“I’ll go over and see that it’s in place,” he said. “Matthews, get a bowline ready for me.”
Naked and wet, it seemed to him as if the wind blew clear through him; rubbing against the ship’s side as she rolled he lost a good deal of skin, and the waves passing down the ship smacked at him with a boisterous lack of consideration. But he saw the fothered sail placed against the hole, and with intense satisfaction he saw the hairy mass suck into position, dimpling over the hole to form a deep hollow so that he could be sure that the hole was plugged solid. They hauled him up again when he hailed, and awaited his orders; he stood naked, stupid with cold and fatigue and lack of sleep, struggling to form his next decision.
“Lay her on the starboard tack,” he said at length.
If the brig were going to sink, it hardly mattered if it were one hundred or two hundred miles from the French coast; if she were to stay afloat he wanted to be well clear of that lee shore and the chance of recapture. The shot hole with its fothered sail would be deeper under water to increase the risk, but it seemed to be the best chance. The French captain saw them making preparations to wear the brig round, and turned upon Hornblower with voluble protests. With this wind they could make Bordeaux easily on the other tack. Hornblower was risking all their lives, he said. Into Hornblower’s numb mind crept, uninvited, the translation of something he had previously wanted to say. He could use it now.
“Allez au diable,” he snapped, as he put the Frenchman’s stout woollen shirt on over his head.
When his head emerged the Frenchman was still protesting volubly, so violently indeed that a new doubt came into Hornblower’s mind. A word to Matthews sent him round the French prisoners to search for weapons. There was nothing to be found except the sailors’ knives, but as a matter of precaution Hornblower had them all impounded, and when he had dressed he went to special trouble with his three pistols, drawing the charges from them and reloading and repriming afresh. Three pistols in his belt looked piratical, as though he were still young enough to be playing imaginative games, but Hornblower felt in his bones that there might be a time when the Frenchmen might try to rise against their captors, and three pistols would not be too many against twelve desperate men who had makeshift weapons ready to hand, belaying pins and the like.
Matthews was awaiting him with a long face.
“Sir,” he said, “begging your pardon, but I don’t like the looks of it. Straight, I don’t. I don’t like the feel of her. She’s settlin’ down and she’s opening up, I’m certain sure. Beg your pardon, sir, for saying so.”
Down below Hornblower had heard the fabric of the ship continuing to crack and complain; up here the deck seams were gaping more widely. There was a very likely explanation; the swelling of the rice must have forced open the ship’s seams below water, so that plugging the shot-hole would have only eliminated what would be by now only a minor leak. Water must still be pouring in, the cargo still swelling, opening up the ship like an overblown flower. Ships were built to withstand blows from without, and there was nothing about their construction to resist an outward pressure. Wider and wider would gape the seams, and faster and faster the sea would gain access to the cargo.
“Look’e there, sir!” said Matthews suddenly.
In the broad light of day a small grey shape was hurrying along the weather scuppers; another one followed it and another after that. Rats! Something convulsive must be going on down below to bring them on deck in daytime, from out of their comfortable nests among the unlimited food of the cargo. The pressure must be enormous. Hornblower felt another small shock beneath his feet at that moment, as something further parted beneath them. But there was one more card to play, one last line of defence that he could think of.
“I’ll jettison the cargo,” said Hornblower. He had never uttered that word in his life, but he had read it. “Get the prisoners and we’ll start.”
The battened-down hatch cover was domed upwards curiously and significantly; as the wedges were knocked out one plank tore loose at one end with a crash, pointing diagonally upwards, and as the working party lifted off the cover a brown form followed it upwards — a bag of rice, forced out by the underlying pressure until it jammed in the hatchway.
“Tail onto those tackles and sway it up,” said Hornblower.
Bag by bag the rice was hauled up from the hold; sometimes the bags split, allowing a torrent of rice to pour onto the deck, but that did not matter. Another section of the working party swept rice and bags to the lee side and into the ever-hungry sea. After the first three bags the difficulties increased, for the cargo was so tightly jammed below that it called for enormous force to tear each bag out of its position. Two men had to go down the hatchway to pry the bags loose and adjust the slings. There was a momentary hesitation on the part of the two Frenchmen to whom Hornblower pointed — the bags might not all be jammed and the hold of a tossing ship was a dangerous place wherein a roll might bury them alive — but Hornblower had no thought at that moment for other people’s human fears. He scowled at the brief check and they hastened to lower themselves down the hatchway. The labour was enormous as it went on hour after hour; the men at the tackles were dripping with sweat and drooping with fatigue, but they had to relieve periodically the men below, for the bags had jammed themselves in tiers, pressed hard against the ship’s bottom below and the deck beams above, and when the bags immediately below the hatchway had been swayed up the surrounding ones had to be pried loose, out of each tier. Then when a small clearance had been made in the neighbourhood of the hatchway, and they were getting deeper down into the hold, they made the inevitable discovery. The lower tiers of bags had been wetted, their contents had swelled, and the bags had burst. The lower half of the hold was packed solid with damp rice which could only be got out with shovels and a hoist. The still intact bags of the upper tiers, farther away from the hatchway, were still jammed tight, calling for much labour to free them and to manhandle them under the hatchway to be hoisted out.
Hornblower, facing the problem, was distracted by a touch on his elbow when Matthews came up to speak to him.
“It ain’t no go, sir,” said Matthews. “She’s lower in the water an’ settlin’ fast.”
Hornblower walked to the ship’s side with him and looked over. There could be no doubt about it. He had been over the side himself and could remember the height of the waterline, and he had for a more exact guide the level of the fothered sail under the ship’s bottom. The brig was a full six inches lower in the water — and this after fifty tons of rice at least had been hoisted out and flung over the side. The brig must be leaking like a basket, with water pouring in through the gaping seams to be sucked up immediately by the thirsty rice.
Hornblower’s left hand was hurting him, and he looked down to discover that he was gripping the rail with it so tightly as to cause him pain, without knowing he was doing so. He released his grip and looked about him, at the afternoon sun, at the tossing sea. He did not want to give in and admit defeat. The French captain came up to him.
“This is folly,” he said. “Madness, sir. My men are overcome by fatigue.”
Over by the hatchway, Hornblower saw, Hunter was driving the French seamen to their work with a rope’s end, which he was using furiously. There was not much more work to be got out of the Frenchmen; and at that moment the Marie Galante rose heavily to a wave and wallowed down the further side. Even his inexperience could detect the sluggishness and ominous deadness of her movements. The brig had not much longer to float, and there was a good deal to do.