Hornblower 05 - Hornblower and the Atropos (24 page)

Hornblower and the “Atropos”

Hornblower stood with his purse in his hand, having taken it from his sea chest where it had lain in the inner compartment. He knew exactly how many guineas there were in it, and he was trying not to wish there were more. If he were a wealthy captain he would be generous towards his ship's company, and to the wardroom and gunroom. But as it was — He shook his head. He did not want to appear miserly or mean, but he certainly did not want to be foolish. He walked along to the wardroom door and paused there; Still caught his eye.

“Please come in, sir.”

The other officers rose from their chairs; there was nowhere for them to sit unless they sat round the table in the tiny wardroom.

“I was hoping,” said Hornblower to Carslake the purser, “that you would be kind enough to make some purchases for me.”

“Of course, sir. Honoured, I'm sure,” said Carslake. He could say nothing else, in any case.

“A few chickens — half a dozen, say, and some eggs.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it the intention of the wardroom to buy fresh meat for itself?”

“Well, sir —”

That had been the subject under discussion at his entrance.

“At this time of year there might be lambs to sell. I could have one — two young ones, if they're cheap. But an ox — what am I to do with a whole ox?”

Everyone in the wardroom had been up against this problem at some time or other.

“If the wardroom decides to buy an ox I would be glad to pay a quarter of the price,” said Hornblower, and the wardroom cheered up perceptibly.

A captain who bought a share in an animal would always get the best cuts — that was in the course of nature. And they had all known captains who would pay no more than their share. But with five wardroom officers Hornblower's offer was generous.

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Carslake. “I think I can sell a couple of joints to the gunroom.”

“On advantageous terms, I trust?” said Hornblower, with a grin.

He could remember well enough as a midshipman occasions when wardroom and gunroom had gone shares in an animal.

“I expect so, sir,” said Carslake and then, changing the subject, “Mr. Turner says that it'll be goat here, mainly. Do you care for goat, sir?”

“Young kid, stewed with turnips and carrots!” said Jones. “You can do worse than that, sir.”

Jones's lantern-jawed face was alight with appetite. These grown men, continuously fed on preserved food, were like children at a gingerbread stall at a fair with the thought of fresh meat.

“Do what you can,” said Hornblower. “I'll eat kid or lamb, or I'll share in an ox, as you find the market provides. You know what you're buying for the crew?”

“Yes, sir,” said Carslake.

The penny-pinching clerks of a penurious government at home would scrutinize those expenditures in time. Nothing very generous could be bought for the hands.

“I don't know what vegetables we'll find, sir, at this time of year,” went on Carslake, “winter cabbage, I suppose.”

“Nothing wrong with winter cabbage,” interposed Jones.

“Carrots and turnips out of winter store,” said Carslake. “They'll be pretty stringy, sir.”

“Better than nothing,” said Hornblower. “There won't be enough in the market for all we need, nor will there be until the word goes round the countryside. So much the better. Then we'll have an excuse to linger. You're going to interpret, Mr. Turner?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep your eyes open. And your ears.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Mr. Jones, you will attend to the water casks, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

That was the transition between the social visit and the official issuing of orders.

“Carry on.”

Hornblower went to the bedside where McCullum lay. Sailcloth pillows supported him in a position half on his side. It was a comfort to see how comparatively well he looked. The fever and its accompanying distortion of thought had left him.

“Glad to see you looking so well, Mr. McCullum,” said Hornblower.

“Well enough,” answered McCullum.

He croaked a little, but his speech was almost normal.

“A full night's sleep,” said Eisenbeiss, hovering on the far side of the bed. He had already made his report to Hornblower — the wound showed every sign of healing, the sutures had not at least as yet caused undue inflammation, and the draining where the bristle kept the wound in the back open had been apparently satisfactory.

“And we've started a full morning's work,” said Hornblower. “You have heard that we have located the wreck?”

“No. I had not heard that.”

“It's located and buoyed,” said Hornblower.

“Are you sure it is the wreck?” croaked McCullum. “I've known some queer mistakes made.”

“It is exactly where the bearings were taken when she sank,” said Hornblower. “It is the right size as far as the sweep can show. And no other obstructions were found by the sweep, either. The bottom here is firm sand, as I expect you know.”

“It sounds plausible,” said McCullum grudgingly. “I could have wished I'd had the direction of the sweeping, nevertheless.”

“You must trust me, Mr. McCullum,” said Hornblower patiently.

“'Tis little that I know about you and your capabilities,” answered McCullum.

Hornblower, swallowing his irritation at that remark, wondered how McCullum had managed to live so long without previously being shot in a duel. But McCullum was the irreplaceable expert, and even if he were not a sick man it would be both foolish and undignified to quarrel with him.

“I presume the next thing to do is to send your divers down to report on the condition of the wreck,” he said, trying to be both firm and polite.

“Undoubtedly that will be the first thing I do as soon as I am allowed out of this bed,” said McCullum.

Hornblower thought of all that Eisenbeiss had told him about McCullum's wound, about gangrene and suppuration and general blood-poisoning, and he knew there was a fair chance that McCullum would never rise from his bed.

“Mr. McCullum,” he said, “this is an urgent matter. Once the Turks get wind of what we want to do, and can assemble sufficient force to stop us, we will never be allowed to conduct salvage operations here. It is of the first importance that we get to work as quickly as we can. I was hoping that you would instruct your divers in their duties so that they could start now, immediately.”

“So that is what you were thinking, is it?” said McCullum.

It took some minutes of patient argument to wear McCullum down, and the grudging agreement that McCullum gave was tempered by an immediate pointing out of the difficulties.

“That water's mortal cold,” said McCullum.

“I'm afraid so,” answered Hornblower, “But we have always expected that.”

“The Eastern Mediterranean in March is nothing like the Bay of Bengal in summer. My men won't stand it for long.”

It was a great advance that McCullum should admit that they might stand it at all.

“If they work for short intervals — ?” suggested Hornblower.

“Aye. Seventeen fathoms beside the wreck?”

“Seventeen fathoms all round it,” said Hornblower.

“They can't work for long at that depth in any case. Five dives a day will be all. Then they bleed at the nose and ears. They'll need lines and weights — nine-pounder shot will serve.”

“I'll have them got ready,” said Hornblower.

Hornblower stood by while McCullum addressed his divers. He could guess at the point of some of the speeches. One of the divers was raising objections; it was clear, when he clasped his arms about his chest and shuddered dramatically with a rolling of his pathetic dark eyes, what he was saying. All three of them talked at once for a space in their twittering language. A sterner note came into McCullum's voice when he replied, and he indicated Hornblower with a gesture, directing all eyes to him for a moment. All three clung to each other and shrank away from him like frightened children. McCullum went on speaking, energetically — Eisenbeiss leaned over him and restrained the left hand that gesticulated; the right was strapped into immobility against McCullum's chest.

“Do not move,” said Eisenbeiss. “We shall have an inflammation.”

McCullum had winced more than once after an incautious movement, and his appearance of well-being changed quickly to one of fatigue.

“They'll start now,” he said at length, his head back on his pillow. “You can take 'em. Looney, here — that's what I call him — will be in charge. I've told 'em there are no sharks. Generally when one of 'em's down at the bottom the other two pray against sharks — they're all three of 'em shark doctors. A good thing they've seen men flogged on board here. I promised 'em you'd give 'em a taste of the cat if there was any nonsense.”

Hornblower had seen very plainly what the reactions of these twittering, bird-like creatures had been to that horror.

“Take 'em away,” said McCullum, lying back on his pillow.

With longboat and launch over at the far side of the Bay for stores and water only the gig and the tiny jolly boat were available. The gig was uncomfortably crowded but it served, with four hands at the oars, Hornblower and Leadbitter in the stern — Hornblower felt he could not possibly endure not taking part in this first essay — and the Ceylonese crowded into the bows. Hornblower had formed a shrewd notion about the extent of McCullum's ability to speak the divers' language. He had no doubt that McCullum made no attempt to speak it accurately or with any attempt at inflection. He made his points, Hornblower guessed, with a few nouns and verbs and some energetic gestures. McCullum's command of the Ceylonese tongue could not compare with Hornblower's Spanish, nor even with his French. Hornblower felt a sense of grievance about that, as he sat with his hand on the tiller and steered the gig over the dancing water — already the flat calm of dawn had given way to a moderate breeze that ruffled the surface.

They reached the first of the buoys — a plank wallowing among the wavelets at the end of its line — and Hornblower stood to identify the others. A stroke or two of the oars carried the gig into the centre of the area, and Hornblower looked down the boat to where the divers huddled together.

“Looney,” he said.

Now that he had been paying special attention to them he could distinguish each of the three divers from the others. Until that time they might as well have been triplets as far as his ability went to tell them apart.

“Looney,” said Hornblower again.

Looney rose to his feet and dropped the grapnel over the side. It went down fast, taking out the coiled-down line rapidly over the gunwale. Slowly Looney took off his clothes until he stood naked. He sat himself on the gunwale and swung his legs over. As his feet felt the cold of the water he cried out, and the other two joined with him in cries of alarm or commiseration.

“Shall I give 'im a shove, sir?” asked the hand at the bow oar.

“No,” said Hornblower.

Looney was sitting systematically inflating and deflating his chest, inhaling as deeply as he could, forcing air into his lungs. Hornblower could see how widely the ribs moved at each breath. One of the other two Ceylonese put a cannon-ball into Looney's hands, and be clasped it to his naked chest. Then he let himself slip from the gunwale and disappeared below the surface, leaving the gig rocking violently.

Hornblower took out his watch; it had no second hand — watches with second hands were far too expensive for him to afford — but he could measure the time roughly. He watched the tip of the minute hand creep from one mark to the next, from there to the next, and into the third minute. He was concentrating so deeply on the task that he did not hear Looney break water; his attention was called by a word from Leadbitter. Looney's head was visible twenty yards astern, his long thick switch of black hair, tied with a string, beside his ear.

“Back water!” said Hornblower promptly. “Pay out that line, there!”

The second order was understood clearly enough by the Ceylonese, or at least they knew their business, for as a vigorous stroke or two sent the gig down to Looney one of them attended to the line over the bows. Looney put his hands up to the gunwale and the other two pulled him on board. They talked volubly, but Looney at first sat still on the thwart, his head down by his thighs. Then he lifted his head, the water streaming from his wet hair. Clearly he talked about the cold — that sharp breeze must have been icy upon his wet skin — for the others towelled him and assisted him to cover himself with his clothes.

Hornblower wondered how he would set them to work again, but there was no need for him to interfere. As soon as Looney had his white garments about his shoulders he stood up in the bows of the gig and looked about him, considering. Then he pointed to a spot in the water a few yards away, looking round at Hornblower.

“Give way!” said Hornblower.

One of the Ceylonese hauled in on the grapnel and let it go again when the boat reached the spot indicated. Now it was his turn to strip, to inflate and deflate his chest, and to take a cannonball into his hands and drop over the side. Cannonballs cost money, thought Hornblower, and a time might come when he would need them to fire at the enemy. It would be better in the future to play in a supply of small rocks gathered on the shore. The diver came up to the surface and scrambled on board, to be received by his companions just as Looney had been. There was some kind of discussion among the divers, which was ended by the third one going down in the same place, apparently to settle the point in dispute. What he discovered led on his return to Looney requesting by signs a further shifting of the gig, and then Looney took off his clothes again to go down.

The divers were working industriously and, as far as Hornblower could see, intelligently. Later on Looney and one of his mates made a simultaneous descent, and it was on this occasion that Hornblower noticed that Looney's legs and feet, when he climbed in, were scratched and bleeding. For a moment Hornblower thought of sharks and similar underwater perils, but he revised his opinion at once. Looney must have been scrambling about on the wreck itself. There were decaying timbers down there, deep in the bright water, overgrown with barnacles and razor-edged sea shells. Hornblower felt confirmed in his opinion when Looney desired to buoy this particular spot. They anchored a plank there by a grapnel, and then dived more than once again in the neighbourhood.