It was a dangerous adventure, and the second landing revealed the danger, for while the Caroline was trying to claw off the land again a Spanish guarda-costa lugger came gliding round the point with all sail set. Maxwell saw her first, but Hornblower saw her before he could report her presence.
'Very well, Maxwell,' said Hornblower, trying to sound composed.
He turned his glass upon her. She was no more than three miles off, a trifle to windward, and the Caroline was embayed, cut off by the land from all chance of escape. The lugger could go three feet to her two, while the Caroline's clumsy superstructure prevented her from lying nearer than eight points to the wind. As Hornblower gazed, the accumulated irritation of the past seventeen days boiled over. He was furious with fate for having thrust this ridiculous mission on him. He hated the Caroline and her clumsiness and her stinks and her cargo. He raged against the destiny which had caught him in this hopeless position.
'Hell!' said Hornblower, actually stamping his feet on the upper gangway in his anger. 'Hell and damnation!'
He was dancing with rage, he observed with some curiosity. But with his fighting madness at the boil there was no chance of his yielding without a struggle, and his mental convulsions resulted in his producing a scheme for action. How many men of a crew did a Spanish guarda-costa carry? Twenty? That would be an outside figure — those luggers were only intended to act against petty smugglers. And with surprise on his side there was still a chance, despite the four eight-pounders that the lugger carried.
'Pistols and cutlasses, men,' he said. 'Jordan, choose two men and show yourselves up here. But the rest of you keep under cover. Hide yourselves. Yes, Mr Tapling, you may serve with us. See that you are armed.'
No one would expect resistance from a laden cattle transport; the Spaniards would expect to find on board a crew of a dozen at most, and not a disciplined force of twenty. The problem lay in luring the lugger within reach.
'Full and by,' called Hornblower down to the helmsman below. 'Be ready to jump, men. Maxwell, if a man shows himself before my order shoot him with your own hand. You hear me? That's an order, and you disobey me at your peril.'
'Aye aye, sir,' said Maxwell.
The lugger was romping up towards them; even in that light air there was a white wave under her sharp bows. Hornblower glanced up to make sure that the Caroline was displaying no colours. That made his plan legal under the laws of war. The report of a gun and a puff of smoke came from the lugger as she fired across the Caroline's bows.
'I'm going to heave to, Jordan,' said Hornblower. 'Main tops'l braces. Helm-a-lee.'
The Caroline came to the wind and lay there wallowing, a surrendered and helpless ship apparently, if ever there was one.
'Not a sound, men,' said Hornblower.
The cattle bellowed mournfully. Here came the lugger, her crew plainly visible now. Hornblower could see an officer clinging to the main shrouds ready to board, but no one else seemed to have a care in the world. Everyone seemed to be looking up at the clumsy superstructure and laughing at the farmyard noises issuing from it.
'Wait, men, wait,' said Hornblower.
The lugger was coming alongside when Hornblower suddenly realized, with a hot flood of blood under his skin, that he himself was unarmed. He had told his men to take pistols and cutlasses: he had advised Tabling to arm himself, and yet he had clean forgotten about his own need for weapons. Bu it was too late now to try to remedy that. Someone in the lugger hailed in Spanish, and Hornblower spread his hand' in a show of incomprehension. Now they were alongside.
'Come on, men!' shouted Hornblower.
He ran across the superstructure and with a gulp he flung himself across the gap at the officer in the shrouds. He gulped again as he went through the air; he fell with all his weight on the unfortunate man, clasped him round the shoulders, and fell with him to the deck. There were shouts and yells behind him as the Caroline spewed up her crew into the lugger. A rush of feet, a clatter and a clash. Hornblower got to his feet empty-handed. Maxwell was just striking down a man with his cutlass. Tapling was heading a rush forward into the bows, waving a cutlass and yelling like a madman. Then it was all over; the astonished Spaniards were unable to lift a hand in their own defence.
So it came about that on the twenty-second day of her quarantine the Caroline came into Gibraltar Bay with a captured guarda-costa lugger under her lee. A thick barn-yard stench trailed with her, too, but at least, when Hornblower went on board the Indefatigable to make his report, he had a suitable reply ready for Mr Midshipman Bracegirdle.
'Hullo, Noah, how are Shem and Ham?' asked Mr Bracegirdle.
'Shem and Ham have taken a prize,' said Hornblower. 'I regret that Mr Bracegirdle can't say the same.'
But the Chief Commissary of the squadron, when Hornblower reported to him, had a comment to which even Hornblower was unable to make a reply.
'Do you mean to tell me, Mr Hornblower,' said the Chief Commissary, 'that you allowed your men to eat fresh beef? A bullock a day for your eighteen men? There must have been plenty of ship's provisions on board. That was wanton extravagance, Mr Hornblower, I'm surprised at you.'
CHAPTER TEN
The Duchess And The Devil
Acting-Lieutenant Hornblower was bringing the sloop Le Rêve, prize of H.M.S. Indefatigable, to anchor in Gibraltar Bay. He was nervous; if anyone had asked him if he thought that all the telescopes in the Mediterranean Fleet were trained upon him he would have laughed at the fantastic suggestion, but he felt as if they were. Nobody ever gauged more cautiously the strength of the gentle following breeze, or estimated more anxiously the distances between the big anchored ships of the line, or calculated more carefully the space Le Rêve would need to swing at her anchor. Jackson, his petty officer, was standing forward awaiting the order to take in the jib, and he acted quickly at Hornblower's hail.
'Helm-a-lee,' said Hornblower next, and Le Rêve rounded into the wind. 'Brail up!'
Le Rêve crept forward, her momentum diminishing as the wind took her way off her.
'Let go!'
The cable growled a protest as the anchor took it out through the hawsehole — that welcome splash of the anchor, telling of the journey's end. Hornblower watched carefully while Le Rêve took up on her cable, and then relaxed a little. He had brought the prize safely in. The commodore — Captain Sir Edward Pellew of H.M.S. Indefatigable—had clearly not yet returned, so that it was Hornblower's duty to report to the port admiral.
'Get the boat hoisted out,' he ordered, and then, remembering his humanitarian duty, 'and you can let the prisoners up on deck.'
They had been battened down below for the last forty-eight hours, because the fear of a recapture was the nightmare of every prizemaster. But here in the Bay with the Mediterranean fleet all round that danger was at an end. Two hands at the oars of the gig sent her skimming over the water, and in ten minutes Hornblower was reporting his arrival to the admiral.
'You say she shows a fair turn of speed?' said the latter, looking over at the prize.
'Yes, sir. And she's handy enough,' said Hornblower.
'I'll purchase her into the service. Never enough despatch vessels,' mused the Admiral.
Even with that hint it was a pleasant surprise to Hornblower when he received heavily sealed official orders and, opening them, read that 'you are hereby requested and required' to take H.M. sloop Le Rêve under his command and to proceed 'with the utmost expedition' to Plymouth as soon as the despatches destined for England should be put in his charge. It was an independent command, it was a chance of seeing England again (it was three years since Hornblower had last set foot on the English shore) and it was a high professional compliment. But there was another letter, delivered at the same moment, which Hornblower read with less elation.