Hornblower in the West Indies h-12

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “I think, Mr. Harcourt,” said Hornblower, “that we can safely hold our course for Point Galera.”

  “Aye aye, My Lord.”

  Now was the worst period of waiting, of wondering whether the whole voyage might not prove to be a fool’s errand, patrolling, beating up to within sight of Trinidad and then going about and reaching past Tobago again towards Grenada. Waiting was bad; if the voyage should not turn out to be a fool’s errand it meant something that Hornblower, and Hornblower alone, knew to be worse. Gerard raised the question again.

  “How do you propose to stop him, My Lord?”

  “There may be means,” answered Hornblower, trying to keep the harshness out of his voice that would betray his anxiety.

  It was on a blue and gold, blazing day, with Crab ghosting along before only the faintest breeze, that the masthead lookout hailed the deck with the news of the sighting.

  “Sail ho! Dead to loo’ard, sir!”

  A sail might be anything, but at long intervals, as Crab crept closer, the successive reports made it more and more likely that the strange sail was Daring. Three masts—even that first supplementary report made it reasonably sure, for not many big ships plied out into the South Atlantic from the Caribbean. All sail set, even skysails, and stu’ns’ls to the royals. That did not mean quite so much.

  “She looks like an American, sir!”

  The skysails had already hinted strongly in the same direction. Then Harcourt went up to the mainmast head with his own glass, and came down again with his eyes shining with excitement.

  “That’s Daring, My Lord. I’m sure of it.”

  Ten miles apart they lay, on the brilliant blue of the sea with the brilliant blue of the sky above them, and on the far horizon a smudge of land. Crab had won her race by twenty-five hours. Daring was ‘boxing the compass’, swinging idly in all directions under her pyramids of sails in the absence of all wind; Crab carried her way for a while longer, and then she, too, fell motionless under the blazing sun. All eyes turned on the Admiral standing stiffly with his hands locked behind him gazing at the distant white rectangles that indicated where lay his fate. The schooner’s big mainsail flapped idly, flapped again, and then the boom began to swing over.

  “Hands to the sheets!” yelled Harcourt.

  The air was so light that they could not even feel it on their sweating faces, but it sufficed to push the booms out, and a moment later the helmsman could feel the rudder take hold just enough to give him control. With Crab’s bowsprit pointed straight at Daring the breath of wind was coming in over the starboard quarter, almost dead astern, almost dead foul for Daring if ever it should reach her, but she was still becalmed. The breath of wind increased until they could feel it, until they could hear under the bows the music of the schooner’s progress through the water, and then it died away abruptly, leaving Crab to wallow on the swell. Then it breathed again, over the port quarter this time, and then it drew farther aft, so that the topsails were braced square and the foresail could be hauled over to the port side and Crab ran wing-and-wing for ten blessed minutes until the wind dropped again, to a dead, flaming calm. They could see Daring catch a wind, see her trim her sails, but only momentarily, only long enough to reveal her intentions before she lay once more helpless. Despite her vast sail area her greater dead weight made her less susceptible to these very faint airs.

  “Thank God for that,” said Gerard, glass to his eye, as he watched her swing idly again. “I think she aims to pass us beyond cannon-shot, My Lord.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised at that,” agreed Hornblower.

  Another breath, another slight closing of the gap, another dead calm.

  “Mr. Harcourt, perhaps it would be best if you let the men have their dinners now.”

  “Aye aye, My Lord.”

  Salt beef and pease pudding under a noonday sun in the tropics—who could have any appetite for that, especially with the excitement of watching for a wind? And in the middle of dinner hands were sent again to the sheets and braces to take advantage of another breath of wind.

  “At what time will you have your dinner, My Lord?” asked Giles.

  “Not now,” was all the answer Hornblower would give him, glass to eye.

  “He’s hoisted his colours, My Lord,” pointed out Gerard. “American colours.”

  The Stars and Stripes, regarding which he had been expressly ordered to be particularly tender. But he could be nothing else in any case, seeing that Daring mounted twelve-pounders and was full of men.

  Now both vessels had a wind, but Crab was creeping bravely along at a full two knots, and Daring, trying to head to the southward close-hauled, was hardly moving; now she was not moving at all, turning aimlessly in a breeze too faint to give her steerage way.

  “I can see very few people on her deck, My Lord,” said Harcourt; the eye with which he had been staring through his glass was watering with the glare of sun and sea.

  “She’d keep ‘em below out of sight,” said Gerard.

  That was so likely as to be certain. Whatever Daring, and Cambronne, thought of Crab’s intentions, it would be safest to conceal the fact that she had five hundred men on board while heading for the South Atlantic.

  And between her and that South Atlantic lay Crab, the frailest barrier imaginable. Let Daring once pass through the channel out into the open sea and nothing could be done to stop her. No ship could hope to overtake her. She would reach St. Helena to strike her blow there, and no possible warning could be given. It was now or never, and it was Hornblower’s fault that matters had reached such a pass. He had been utterly fooled in New Orleans. He had allowed Cambronne to steal a march on him. Now he had to make any sacrifice that circumstances demanded of him, any sacrifice whatever, to redeem the peace of the world. Crab could do nothing to stop Daring. It could only be done by his own personal exertions.

  “Mr. Harcourt,” said Hornblower, in his harsh, expressionless monotone. “I’ll have the quarterboat cleared away ready to lower, if you please. Have a full boat’s crew told off, to double bank the oars.”

  “Aye aye, My Lord.”

  “Who’ll go in her, My Lord?” asked Gerard.

  “I will,” said Hornblower.

  The mainsail flapped, the boom came creaking inboard, swung out again, swung in. The breeze was dying away again. For a few minutes more Crab held her course, and then the bowsprit began to turn away from Daring.

  “Can’t keep her on her course, sir,” reported the quartermaster.

  Hornblower swept his gaze round the horizon in the blazing afternoon. There was no sign of a further breeze. The decisive moment had come, and he snapped his telescope shut.

  “I’ll take that boat now, Mr. Harcourt.”

  “Let me come too, My Lord,” said Gerard, a note of protest in his voice.

  “No,” said Hornblower.

  In case a breeze should get up during the next half hour, he wanted no useless weight in the boat while crossing the two-mile gap.

  “Put your backs into it,” said Hornblower to the boat’s crew as they shoved off. The oarblades dipped in the blue, blue water, shining gold against the blue. The boat rounded Crab’s stern, with anxious eyes looking down on them; Hornblower brought the tiller over and pointed straight for Daring. They soared up a gentle swell, and down again, up again and down again; with each rise and fall Crab was perceptibly smaller and Daring perceptibly larger, lovely in the afternoon light, during what Hornblower told himself were the last hours of his professional life. They drew nearer and nearer to Daring, until at last a hail came borne by the heated air.

  “Boat ahoy!”

  “Coming aboard!” hailed Hornblower back again. He stood up in the stern-sheets so that his gold-laced Admiral’s uniform was in plain sight.

  “Keep off!” hailed the voice, but Hornblower held his course.

  There could be no international incident made out of this, an unarmed boat’s crew taking an Admiral alone on board a becalmed ship. He di
rected the boat towards the mizzen chains.

  “Keep off!” hailed the voice, an American voice.

  Hornblower swung the boat in.

  “In oars!” he ordered.

  With the way she carried the boat surged towards the ship; Hornblower timed his movements to the best of his ability, knowing his own clumsiness. He leaped for the chains, got one shoe full of water, but held on and dragged himself up.

  “Lie off and wait for me!” he ordered the boat’s crew, and then turned to swing himself over on to the deck of the ship.

  The tall, thin man with a cigar in his mouth must be the American captain; the burly fellow beside him one of the mates. The guns were cast off, although not run out, and the American seamen were standing round them ready to open fire.

  “Did you hear me say keep off, mister?” asked the captain.

  “I must apologise for this intrusion, sir,” said Hornblower. “I am Rear Admiral Lord Hornblower of His Britannic Majesty’s service, and I have the most urgent business with Count Cambronne.”

  For a moment on the sunlit deck they stood and looked at each other, and then Hornblower saw Cambronne approaching.

  “Ah, Count,” said Hornblower, and then made himself speak French. “It is a pleasure to meet Monsieur le Comte again.”

  He took off his cocked hat and held it over his breast and doubled himself in a bow which he knew to be ungainly.

  “And to what do I owe this pleasure, milord?” asked Cambronne. He was standing very stiff and straight, his cat’s-whisker moustache bristling out on either side.

  “I have come to bring you the very worst of news, I regret to say,” said Hornblower. Through many sleepless nights he had rehearsed these speeches to himself. Now he was forcing himself to make them naturally. “And I have come also to do you a service, Count.”

  “What do you wish to say, milord?”

  “Bad news.”

  “Well?”

  “It is with the deepest regret, Count, that I have to inform you of the death of your Emperor.”

  “No!”

  “The Emperor Napoleon died at St. Helena last month. I offer you my sympathy, Count.”

  Hornblower told the lie with every effort to appear like a man speaking the truth.

  “It cannot be true!”

  “I assure you that it is, Count.”

  A muscle in the Count’s cheek twitched restlessly beside the purple scar. His hard, slightly protruding eyes bored into Hornblower’s like gimlets.

  “I received the news two days back in Port of Spain,” said Hornblower. “In consequence I cancelled the arrangements I had made for the arrest of this ship.”

  Cambronne could not guess that Crab had not made as quick a passage as he indicated.

  “I do not believe you,” said Cambronne, nevertheless. It was just the sort of tale that might be told to halt Daring in her passage.

  “Sir!” said Hornblower, haughtily. He drew himself up even stiffer, acting as well as he could the part of the man of honour whose word was being impugned. The pose was almost successful.

  “You must understand the importance of what you are saying, milord,” said Cambronne, with the faintest hint of apology in his voice. But then he said the fatal dreaded words that Hornblower had been expecting. “Milord, do you give me your word of honour as a gentleman that what you say is true?”

  “My word of honour as a gentleman,” said Hornblower.

  He had anticipated this moment in misery for days and days. He was ready for it. He compelled himself to make his answer in the manner of a man of honour. He made himself say it steadily and sincerely, as if it did not break his heart to say it. He had been sure that Cambronne would ask him for his word of honour.

  It was the last sacrifice he could make. In twenty years of war he had freely risked his life for his country. He had endured danger, anxiety, hardship. He had never until now been asked to give his honour. This was the further price he had to pay. It was through his own fault that the peace of the world was in peril. It was fitting that he should pay the price. And the honour of one man was a small price to pay for the peace of the world, to save his country from the renewal of the deadly perils she had so narrowly survived for twenty years. In those happy years of the past, returning to his country after an arduous campaign, he had looked about him and he had breathed English air and he had told himself with fatuous patriotism that England was worth fighting for, was worth dying for. England was worth a man’s honour, too. Oh, it was true. But it was heartrending, it was far, far worse than death that it should be his honour that had to be sacrificed.

  A little group of officers had appeared on deck and were standing grouped on either side of Cambronne listening to every word; to one side stood the American captain and his mate. Facing them, alone, his gaudy uniform flashing in the sun, stood Hornblower, waiting. The officer on Cambronne’s right spoke next. He was some kind of adjutant or staff officer, clearly, of the breed that Hornblower hated. Of course, he had to repeat the question, to turn the iron in the wound.

  “Your word of honour, milord?”

  “My word of honour,” repeated Hornblower, still steadily, still like a man of honour.

  No one could disbelieve the word of honour of a British Admiral, of a man who had held His Majesty’s commission for more than twenty years. He went on now with the arguments he had rehearsed.

  “This exploit of yours can be forgotten now, Count,” he said. “With the Emperor’s death all hope of reconstituting the Empire is at an end. No one need know of what you had intended. You, and these gentlemen, and the Imperial Guard below decks, can remain uncompromised with the regime that rules France. You can carry them all home as you had said you would do, and on the way you can drop your warlike stores quietly overboard. It is for this reason that I have visited you like this, alone. My country, your country, do not desire any new incident to imperil the amity of the world. No one need know; this incident can remain a secret between us.”

  Cambronne heard what he said, and listened to it, but the first news he had heard was of such moving importance that he could speak of nothing else.

  “The Emperor is dead!” he said.

  “I have already assured you of my sympathy, Count,” said Hornblower. “I offer it to these gentlemen as well. My very deepest sympathy.”

  The American captain broke into the murmurs of Cambronne’s staff.

  “There’s a cat’s-paw of wind coming towards us,” he said. “We’ll be under way again in five minutes. Are you coming with us, mister, or are you going over the side?”

  “Wait,” said Cambronne; he seemingly had some English. He turned to his staff, and they plunged into debate. When they all spoke at once Hornblower’s French was inadequate to follow the conversation in detail. But he could see they were all convinced. He might have been pleased, if there had been any pleasure left in the world for him. Someone walked across the deck and shouted down the hatchway, and next moment the Imperial Guard began to pour up on deck. The Old Guard, Bonaparte’s Old Guard; they were all in full uniform, apparently in readiness for battle if Crab had been foolish enough to risk one. There were five hundred of them in their plumes and bearskins, muskets in hand. A shouted order formed them up on deck, line behind line, gaunt, whiskered men who had marched into every capital in Europe save London alone. They carried their muskets and stood at rigid attention; only a few of them did not look straight to their front, but darted curious glances at the British Admiral. The tears were running down Cambronne’s scarred cheeks as he turned and spoke to them. He told them the news in broken sentences, for he could hardly speak for sorrow. They growled like beasts as he spoke. They were thinking of their Emperor dying in his island prison under the harsh treatment of his English jailers; the looks that were turned upon Hornblower now showed hatred instead of curiosity, but Cambronne caught their attention again as he went on to speak of the future. He spoke of France and peace.

  “The Emperor is dead!” h
e said again, as if he were saying that the world had come to an end.

  The ranks were ragged now; emotion had broken down even the iron discipline of the Old Guard. Cambronne drew his sword, raising the hilt to his lips in the beautiful gesture of the salute; the steel flashed in the light of the sinking sun.

  “I drew this sword for the Emperor,” said Cambronne. “I shall never draw it again.”

  He took the blade in both hands close to the hilt, and put it across his lifted knee. With a convulsive effort of his lean, powerful body he snapped the blade across, and, turning, he flung the fragments into the sea. The sound that came from the Old Guard was like a long drawn moan. One man took his musket by the muzzle, swung the butt over his head, and brought it crashing down on the deck, breaking the weapon at the small of the butt. Others followed his example. The muskets rained overside.

  The American captain was regarding the scene apparently unmoved, as if nothing more would ever surprise him, but the unlit cigar in his mouth was now much shorter, and he must have chewed off the end. He approached Hornblower obviously to ask the explanation of the scene, but the French adjutant interposed.

  “France,” said the adjutant. “We go to France.”

  “France?” repeated the captain. “Not—?”

  He did not say the words ‘St Helena’, but they were implicit in his expression.

  “France,” repeated the adjutant, heavily.

  Cambronne came towards them, stiffer and straighter than ever as he mastered his emotion.

  “I will intrude no further on your sorrow, Count,” said Hornblower. “Remember always you have the sympathy of an Englishman.”

  Cambronne would remember those words later, when he found he had been tricked by a dishonourable Englishman, but they had to be said at this moment, all the same.

  “I will remember,” said Cambronne. He was forcing himself to observe the necessary formalities. “I must thank you, milord, for your courtesy and consideration.”

  “I have done my duty towards the world,” said Hornblower.