In consequence of what Polwheal had to tell, the lower deck all knew that another move was imminent, fully two hours before Hornblower appeared on the quarterdeck and gave the orders which precipitated it.
XI
‘They’re shooting well, sir,’ said Bush, as a fountain of water leaped suddenly and mysteriously into brief life a hundred yards from the port beam.
‘Who couldn’t shoot well with their advantages?’ answered Gerard.
‘Forty-two pounders, on permanent mounts fifty feet above the water, and soldiers to serve ’em ten years in the ranks?’
‘I’ve seen ’em shoot worse, all the same,’ said Crystal.
‘It’s a mile an’ a half if it’s a yard,’ said Bush.
‘More than that,’ said Crystal.
‘A scant mile,’ said Gerard.
‘Nonsense,’ said Bush.
Hornblower broke into their wrangling.
‘Your attention, please, gentlemen. And I shall want Rayner and Hooker – pass the word, there, for Mr Rayner and Mr Hooker. Now, study the place with care.’
A dozen telescopes trained on Port Vendres, with the sunset reddening behind. In the background Mount Canigou stood out with a startling illusion of towering height; to the left the spurs of the Pyrenees ran clean down into the sea at Cape Cerbera, marking where Spain had ended and France began. In the centre the white houses of Port Vendres showed pink under the sunset, clustering round the head of the little bay. In front of them a vessel swung at anchor, under the protection of the batteries on either side of the bay which were marked by occasional puffs of smoke as the guns there tried repeatedly, at extremely long range, to hit the insolent ship which was flaunting British colours within sight of the Empire’s coasts.
‘Mark that battery to the left, Mr Gerard,’ said Hornblower. ‘Mr Rayner, you see the battery to the right – there goes a gun. Mark it well. I want no mistake made. Mr Hooker, you see how the bay curves? You must be able to take a boat straight up to the ship there tonight.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Hooker, while the other officers exchanged glances.
‘Put the ship upon the port tack, Mr Bush. We must stand out to sea, now. These are your orders, gentlemen.’
Turning from one officer to another, Hornblower ran briefly through their instructions. The ship sheltering in Port Vendres was to be cut and taken that night as a climax to the twenty-four hours which had begun with the capture of the Amelie and continued with the storming of the battery at Llanza.
‘The moon rises at one o’clock. I shall take care to be back in our present position here at midnight,’ said Hornblower.
With good fortune, the garrison of Port Vendres might be lured into tranquillity by the sight of the Sutherland sailing away now, and she could return unobserved after nightfall. An hour of darkness would suffice to effect a surprise, and the rising moon would give sufficient light for the captured ship to be brought out if successful, and for the attackers to rally and escape if unsuccessful.
‘Mr Bush will remain in command of the ship,’ said Hornblower.
‘Sir!’ protested Bush. ‘Please sir—’
‘You’ve won sufficient distinction today, Bush,’ said Hornblower.
Hornblower was going in with the attack. He knew that he would not be able to bear the anxiety of waiting outside with the firing and the fighting going on inside – he was in a fever already, now that he was allowing his mind to dwell on the prospective action, although he was taking care not to show it.
‘Every man in the boarding party must be a seaman,’ said Hornblower. ‘Mr Gerard and Mr Rayner can divide the marines between them.’
His listeners nodded, understanding. To set sail in a strange ship and get her under way in darkness would call for seamanship.
‘You all understand what is expected of you?’ asked Hornblower, and they nodded again. ‘Mr Hooker, repeat your orders.’
Hooker repeated them accurately. He was a good officer as Hornblower had known when he had recommended him for promotion to lieutenant on the Lydia’s return.
‘Good,’ said Hornblower. ‘Then, gentlemen, you will please set your watches with mine. There will be enough light from the stars to read them. What, no watch, Mr Hooker? Perhaps Mr Bush will be good enough to lend you his.’
Hornblower could see, from his officers’ expressions, that this synchronisation of the watches had impressed upon them the necessity for accurately conforming to the timetable which he had laid down, in a fashion nothing else could have done. Otherwise they would have paid only casual attention to the intervals of ‘five minutes’ and “ten minutes’ which he had given, and he could appreciate in a manner they could not, the necessity for exact adherence to schedule in a complex operation carried out in the darkness.
‘You are all agreed now? Then perhaps all you gentlemen with the exception of the officer of the watch will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner.’
Again the officers interchanged glances; those dinners in Hornblower’s cabin on the eve of action were famous. Savage could remember one on board the Lydia before the duel with the Natividad. The other two present then had been Galbraith the lieutenant of his division, and Clay, his best friend. And Galbraith had died of gangrene in the far Pacific, and Clay’s head had been smashed by a cannon ball.
‘There’ll be no whist tonight, Savage,’ smiled Hornblower, reading his thoughts. ‘There will be too much to do before midnight.’
Often before Hornblower had insisted on whist before action, and had concealed his own nervousness by criticism of the play of his preoccupied fellow players. Now he was forcing himself to be smiling, genial, and hospitable as he led the way into the cabin. His nervous tension inclined to make him talkative, and this evening, when his guests were more tongue-tied even than usual, he could for once give rein to his inclinations, and chat freely in an attempt to keep conversation going. The others eyed him, wondering as he smiled and gossiped. They never saw him in this mood except on the eve of action, and they had forgotten how human and fascinating he could be when he employed all his wiles to captivate them. For him it was a convenient way to keep his mind off the approaching action, thus to exercise himself in fascination while still drawing the rigid line which divided the captain from his subordinates.
‘I am afraid,’ said Hornblower in the end, crumpling his napkin and tossing it on to the table, ‘it is time for us to go on deck again, gentlemen. What a mortal pity to break up this gathering!’
They left the lamplit brilliance of the cabin for the darkness of the deck. The stars were glowing in the dark sky, and the Sutherland was stealing ghostlike over the sea which reflected them; her pyramids of canvas soared up to invisibility, and the only sounds to be heard were the rattle of the rigging and the periodic music of the water under her forefoot as she rode over the tiny invisible waves. The crew was resting on the gangways and the maindeck, conversing in whispers, and when the subdued voices of their officers called them to duty they mustered silently, each division assembling for its particular duty. Hornblower checked the position of the ship with Bush, and strained his eye through his nightglass towards the invisible shore.
‘Longboat crew here!’ called Gerard softly.
‘Launch crew here!’ echoed Rayner, and their allotted parties formed up quietly abreast the main mast.
The cutters’ crews were assembling on the quarterdeck; Hornblower was taking two hundred and fifty men altogether – if the expedition were a complete disaster Bush would hardly have sufficient men to navigate the Sutherland back to the rendezvous.
‘You can heave-to, Mr Bush,’ he said.
One by one the boats were hoisted out, and lay on their oars a few yards off. Last of all, Hornblower went down the side and seated himself beside Brown and Longley in the stern of the barge; the men at the oars pushed off at a growl from Brown, and the flotilla, with muffled oars, began to pull steadily away from the ship. The darkness was intense, and, by the usual optical illusion, seemed s
till more intense close to the surface of the sea than up on the deck of the Sutherland. Slowly the barge drew ahead, and as the longboat and launch diverged out on each quarter they were rapidly lost to sight. The oars seemed to touch the velvety blackness of the sea without a sound.
Hornblower made himself sit still, his hand resting on the hilt of his fifty-guinea sword. He wanted to crane his neck round and look at the other boats; with every minute’s inaction he grew more nervous. Some fool of a marine might fiddle with the lock of his musket, or someone’s pistol, carelessly left at full cock, might go off as its owner tugged at his oar. The slightest warning given on shore would ruin the whole attack; might mean the loss of hundreds of lives, and call down upon his head – if he survived – a withering rebuke from his admiral. Grimly he made himself sit still for five more minutes before taking up his nightglass.
Then at last he caught the faintest possible glimpse of grey cliff. With his hand on the tiller he altered course until they were almost in the mouth of the inlet.
‘Easy!’ he breathed, and the boat glided silently forward under the stars. Close astern two tiny nuclei of greater darkness indicated where the two cutters rested on their oars. Holding his watch under his nose he could just see the time – he must wait three full minutes.
A distant sound reached his ear; there were oars pulling in the harbour. He heard them splashing two hundred yards ahead; he fancied he could see the splashes. The French were, as he expected, rowing a guard round their precious ship. Yet her captain had not realised that a guard boat rowing with muffled oars, creeping very slowly along, would be a far more dangerous obstacle to a cutting-out expedition than any boat merely busily rowing up and down across the entrance. He looked at his watch again.
‘Oars,’ he whispered, and the men braced themselves ready to pull. ‘There’s the guard boat ahead. Remember, men, cold steel. If any man fires before I do I’ll shoot him with my own hand. Give way!’
The barge crept forward again, stealing into the harbour. In a few more seconds she would be at the point where the batteries’ fire crossed, the point which sentries would have under constant observation, upon which the guns would be laid at nightfall so that a salvo would blow any approaching boat out of the water. For a horrible second Hornblower wondered whether launch and longboat had gone astray. Then he heard it. A loud challenge on his right, heard clearly across the water, followed by another on his left, and both instantly drowned in a wild rattle of musketry fire. Rayner and Gerard were leading their parties against the batteries, and both of them as their orders had dictated, were making an infernal noise about it so as to distract the gunners at the vital moment.
His eye caught the splashes of the guard boat’s oars, more noticeable than ever with the crew pulling wildly as they paid attention to the din on shore instead of to their own business. The barge shot silently and unnoticeable towards it. She was only fifty yards from the guard boat when someone at last caught sight of her.
‘Qui va là!’ cried someone, sharply, but before any answer could be expected the barge came crashing up against the guard boat’s side, as Hornblower dragged the tiller round.
His quick order had got the oars in a second before the collision, while the impact of the barge swept the oars of the guard boat away, tumbling half her crew in a tangle into the bottom of the boat Hornblower’s sword was out, and at the instant of contact he leaped madly from the barge to the guard boat, choking with excitement and nervousness as he did so. He landed with both feet on someone in the stern, trod him down, and miraculously kept his own footing. There was a white face visible down by his knee, and he kicked at it, wildly, felt a jar up his leg as the kick went home, and at the same moment he cut with all his strength at another head before him. He felt the sword bite into bone; the boat rolled frightfully under him as more of the barge’s crew came tumbling into the guard boat. Someone was heaving himself upright before him – someone with a black gash of a moustache across his face in the starlight, and therefore no Englishman. Hornblower lunged fiercely as he reeled in the rocking boat, and he and his opponent came down together upon the men under their feet. When he scrambled up the struggle was over, without a shot being fired. The guard boat’s crew was dead, or overboard, or knocked unconscious. Hornblower felt his neck and his wrist wet and sticky – with blood, presumably, but he did not have time to think about that.
‘Into the barge, men,’ he said. ‘Give way.’
The whole fight had hardly taken more than a few seconds. At the batteries the racket of the attack was still continuing, and even as the barge pushed away from the derelict guard boat there came a sudden splutter of musketry fire from higher up the bay. The two cutters had reached the anchored ship without impediment, rowing, as Hornblower’s orders had dictated, past the two locked boats straight for her. With his hand on the tiller he set a course for the musket flashes. Apparently the cutters’ crews had not succeeded in carrying the ship at the first rush, for the sparkle of the firing stayed steady along the ship’s bulwark – she must have had her boarding nettings rigged and her crew fairly wide awake.
The child Longley at his side was leaping about in his seat with excitement.
‘Sit still, boy,’ growled Hornblower.
He put the tiller over and the barge swept under the ship’s stern towards the disengaged side of the ship.
‘Oars!’ hissed Hornblower. ‘Take hold, there, bowman. Now, all together, men, and give a cheer.’
It was a hard scramble up the side of the ship, and her boarding nettings were rigged, sure enough. Hornblower found foothold on the bulwark through the netting, swaying perilously, leaning far out over the water, for the nettings were rigged from the yardarms and sloped sharply outwards. He struggled in them like a fly in a web. Beside him he saw Longley, writhing similarly. The boy had his dirk between his teeth in the fashion he had heard about in sailors’ yarns. He looked so foolish hanging in the netting with that great clumsy weapon in his mouth that Hornblower giggled insanely on his insecure foothold. He snatched his sword from its sheath, clutching with the other hand, and slashed at the tarry cordage. The whole net was heaving and tossing as the barge’s crew wrenched at it; he was almost jerked from his hold.
But everyone around him was cheering madly. This surprise attack on the unguarded side must be shaking the nerve of the defenders trying to beat off the cutters’ crews. The fifty-guinea sword was of the finest steel and had a razor edge; it was cutting through strand after strand of the netting. Suddenly something parted with a rush. For one horrible second Hornblower lost his footing and nearly fell outwards, but with a convulsive effort he recovered and swung himself forward, falling through the net on his hands and knees, the sword clattering on the deck before him. A Frenchman was rushing at him; his eye caught a glimpse of the steel head of a levelled pike. He snatched hold of the shaft, twisting on to his back, guiding the weapon clear. The Frenchman’s knee crashed into the back of his head, and his neck was badly wrenched as the Frenchman tumbled over on top of him. He kicked himself clear, found his sword, miraculously, and stood to face the other dark shapes rushing at him.
A pistol banged off at his ear, half deafening him, and it seemed as if the whole mass of those attacking him melted away into nothing at the finish. Those others crossing the deck now were English; they were cheering.
‘Mr Crystal!’
‘Sir!’
‘Cut the cable. Is Mr Hooker there?’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Get aloft with your boat’s crew and set sail.’
There was no time for self congratulation yet. Boats might come dashing out from the shore with reinforcements for the ship’s crew; and Rayner and Gerard might be repulsed by the garrisons of the batteries So that he would have to run the gauntlet of the guns.
‘Brown!’
‘Sir!’
‘Send up that rocket.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
The rocket which Brown had brought with hi
m at Hornblower’s orders was to be the signal to the landing parties that the ship was taken. And there was a decided breath of air coming off the land which would carry the ship out of the bay; Hornblower had counted on that – after the scorching heat of the day a land breeze was only to be expected.
‘Cable’s parted, sir!’ hailed Crystal from forward.
Hooker had loosed the main topsail, and the ship was already gathering sternway.
“Hands to the braces, there, barge’s crew, first cutter’s crew. Benskin! Ledly! Take the wheel. Hard a-starboard.’
Brown’s flint and steel were clicking and flashing as he crouched on the deck. The rocket rose in an upward torrent of sparks and burst high above into stars. As the fore stay sail was set the ship’s head came round, and as she steadied on her course down the bay with the wind abaft the moon cleared the horizon right ahead – a gibbous, waning moon, giving just enough light for Hornblower to be able to con the ship easily out of the bay between the batteries. Hornblower could hear whistles blowing, piercing the sound of the musketry which was still popping round the batteries. Rayner and Gerard were calling off their men now.
Two splashes overside indicated that a couple of the ship’s crew were swimming for the shore rather than face captivity. It had been a well-timed and successful operation.
XII
This Gulf of the Lion was not likely to be a very profitable cruising ground so Hornblower decided as he scanned the French coast through his telescope. It was so deeply embayed that any wind from north to west through south would find his ship with land under her lee; it was shallow, treacherous, and liable to be whipped by storms into a tremendous sea. Navigational risks were worth taking if a suitable prize offered, but, thought Hornblower looking at the coast, there was small chance of any prize. From Port Vendres as far round as Marseille – the limit of the Inshore Squadron’s sector – the flat shore was bordered by vast dreary lagoons which were separated from the sea by long spits of sand and even by peninsulas of cultivated land. There were batteries here and there upon the sand spits, and regular forts to support them, and the little towns, Cette, Aigues-Mortes, and so on were encompassed by mediaeval fortifications which could defy any effort he could make against them.