Yet over there Meadows did not share in the mirth and the excitement. He was isolated and unhappy; even the two officers who had been next senior to him in the Hotspur – his first lieutenant and his sailing-master – were over here chatting with Hornblower instead of keeping him company. Hornblower began to make his way over to him, at the same moment as a rain-squall came hurtling down upon the Princess to cause sudden confusion while the weaker spirits rushed forward and aft for shelter.
‘Plymouth tomorrow, sir,’ said Hornblower conversationally when he reached Meadows’ side.
‘No doubt, sir,’ said Meadows.
‘We’re in for a bit of a blow, I think,’ said Hornblower gazing upwards into the rain. He knew he was being exaggerated in the casual manner he was trying to adopt, but he could not modify it.
‘Maybe,’ said Meadows.
‘Likely enough we’ll have to make for Tor Bay instead,’ suggested Hornblower.
‘Likely enough,’ agreed Meadows – although agreement was too strong a word for that stony indifference.
Hornblower would not admit defeat yet. He struggled on trying to make conversation, feeling a little noble – more than a little – at standing here growing wet to the skin in an endeavour to relieve another man’s troubles. It was some small comfort when the rain-squall passed on over the Princess’ lee bow, but it was a much greater relief when one of the seamen forward hailed loudly.
‘Sail ho! Two points on the weather bow!’
Meadows came out of his apathy sufficiently to look forward along with Hornblower in the direction indicated. With the sudden clearing of the weather the vessel was no more than hull-down at this moment of sighting, no more than five or six miles away and in plain view, close hauled on the port tack on the Princess’ starboard bow, on a course that would apparently come close to intercepting the course of the Princess within the hour.
‘Brig,’ commented Hornblower, making the obvious conversational remark, but he said no more as his eye recorded the other features that made themselves apparent.
There was that equality between the fore- and main-topmasts; there was that white sheen about her canvas; there was even something about the spacing of those masts – everything was both significant and dangerous. Hornblower felt Meadows’ hand clamp round his arm like a ring of iron.
‘Frenchman!’ said Meadows, with a string of oaths.
‘May well be,’ said Hornblower.
The spread of her yards made it almost certain that she was a ship of war, but even so there was a considerable chance that she was British, one of the innumerable prizes captured from the French and taken into the service recently enough to have undergone little alteration.
‘Don’t like the looks of her!’ said Meadows.
‘Where’s Baddlestone?’ exclaimed Hornblower turning to look aft.
He tore himself from Meadows’ grasp when he perceived Baddlestone, newly arrived on deck, with his telescope trained on the brig; the two of them at once started to push towards him.
‘Come about, damn you!’ yelled Meadows, but at that very same second Baddlestone had begun to bellow orders. There was a second or two of wild and dangerous confusion as the idle passengers attempted to aid, but they were all trained seamen. With the sheets hauled in against the violent pressure of the wind the helm was put over. Princess gybed neatly enough; the big lugsails flapped thunderously for a moment and then as the sheets were eased off she lay over close-hauled on the other tack. As she did so, she lifted momentarily on a wave and Hornblower, his eyes still on the brig, saw the latter lift and heel at the same time. For half a second – long enough – he could see a line of gun ports, the concluding fragment of evidence that she was a ship of war.
Now Princess and brig were close-hauled on the same tack, with the brig on Princess’ quarter. Despite the advantage of her fore-and-aft rig it seemed to the acute eye that Princess lay a trifle farther off the wind than did the brig. She was nothing like as weatherly and far slower; the brig would head-reach and weather on her. Hornblower’s calculating eye told him that it would be only a question of hours before Princess would sag down right in to the brig’s gaping jaws; should the wind veer any farther the process would be correspondingly accelerated.
‘Take a pull on that foresheet,’ ordered Meadows, but before he could be obeyed the hands he addressed were checked by a shout from Baddlestone.
‘Avast there!’ Baddlestone turned on Meadows. ‘I command this ship and don’t you meddle!’
The barrel-shaped merchant captain, his hands belligerently on his hips, met the commander’s gaze imperiously. Meadows turned to Hornblower.
‘Do we have to put up with this, Captain Hornblower?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ replied Hornblower.
That was the legal position. Fighting men and naval officers though they were, they were only passengers, subject to the captain’s command. Even if it should come to a fight that rule held good; by the laws of war a merchant ship was entitled to defend herself, and in that case the captain would still be in command as he would be in going about or laying a course or in any other matter of ship-handling.
‘Well I’m damned,’ said Meadows.
Hornblower might not have answered quite so sharply and definitely if his curious mind had not taken note of one particular phenomenon. Just before Meadows had issued his order Hornblower had been entranced in close observation of the relative trim of the two big lugsails. They were sheeted in at slightly different angles, inefficiently to the inexperienced eye. Analysis of the complicated – and desperately interesting – problem in mechanics suggested significantly that the setting was correct; with one sail slightly diverting the wind towards the other the best results could be expected with the sails as they were trimmed at present. Hornblower had been familiar with the fascinating problem ever since as a midshipman he had had charge of a ship’s longboat. Meadows must have forgotten about it, or never studied it. His action would have slightly cut down the speed; Baddlestone could be expected to know how to get the best out of a ship he had long commanded and a rig he had sailed in all his life.
‘There’s her colours,’ said Baddlestone. ‘Frenchy, of course.’
‘One of those new fast brigs they’ve been building,’ said Hornblower. ‘Bricks, they call ’em. Worth two of ours.’
‘Are you going to fight her?’ demanded Meadows.
‘I’m going to run as long as I can,’ answered Baddlestone.
That was so obviously the only thing to do.
‘Two hours before dark. Nearer three,’ said Hornblower. ‘Maybe we’ll be able to get away in a rain-squall.’
‘Once he gets up to us –’ said Baddlestone, and left the sentence unfinished. The French guns could pound the hoy to pieces at close range; the slaughter in the crowded little craft would be horrible.
They all three turned to stare at the brig; she had gained on them perceptibly already, but all the same –
‘It’ll be pretty well dark before she’s in range,’ said Hornblower. ‘We’ve a chance.’
‘Small enough,’ said Meadows. ‘Oh, God –’
‘D’ye think I want to rot in a French gaol?’ burst out Baddlestone. ‘All I have is this hoy. Wife and children’ll starve.’
What about Maria, with one child born and another on the way? And – and – what about that promised post rank? Who would lift a finger for a forgotten near-captain in a French prison?
Meadows was blaspheming, emitting a stream of senseless oaths and insane filth.
‘We’ve thirty men,’ said Hornblower. ‘They won’t think we’ve more than half a dozen –’
‘By God, we could board her!’ exclaimed Meadows, the filth ending abruptly.
Could they? Could they get alongside? No French captain in his right mind would allow it, would risk damage to his precious ship in the strong breeze that was blowing. A spin of the wheel at the last moment, an order to luff in the last minute, and Princess would scrape by. A
salvo of grape and the Princess would be a wreck; moreover the attempt would convey its own warning – the French captain and the French crew could anticipate trouble. The brig would have a crew of ninety at least, most likely more; unless there was total surprise thirty men would not have a chance against them. And Hornblower’s vivid imagination conjured up a mental picture of the Princess, with all the good fortune in the world, alongside the brig and rolling wildly as she undoubtedly would. There could be no wild rush; the thirty-odd men would reach the brig’s deck in twos and threes, without a chance. It had to be complete, total surprise to stand the slightest chance of success.
With these considerations racing through his mind he looked from one to the other, watching their expressions change from momentary excitement and hope to uneasy doubt. Something else came up in his mind that called for rapid action, and he turned away to bellow in his loudest and most penetrating voice to the groups clustered about the deck.
‘Get down out of sight, all of you! I don’t want a single man to show himself! Get down out of sight!’
He turned back to meet a stony gaze from both Baddlestone and Meadows.
‘I thought we’d better not show our hand until it’s played out,’ he said. ‘With a glass the brig’ll soon be able to see we’re crowded with men, and it might be as well if she didn’t know.’
‘I’m the senior,’ snapped Meadows. ‘If anyone gives orders it’s me.’
‘Sir –’ began Hornblower.
‘Commander, May eighteen hundred,’ said Meadows. ‘You’re not in the Gazette yet. You’ve not read yourself in.’
It was an important point, a decisive point. Hornblower’s appointment as Commander dated back only to April 1803.
Until his promised captaincy was actually official he must come under Meadows’ orders. That was something of a set-back. His polite attempts at conversation earlier with Meadows must have appeared as deferential currying for favour instead of the generous condescension he had intended. And it was irritating not to have thought of all this before. But that irritation was nothing compared with that roused by the realization that he was a junior officer again, forced to proffer advice instead of giving orders – and this after two years of practically independent command. It was a pill to swallow; oddly, as the metaphor occurred to him, he was actually swallowing hard to contain his annoyance, and the coincidence diverted him sufficiently to cut off the angry answer he might have made. They were all three of them tense, even explosive. A quarrel among them might well be the quickest way to a French prison.
‘Of course, sir,’ said Hornblower, and went on – if a thing was worth doing it was worth doing well – ‘I must beg your pardon. It was most thoughtless of me.’
‘Granted,’ said Meadows, only slightly grudgingly.
It was easy enough to change the subject – a glance towards the brig set the other two swinging round to look as well.
‘Still head-reaching on us, blast her!’ said Baddlestone. ‘Weathering on us too.’
Obviously she was nearer, yet the bearing was unchanged; the chase would end with the brig close up to the Princess without any alteration of course – and the infuriating corollary was that any other action the Princess might take would only shorten the chase.
‘We’ve no colours hoisted,’ said Meadows.
‘Not yet,’ replied Baddlestone.
Hornblower caught his eye and stared hard at him. It was inadvisable to speak or even for Hornblower to shake his head, even a trifle, but somehow the message reached Baddlestone, perhaps by telepathy.
‘No need to hoist ’em yet,’ went on Baddlestone. ‘It leaves our hands free.’
There was no need to take the smallest action that might commit them. There was not the least chance that the Frenchman would take the Princess to be anything other than a fleet auxiliary, but still – Things looked differently in a report, or even in a ship’s log. If the Frenchman tired of the chase, or was diverted somehow from it, it would be well to offer him a loophole excusing him; he could say he believed the Princess to be a Dane or a Bremener. And until the colours had been hoisted and hauled down again Princess was free to take any action that might become possible.
‘It’s going to be dark before long,’ said Hornblower.
‘She’ll be right up to us by then,’ snarled Meadows, and the filthy oaths streamed from his mouth as ever. ‘Cornered like rats.’
That was a good description; they were cornered, hemmed in by the invisible wall of the wind. Their only line of retreat was in the direction of the brig, and the brig was advancing remorselessly up that line, actually as well as relatively. If the Princess was a rat, the brig was a man striding forward club in hand. And being cornered meant that even in darkness there would be no room to escape, no room for any evasive manoeuvre, right under the guns of the brig. But like a rat they might still fly at their assailant with the courage of desperation.
‘I wish to God,’ said Meadows, ‘we’d run down on her when we sighted her. And my damned sword and pistols are at the bottom of the sea. What arms d’you have on board?’
Baddlestone listed the pitiful contents of the arms chest; even a water-hoy carried cutlasses and pistols for defence against hostile rowing boats, which were well known to push out from the French shore to snap up unarmed prizes in a calm.
‘We could get a few more,’ interposed Hornblower. ‘They’re bound to send a boat and a prize-crew. And in the dark –’
‘By God, you’re right!’ shouted Meadows, and he turned on Baddlestone. ‘Don’t hoist those colours! We’ll get out of this! By God, we’ll take her!’
‘We could try,’ said Baddlestone.
‘And by God, I’m the senior naval officer!’ said Meadows.
A man returning to England under a cloud would be rehabilitated almost automatically if he brought a prize in with him. Meadows might possibly reach the captains’ list before Hornblower.
‘Come on,’ said Meadows. ‘Let’s get the hands told off.’
They were entering upon the wildest, the most reckless enterprise that could ever be imagined, but they were desperate men. Hornblower himself was desperate, although he told himself during the bustle of preparation that he was a man under orders with no alternative except to obey. He would not go so far as to point out to himself that they were carrying out the plan he himself had devised – and on which he would have acted, danger or no danger, had he been in command.
6
Princess was lying hove-to in the darkness. The mere fact of being hove-to could be construed by the enemy as an admission of surrender – but not by a legalistic mind. From her forestay flickered a lighted lantern, trimmed right down. That would give least chance of the brig observing what would be going on aft in the waist, and yet that tiny dot of light was visible in the total blackness to the brig a cable’s length – a cable and a half – to leeward, where the four bright lanterns hoisted in the fore- and mainrigging not only revealed her position but provided light for the business of hoisting out her boat.
‘They’re coming,’ growled Meadows, crouching at the gunwhale. ‘Remember, cold steel.’
In the strong breeze that was blowing confused noises would pass unnoticed in the brig, but a shot would be heard clearly enough downwind. Now the crouching men could see a solid nucleus tossing in the darkness. Now they could hear the grind of oars; now they could hear French voices. Hornblower was waiting. He threw them a line as they hooked on.
‘Montez,’ he said; it was an effort to keep his voice from cracking with excitement. His was the only white face in the hoy; the others were painted black.
Princess was heaving on the agitated sea in as lively a fashion as ever. It was several seconds before the first Frenchman boarded, cutlass and pistols at his belt, a midshipman arriving to take possession of the prize. Hornblower heard the dull thump when they struck him down. He was disposed of before the next man could make the leap. So was the next man, and the next, and the next. It was all
horribly, repulsively easy to men who were prepared to be utterly ruthless.
Hornblower from his point of vantage could just determine when the last man had boarded; he could see that the boat’s crew was preparing to hand up the prize-crew’s gear.
‘Right!’ he called, sharply.
Meadows and his allocated group were crouched and ready, and hurled themselves down in a torrent of falling bodies into the boat. An oar clattered and rattled; Hornblower could hear belaying pins striking against skulls. There was only one astonished outcry and no more. Hornblower could not hear the dead or unconscious bodies being dropped into the sea, but he knew that was being done.
‘We’ve arms for seven,’ came Meadows’ voice. ‘Come on, longboat party. Hornblower, get started.’
There had been two hours in which to organize the attack; everybody knew what part he had to play. Hornblower ran aft and a group of almost invisible black-faced figures loomed up at his side. It reminded him to dip his hand into the paint bucket that stood there and hastily smear his forehead and cheeks before making the next move. The hoy’s boat was towing under the quarter; they hauled it in and scrambled down.
‘Cast off!’ said Hornblower, and a desperate shove with the port-side oars got them clear. ‘Easy all!’
Tiller in hand, Hornblower stared through the darkness from under the stern. It had taken longer to man the brig’s longboat; only now was it beginning to head back to the brig. As it rose on a wave Hornblower caught sight of it silhouetted against the light from the brig’s lanterns. He must wait for several more seconds; if the brig’s crew were to see two boats returning where one had set out the alarm might possibly be given.
It was a bad business that the French boat’s crew had all been dropped into the sea; necessary act of war or not, the French could say they had been murdered. They would give no quarter to any survivors on the brig’s deck if the attack were to fail; this was going to be the most desperate battle of his life – victory or death with no compromise possible.