They could hear the reports, borne on the wind, and could see the gusts of smoke.
“Is there a battery there, sir?”
“Maybe. Maybe the gun-boats are using their own cannon.”
Each gun-boat mounted one or two heavy guns in the bows, but they laboured under the disadvantage that half a dozen discharges racked the little vessels to pieces by the recoil. The theory behind those guns was that they were to be used for clearing the beaches of defending troops where the invasion should take place and the gun-boats should be safely beached.
“Can’t make out what’s happening,” fumed Bush; a low headland cut off their view.
“Firing’s heavy,” said Hornblower. “Must be a battery there.”
He felt irritated; the Navy was expending lives and material on an objective quite valueless, in his opinion. He beat his gloved hands together in an effort to restore their warmth, for there was an appreciable chilliness in the wind.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Bush, excitedly training his telescope. “Look at that, sir! Dismasted, by God!”
Just visible round the point now was a shape that could not instantly be recognized. It was the lugger, drifting disabled and helpless. Everything about the situation indicated that she had run into a well-planned ambush.
“They’re still firing at her, sir,” remarked Prowse. The telescope just revealed the splashes round her as cannonball plunged into the sea.
“We’ll have to save her,” said Hornblower, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Square away, if you please, Mr Prowse, and we’ll run down.”
It was extremely irritating to have to go into danger like this, to redeem someone else’s mismanagement of an expedition unjustified from the start.
“Mr Bush, get a cable out aft ready to tow.”
“Aye eye, sir.”
“Commodore’s signalling, sir.” This was Foreman speaking. “Our number. ‘Assist damaged vessel’.”
“Acknowledge.”
Chambers had ordered that signal before he could see that Hotspur was already on the move.
Hornblower scanned the shore on this side of the headland. There was no gun-smoke on this side, no sign of any battery. With luck all he would have to do was to haul the lugger round the corner. Down in the waist the voices of Bush and Wise were urging a working party to their utmost efforts as they took the ponderous cable aft. Things were happening fast, as they always did at crises. A shot screamed overhead as Hornblower reached for the speaking-trumpet.
“Grasshopper! Stand by to take a line!”
Somebody in the disabled lugger waved a handkerchief in acknowledgement.
“Back the main-tops’l, Mr Prowse, and we’ll go down to her.”
That was when the Grasshopper disintegrated, blew apart, in two loud explosions and a cloud of smoke. It happened right under Hornblower’s eyes, as he leaned over with his speaking-trumpet; one second there was the intact hull of the lugger, with living men working on the wreckage, and the next the smoking explosions, the flying fragments, the billowing smoke. It must have been a shell from the shore; there were howitzers or mortars mounted there. Most likely a field howitzer battery, light and easily moved across country, which had been brought up to protect the gunboats. A shell must have dropped into the lugger and burst in the magazine.
Hornblower had seen it all, and when the cloud of smoke dispersed the bow and stern did not disappear from sight. They were floating water-logged on the surface, and Hornblower could see a few living figures as well, clinging to the wreckage among the fragments.
“Lower the quarter-boat! Mr Young, go and pick up those men.”
This was worse than ever. Shell fire was a horrible menace to a wooden ship that could so easily be set into an inextinguishable blaze. It was utterly infuriating to be exposed to these perils for no profit. The quarter-boat was on its way back when the next shell screamed overhead. Hornblower recognized the difference in the sound from that of a round-shot; he should have done so earlier. A shell from a howitzer had a belt about it, a thickening in the centre which gave its flight, as it arched across the sky, the peculiarly malevolent note he had already heard.
It was the French army that was firing at them. To fight the French navy was the essence of Hotspur‘s duty, and of his own but to expose precious ships and seamen to the attack of soldiers who cost almost nothing to a government that enforced conscription was bad business, and to expose them without a chance of firing back was sheer folly. Hornblower drummed on the hammock cloths over the netting in front of him with his gloved hands in a fury of bad temper, while Young rowed about the wreckage picking up the survivors. A glance ashore coincided with the appearance of a puff of white smoke. That was one of the howitzers at least — before the wind dispersed it he could clearly see the initial upward direction of the puff; howitzers found their best range at an angle of fifty degrees, and at the end of their trajectory the shells-dropped at sixty degrees. This one was behind a low bank, or in some sort of ditch; his glass revealed an officer standing above it directing the operation of the gun at his feet.
Now came the shriek of the shell, not so far overhead; even the fountain of water that it threw up when it plunged into the sea was different in shape and duration from those flung up by round-shot from a cannon. Young brought the quarter-boat under the falls and hooked on; Bush had his men ready to tail away at the tackles, while Hornblower watched the operation and fumed at every second of delay. Most of the survivors picked up were wounded, some of them dreadfully. He would have to go and see they were properly attended to — he would have to pay a visit of courtesy — but not until Hotspur were safely out of this unnecessary peril.
“Very well, Mr Prowse. Bring her before the wind.”
The yards creaked round; the quartermaster spun the wheel round into firm resistance, and Hotspur slowly gathered way, to leave this hateful coast behind her. Next came a sudden succession of noises, all loud, all different, distinguishable even though not two seconds elapsed between the first and the last — the shriek of a shell, a crash of timber aloft, a deep note as the main-topmast backstay parted, a thud against the hammock nettings beside Hornblower, and then a thump three yards from his feet, and there on the deck death, sizzling death, was rolling towards him and as the ship heaved death changed its course with the canting of the deck in a blundering curve as the belt round the shell deflected its roll. Hornblower saw the tiny thread of smoke, the burning fuse one-eighth of an inch long. No time to think. He sprang at it as it wobbled on its belt, and with his gloved hand he extinguished the fuse, rubbing at it to make sure the spark was out, rubbing at it again unnecessarily before he straightened up. A marine was standing by and Hornblower gestured to him.
“Throw the damned thing overboard!” he ordered; the fact that he swore indicated his bad temper.
Then he looked round. Every soul on that crowded little quarter-deck was rigid, posed in unnatural attitudes, as if some Gorgon’s head had turned them all into stone, and then with his voice and his gesture they all came back to life again, to move and relax — it was as if time had momentarily stood still for everyone except himself. His bad temper was fanned by the delay, and he lashed out with his tongue indiscriminately.
“What are you all thinking about? Quartermaster, put your helm over! Mr Bush! Just look at that mizzen tops’l yard! Send the hands aloft this minute! Splice that backstay! You, there! Haven’t you coiled those falls yet? Move, damn you!”
“Aye aye, sir! Aye aye, sir!”
The automatic chorus of acknowledgements had a strange note, and in the midst of the bustle Hornblower saw first Bush from one angle and then Prowse from another, both looking at him with strange expressions on their faces.