“I don’t rightly know, sir,” said Matthews. “I was in the cutter at the time.”
“We must look as soon as it’s light,” said Hornblower. “And we’d better sound the well now.”
Those were brave words; during his rapid course in seamanship aboard the Indefatigable Hornblower had had a little instruction everywhere, working under the orders of every head of department in rotation. Once he had been with the carpenter when he sounded the well — whether he could find the well in this ship and sound it he did not know.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Matthews, without hesitation, and strolled aft to the pump. “You’ll need a light, sir. I’ll get one.”
When he came back with the lantern he shone it on the coiled sounding line hanging beside the pump, so that Hornblower recognized it at once. He lifted it down, inserted the three-foot weighted rod into the aperture of the well, and then remembered in time to take it out again and make sure it was dry. Then he let it drop, paying out the line until he felt the rod strike the ship’s bottom with a satisfactory thud. He hauled out the line again, and Matthews held the lantern as Hornblower with some trepidation brought out the timber to examine it.
“Not a drop, sir!” said Matthews. “Dry as yesterday’s pannikin.”
Hornblower was agreeably surprised. Any ship he had ever heard of leaked to a certain extent; even in the well-found Indefatigable pumping had been necessary every day. He did not know whether this dryness was a remarkable phenomenon or a very remarkable one. He wanted to be both noncommittal and imperturbable.
“H’m,” was the comment he eventually produced. “Very good, Matthews. Coil that line again.”
The knowledge that the Marie Galante was making no water at all might have encouraged him to sleep, if the wind had not chosen to veer steadily and strengthen itself somewhat soon after he retired again. It was Matthews who came down and pounded on his door with the unwelcome news.
“We can’t keep the course you set much longer, sir,” concluded Matthews. “And the wind’s coming gusty-like.”
“Very good, I’ll be up. Call all hands,” said Hornblower, with a testiness that might have been the result of a sudden awakening if it had not really disguised his inner quaverings.
With such a small crew he dared not run the slightest risk of being taken by surprise by the weather. Nothing could be done in a hurry, as he soon found. He had to take the wheel while his four hands laboured at reefing topsails and snugging the brig down; the task took half the night, and by the time it was finished it was quite plain that with the wind veering northerly the Marie Galante could not steer north-east by north any longer. Hornblower gave up the wheel and went below to the chart, but what he saw there only confirmed the pessimistic decision he had already reached by mental calculation. As close to the wind as they could lie on this tack they could not weather Ushant. Shorthanded as he was he did not dare continue in the hope that the wind might back; all his reading and all his instruction had warned him of the terrors of a lee shore. There was nothing for it but to go about; he returned to the deck with a heavy heart.
“All hands wear ship,” he said, trying to bellow the order in the manner of Mr Bolton, the third lieutenant of the Indefatigable.
They brought the brig safely round, and she took up her new course, close hauled on the starboard tack. Now she was heading away from the dangerous shores of France, without a doubt, but she was heading nearly as directly away from the friendly shores of England — gone was all hope of an easy two days’ run to England; gone was any hope of sleep that night for Hornblower.
During the year before he joined the Navy Hornblower had attended classes given by a penniless French emigre in French, music, and dancing. Early enough the wretched emigre had found that Hornblower had no ear for music whatever, which made it almost impossible to teach him to dance, and so he had endeavoured to earn his fee by concentrating on French. A good deal of what he had taught Hornblower had found a permanent resting place in Hornblower’s tenacious memory. He had never thought it would be of much use to him, but he discovered the contrary when the French captain at dawn insisted on an interview with him. The Frenchman had a little English, but it was a pleasant surprise to Hornblower to find that they actually could get along better in French, as soon as he could fight down his shyness sufficiently to produce the halting words.
The captain drank thirstily from the scuttlebut; his cheeks were of course unshaven and he wore a bleary look after twelve hours in a crowded forecastle, where he had been battened down three parts drunk.
“My men are hungry,” said the captain; he did not look hungry himself.
“Mine also,” said Hornblower. “I also.”
It was natural when one spoke French to gesticulate, to indicate his men with a wave of the hand and himself with a tap on the chest.
“I have a cook,” said the captain.
It took some time to arrange the terms of a truce. The Frenchmen were to be allowed on deck, the cook was to provide food for everyone on board, and while these amenities were permitted, until noon, the French would make no attempt to take the ship.
“Good,” said the captain at length; and when Hornblower had given the necessary orders permitting the release of the crew he shouted for the cook and entered into an urgent discussion regarding dinner. Soon smoke was issuing satisfactorily from the galley chimney.
Then the captain looked up at the grey sky, at the close reefed topsails, and glanced into the binnacle at the compass.
“A foul wind for England,” he remarked.
“Yes,” said Hornblower shortly. He did not want this Frenchman to guess at his trepidation and bitterness.
The captain seemed to be feeling the motion of the brig under his feet with attention.
“She rides a little heavily, does she not?” he said.
“Perhaps,” said Hornblower. He was not familiar with the Marie Galante, nor with ships at all, and he had no opinion on the subject, but he was not going to reveal his ignorance.
“Does she leak?” asked the captain.
“There is no water in her,” said Hornblower.
“Ah!” said the captain. “But you would find none in the well. We are carrying a cargo of rice, you must remember.”
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
He found it very hard at that moment to remain outwardly unperturbed, as his mind grasped the implications of what was being said to him. Rice would absorb every drop of water taken in by the ship, so that no leak would be apparent on rounding the well — and yet every drop of water taken in would deprive her of that much buoyancy, all the same.
“One shot from your cursed frigate struck us in the hull,” said the captain. “Of course you have investigated the damage?”
“Of course,” said Hornblower, lying bravely.
But as soon as he could he had a private conversation with Matthews on the point, and Matthews instantly looked grave.
“Where did the shot hit her, sir?” he asked.
“Somewhere on the port side, forrard, I should judge.”
He and Matthews craned their necks over the ship’s side.
“Can’t see nothin’, sir,” said Matthews. “Lower me over the side in a bowline and I’ll see what I can find, sir.”
Hornblower was about to agree and then changed his mind.
“I’ll go over the side myself,” he said.
He could not analyse the motives which impelled him to say that. Partly he wanted to see things with his own eyes; partly he was influenced by the doctrine that he should never give an order he was not prepared to carry out himself — but mostly it must have been the desire to impose a penance on himself for his negligence.