“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 unnecessarily to leeward, towards a hostile lee shore.
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.
Hornblower looked at the nearing land, felt the wind on his cheek. His earlier calculations were proving correct, and if they held on this tack they would be drifted into Rosas Bay even if they cleared the land.
“Mr. Vincent,” he said. “Signal to the Flagship ‘I am preparing to go about on the other tack’.”
Gerard looked his amazement. It appeared to him that Hornblower was going to unnecessary trouble and imperilling both ships by this manoeuvre—he could see no farther than Cape Creux, only the friendly sea and the dangerous land. With a seamen’s instinct he wanted to get both ships comfortably under control with sea room under their lee, and he did not stop to consider beyond that. He could see the land and feel the wind, and his reaction to those circumstances was instinctive.
“Mr. Gerard,” said Hornblower. “Go to the wheel. When the strain comes on the hawser—”
Gerard did not need to be told about that. With three thousand tons trailing on her stern the Sutherland would behave unlike any ship the quartermasters had ever steered, and extraordinary and unexpected measures would have to be taken to keep her from flying up into the wind. The hawser was tightening already. The bight of it rose slowly out of the sea, straightening like a bar, the water spouting out of it in fountains, while a thunderous creaking below told how the bins were feeling the strain. Then the cable slackened a trifle, the creaking diminished, and the Sutherland had got the Pluto under way. With every yard they went, and every bit of way the Pluto received, the latter sagged less and less to leeward. As soon as she could answer the helm the strain on the Sutherland’s quartermasters would be eased.
Bush came up on the quarterdeck again, his task below completed.
“I want you to work the ship, Mr. Bush, when we go about.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush. He looked at the land, and felt the wind, and his thoughts followed an exact parallel to Gerard’s, but Bush by now never dreamed of doubting his captain’s judgment in a matter of seamanship. His mental state was now that if Hornblower thought it right, it must be so, and there was no need to wonder about it.
“Send the hands to the braces. It must be like lightning when I give the word.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Pluto was gathering way, and every yard after this that they made in a southerly direction would be a dead loss when they turned northerly.
“Back the mizzen tops’l,” said Hornblower.
The Sutherland lost way, and the Pluto came steadily forging down upon her. Hornblower could actually see Captain Elliott come running forward to see for himself what was happening. He could not guess what Hornblower was intending.