“Aye aye, My Lord.”
“And I want a punt. Two punts. I’ve seen your hands using ‘em for caulking and breaming. Twenty foot, are they?”
“Twenty-two foot, My Lord,” answered Holmes; he was glad that he could answer this question while his Admiral had not insisted on an answer regarding so obscure a matter as the weight of boat-mortar shells.
“I’ll have two, as I said. Send them round to be hove on deck.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
Captain Sir Thomas Fell had his best uniform on to greet his Admiral.
“I received your order, My Lord,” he said, as the twittering of the pipes died away in a last wail.
“Very well, Sir Thomas. I want to be under way the moment the stores I have ordered are on board. You can warp your ship out. We are going to Montego Bay to deal with pirates.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
Fell did his best not to look askance at the two filthy punts that he was expected to heave on to his spotless deck—they were only the floating stages used in the dockyard for work on ships’ sides—and the two tons of greasy mortar shells for which he had to find space were no better. He was not too pleased when he was ordered to tell off the greater part of his ship’s company—two hundred and forty men—and all his marine detachment for a landing party. The hands were naturally delighted with the prospect of a change of routine and the possibility of action. The fact that the gunner was weighing out gunpowder and putting two pounds apiece in the shells, a glimpse of the armourer going round with the Admiral on an inspection of the boarding-pikes, the sight of the boat mortar, squat and ugly, crouching on its bed at the break, of the forecastle, all excited them. It was a pleasure to thrash along to the westward, under every stitch of canvas, leaving Portland Point abeam, rounding Negril Point at sunset, catching some fortunate puffs of the sea breeze which enabled them to cheat the trade wind, ghosting along in the tropical darkness with the lead at work in the chains, and anchoring with the dawn among the shoals of Montego Bay, the green mountains of Jamaica all fiery with the rising sun.
Hornblower was on deck to see it; he had been awake since midnight, having slept since sunset—two almost sleepless nights had disordered his habits—and he was already pacing the quarterdeck as the excited men were formed up in the waist. He kept a sharp eye on the preparations. That boat mortar weighed no more than four hundred pounds, a mere trifle for the yard-arm tackle to lower down into the punt alongside. The musketmen were put through an inspection of their equipment; it was puzzling to the crew that there were pikemen, axemen, and even malletmen and crowbarmen as well. As the sun climbed higher and blazed down hotter the men began to file down into the boats.
“Gig’s alongside, My Lord,” said Gerard.
“Very well.”
On shore Hornblower returned the salute of the astonished subaltern commanding the detachment of the West Indian Regiment on guard over the boats—he had turned out his men apparently expecting nothing less than a French invasion—and dismissed him. Then he ran a final glance over the rigid lines of the marine detachment, scarlet tunics and white cross-belts and all. They would not be nearly as tidy by the end of the day.
“You can make a start, captain,” he said. “Keep me informed, Mr. Spendlove, if you please.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
With Spendlove as guide the marines marched forward; they were the advanced guard to secure the main body from surprise. It was time to give orders to Clorinda’s first-lieutenant.
“Now, Mr. Sefton, we can move.”
The little river had a little bar at its mouth, but the two punts carrying the mortar and the ammunition had been floated in round it. For a mile there was even a track beside the water, and progress was rapid as they dragged the punts along, while the vegetation closed in round them. The shade was gratifying when they first entered into it, but they found it breathless, damp, stifling, as they progressed farther in. Mosquitoes stung with venomous determination. Men slipped and fell on the treacherous mud-banks, splashing prodigiously. Then they reached the first stretch of shallows, where the river came bubbling down a long perceptible slope between steep banks under the light filtering in through the trees.
At least they had saved a mile and more by water carriage even this far. Hornblower studied the grounded punts, the soil and the trees. This was what he had been thinking about; it was worth making the experiment before putting the men to the toil of carrying the mortar up by brute force.
“We’ll try a dam here, Mr. Sefton, if you please.”
“Aye aye, My Lord. Axemen! Pikemen! Malletmen!”
The men were still in high spirits; it called for exertion on the part of the petty officers to restrain their exuberance. A line of pikes driven head downward where the soil was soft enough to receive them formed the first framework of the dam. Axemen felled small trees with a childish delight in destruction. Crowbarmen levered at stumps and rocks. A small avalanche came tumbling down into the river bed. The water swirled about the trash; already there was sufficient obstruction to hold it. Hornblower saw the level rise before his very eyes.
“More rocks here!” roared Sefton.
“Keep your eye on those punts, Mr. Sefton,” said Hornblower—the clumsy craft were already afloat again.
Felled trees and rocks extended, heightened, and strengthened the dam. There was water spouting through the interstices, but not as much as was being held back.
“Get the punts upstream,” ordered Hornblower.
Four hundred willing hands had achieved much; the water was banked up sufficient to float the punts two-thirds of the way up the shallows.
“Another dam, I think, Mr. Sefton, if you please.”
Already they had learned much about the construction of temporary dams. The stream bed was choked in a twinkling, it seemed. Splashing knee-deep in water the men dragged the punts higher still. They grounded momentarily, but a final heave ran them over the last of the shallows into a reach where they floated with ease.
“Excellent, Mr. Sefton.”
That was a clear gain of a quarter of a mile before the next shallows.
As they were preparing to work on the next dam the flat report of a musket shot came echoing back to them in the heated air, followed by half a dozen more; it was several minutes before they heard the explanation, brought back by a breathless messenger.
“Captain Seymour reports, sir. We was fired on by someone up there, sir. Saw ‘im in the trees, sir, but ‘e got away.”
“Very well.”
So the pirates had posted a lookout downstream. Now they knew that a force was advancing against them. Only time would show what they would do next; meanwhile the punts were afloat again and it was time to push on. The river curved back and forth, washing at the foot of vertical banks, preserving, for a time, miraculously, enough depth of water to float the punts at the expense of occasionally dragging them up slight rapids. Now it began to seem to Hornblower as if he had spent days on this labour, in the blinding patches of sunlight and the dark stretches of shade, with the river swirling round his knees, and his feet slipping on the rocks. At the next dam he was tempted to sit and allow the sweat to stream down him. He had hardly done so when another messenger arrived from the advanced guard.
“Captain Seymour reporting, sir. ‘E says to say the pirates ‘ave gorn to ground, sir. They’re in a cave, sir, right up in the cliff.”
“How far ahead of here?”
“Oh, not so very fur, sir.”
Hornblower could have expected no better answer, he realised.
“They was shooting at us, sir,” supplemented the messenger.
That defined the distance better, for they had heard no firing for a long time; the pirates’ lair must be farther than the sound could carry.