“Naturally,” said Hornblower. He was dimly aware that it was possible to explode charges under water, but his knowledge of the technical methods to be employed was dimmer still.
“We’ll try the fuse-hoses first,” announced McCullum. “But I’ve little hope of them at that depth. The joints can’t resist the pressure.”
“I suppose not,” said Hornblower.
“I expect it’d mean a flying fuse in the end,” said McCullum. “These fellows here are always afraid of ‘em. But I’ll do it.”
The bulky figure of Eisenbeiss loomed up beside the cot. He put one hand on McCullum’s forehead and the other on his wrist.
“Take your hands off me!” snarled McCullum. “I’m busy.”
“You must not do too much,” said Eisenbeiss. “Excitement increases the morbid humours.”
“Morbid humours be damned!” exclaimed McCullum. “And you be damned, too.”
“Don’t be a fool, man,” said Hornblower, his patience exhausted. “He saved your life yesterday. Don’t you remember how sick you were? ‘It hurts. It hurts.’ That’s what you were saying.”
Hornblower found his voice piping in imitation of McCullum’s yesterday, and he turned his face feebly from side to side like McCullum’s on the pillow. He was aware that it was an effective bit of mimicry, and even McCullum was a trifle abashed by it.
“Sick I may have been,” he said, “but I’m well enough now.”
Hornblower looked across at Eisenbeiss.
“Let Mr. McCullum have five more minutes,” he said. “Now, Mr. McCullum, you were talking about leather fuse-hoses. Will you please explain how they are used?”
Chapter XIV
Hornblower came forward to where the gunner and his mates were squatting on the deck at work upon the fuse-hose in accordance with McCullum’s instructions.
“You are making a thorough job of those seams, I hope, Mr. Clout,” he said.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Clout.
They had an old sail spread out to sit on, for the purpose of saving the spotless deck from the warm pitch in the iron pot beside them.
“Five seconds to the foot, this quick match burns, sir. You said one foot of slow match, sir?”
“I did.”
Hornblower bent to look at the work. The leather hose was in irregular lengths, from three to five feet; it was typical of the cross-grained ways of nature that animals could not provide longer pieces of leather than that. One of the gunner’s mates was at work with a slender wooden bodkin, dragging the end of a vast length of quick match through a section of hose. When the bodkin emerged he proceeded to slip the hose along the quick match until it joined the preceding section.
“Easy with that, now,” said Clout. “We don’t want a break in that match.”
The other gunner’s mate set to work with needle and palm to sew and double sew the new length to its neighbour. The joint completed, Clout proceeded to apply warm pitch liberally over the joint and down the seam of the new section. Eventually there would be a hundred and twenty feet of hose joined and pitched and with quick match threaded all the way through it.
“I’ve picked a couple of sound kegs, sir,” said Clout. “Fifty-pound kegs, they are. I have bags of dry sand to fill ‘em up.”
“Very well,” said Hornblower.
Thirty pounds of powder was what McCullum wanted for his explosive charge, no more and no less.
“I don’t want to shatter the wreck to pieces,” McCullum had said. “I only want to split her open.”
That was a part of McCullum’s special knowledge; Hornblower could not possibly have guessed how much powder, at a depth of a hundred feet would achieve this result. In a long nine-pounder, he knew, three pounds of powder would throw the shot a mile and a half, random shooting, but this was something entirely different, and in the incompressible medium of water, too. With a fifty-pound keg and only thirty pounds of powder it was necessary to have some indifferent substance like sand to fill the keg full.
“Send me word the moment you are ready,” said Hornblower, and turned back aft again.
Here was Turner, newly come from the shore, hovering about to attract his attention.
“Well, Mr. Turner?”
Turner kept his distance, his manner indicating that he had something very private to say. He spoke in a low voice when Hornblower walked over to him.
“Please, sir, it’s the Mudir. He wants to visit you. I can’t make him out, but there’s something he wants.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said — I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t know what else to do — I said you’d be delighted. There’s something fishy, I think. He said he’d come at once.”
“He did, did he?”
Things were bound to be fishy in these troubled waters, thought Hornblower, with a simultaneous disapproval of the style of that sentiment.
“Midshipman of the watch!”
“Sir!”
“What do you see over towards the town?”
Smiley trained his glass across the Bay.
“Boat putting out, sir. She’s the same lateen we saw before.”
“Any flag?”
“Yes, sir. Red. Turkish colours, it looks like.”
“Very well. Mr. Jones, we’re going to have an official visitor. You may pipe the side for him.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Now, Mr. Turner, you don’t know what the Mudir wants?”
“No, sir. He wanted to see you, urgently, it seems like. ‘Il capitano’ was all he’d say when we landed — the market was supposed to be ready for us, but it wasn’t. What he wanted was to see the Captain, and so I said you’d see him.”
“He gave no hint?”
“No, sir. He wouldn’t say. But he was agitated, I could see.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough,” said Hornblower
The Mudir mounted to the deck with a certain dignity, despite the difficulties the awkward ascent presented to his old legs. He looked keenly about him as he came on board; whether or not he understood the compliment that was being paid him by the bos’n’s mates and the sideboys could not be determined. There was a keen hawk-like face above the white beard, and a pair of lively dark eyes took in the scene about him without revealing whether it was a familiar one or not. Hornblower touched his hat and the Mudir replied with a graceful gesture of his hand to his face.
“Ask him if he will come below,” said Hornblower. “I’ll lead the way.”
Down in the cabin Hornblower offered a chair, with a bow, and the Mudir seated himself. Hornblower sat opposite him with Turner at his side. The Mudir spoke and Turner translated.
“He hopes God has given you the gift of health, sir,” said Turner.
“Make the correct reply,” said Hornblower.
As he spoke he met the glance of the sharp brown eyes and smiled politely.
“Now he’s asking you if you have had a prosperous voyage, sir,” reported Turner.
“Say whatever you think fit,” answered Hornblower.
The conversation proceeded from one formal politeness to another. This was the way of the Levant, Hornblower knew. It could be neither dignified nor tactful to announce one’s business in one’s opening sentences.
“Should we offer him a drink?” awed Hornblower.
“Well, sir, it’s usual over business to offer coffee.”
“Then don’t you think we’d better?”
“You see, sir, it’s the coffee — it’ll be different from what he calls coffee.”
“We can hardly help that. Give the order, if you please.”
The conversation continued, still without reaching any point. It was interesting to note how an intelligent and mobile face like the Mudir’s could give no hint at all of any emotion behind it. But the coffee brought about a change. The sharp eyes took in the thick mugs, the battered pewter coffee pot, while the face remained impassive, and while the Mudir was going through the ceremony of polite refusal and then grateful acceptance; but the tasting of the coffee effected a transformation. Willy nilly, the Mudir could not prevent an expression of surprise, even though he instantly brought his features under control again. He proceeded to sweeten his coffee to a syrup with sugar, and he did not touch the cup, but raised it to his lips by means of the saucer.