'Not a sound, men,' said Hornblower.
The cattle bellowed mournfully. Here came the lugger, her crew plainly visible now. Hornblower could see an officer clinging to the main shrouds ready to board, but no one else seemed to have a care in the world. Everyone seemed to be looking up at the clumsy superstructure and laughing at the farmyard noises issuing from it.
'Wait, men, wait,' said Hornblower.
The lugger was coming alongside when Hornblower suddenly realized, with a hot flood of blood under his skin, that he himself was unarmed. He had told his men to take pistols and cutlasses: he had advised Tabling to arm himself, and yet he had clean forgotten about his own need for weapons. Bu it was too late now to try to remedy that. Someone in the lugger hailed in Spanish, and Hornblower spread his hand' in a show of incomprehension. Now they were alongside.
'Come on, men!' shouted Hornblower.
He ran across the superstructure and with a gulp he flung himself across the gap at the officer in the shrouds. He gulped again as he went through the air; he fell with all his weight on the unfortunate man, clasped him round the shoulders, and fell with him to the deck. There were shouts and yells behind him as the Caroline spewed up her crew into the lugger. A rush of feet, a clatter and a clash. Hornblower got to his feet empty-handed. Maxwell was just striking down a man with his cutlass. Tapling was heading a rush forward into the bows, waving a cutlass and yelling like a madman. Then it was all over; the astonished Spaniards were unable to lift a hand in their own defence.
So it came about that on the twenty-second day of her quarantine the Caroline came into Gibraltar Bay with a captured guarda-costa lugger under her lee. A thick barn-yard stench trailed with her, too, but at least, when Hornblower went on board the Indefatigable to make his report, he had a suitable reply ready for Mr Midshipman Bracegirdle.
'Hullo, Noah, how are Shem and Ham?' asked Mr Bracegirdle.
'Shem and Ham have taken a prize,' said Hornblower. 'I regret that Mr Bracegirdle can't say the same.'
But the Chief Commissary of the squadron, when Hornblower reported to him, had a comment to which even Hornblower was unable to make a reply.