Hornblower and the Crisis, Forester, S. [ebook reader ink .TXT] 📗

the oars in this boat were being pulled by officers — Bush was pulling bow oar starboard side, seconding the efforts of Wise the boatswain and Wallis the surgeon and two or three master's mates, and the master and purser and gunner were packed in here and there with a seaman or two. The boat was crammed with men and low in the water, but every fighting man was needed.

She lurched and rolled over the dark water, the brig's lanterns growing steadily nearer. There was still no sound of trouble from the brig — she was expecting the return of her boat and until it was actually alongside she would suspect nothing. It was too much to expect that Meadows would be granted the opportunity to get comfortably alongside to launch a simultaneous rush, so that the French crew would be confronted in a second by twenty furious enemies where they had looked for half a dozen friends, but it was possible.

There it was. A pistol shot, the sound coming up wind. Further shots. It had been settled that Meadows' party should use their pistols as soon as they reached the deck. It would be necessary to shock and bewilder the surprised Frenchmen and get them into a panic; the arrival on deck of twenty men firing pistols right and left would be likely a means to bring this about.

“Easy all! Bowman!”

The boat surged alongside the brig, under her forechains, diametrically opposite to where an outburst of yelling and screaming indicated where Meadows was fighting. A dozen hands were reaching for the shrouds, Hornblower's among them. It was a miracle the boat did not capsize — warrant officers could be as hare brained and excitable as young seamen if the occasion were desperate enough.

“Go on!” yelled Hornblower.

To the devil with formality; these were not men who needed leading. The boat lightened as the blackfaced mob sprang up into the chains; Hornblower was not the first, but the fifth or sixth to reach the deck. There was no opposition, even though there were a good many figures hurrying about the dimly lighted deck.

Here they were beside the hatchway and a whitefaced figure was just emerging, waist level with the deck. A blackfaced figure swung an axe and the Frenchman went tumbling down again.

Now a hurrying figure cannoned into him and flung him aside, nearly knocking him off his feet. But there was no immediate danger to him; the hurrying Frenchman was intent only on descending, flinging himself bodily down the hatchway followed by a dozen other panic-​stricken figures, a terrified herd pursued by two cutlass-​swinging men with black faces. When the rush ended Hornblower leaned over the hatchway and fired his pistol down into the mass below; that was probably the most effective use for the single round which was all he had, for it would scare away from the hatchway those other Frenchmen who were trying to ascend.

“Get the hatch cover on!” said Hornblower. “Wise, get it battened down! Master's mates, stay with Wise. Others follow me!”

He hurried aft, his brass hilted Langer in his hand. Two or three distracted figures came rushing towards them. They had white faces, and they were struck down; it was no time for sentiment. Hornblower suddenly remembered to yell; if there were any real opposition aft it would be likely to dissolve at the sound of a hostile battle cry in the rear. What he saw was a sudden rectangle of light and a white figure, white shirt, white breeches, and white face coming through it; presumably the French captain emerging from his cabin, to be met by a huge figure rushing at him cutlass in air. Hornblower saw the French captain extend arm and knee in the classic lunge; he saw the cutlass come whirling down and then both figures tumbled out of sight.

The battle, if such it could be called, was almost over. The Frenchmen, unarmed, taken utterly by surprise, could do nothing except to try to save their lives. But every figure with a white face was hunted round the deck to be slaughtered pitilessly by men mad with excitement, except for one group that flung themselves grovelling on the deck screaming for mercy — the killing of one or two of them sated the bloodlust and the survivors were jostled into a corner by the taffrail. Hornblower had a feeling that a few men had dashed up the rigging and were sheltering there; they could be dealt with later.

He looked round the deck; to the eerie illumination afforded by the lanterns swinging in the shrouds was added, periodically, the light from the cabin door, coming and going as the door swayed open and shut with the rolling of the ship. It was grotesque as well as horrible, the deck littered with corpses. Was that a dead man coming to life? Someone recovering consciousness? Certainly it was a body heaving upward but in a way no living man would get to his feet. Anything was possible in these hideous surroundings. No! That man was dead and being shoved up from below. He must have fallen across the after scuttle and the crew below the deck was getting him out of the way. As Hornblower looked the dead body rolled and fell with a thump on to the deck and there was the scuttle with two hands uplifted through it. Hornblower leaped, slashing with his sword, and the hands disappeared to the accompaniment of a yell from below. Hornblower drew the sliding cover across and found the bolt and shot it. That would make things momentarily secure.

Hornblower straightened himself up to find himself face to face with another figure that had come forward to take the same precaution, and idiotically he tightened his grip on his sword hilt — he was not ready for a black face so close to his.

“We've settled it,” said Baddlestone's voice — Hornblower recognized the silhouette at once, now.

“Where's Meadows?” croaked Hornblower, his throat still dry with tension.

“He's a