern as close to the flagship’s bows as is safe.”

At the moment the Sutherland was forging slowly ahead under storm jib and close reefed topsails, two hundred yards to windward of the Pluto. Hornblower’s mind became a calculating machine again, estimating the Sutherland’s relative drift down upon the Pluto, the latter’s drunken reelings and plungings, the Sutherland’s present headway, the send of the waves and the chances of a cross-wave intervening. He had to wait for two long minutes before the moment for which he was waiting should arrive, his eyes glued upon the Pluto until their relative positions should be exactly what he wanted.

“Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower—his mind was too busy for him to be afraid. “Back the main tops’l.”

The Sutherland’s way was checked. At once the gap between the two ships began to narrow, as the Sutherland drifted down upon the Pluto–a gap of grey angry water with bearded waves. Fortunately the Pluto was lying fairly constantly in the trough without yawing, only surging forward or back as some unexpected sea struck her. Brown was standing statuesquely on the taffrail, balancing superbly. The lead line was coiled on the deck at his side, attached to the belaying pin which he swung pendulum fashion, idly, from his fist. He made a magnificent picture there against the sky, with no hint of nervousness as he watched the distance dwindle. Even at that moment Hornblower felt a hint of envy of Brown’s physique and robust self-confidence. The Sutherland was coming down fast upon the Pluto–upon the latter’s wave-swept forecastle Hornblower could see a group of men waiting anxiously to catch the line. He looked to make sure that Brown’s assistants were ready with the stouter line to bend on the lead line.

“We’ll do it, by God!” said Gerard to Crystal.

Gerard was wrong—at the present relative rate of drift the ships would pass at least ten yards farther apart than Brown could be expected to throw the belaying pin and its hampering trailer of line.

“Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower coldly. “Back the mizzen tops’l.”

The hands were ready at the braces; the order was hardly given before it was executed. The Sutherland was making a tiny trifle of sternway now, and the gap was closing farther still. The Pluto’s towering bow, lifting to a wave, seemed right upon them. Gerard and Crystal were swearing softly in unison, without the slightest idea of what they were saying, as they watched, fascinated. Hornblower felt the wind blowing cold about his shoulders. He wanted to call to Brown to throw, and with difficulty checked himself. Brown was the better judge of what he could do. Then he threw, with the Sutherland’s stern lifting to a wave. The belaying pin flew with the line wavering behind it in the wind. It just reached the Pluto’s beak-head bows and caught round a remnant of the standing rigging of the bowsprit, where a ragged sailor astride the spar seized it with a wave of his arm. Next moment a wave broke clean over him, but he held on, and they saw him pass the end of the line up to the waiting group on the forecastle.

“Done it!” shrieked Gerard. “Done it, done it, done it!”

“Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Brace the mizzen tops’l sharp up.”

The line was uncoiling fast from the deck as the Pluto hauled it in; soon the heavier line was on its way out to the dismasted ship. But they had not long to spare; with their different rates of drift it was impossible for Hornblower in that gale to keep the two ships that same distance apart—impossible and dangerous. The Sutherland hove-to went to leeward faster than the Pluto; closehauled she forged ahead, and it was Hornblower’s task to combine these two factors so that the increasing distance between the ships was kept down to a minimum—a nice algebraic problem in convergent series which Hornblower had to convert into mental arithmetic and solve in his head.

When suddenly the Pluto decided irrationally to rush forward upon the Sutherland he found himself recasting his estimates at the very moment when everyone else was holding their breath and waiting for the collision. Gerard had a couple of parties standing by with spars to try to bear the Pluto off—not that they could have achieved much against her three thousand tons deadweight—and the bight of an old sail filled with hammocks as a fend-off, and there was wild activity on the forecastle of the Pluto as well, but at the very last moment, with blasphemy crackling all round, the dismasted ship suddenly sheered off and everyone breathed again more freely, except Hornblower. If the Pluto could surge in that fashion towards the Sutherland, she could surge away from her also, and if she were to do so while the line was hauling in the twenty-three inch cable she would part the line for certain and leave the whole business to be done again—and Cape Creux was looming very near now.

“Caligula signalling, sir,” said Vincent. “How can I help?”

“Reply ‘Wait’,” said Hornblower over his shoulder to him; he had actually forgotten the Caligula’s existence. Bolton would be a fool if he came down u

A mighty splash over the stern indicated that Bush down below was paying out some of the hawser through the after-port so as to provide some slack if the Pluto surged away, but the process might be overdone—it was a hemp cable, which sank in water, and to have out too much would imperil the line which was drawing it in. Hornblower leaned over the heaving stern.

“Mr. Bush!” he bellowed.

“Sir!” said Bush’s voice from below through the open port.

“Avast there, now!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The line was taking the strain now, and the cable was creeping slowly out towards the Pluto like some sea worm. Hornblower watched as it straightened—this was a business demanding calculation as close as any so far. He had to shout his orders for Bush to pay out more cable, or to wait, his eyes on the ships, on the sea, on the wind. The cable was two hundred yards long, but fifty of these lay in the Sutherland herself—the job had to be completed before the ships were a hundred and fifty yards apart. Hornblower only began to feel relieved when he saw the end of the cable curve up out of the sea on to the Pluto’s bows, and the waving of flags told him that the end had been taken inboard and made fast.