The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (33 page)

As the smoke finally cleared away, there was an amazing sight. The mizzenmast of the outside frigate had been hit—for my shots had gone nowhere near where I had thought to strike—one of the shots having struck it where the mast went through the deck, and ripped a surprising great hole, splitting the mast up near three fathoms. A second of the three shots had smashed the carriage of a gun on the larboard side, and the gun had been thrown among the men, crushing several, as I judged. But it was the third shot that had pleased me, for it had struck outside the stern of the vessel altogether, and made a great white scar of splintered wood in the trunnion of the rudder:

There were cheers from the lads about me, but I bid them save their wind, and hasten. Already the near frigate was shortening her cable, and the boats were passing between her and the shore. Then she fired two guns quickly together; and, after a pause, two more together; and then, after a pause, two more in the same fashion, so that I knew she was recalling the body of sailors who were firing up beyond the oak woods.

“Haul in the gun and get her sponged out. Give her two measures and a half of powder, then a wad of dry blanket. Then sponge out every grain of loose powder from the bore, and give her a wad of wet blanket on top of the dry. I’m going to try one of those red-hot shot, and see if I can set the frigate on fire. God help us if the gun bursts!”

Twice while I spoke the Dutch in the near ship had loosed off their muskets at the cave-mouth, to try to keep us from working the guns. It was plain they saw they could never come at us, and they were anxious only to have their men aboard and get away before we did them greater harm. But this was just what I did not mean to let be.

I helped Larg load the right-hand gun with six of the bombs that I cut the fuses off very short with my knife. I put no more than one measure of powder in this gun, and then a wad of our good blankets, and after that the six bombs, and a matter of a dozen pounds of broken flints on the top, and a final wad to hold all in.

Before we could run this gun out, the outside frigate gave us a bad surprise, and showed there were men of good resource in her; for Jack, who was ever on the stare, shouted out suddenly that they’d boats out astern of her, and were towing her round, broadside on.

“Try them with a musket-shot or two,” I bid my brother, which he did; but though he hit the boat twice, he did no harm, and got his ear clipped by a ball, through going too near the mouth of the cave.

They had the frigate round pretty smart, and no sooner was she part round than they loosed off at us six of their guns, each as it came to bear, and then twelve in a clump, for I counted the flashes, and a terrible noise they made; but not one of their round-shot hit us, though there went many a ton of good honest rock and stone tumbling down the cliff-face into the sea, where the broadside had struck.

“They weren’t twenty yards below us,” said Larg.

“Look!” said my brother. “She’s leaning over!”

And truly she was. Even as we watched her, she canted over more and more, until her gun-ports seemed to grin right up at us.

“That’s ugly,” I said. “Stand by to get into the sides of the cave if I tell you.”

“By George! Her’s shifted most of her guns over to larboard!” said Larg. “That’s how hers done it, an’ a mighty cute notion, too, if she don’t capsize.”

As the blacksmith said, it was a clever notion, and it put us in real danger; but if most of her guns were down on the larboard side, there would not be many starboard to train on the cave.

The big vessel was already a long way over, showing a full fathom of the bright copper on her bottom. And then suddenly I got an idea.

“Hurry now with the other gun!” I said. “All of you lend a hand!”

“The powder’s in, two and a half measures, and them two wads as you wanted in, one on ’em dry an’ one on ’em wet,” said Bowden.

“Jack,” I said, “keep an eye on the frigate, and shout the moment you see a gun hauled out. Larg, get your tongs, and I’ll help you with the shot. It’s red-hot.”

We lifted it out of the hand-forge with two big tongs that he had made at the smithy, and in a minute we had it into the gun and well-rammed down, and a ring wad on top of it.

“Out with her, before the shot burns through to the powder!” I shouted. “Hasten, all! Hasten, all!”

We hove the gun out with a will, and a burst of musket-balls came all over the mouth of the cave as the long muzzle showed.

We depressed the big gun until it bore direct on the bright copper.

“They’ve pushed out six guns on the main deck,” said my brother. “Look out!”

“Into the side of the cave, all of you!” I shouted.

As I spoke there came six flashes, and a great thud of sound as the six reports made one, and, blending with them, there was a horrible splintering and crashing of heavy shot on rock all about us, and the thud of masses of rock falling from the roof of the cave. And in the midst of the uproar I dashed down my burning tow on the touch-hole and leaped right away from the gun.

The bang was enormous, and the great gun flung herself right up on end, and came down on her side with a crunch, just missing crushing me to death as I jumped again.

The cave-mouth was full of smoke, and I could not see whether my shot had succeeded. I stared round.

“Is anyone hurt?” I asked.

I felt hoarse, and I realised my shoulder hurt badly. A falling lump of rock had struck it, but I had scarcely noticed it in that supreme moment.

“I’m all right,” said Jack.

But Larg was lying senseless. The three others had obeyed me and got away safely to the side.

I ran across to Larg and looked at him. He was not dead, for he breathed heavily, and I felt his head. There was a great lump on it, full as big as my fist, but no other hurt about him, so far as I could see.

“Get some water and bathe his face,” I told my brother. I stood up and ran to the mouth of the cave. “Dear Lord!” I shouted. “She’s sinking fast!”

At my cry they all left Larg and came crowding to the edge of the cave-mouth.

“Back!” I shouted.

As I spoke a musket volley came from the nearer frigate, and three of us were struck by that one volley; yet not a wound to count more than a bad cut or a graze, only it was a good lesson to us all to keep in shelter.

As for the outer frigate, my eyes never looked with fiercer gladness on any sight than that of the despoiler, sinking helpless away below us. For my last shot had struck her low down on her copper, as she lay over. She had rolled under the concussion of her own gun-fire, and this is what I had waited for when I fired; and my shot had ripped clean through her far under the water-line, just on the bend of the stern run. The blow had smashed clean through the outer skin and one of her great ribs, and a butt had started, so that a fathom of one of her planks had sprung off from the ribs, and the water was rushing into her in tons. As she rolled a little, the place where the shot had struck showed, and it was plain to us that she could not float many minutes.

Twenty minutes later she sank, rightly and going down on a level keel, until only her topsail-yards showed above water. We saw at least fifty of her men drown before our eyes; for the other frigate could not pick them up, most of her boats being ashore, wailing for the recalled sailors.

These were even then on the beach, and, so evil was their mood, we saw them deliberately shoot with their muskets four of the village men they had caught among the woods, one of them being an uncle by marriage of the Cartwrights, as they could tell even at that distance by the make of his smock,

“The other gun now!” I said. “We will pay them for that!”

We trained the gun down on their one vessel, which was busy receiving the boats of the sunk frigate, crowded with men. Then, as the shore boats arrived and clustered alongside, we slued the gun a little, in spite of a heavy musketry fire, and I touched her off. Two of the shore boats were blown literally to pieces by the bombs, and the broken flints must have spread over boats and ship like a hail of death; for I saw dozens of men fall about the decks of the frigate.

VIII.

With all her boats towing, she went out of the cove, and we fired one more charge of chain-shot at her rigging as she went. Three lengths of chain I fired, and there was scarce a sound piece of gear aloft in her after that last shot. And so she passed out into the Channel; and as she went, filled with her dead and her wounded, with her gear shot to pieces, we stood there in the mouth of our lofty cave (the Gun Cave they call it these days) and cheered the Dutch.

Much had we to sorrow for—poor Larg dying, as we found later, many killed, our village burned, and my father’s house sorely injured by the fire of a boat-gun that the Dutch had taken ashore with them, as we learned later.

But in all this sorrow we had no cause for shame, for only to remember that proud ship of war being towed out, laden with her dead and her dying, was a balm for all who had lost or suffered in that raid. And those three masts that stood up above the waters of our cove were a sight to ease the whole angry countryside for many a long day.

But one more thing there is to tell, and I had it from a man that saw it all. The good ship Henry Bolt, a small English frigate, met the Dutch frigate Van Ruyter outside in the Channel and gave her lather, and sank her in two hours, she having more than a hundred wounded men in her, and so much cut about in her top hamper that she could sail neither to fight nor run.

And this is the true history and telling of that day of adventure in our cove, and a thing I remember often, though now I am old.

/* */

Jem Binney and the Safe
at Lockwood Hall

D
rat it!” muttered Jem, as a big thorn scratched his face in the darkness. Jem Binny, the dandy Anglo-American cracksman, was doing some cross-country work in a manner that might have excited the professional poachers of the district to envy. Silence and speed marked his progress as masterly, so that the dark October night saw no more than a swift shadow that passed from hedge to hedge.

Binny had left his lodgings at the White Lyon, in the little Kentish village of Bartol, by the window, and was “stretching himself”—as he would have phrased it—to reach the railway embankment at the Lower Bend, where the ten o’clock express was forced to slow down to some five miles per hour for a few hundred yards. His intention was to board the train during those seconds of lagging, and so reach town both quickly and secretly.

Yet you must not suppose that Jem Binny was doing anything so vulgar as a “bunk” from his lodgings because of an uncomfortable cash shortage, or for any other reason. It was very much the other way. In fact, his one desire was to get back as smartly as possible; for he was working what Mr. Weller would have termed “a halibi.”

You see, Jem had a little bit of “business” on hand which must be begun and concluded between dusk and dawn. It included this flying visit into town to make certain arrangements with men whose business was done—shall we say?—on the shady side of the fence.

He had to return by the Boat Express, which passed the Lower Bend at precisely 3 a.m., as he had taken good care to ascertain. Here, once more, he intended to avail himself of that convenient “five-mile limit” round the curve, and disembark himself and gear as inconspicuously and speedily as possible.

Then would follow two miles of cross-country work in the dark, preceding the little “operation” which he—as an expert—contemplated upon the safe at Lockwood Hall, where were stored some very remarkable solid items of gold and silver that no melting-pot need turn up its nose at.

The business of the night would end in the corner of a certain field, where a large stone already concealed a hole prepared. The “goods” would be afterwards removed as circumstance and caution decided.

Meanwhile, Jem Binny would have done a further mile and a half to his lodgings in the White Lyon, where, having ascended via the window to his virtuous couch, he would contemplate affectionately a certain wax phonograph record within the machine that stood beside his bed.

It may be wondered wherein lay the “halibi,” and I would reply: “In that same record,” which was entirely a notion of the sagacious Binny; for the record gave a very fair reproduction of Binny’s cough, which had earned for him at the White Lyon much sympathy, and the name of “that young fellow with the cough.”

Now, normally—that is, when engaged upon his nocturnal trade—Binny was not given to coughing. He would have considered it unprofessional, as being something of a physical trait inclined to hamper him in climbing to the proudest heights of his career. In fact, he never coughed except at the White Lyon, or when in the company of the villagers.

Yet this wise conserving of his vocal efforts was his own secret, and, had you ventured to suggest the truth to any of the customers of the White Lyon, you would have been disappointed in its reception.

They had all heard him cough. Did he not cough between drinks, or would not the point of many a somewhat racy tale be unduly delayed by the inevitable paroxysm? Finally, was not the landlady of the White Lyon often awakened in the night-time by the distressful throat of her lodger?

“Poor lad!” she would mutter sleepily; and fall again into the pit of slumber. And next morning she would ask Binny how he felt, and assure him—to his enormous gratification—that she had heard him in the night, and pitied him.