‘Good-bye, Hornblower,’ said Pellew, and Hornblower quickly stepped back, touching his hat. The pipes squealed until his head was below the level of the main-deck, and then he dropped perilously into the boat, hat, gloves, sword and all, all of them shabby.
X
‘I’ll take this opportunity, Mr Bush,’ said Hornblower, ‘of repeating what I said before. I’m sorry you’re not being given your chance.’
‘It can’t be helped, sir. It’s the way of the Service, replied the shadowy figure confronting Hornblower on the dark quarter-deck. The words were philosophical, but the tone was bitter. It was all part of the general logical madness of war, that Bush should feel bitter at not being allowed to risk his life, and that Hornblower, about to be doing so, should commiserate with Bush, speaking in flat formal tones as if he were not in the least excited – as if he were feeling no apprehension at all.
Hornblower knew himself well enough to be sure that if some miracle were to happen, if orders were to arrive forbidding him to take personal part in the coming raid, he would feel a wave of relief; delight as well as relief. But it was quite impossible, for the orders had definitely stated that ‘the landing party will be under the command of Captain Horatio Hornblower of the Hotspur.’ That sentence had been explained in advance in the preceding one … ‘because Lieut Côtard is senior to Lieut Bush.’ Côtard could not possibly have been transferred from one ship and given command of a landing party largely provided by another; nor could he be expected to serve under an officer junior to him, and the only way round the difficulty had been that Hornblower should command. Pellew, writing out those orders in the quiet of his magnificent cabin, had been like a Valkyrie in the Norse legends now attaining a strange popularity in England – he had been a Chooser of the Slain. Those scratches of his pen could well mean that Bush would live and Hornblower would die.
But there was another side to the picture. Hornblower had grudgingly to admit to himself that he would have been no more happy if Bush had been in command. The operation planned could only be successful if carried through with a certain verve and with an exactness of timing that Bush possibly could not provide. Absurdly, Hornblower was glad he was to command, and that was one demonstration in his mind of the defects of his temperament.
‘You are sure about your orders until I return, Mr Bush?’ he said. ‘And in case I don’t return?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hornblower had felt a cold wave up his spine while he spoke so casually about the possibility of his death. An hour from now he might be a disfigured stiffening corpse.
‘Then I’ll get myself ready,’ he said, turning away with every appearance of nonchalance.
He had hardly reached his cabin when Grimes entered.
‘Sir!’ said Grimes, and Hornblower swung round and looked at him. Grimes was in his early twenties, skinny, highly strung, and excitable. Now his face was white – his duties as steward meant that he spent little time on deck in the sun – and his lips were working horribly.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Hornblower curtly.
‘Don’t make me come with you, sir!’ spluttered Grimes. ‘You don’t want me with you, sir, do you, sir?’
It was an astonishing moment. In all his years of service Hornblower had never met with any experience in the least similar, and he was taken aback. This was cowardice; it might even be construed as mutiny. Grimes had in the last five seconds made himself liable not merely to the cat but to the noose. Hornblower could only stand and stare, wordless.
‘I’ll be no use, sir,’ said Grimes. ‘I – I might scream!’
Now that was a very definite point. Hornblower, giving his orders for the raid, had nominated Grimes as his messenger and aide-de-camp. He had given no thought to the selection; he had been a very casual Chooser of the Slain. Now he was learning a lesson. A frightened man at his elbow, a man made clumsy by fear, could imperil the whole expedition. Yet the first words he could say echoed his earlier thoughts.
‘I could hang you, by God!’ he exclaimed.
‘No, sir! No, sir! Please, sir—’ Grimes was on the point of collapse; in another moment he would be down on his knees.
‘Oh, for God’s sake—’ said Hornblower. He was conscious of contempt, not for the coward, but for the man who allowed his cowardice to show. And then he asked himself by what right he felt this contempt. And then he thought about the good of the Service, and then—. He had no time to waste in these trivial analyses.
‘Very well,’ he snapped. ‘You can stay on board. Shut your mouth, you fool!’
Grimes was about to show gratitude, but Hornblower’s words cut it off short.
‘I’ll take Hewitt out of the second boat. He can come with me. Pass the word for him.’
The minutes were fleeting by, as they always did with the final touches to put on to a planned scheme. Hornblower passed his belt through the loop on a cutlass sheath, and buckled it round him. A sword hanging on slings could be a hindrance, would strike against obstructions, and the cutlass was a handier weapon for what he contemplated. He gave a final thought to taking a pistol, and again rejected the idea. A pistol might be useful in certain circumstances, but it was a bulky encumbrance. Here was something more silent – a long sausage of stout canvas filled with sand, with a loop for the wrist. Hornblower settled it conveniently in his right hand pocket.
Hewitt reported, and had to be briefly told what was expected of him. The sidelong glance he gave to Grimes revealed much of what Hewitt thought, but there was no time for discussion; that matter would have to be sorted out later. Hewitt was shown the contents of the bundle originally allotted to Grimes – the flint and steel for use if the dark lantern were extinguished, the oily rags, the slow match, the quick match, the blue lights for instant intense combustion. Hewitt took solemn note of each item and weighed his sandbag in his hand.
‘Very well. Come along,’ said Hornblower.
‘Sir!’ said Grimes at that moment in a pleading tone, but Hornblower would not – indeed could not – spare time to hear any more.
On deck it was pitch dark, and Hornblower’s eyes took long to adjust themselves.
Officer after officer reported all ready.
‘You’re sure of what you have to say, Mr Côtard?’
‘Yes, sir.’
There was no hint of the excitable Frenchman about Côtard. He was as phlegmatic as any commanding officer could desire.
‘Fifty-one rank and file present, sir,’ reported the captain of marines.
Those marines, brought on board the night before, had lain huddled below decks all day, concealed from the telescopes on Petit Minou.
‘Thank you, Captain Jones. You’ve made sure no musket is loaded?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Until the alarm was given not a shot was to be fired. The work was to be done with the bayonet and the butt, and the sandbag – but the only way to be certain of that was to keep the muskets unloaded.
‘First landing party all down in the fishing-boat, sir,’ reported Bush.
‘Thank you, Mr Bush. Very well, Mr Côtard, we may as well start.’
The lobster-boat, seized earlier in the night to the surprise of its crew, lay alongside. The crew were prisoners down below; their surprise was due to the breach of the traditional neutrality enjoyed during the long wars by fishing-boats. These men were all acquainted with Hornblower, had often sold him part of their catch in exchange for gold, yet they had hardly been reassured when they were told that their boat would be returned to them later. Now it lay alongside, and Côtard followed Hewitt, and Hornblower followed Côtard, down into it. Eight men were squatting in the bottom where the lobster-pots used to lie.
‘Sanderson, Hewitt, Black, Downes take the oars. The rest of you get down below the gunnels. Mr Côtard, sit here against my knees, if you please.’
Hornblower waited until they had settled themselves. The black silhouette of the boat must appear no different in the dark night. Now c
ame the moment.
‘Shove off,’ said Hornblower.
The oars dragged through the water, bit more effectively at the next stroke, pulled smoothly at the third, and they were leaving Hotspur behind them. They were setting off on an adventure, and Hornblower was only too conscious that it was his own fault. If he had not been bitten with this idea they might all be peacefully asleep on board; tomorrow men would be dead who but for him would still be alive.
He put the morbid thought to one side, and then immediately he had to do the same with thoughts about Grimes. Grimes could wait perfectly well until his return, and Hornblower would not trouble his mind about him until then. Yet even so, as Hornblower concentrated on steering the lobster-boat, there was a continual undercurrent of thought – like ship’s noises during a discussion of plans – regarding how the crew on board would be treating Grimes, for Hewitt, before leaving the ship, would have certainly told the story to his cronies.
Hornblower, with his hand on the tiller, steered a steady course northward towards Petit Minou. A mile and a quarter to go, and it would never do if he missed the little jetty so that the expedition would end in a miserable fiasco. He had the faint outline of the steep hills on the northern shore of the Goulet to guide him; he knew them well enough now, after all these weeks of gazing at them, and the abrupt shoulder, where a little stream came down to the sea a quarter of a mile west of the semaphore, was his principal guide. He had to keep that notch open as the boat advanced, but after a few minutes he could actually make out the towering height of the semaphore itself, just visible against the dark sky, and then it was easy.
The oars groaned in the rowlocks, the blades splashing occasionally in the water; the gentle waves which raised them and lowered them seemed to be made of black glass. There was no need for a silent or invisible approach; on the contrary, the lobster-boat had to appear as if she were approaching on her lawful occasions. At the foot of the abrupt shore was a tiny half-tide jetty, and it was the habit of the lobster-boats to land there and put ashore a couple of men with the pick of the catch. Then, each with a basket on his head containing a dozen live lobsters, they would run along the track over the hills into Brest so as to be ready for the opening of the market, regardless of whether the boat was delayed by wind and tide or not. Hornblower, scouting at a safe distance in the jolly boat, had ascertained during a succession of nights such of the routine as he had not been able to pick up in conversation with the fishermen.
There it was. There was the jetty. Hornblower found his grip tightening on the tiller. Now came the loud voice of the sentry at the end of the jetty.
‘Qui va là?’
Hornblower nudged Côtard with his knee, unnecessarily, for Côtard was ready with the answer.
‘Camille,’ he hailed, and continued in French, ‘Lobster-boat. Captain Quillien.’
They were already alongside; the crucial moment on which everything depended. Black, the burly Captain of the Forecastle, knew what he had to do the moment opportunity offered. Côtard spoke from the depths of the boat.
‘I have the lobster for your officer.’
Hornblower, standing up and reaching for the jetty, could just see the dark of the sentry looking down, but Black had already leaped up from the bows like a panther, Downes and Sanderson following him. Hornblower saw a swift movement of shadows, but there was not a sound – not a sound.
‘All right, sir,’ said Black.
Hornblower, with a line in his hand, managed to propel himself up the slippery side, arriving on the top on his hands and knees. Black was standing holding the inanimate body of the sentry in his arms. Sandbags were silent; a vicious blow from behind at the exposed back of the neck, a quick grab, and it was finished. The sentry had not even dropped his musket; he and it was safe in Black’s monstrous arms.
Black lowered the body – senseless or dead, it did not matter which – on to the slimy stone flags of the jetty.
‘If he makes a sound cut his throat,’ said Hornblower.
This was all orderly and yet unreal, like a nightmare. Hornblower, turning to drop a clove-hitch with his line over a bollard, found his upper lip was still drawn up in a snarl like a wild beast’s. Côtard was already beside him; Sanderson had already made the boat fast forward.
‘Come on.’
The jetty was only a few yards long; at the far end, where the paths diverged up to the batteries, they would find the second sentry. From the boat they passed up a couple of empty baskets, and Black and Côtard held them on their heads and set off, Côtard in the middle, Hornblower on the left, and Black on the right where his right arm would be free to swing his sandbag. There was the sentry. He made no formal challenge, greeting them in jocular fashion while Côtard spoke again about the lobster which was the recognised though unofficial toll paid to the officer commanding the guard for the use of the jetty. It was a perfectly ordinary encounter until Black dropped his basket and swung with his sandbag and they all three leaped on the sentry, Côtard with his hands on the sentry’s throat, Hornblower striking madly with his sandbag as well, desperately anxious to make sure. It was over in an instant, and Hornblower looked round at the dark and silent night with the sentry’s body lying at his feet. He and Black and Côtard were the thin point of the wedge that had pierced the ring of the French defences. It was time for the wedge to be driven home. Behind them were the half-dozen others who had crouched in the lobster-boat, and following them up were the seventy marines and seamen in the boats of the Hotspur.
They dragged the second sentry back to the jetty and left him with the two boat-keepers. Now Hornblower had eight men at his back as he set his face to the steep climb up the path, the path he had only seen through a telescope from Hotspur’s deck. Hewitt was behind him; the smell of hot metal and fat in the still night air told him that the dark lantern was still alight. The path was stony and slippery, and Hornblower had to exert his self-control as he struggled up it. There was no need for desperate haste, and although they were inside the ring of sentries, in an area where civilians apparently passed fairly freely, there was no need to scramble noisily and attract too much attention.
Now the path became less steep. Now it was level, and here it intersected another path at right angles.
‘Halt!’ grunted Hornblower to Hewitt, but he took another two paces forward while Hewitt passed the word back; a sudden stop would mean that the people behind would be cannoning into each other.
This was indeed the summit. Owing to the levelling-off of the top this was an area unsearched by telescopes from the Hotspur; even from the main topgallant masthead, with the ship far out in the Iroise, they had not been able to view the ground here. The towering telegraph had been plainly in view, and at its foot just a hint of a roof, but they had not been able to see what was at ground level here, nor had Hornblower been able to obtain any hint in his conversations with fishermen.
‘Wait!’ he whispered back, and stepped cautiously forward, his hands extended in front of him. Instantly they came into contact with a wooden paling, quite an ordinary fence and by no means a military obstacle. And this was a gate, an ordinary gate with a wooden latch. Obviously the semaphore station was not closely guarded – fence and gate were only polite warnings to unauthorised intruders – and of course there was no reason why they should be, here among the French coastal batteries.
‘Hewitt! Côtard!’
They came up to him and all three strained their eyes in the darkness.
‘Do you see anything?’
‘Looks like a house,’ whispered Côtard.
Something in two storeys. Windows in the lower one, and above that a sort of platform. The crew who worked the telegraph must live here. Hornblower cautiously fumbled with the latch of the gate, and it opened without resistance. Then a sudden noise almost in his ear tensed him rigid, to relax again. It was a cock crowing, and he could hear a fluttering of wings. The semaphore crew must keep chickens in coops here, and the cock was giving premature warni
ng of day. No reason for further delay; Hornblower whispered his orders to his band whom he called up to the gate. Now was the time; and this was the moment when the parties of marines must be half-way up the climb to the battery. He was on the point of giving the final word when he saw something else which stopped him dead, and Côtard grabbed his shoulder at the same moment. Two of the windows before him were showing a light, a tiny glimmer, which nevertheless to their dilated pupils made the whole cottage plain to their view.
‘Come on!’
They dashed forward, Hornblower, Côtard, Hewitt, and the two men with axes in one group, the other four musket men scattering to surround the place. The path led straight to a door, again with a wooden latch, which Hornblower feverishly tried to work. But the door resisted; it was bolted on the inside, and at the rattling of the latch a startled cry made itself heard inside. A woman’s voice! It was harsh and loud, but a woman’s voice, undoubtedly. The axeman at Hornblower’s shoulder heaved up his axe to beat in the door, but at the same moment the other axeman shattered a window and went leaping through followed by Côtard. The woman’s voice rose to a scream; the bolt was drawn and the door swung open and Hornblower burst in.
A tallow dip lit the odd scene, and Hewitt opened the shutter of the dark lantern to illuminate it further, sweeping its beam in a semicircle. There were large baulks of timber, each set at an angle of forty-five degrees, to act as struts for the mast. Where floor space remained stood cottage furniture, a table and chairs, a rush mat on the floor, a stove. Côtard stood in the centre with sword and pistol, and at the far side stood a screaming woman. She was hugely fat, with a tangle of black hair, and all she wore was a nightshirt that hardly came to her knees. There was an inner door from which emerged a bearded man with hairy legs showing below his shirt-tails. The woman still screamed, but Côtard spoke loudly in French, waving his pistol – empty presumably – and the noise ceased, not, perhaps, because of Côtard’s threats but because of the woman’s sheer curiosity regarding these dawn intruders. She stood goggling at them, making only the most perfunctory gestures to conceal her nakedness.
The Young Hornblower Omnibus Page 69
