“There’s a French column expected along the road over there,” he said. “I want to see if we can get in a few shots at them.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Put a good man in the chains with the lead.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Now that Hornblower actually wanted to be conversational he found it impossible — for nearly three years he had checked every impulse to say an unnecessary word to his second in command; and Bush’s stolid ‘Aye aye, sirs’, were not much help. Hornblower took refuge from Villena by gluing his eye to his telescope and scanning the nearing shore with the utmost diligence. Here there were bold grey-green hills running almost to the water’s edge, and looping along the foot of them, now ten feet up, and now a hundred feet, ran the road.
As Hornblower looked at it his glass revealed a dark tiny speck on the road far ahead. He looked away, rested his eye, and looked again. It was a horseman, riding towards them. A moment later he saw a moving smudge behind, which fixed his attention by an occasional sparkle and flash from the midst of it. That was a body of horsemen; presumably the advanced guard of Pino’s army. It would not be long before the Sutherland was up opposite to them. Hornblower gauged the distance of the ship from the road. Half a mile, or a little more — easy cannon shot, though not as easy as he would like.
“By the deep nine!” chanted the man at the lead. He could edge in a good deal closer at this point if, when he turned the ship about and followed Pino along the shore, they came as far as here. It was worth remembering. As the Sutherland proceeded to meet the advancing army, Hornblower’s brain was busy noting landmarks on the shore and the corresponding soundings opposite them. The leading squadron of cavalry could be seen distinctly now — men riding cautiously, their sabres drawn, looking searchingly on all sides as they rode; in a war where every rock and hedge might conceal a musketeer determined on killing one enemy at least their caution was understandable.
Some distance behind the leading squadron Hornblower could make out a longer column of cavalry, and beyond that again a long, long line of white dots, which puzzled him for a moment with its odd resemblance to the legs of a caterpillar all moving together. Then he smiled. They were the white breeches of a column of infantry marching in unison; by some trick of optics their blue coats as yet showed up not at all against their grey background. “And a half ten!” called the leadsman.
He could take the Sutherland much closer in here when he wanted to. But at present it was better to stay out at half gunshot. His ship would not appear nearly as menacing to the enemy at that distance. Hornblower’s mind was hard at work analysing the reactions of the enemy to the appearance of the Sutherland — friendly hat-waving by the cavalry of the advanced guard, now opposite him, gave him valuable additional data. Pino and his men had never yet been cannonaded from the sea, and had had no experience so far of the destructive effect of a ship’s heavy broadside against a suitable target. The graceful two-decker, with her pyramids of white sails, would be something outside their experience. Put an army in the field against them, and they could estimate its potentialities, but they had never encountered ships before. His reading told him that Bonaparte’s generals tended to be careless of the lives of their men; and any steps taken to avoid the Sutherland’s fire would involve grave inconvenience — marching back to Malgret to take the inland road, or crossing the pathless hills to it direct. Hornblower guessed that Pino, somewhere back in that long column and studying the Sutherland through his glass, would make up his mind to chance the Sutherland’s fire and would march on hoping to get through without serious loss. Pino would be disappointed, thought Hornblower.
The cavalry at the head of the main column were opposite them. The second regiment twinkled and sparkled in the flaming sunlight like a river of fire.
“Those are the cuirassiers!” said Villena, gesticulating wildly at Hornblower’s elbow. “Why do you not fire, Captain?”
Hornblower realised that Villena had probably been gabbling Spanish to him for the last quarter of an hour, and he had not heard a word he had said. He was not going to waste his surprise attack on cavalry who could gallop away out of range. This opening broadside must be reserved for slow-moving infantry.
“Send the men to the guns, Mr Bush,” he said, forgetting all about Villena again in a flash, and to the man at the wheel “Starboard a point.”
“And a half nine,” called the leadsman.
The Sutherland headed closer into shore.
“Mr Gerard!” hailed Hornblower. “Train the guns on the road, and only fire when I give you the signal.”
A horse artillery battery had followed the cavalry — popgun six-pounders whose jolting and lurching showed well how bad was the surface of the road, one of the great highways of Spain. Then men perched on the limbers waved their hands in friendly fashion to the beautiful ship close in upon them.
“By the mark six!” from the leadsman.
He dared not stand closer in.
“Port a point. Steady!”
The ship crept on through the water; not a sound from the crew, standing tense at their guns — only the faint sweet music of the breeze in the rigging, and the lapping of the water overside. Now they were level with the infantry column, a long dense mass of blue-coated and white-breeched soldiers, stepping out manfully, a little unreal in the haze of dust. Above the blue coats could be seen the white lines of their faces — every face was turned towards the pretty white-sailed ship creeping over the blue-enamel water. It was a welcome diversion in a weary march, during a war when every day demanded its march. Gerard was giving no orders for change of elevation at the moment — here the road ran level for half a mile, fifty feet above the sea. Hornblower put his silver whistle to his lips. Gerard had seen the gesture. Before Hornblower could blow, the centre maindeck gun had exploded, and a moment later the whole broadside followed with a hideous crash. The Sutherland heeled to the recoil, and the white, bitter-tasting smoke came billowing up.
“God, look at that!” exclaimed Bush.
The forty-one balls from the Sutherland’s broadside and carronades had swept the road from side to side. Fifty yards of the column had been cut to fragments. Whole files had been swept away; the survivors stood dazed and stupid. The guntrucks roared as the guns were run out again, and the Sutherland lurched once more at the second broadside. There was another gap in the column now, just behind the first.
“Give it ‘em again, boys!” yelled Gerard.
The whole column was standing stock still and silly to receive the third broadside; the smoke from the firing had drifted to the shore now, and was scattering over the rocks in thin wreaths.
“Quarter less nine!” called the leadsman.
In the deepening water Hornblower could close nearer in. The next section of the column, seeing the terrible ship moving down upon them implacably, about to blast them into death, was seized with panic and bolted wildly down the road.
“Grape, Mr Gerard!” shouted Hornblower. “Starboard a point!”
Farther down the road the column had not fled. Those who stood firm and those who ran jammed the road with a struggling mass of men, and the Sutherland, under the orders of her captain, closed in upon them pitilessly, like a machine, steadied again, brought her guns to bear upon the crowd, and then swept the road clear with her tempest of grapeshot as though with a broom.