Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  ‘Comment’ he yelled back through the speaking-trumpet.

  An irascible voice asked him again what in the name of the devil he thought he was doing.

  ‘Anchorage – mumble – current – mumble – tide,’ yelled Hornblower in reply.

  This time the unknown in the cutter invoked the name of God instead of that of the devil.

  ‘Who in God’s name is that?’

  ‘Mumble mumble mumble,’ bellowed Hornblower back again, and quietly to the helmsman, ‘Bring her slowly round to port.’

  Carrying on a conversation with the French authorities while taking a vessel down an involved channel – however well he had memorised the latter on the chart – taxed his resources.

  ‘Heave-to!’ yelled the voice.

  ‘Pardon, Captain,’ yelled Hornblower back. ‘Mumble – anchor-cable – mumble – impossible.’

  Another loud hail from the cutter, full of menace.

  ‘Steady as you go,’ cried Hornblower to the helmsman. ‘Mr Freeman, a hand at the lead, if you please.’

  He knew there was no chance of gaining any more precious seconds; by the time the leadsman was calling the depths and revealing the brig’s design of evasion the shore authorities would be fully alert. A pinpoint of light stabbed the thin mist and the sound of a musket-shot came over the water; the cutter was taking the quickest method of attracting the attention of the shore batteries.

  ‘Stand by to go about!’ rasped Hornblower; this was the most ticklish moment of the outward passage.

  The brig’s canvas volleyed as she came round, and simultaneously there was a bigger tongue of red flame in the darkness and the sound of the cutter’s six-pounder bow chaser, cleared away and loaded at last. Hornblower heard no sound of the ball. He was busy looking back at the Indiaman, dimly showing in the minute light of the brig’s wake. She was coming about neatly. That master’s mate – Calverly – whom Freeman had recommended for the command of the boarding-party was a capable officer, and must be highly praised when the time should come to send in a report.

  And then from the jetty came a succession of flashes and a rolling roar; the big thirty-two-pounders there had opened fire at last. The sound of the last shot was instantly followed by the noise of a ball passing close by; Hornblower had time somehow to note how much he hated that noise. They were having to round the jetty, and would be within range for several minutes. There was no sign of damage either to the brig or the Indiaman as yet – and there was nothing in favour of returning the fire, for the brig’s little six-pounders would make no impression on the solid battery, while the flashes would reveal the vessel’s position. He took note of the cry of the leadsman; it would be some minutes before he could tack again and stand directly away from the jetty. It was a long time, on the other hand, before the battery fired again. Bonaparte must have stripped his shore defences of seasoned gunners in order to man the artillery of his army in Germany; untrained recruits, called upon suddenly to man their guns, and working in darkness, would naturally be unhandy. Here it came, the flash and the roar, but this time there was no sound of any shot passing – maybe the gunners had lost all sense of direction and elevation, which was easy enough in the darkness. And the flashes from the guns were convenient in enabling Hornblower to check his position.

  A yell came from the lookout in the bows, and Hornblower, looking forward, could just make out the dark square of the top of the pilot-lugger’s mainsail, close in on their starboard bow. They were making an effort to impede the brig’s escape.

  ‘Steady!’ said Hornblower to the helmsman.

  Let the weakest go to the wall; there was a shattering crash as brig and lugger met, starboard bow to starboard bow. The brig shuddered and lurched and drove on, the lugger rasping down her side. Something caught and tore loose again, and there came, as the vessels parted, a thin despairing yell from the lugger. The little vessel’s bows must have been smashed in like an eggshell by that shock, and the water must be pouring in. The cries died away; Hornblower distinctly heard one wailing voice abruptly cut short, as if water was pouring into the mouth of the despairing swimmer. The Indiaman was still holding her course in the brig’s wake.

  ‘By the mark eight!’ called the leadsman.

  He could lay her on the other tack now, and as he gave the order the battery at the jetty again roared harmlessly. They would be out of range by the time the gunners could reload.

  ‘A very good piece of work, Mr Freeman,’ said Hornblower, loudly. ‘All hands did their duty admirably.’

  Somebody in the darkness began to cheer, and the cry was taken up throughout the brig. The men were yelling like madmen.

  ‘Horny! Good old Horny!’ yelled somebody, and the cheering redoubled.

  Even from astern they could hear the exiguous prize crew of the Indiaman joining in; Hornblower felt a sudden smarting of the eyes, and then experienced a new revulsion of feeling. He felt a little twinge of shame at being fond of these simpletons. Besides—

  ‘Mr Freeman,’ he said, harshly, ‘kindly keep the hands quiet.’

  The risk he had run had been enormous. Not merely the physical danger, but the danger to his reputation. Had he failed, had the Porta Coeli been disabled and captured, men would not have stopped to think about his real motive, which was to make the French authorities believe that the Flame’s mutiny was merely a ruse to enable the brig to enter the harbour. No; men would have said that Hornblower had tried to take advantage of the mutiny to feather his own nest, had thrown away the Porta Coeli and had left the mutineers unmolested merely to grab at an opportunity to acquire prize-money. That was what they would have said – and all the appearances would have borne out the assumption – and Hornblower’s reputation would have been eternally tarnished. He had risked his honour as well as his life and liberty. He had gambled everything in hare-brained fashion, thrown colossal stakes on the board for a meagre prize, like the fool he was.

  Then the wave of black reaction ebbed away. He had taken a calculated risk, and his calculation had proved exact. It would be a long time before the mutineers could clear up their misunderstanding with the French authorities – Hornblower could imagine the messengers hurrying at this moment to warn the coastal defences at Honfleur and Caen – even if eventually they should succeed in doing so. He had turned the mutineers’ position, cut off their retreat. He had bearded Bonaparte under the batteries of his own capital river. And there was the prize he had taken; at least a thousand pounds, his share would be, when the prize-money came to be reckoned up, and a thousand pounds was a welcome sum of money, a gratifying sum. Barbara and he would find it useful.

  Emotion and excitement had left him tired. He was about to tell Freeman that he was going below, and then he checked himself. It would be an unnecessary speech; if Freeman could not find him on deck he would know perfectly well that he was in his cabin. He dragged himself wearily down to his cot.

  VII

  ‘Mr Freeman’s respects, sir,’ said Brown, ‘an’ he said to tell you that day’s just breaking, fairly dear, sir. Wind’s backed to sou’-by-west, sir, during the night, blowin’ moderate. We’re hove-to, us an’ the prize, an’ it’s the last of the floodtide now, sir.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Hornblower, rolling out of his cot. He was still heavy with sleep, and the tiny cabin seemed stuffy, as well as chilly, although the stern window was open.

  ‘I’ll have my bath,’ said Hornblower, reaching a sudden decision. ‘Go and get the wash-deck pump rigged.’

  He felt unclean; although this was November in the Channel he could not live through another day without a bath. His ear caught some surprised and jocular comments from the hands rigging the pump as he came up through the hatchway, but he paid them no attention. He threw off his dressing-gown, and a puzzled and nervous seaman, in the half-light, turned the jet of the canvas hose upon him while another worked the pump. The bitterly cold sea-water stung as it hit his naked skin, and he leaped and danced and turned about grotesquely
, gasping. The seamen did not realise it when he wanted the jet stopped, and when he tried to escape from it they followed him up across the deck.

  ‘Avast, there!’ he yelled in desperation, half frozen and half drowned, and the merciless stream stopped.

  Brown threw the big towel round him, and he scrubbed his tingling skin, while he jumped and shivered with the stimulus of the cold.

  ‘I’d be frozen for a week if I tried that, sir,’ said Freeman, who had been an interested spectator.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hornblower, discouraging conversation.

  His skin glowed delightfully as he put on his clothes in his cabin with the window shut, and his shivering ceased. He drank thirstily of the steaming coffee which Brown brought him, revelling in the pleasant and unexpected feeling of well-being that filled him. He ran lightheartedly on deck again. The morning was already brighter; the captured Indiaman could now be made out, hove-to half a gunshot to leeward.

  ‘Orders, Sir Horatio?’ said Freeman, touching his hat.

  Hornblower swept his glance round, playing for time. He had been culpably negligent of business; he had given no thought to his duty since he woke – since he went below to sleep, for that matter. He should order the prize back to England at once, but he could not do that without taking the opportunity of sending a written report back with her, and at this moment he simply hated the thought of labouring over a report.

  ‘The prisoners, sir,’ prompted Freeman.

  Oh God, he had forgotten the prisoners. They would have to be interrogated and note made of what they had to say. Hornblower felt bone-lazy as well as full of well-being – an odd combination.

  ‘They might have plenty to say, sir,’ went on Freeman, remorselessly. ‘The pilot talks some English, and we had him in the wardroom last night. He says Boney’s been licked again. At a place called Leipzig, or some name like that. He says the Russians’ll be over the Rhine in a week. Boney’s back in Paris already. Maybe it’s the end of the war.’

  Hornblower and Freeman exchanged glances; it was a full year since the world had begun to look for the end of the war, and many hopes had blossomed and wilted during that year. But the Russians on the Rhine! Even though the English army’s entrance upon the soil of France in the south had not shaken down the Empire, this new invasion might bring that about. Yet there had been plenty of forecasts – Hornblower had made some – to the effect that the first defeat of Bonaparte in the open field would bring to an end at the same time both his reputation for invincibility and his reign. These forecasts about the invasion of the Empire might be as inaccurate.

  ‘Sail-ho!’ yelled the lookout, and in the same breath, ‘She’s the Flame, sir.’

  There she was, as before; the parting mist revealed her for only a moment before closing round her again, and then a fresh breath of wind shredded the mist and left her in plain sight. Hornblower reached the decision he had so far been unable to make.

  ‘Clear the ship for action, Mr Freeman, if you please. We’re going to fetch her out.’

  Of course, it was the only thing to do. During the night, within an hour of the cutting-out of the French Indiaman, the word would be sent flying round warning all French ports in the neighbourhood that the British brig with the white cross on her foretopsail was playing a double game, and only masquerading as a mutinous vessel. The news must have reached this side of the estuary by midnight – the courier could cross on the ferry at Quillebœuf or elsewhere. Everyone would be on the watch for the brig to attempt another coup, and this bank of the river would be the obvious place. Any delay would give the mutineers a chance to reopen communication with the shore and to clear up the situation; if the authorities on shore were once to discover that there were two brigs, sister-ships, in the Bay of the Seine the mutineers might be saved that trouble. Not an hour ought to be lost.

  It was all very clear and logical, yet Hornblower found himself gulping nervously as he stood on the quarterdeck. It could only mean a hammer-and-tongs battle – he would be in the thick of it in an hour. This deck which he trod would be swept by the grapeshot of the Flame’s carronades; within the hour he might be dead; within the hour he might be shrieking under the surgeon’s knife. Last night he had faced disaster, but this morning he was facing death. That warm glow which his bath had induced in him had vanished completely, so that he found himself on the point of shivering in the chill of the morning. He scowled at himself in frantic self-contempt, and forced himself to pace brightly and jerkily up and down the tiny quarterdeck. His memories were unmanning him, he told himself. The memory of Richard trotting beside him in the sunset, holding his finger in an unbreakable clutch; the memory of Barbara; the memory even of Smallbridge or of Bond Street – he did not want to be separated from these things, to ‘leave the warm precincts of the cheerful day’. He wanted to live, and soon he might die.

  Flame had set more sail – boom-mainsail and jibs; closehauled she could fetch Honfleur without ever coming within range of the Porta Coeli’s guns. Hornblower’s fears withdrew into the background as his restless mind, despite itself, interested itself in the tactical aspects of the problem before it.

  ‘See that the hands have some breakfast, if you please, Mr Freeman,’ he said. ‘And it would be best if the guns were not run out yet.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  It might be a long, hard battle, and the men should have their breakfast first. And running out the guns would tell the people in Flame that the Porta Coeli expected a fight, and that would warn them that maybe their escape into French protection might not be easy. The more perfect the surprise, the greater the chance of an easy victory. Hornblower glowered at the Flame through his glass. He felt a dull, sullen rage against the mutineers who had caused all this trouble, whose mad action was imperilling his life. The sympathy he had felt towards them when he was seated in the safety of the Admiralty was replaced now by a fierce resentment. The villains deserved hanging – the thought changed his mood so that he could smile as he met Freeman’s eyes when the latter reported the brig cleared for action.

  ‘Very good, Mr Freeman.’

  His eyes were dancing with excitement; he looked over at Flame again just as a fresh hail came from the masthead.

  ‘Deck, there! There’s a whole lot of small craft putting out from the beach, sir. Headin’ for Flame it looks like, sir.’

  The mutineers’ brig was going through the same performance as yesterday, heading towards the French coast just out of gunshot of the Porta Coeli, ready to take refuge sooner than fight; the mutineers must think the small craft a welcoming deputation, coming to escort them in. And there was thick weather liable to close in on them again at any moment. Flame was spilling the wind from her mainsail, her every action denoting increasing hesitation. Probably on her quarterdeck there was a heated argument going on, one party insisting on keeping out of range of the Porta Coeli while another hesitated before such an irrevocable action as going over to the French. Maybe there was another party clamouring to turn and fight – that was quite likely; and maybe even there was a party of the most timid or the least culpable who wished to surrender and trust to the mercy of a court martial. Certainly counsel would be divided. She was hauling on her sheet again now, on a straight course for Honfleur and the approaching gunboats; two miles of clear water separated her from the Porta Coeli.

  ‘Those gunboats are closing in on her, sir,’ said Freeman, glass to eye. ‘And that chasse-marée lugger’s full of men. Christ! There’s a gun.’

  Someone in the Flame had fired a warning shot, perhaps to tell the French vessels to keep their distance until the debate on her deck had reached a conclusion. Then she wore round, as if suddenly realising the hostile intent of the French, and as she wore the small craft closed in on her, like hounds upon a deer. Half a dozen shots were fired, too ragged to be called a broadside. The gunboats were heading straight at her, their sweeps out, six a side, giving them additional speed and handiness. Smoke spouted from their bows, and over th
e water came the deep-toned heavy boom of the twenty-four-pounders they mounted – a sound quite different from the higher-pitched, sharper bang of the Flame’s carronades. The lugger ran alongside her, and through his glass Hornblower could see the boarders pouring on to the Flame’s deck.

  ‘I’ll have the guns run out, Mr Freeman, if you please,’ he said.

  The situation was developing with bewildering rapidity – he had foreseen nothing like this. There was desperate fighting ahead, but at least it would be against Frenchmen and not against Englishmen. He could see puffs of smoke on the Flame’s deck – some, at least, of the crew were offering resistance.

  He walked forward a few yards, and addressed himself to the gunners.

  ‘Listen to me, you men. Those gunboats must be sunk when we get in among ’em. One broadside for each will do that business for ’em if you make your shots tell. Aim true, at the base of their masts. Don’t fire until you’re sure you’ll hit.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ came a few voices in reply.

  Hornblower found Brown beside him.

  ‘Your pistols, sir. I loaded ’em afresh, an’ primed ’em with new caps.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hornblower. He stuck the weapons into his belt, one on each side, where either hand could grasp them as necessary. It was like a boy playing at pirates, but his life might depend on those pistols in five minutes’ time. He half drew his sword to see that it was free in its sheath, and he was already hastening back to take his stand by the wheel as he thrust it in again.

  ‘Luff a little,’ he said. ‘Steady!’

  Flame had flown up into the wind and lay all aback – apparently there was no one at the helm at the moment. The lugger was still alongside her, and the four gunboats, having taken in their sails, were resting on their oars, interposing between the Porta Coeli and the pair of ships. Hornblower could see the guns’ crews bending over the twenty-four-pounders in their bows.