“Starboard a point,” ordered Hornblower.
“Deep six!”
“Mr Bush!” Hornblower must stay steady and calm. He must betray no relief, no human feelings, although within him the desire to laugh like an idiot welled up in combat with the frightful exhaustion he felt. “Kindly secure the guns. Then you may dismiss the hands from general quarters.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“I must thank you, Mr Prowse, for your very able assistance.”
“Me, sir?” Prowse went on in incoherent self-depreciation. Hornblower could imagine the lantern-jaws working in surprise, and he ignored the mumblings.
“You may heave the ship to, Mr Prowse. We don’t want dawn to find us under the guns of Petit Minou.”
“No, sir, of course not, sir.”
All was well. Hotspur had gone in and come out again. The coasters from the south had received a lesson they would not forget for a long time. And now it was apparent that the night was not so dark; it was not a question of eyes becoming habituated to the darkness, but something more definite than that. Faces were now a blur of white, visible across the deck. Looking aft Hornblower could see the low hills of Quelern standing out in dark relief against a lighter sky, and while he watched a grain of silver became visible over their summits. He had actually forgotten until this moment that the moon was due to rise now; that had been one of the factors he had pointed out in his letter to Pellew. The gibbous moon rose above the hilltops and shone serenely down upon the Gulf. The topgallant masts were being sent up, topsails were being set, staysails got in.
“What’s that noise?” asked Hornblower, referring to a dull thumping somewhere forward.
“Carpenter plugging a shot hole, sir,” explained Bush. “That last coaster holed us just above the waterline on the starboard side right forward.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well.”
His questions and his formal termination of the conversation were the result of one more effort of will.
“I can trust you not to lose your way now, Mr Bush,” he said. He could not help being jocular, although he knew it sounded a false note. The hands at the braces were backing the main-topsail, and Hotspur could lie hove-to in peace and quiet. “You may set the ordinary watches, Mr Bush. And see that I am called at eight bells in the middle watch.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
There were four and a half hours of peace and quiet ahead of him. He yearned with all his weary mind and body for rest — for oblivion, rather than rest. An hour after dawn, at the latest, Pellew could expect him to send in his report on the events of the evening, and it would take an hour to compose it. And he must take the opportunity to write to Maria so that the letter could be sent to Tonnant along with the report and so have a chance to reach the outside world. It would take him longer to write to Maria than to Pellew. That reminded him of something else. He had to make one more effort.
“Oh, Mr Bush!”
“Sir?”
‘I’ll be sending a boat to Tonnant during the morning watch. If any officer — or if any of the men — wish to send letters that will be their opportunity.’
“Aye aye, sir. Thank you, sir.”
In his cabin he faced one further effort to pull off his shoes, but the arrival of Grimes saved him the trouble. Grimes took off his shoes, eased him out of his coat, unfastened his neckcloth. Hornblower allowed him to do it; he was too weary even to be self-conscious. For one moment he luxuriated in allowing his weary feet free play in his stockings, but then he fell spreadeagled on to his cot, half-prone, half on his side, his head on his arms, and Grimes covered him up and left him.
That was not the most sensible attitude to adopt, as he discovered when Grimes shook him awake. He ached in every joint, it seemed, while to dash cold sea water on his face did little enough to clear his head. He had to struggle out of the after-effects of a long period of strain as other men had to struggle out of the after-effects of a drinking bout. But he had recovered sufficiently to move his left-handed pen when he sat down and began his report.
‘Sir,
In obedience to your instructions, dated the 16th instant, I proceeded on the afternoon of the 18th …’
He had to leave the last paragraph until the coming of daylight should reveal what he should write in it, and he laid the letter aside and took another sheet. He had to bite the end of his pen before he could even write the salutation in this second letter, and when he had written ‘My dear Wife’ he had to bite it again before he could continue. It was something of a relief to have Grimes enter at last.
“Mr Bush’s compliments, sir, and it’s not far off daylight.”
That made it possible to conclude the letter.
‘And now, my dearest —’ Hornblower glanced at Maria’s letter to select an endearment — ‘Angel, my duty calls me once more on deck, so that I must end this letter with —’ another reference — ‘fondest love to my dear Wife, the loved Mother of the Child to be.
Your affectionate Husband,
Horatio.’
Daylight was coming up fast when he arrived on deck.
“Brace the maintops’l round, if you please, Mr Young. We’ll stand to the s’uth’ard a little. Good morning, Mr Bush.”
“Good morning, sir.”
Bush was already trying to see to the southward through his telescope. Increasing light and diminishing distance brought rapid results.
“There they are, sir! God, sir — one, two, three — and there are two others over on the Council Rocks. And that looks like a wreck right in the fairway — that’s one we sunk, I’ll wager, sir.”
In the glittering dawn the half-tide revealed wrecks littering the shoals and the shore, black against the crystal light, the coasters which had paid the penalty of trying to run the blockade.
“They’re all holed and waterlogged, sir,” said Bush. “Not a hope of salvage.”
Hornblower was already composing in his mind the final paragraph of his report.
“I have reason to believe that not less than ten sail of coasters were sunk or forced to run aground during this encounter. This happy result …”
“That’s a fortune lost, sir,” grumbled Bush. “That’s a tidy sum in prize money over on those rocks.”
No doubt, but in those decisive moments last night there could have been no question of capture. Hotspur‘s duty had been to destroy everything possible, and not to fill her captain’s empty purse by sending boats to take possession, at the cost of allowing half the quarry to escape. Hornblower’s reply was cut off short, as the smooth water on the starboard beam suddenly erupted in three successive jets of water. A cannon-ball had come skipping towards them over the surface, to make its final plunge a cable’s length away. The sound of gunfire reached their ears at the same moment, and their instantly elevated telescopes revealed a cloud of smoke engulfing the Toulinguet battery.
“Fire away, Monseer le Frog,” said Bush. “The damage is done.”
“We may as well make sure we’re out of range,” said Hornblower. “Put the ship about, if you please.”
He was trying as best he could to reproduce Bush’s complete indifference under fire. He told himself that he was only being sensible, and not cowardly, in making certain that there was no chance of Hotspur‘s being hit by a salvo of twenty-four-pounders, but he was inclined to sneer at himself, all the same.
Yet there was one source of self-congratulation. He had held his tongue when the subject of prize money had come up in the conversation. He had been about to burst out condemning the whole system as pernicious, but he had managed to refrain. Bush thought him a queer character in any case, and if he had divulged his opinion of prize money — of the system by which it was earned and paid — Bush would have thought him more than merely eccentric. Bush would think him actually insane, and liberal-minded, revolutionary, subversive and dangerous as well.