The Happy Return (hh-7) by Cecil Scott Forester

Author:Cecil Scott Forester [Forester, Cecil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adv_history, adv_geo, adv_maritime
ISBN: 0316289329
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Published: 1985-03-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

But he knew, and he told himself, at the moment of his getting to his feet, that he must not delay an instant in making the Lydia ready for action again.

“Afterguard!” he roared—his voice sounding unnatural to himself as he spoke—“Mr. Clay! Benskin! Axes here! Cut that wreckage away!”

Clay came pounding aft at the head of a rush of men with axes and cutlasses. As they were chopping at the mizzen shrouds he noticed Bush sitting up on the deck with his face in his hands—apparently a falling block had struck him down but there was no time to spare for Bush. The Natividad was coming down remorselessly on them; he could see exultant figures on her deck waving their hats in triumph. To his strained senses it seemed to him that even through the din on board the Lydia he could hear the creaking of Natividad’s rigging and the rumble of her reloaded guns being run out. She was steering to pass as close as possible. Hornblower saw her bowsprit go by, felt her reefed fore topsail loom over him, and then her broadside crashed out as gun after gun bore on the Lydia’s stern. The wind caught the smoke and whipped it round Hornblower, blinding him. He felt the deck leap as the shots struck home, heard a scream from Clay’s party beside him, felt a splinter scream past his cheek, and then, just as annihilation seemed about to engulf him, the frightful succession of shots ended, the smoke was borne away, the Natividad had gone by, and he was still alive and could look round him. The slide of the aftermost carronade had been smashed, and one of Clay’s men was lying screaming on the deck with the gun across his thighs and two or three of his mates striving futilely to prise it off them.

“Stop that!” screamed Hornblower—the necessity of having to give such an order sent his voice up to the same pitch as that of the miserable wretch in his agony—“Cut that bloody wreckage away! Mr. Clay, keep them at work!”

A cable’s length away, over the grey topped waves the Natividad was slowly wearing round to return and deal a fresh blow at her helpless opponent. It was lucky that the Natividad was an unhandy ship, like all those stumpy fourth rates—it gave Hornblower more time between the broadsides to try and get the Lydia into a condition so that she could face her enemy again.

“Foretop, there! Mr. Galbraith! get the headsails in.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The absence of the fore-topmast-staysail and storm jib would balance to some extent the loss of the mizzen topsail and driver. He might, by juggling with the helm, get the Lydia to lie to the wind a trifle then, and hit back at his big opponent. But there was no hope of doing so while all this wreckage was trailing astern like a vast sea anchor. Until that was cut away she could only lie helpless, dead before the wind, suffering her enemy’s blows in silence.

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