Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  Groping about in a fog in shoal waters was not the sort of exercise for which a big two-decker was designed, but the Nonsuch had a special value in this campaign. There were few ships this side of the Sound which could match her in force; under her protection the flotilla could cruise wherever necessary. Danes and Swedes and Russians and French had plenty of small craft, but when Nonsuch made her appearance they were powerless to hinder.

  ‘If you please, sir,’ said Montgomery, touching his hat. ‘Isn’t that gunfire which I can hear?’

  Everybody listened, enwrapped in the clammy fog. The only noises to be heard were those of the ship, and the condensed fog dripping from the rigging to the deck. Then a flat-sounding thud came faintly to their ears.

  ‘That’s a gun, sir, or my name’s not Sylvanus Montgomery!’

  ‘From astern,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Beg your pardon, sir, but I thought it was on the port bow.’

  ‘Damn this fog,’ said Bush.

  If the Blanchefleur once had warning of the presence of a British squadron in pursuit of her, and then got away, she would vanish like a needle in a haystack. Hornblower held up a wetted finger and glanced into the binnacle.

  ‘Wind’s north,’ he said. ‘Maybe nor’nor’east.’

  That was comforting. To leeward, the likely avenue of escape, lay Rügen and the coast of Swedish Pomerania, twenty miles away. If Blanchefleur did not slip through the net he had spread she would be hemmed in.

  ‘Set the lead going, Mr Montgomery,’ said Bush.

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘There’s another gun!’ said Hornblower. ‘On the port bow, sure enough.’

  A wild yell from the masthead.

  ‘Sail ho! Sail right ahead!’

  The mist was thinner in that direction. Perhaps as much as a quarter of a mile away could be seen the thinnest, palest ghost of a ship creeping through the fog across the bows.

  ‘Ship-rigged, flush-decked,’ said Bush. ‘That’s the Blanchefleur, sure as a gun!’

  She vanished as quickly as she had appeared, into a thicker bank of fog.

  ‘Hard-a-starboard!’ roared Bush. ‘Hands to the braces!’

  Hornblower was at the binnacle, taking a hurried bearing.

  ‘Steady as you go!’ he ordered the helmsman. ‘Keep her at that!’

  In this gentle breeze the heavily sparred privateer would be able to make better speed than a clumsy two-decker. All that could be hoped for would be to keep Nonsuch up to windward of her to head her off if she tried to break through the cordon.

  ‘Call all hands,’ said Bush. ‘Beat to quarters.’

  The drums roared through the ship, and the hands came pouring up to their stations.

  ‘Run out the guns,’ continued Bush. ‘One broadside into her, and she’s ours.’

  The trucks roared as three hundred tons of metal were run out. At the breech of every gun there clustered an eager group. The linstocks smouldered sullenly.

  ‘Masthead, there! Stay awake!’ pealed Bush, and then more quietly to Hornblower, ‘He may double back and throw us off the scent.’

  There was always the possibility of the masthead being above this thin fog – the lookout in Nonsuch might catch a glimpse of the Blanchefleur’s topmasts when nothing could be seen from the deck.

  For several minutes there was no more sound save for the cry of the leadsman; Nonsuch rolled gently in the trough of the waves, but it was hard to realise in the mist that she was making headway.

  ‘By the mark twenty!’ called the leadsman.

  Before he had uttered the last word Hornblower and Bush had turned to glance at each other; up to that moment their subconscious minds had been listening to the cries without their consciousness paying any attention. But ‘by the mark’ meant that now there was at most twenty fathoms under them.

  ‘Shoaling, sir,’ commented Bush.

  Then the masthead lookout yelled again.

  ‘Sail on the lee quarter, sir!’

  Bush and Hornblower sprang to the rail, but in the clinging fog there was nothing to be seen.

  ‘Masthead, there! What d’you see?’

  ‘Nothin’ now, sir. Just caught a glimpse of a ship’s royals, sir. There they are again, sir. Two points – three points abaft the port beam.’

  ‘What’s her course?’

  ‘Same as ours, sir. She’s gone again now.’

  ‘Shall we bear down on her, sir?’ asked Bush.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Stand to your guns on the port side!’ ordered Bush.

  Even a distant broadside might knock away a spar or two and leave the chase helpless.

  ‘Tell the men not to fire without orders,’ said Hornblower. ‘That may be Lotus.’

  ‘So it may, by God,’ said Bush.

  Lotus had been on Nonsuch’s port beam in the cordon sweeping down towards Rügen. Someone had undoubtedly been firing – that must have been Lotus, and she would have turned in pursuit of the Blanchefleur, which could bring her into just the position where those royals had been seen; and the royals of two ship-rigged sloops, seen through mist, would resemble each other closely enough to deceive the eye even of an experienced seaman.

  ‘Wind’s freshening, sir,’ commented Hurst.

  ‘That’s so,’ said Bush. ‘Please God it clears this fog away.’

  Nonsuch was perceptibly leaning over to the freshening breeze. From forward came the cheerful music of the sea under the bows.

  ‘By the deep eighteen!’ called the leadsman.

  Then twenty voices yelled together.

  ‘There she is! Sail on the port beam! That’s Lotus!’

  The fog had cleared in this quarter, and there was Lotus under all sail, three cables’ lengths away.

  ‘Ask her where’s the chase,’ snapped Bush.

  ‘Sail – last – seen – ahead,’ read off the signal midshipman, glass to eye.

  ‘Much use that is to us,’ Bush grumbled.

  There were enough streaks of fog still remaining to obscure the whole circle of the horizon, even though there was a thin watery sunshine in the air, and a pale sun – silver instead of gold – visible to the eastward.

  ‘There she is!’ suddenly yelled someone at the masthead. ‘Hull down on the port quarter!’

  ‘Stole away, by God!’ said Hurst. ‘She must have put up her helm the moment she saw us.’

  The Blanchefleur was a good six miles away, with only her royals visible from the deck of the Nonsuch, heading downwind under all sail. A string of signal flags ran up Lotus’s mast, and a gun from her called attention to the urgency of her signal.

  ‘She’s seen her too,’ said Bush.

  ‘Wear ship, Captain Bush, if you please. Signal “general chase”.’

  Nonsuch came round on the other tack, amid the curses of the officers hurled at the men for their slowness. Lotus swung round with her bow pointing straight at Blanchefleur. With the coast of Pomerania ahead, Nonsuch to windward, and Lotus and Raven on either side, Blanchefleur was hemmed in.

  ‘Raven must be nearly level with her over there, sir,’ said Bush, rubbing his hands. ‘And we’ll pick the bombs up again soon, wherever they got to in the fog.’

  ‘By the deep fourteen!’ chanted the leadsman.

  Hornblower watched the man in the chains, whirling the lead with practised strength, dropping it in far ahead, reading off the depth as the ship passed over the vertical line, and then hauling in ready for a fresh cast. It was tiring work, continuous severe exercise; moreover, the leadsman was bound to wet himself to the skin, hauling in a hundred feet of dripping line. Hornblower knew enough about life below decks to know that the man would have small chance of ever getting his clothes dry again; he could remember as a midshipman in Pellew’s Indefatigable being at the lead that wild night when they went in and destroyed the Droits de l’homme in the Biscay surf. He had been chilled to the bone that night, with fingers so numb as almost to be unable to feel the differenc
e between the markers – the white calico and the leather with a hole in it and all the others. He probably could not heave the lead now if he tried, and he was quite sure he could not remember the arbitrary order of the markers. He hoped Bush would have the humanity and the common sense to see that his leadsmen were relieved at proper intervals, and given special facilities for drying their clothes, but he could not interfere directly in the matter. Bush was personally responsible for the interior economy of the ship and would be quite rightly jealous of any interference; there were crumpled roseleaves in the bed even of a Commodore.

  ‘By the mark ten!’ called the leadsman.

  ‘Raven in sight beyond the chase, sir,’ reported a midshipman. ‘Heading to cut her off.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Rügen in sight, too, sir,’ said Bush. ‘That’s Stubbenkammer, or whatever they call it – a white cliff, anyway.’

  Hornblower swung his glass round the horizon; fate was closing in on the Blanchefleur, unless she took refuge in the waters of Swedish Pomerania. And that was clearly what she was intending to do. Bush had the chart spread out before him and was taking bearings on the distant white streak of the Stubbenkammer. Hornblower studied the chart, looked over at the distant ships, and back at the chart again. Stralsund was a fortress – it had stood more than one siege lately. If Blanchefleur got in there she would be safe if the Swedes saw fit to protect her. But the rest of the coast ahead was merely shoals and sandbanks; a couple of bays had water enough for coasting vessels – there were batteries marked in the chart to defend their entrances. Something might be attempted if Blanchefleur ran in one of those – she was probably of light enough draught – but it would be hopeless if she reached Stralsund.

  ‘Signal Lotus,’ he said, ‘“Set course to cut chase off from Stralsund”.’

  In the course of the interminable war every aid to navigation had disappeared. There was not a buoy left to mark the deep-water channel – the Bodden, the chart called it – up to Stralsund. Vickery in the Lotus would have to look lively with the lead as he found his way into it.

  ‘By the mark seven!’ called the leadsman; Nonsuch was in dangerously shoal water already; Bush was looking anxious.

  ‘Shorten sail, if you please, Captain Bush.’

  There was no chance of Nonsuch overhauling Blanchefleur, and if they were going to run aground they might as well do so as gently as possible.

  ‘Chase is hauling her wind, sir,’ said Hurst.

  So she was; she was clearly giving up the attempt to reach Stralsund. That was thanks to Vickery, who had gone charging with gallant recklessness under full sail through the shoals to head her off.

  ‘Raven’ll have a chance at her if she holds that course long!’ said Bush in high excitement.

  ‘Chase is going on the other tack!’ said Hurst.

  ‘And a half five!’ called the leadsman.

  Bush was biting his lips with anxiety; his precious ship was entangling herself among the shoals on a lee shore, and there was only thirty-three feet of water under her now.

  ‘Heave to, Captain Bush,’ said Hornblower. There was no reason to run any farther now until they could see what Blanchefleur intended. Nonsuch rounded-to and lay with her port bow breasting the gentle swell. The sun was pleasantly warm.

  ‘What’s happened to Raven?’ exclaimed Bush.

  The sloop’s foretopmast, with yard and sail and everything, had broken clear off and was hanging down in a frightful tangle among her headsails.

  ‘Aground, sir,’ said Hurst, glass to eye.

  The force with which she had hit the sand had snapped her topmast clean off.

  ‘She draws eight feet less than us, sir,’ said Bush, but all Hornblower’s attention was directed again to Blanchefleur. Obviously she was finding her way up a channel to the shelter of Hiddensoe. On the chart there was a single sounding marked there, a laconic ‘2½’. Fifteen feet of water, and a battery at the head of the long peninsula. Blanchefleur could reckon herself safe if the Swedes would defend her. On the horizon to windward Hornblower saw the queer topsails of the bomb-ketches; Duncan and Mound, after blundering about in the fog, must have caught sight of Nonsuch while on their way to the rendezvous off Cape Arcona.

  ‘Send the boats to assist Raven, if you please, Captain Bush,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Hoisting longboat and cutter off their chocks and overside was an evolution calling for a couple of hundred hands. Pipes squealed and the bos’un’s cane stirred up the laggards. The sheaves squeaked in the blocks, bare feet stamped the decks, and even Nonsuch’s massive bulk heeled a little with the transfer of weight. Hornblower betook himself to his telescope again.

  Blanchefleur had found herself a curious anchorage. She lay between the main island of Rügen and the long narrow strip of Hiddensoe; the latter was more of a sandspit than an island, a thread of sand-dunes emerging from the yellow shallows. In fact Blanchefleur’s spars were still in plain sight against the background of the low mud cliffs of Rügen; it was only her hull which was concealed by the dunes of Hiddensoe lying like a long curving breakwater in front of her. On one end of Hiddensoe was a battery – Hornblower could see the silhouettes of the guns, black against the green of the grass-grown embrasures – which covered one entrance to the tiny roadstead; at the other end the breaking waves showed that there was not water enough even for a ship’s long-boat to pass. The squadron had succeeded in cutting off the privateer’s escape into Stralsund, but it seemed as if she were just as safe where she was now, with miles of shoals all round her and a battery to protect her; any attempt to cut her out must be made by the ship’s boats, rowing in plain view for miles through the shallows, then through a narrow channel under the guns of the battery, and finally bringing out the prize under the same guns and over the unknown shoals. That was not a tempting prospect; he could land marines on the seaward front of Hiddensoe and try to storm the battery by brute force, but the attempt would be inviting a bloody repulse if there were no surprise to cover the assaulting party. Besides, the battery’s garrison would be Swedes, and he did not want to shed Swedish blood – Sweden was only a nominal enemy, but any vigorous action on his part might easily make her an active one. Hornblower remembered the paragraphs of his instructions which bore on this very point.

  As if in echo to his thoughts the signal midshipman saluted with a new report.

  ‘Signal from Lotus, sir.’

  Hornblower read the message written in crude capitals on the slate.

  ‘Flags of truce coming out from Stralsund. Have allowed them to pass.’

  ‘Acknowledge,’ said Hornblower.

  What the devil did that mean? One flag of truce he could expect, but Vickery was reporting two at least. He swung his glass over to where Vickery had very sensibly anchored Lotus, right between Blanchefleur’s refuge and any possible succour from Stralsund. There were one – two – three small sails heading straight for the Nonsuch, having just rounded Lotus. They were all of them of the queer Baltic rig, like Dutchmen with a foreign flavour – rounded bows and lee-boards and big gaff-mainsails. Closehauled, with the white water creaming under their blunt bows and the spray flying in sheets even in this moderate breeze, they were clearly being sailed for all they were worth, as if it were a race.

  ‘What in God’s name?’ said Bush, training his glass on them.

  It might be a ruse to gain time. Hornblower looked round again at the spars of Blanchefleur above the sandspit. She had furled everything and was riding at anchor.

  ‘White above yellow and blue, sir,’ said Bush, still watching the approaching boats. ‘That’s Swedish colours under a flag of truce.’

  Hornblower turned his glass on the leader and confirmed Bush’s decision.

  ‘The next one, sir—’ Bush laughed apologetically at his own innocence, ‘– I know it’s strange, sir, but it looks just like the British ens’n under a flag of truce.’

  It was hard t
o believe; and it was easy to make a mistake in identifying a small boat’s flag at that distance. But Hornblower’s glass seemed to show the same thing.

  ‘What do you make of that second boat, Mr Hurst?’

  ‘British colours under white, sir,’ said Hurst without hesitation.

  The third boat was some long way astern, and her colours were not so easy to make out.

  ‘French, I think, sir,’ said Hurst, but the leading boat was approaching fast now.

  It was a tall portly gentleman who was swung up on to the deck in the bos’un’s chair, clinging to his cocked hat. He wore a blue coat with gold buttons and epaulettes, and he hitched his sword and his stock into position before laying the hat – a fore-and-aft one with a white plume and a Swedish cockade – across his chest in a sweeping bow.

  ‘Baron Basse,’ he said.

  Hornblower bowed.

  ‘Captain Sir Horatio Hornblower, Commodore commanding this squadron.’

  Basse was a heavily jowled man with a big hook-nose and a cold grey eye; and it was obvious that he could only guess faintly at what Hornblower said.

  ‘You fight?’ he asked, with an effort.

  ‘I am in pursuit of a privateer under French colours,’ said Hornblower, and then, realising the difficulty of making himself understood when he had to pick his words with diplomatic care: ‘Here, where’s Mr Braun?’

  The interpreter came forward with a brief explanation of himself in Swedish, and Hornblower watched the interplay of glances between the two. They were clearly the deadliest political enemies, meeting here on the comparatively neutral ground of a British man-o’-war. Basse brought out a letter from his breast pocket and passed it to Braun, who glanced at it and handed it to Hornblower.

  ‘That is a letter from the Governor-General of Swedish Pomerania,’ he explained, ‘saying that this gentleman, the Baron Basse, has his full confidence.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Hornblower.

  Basse was already talking rapidly to Braun.

  ‘He says,’ explained Braun, ‘that he wants to know what you will do.’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Hornblower, ‘that that depends on what the Swedes do. Ask him if Sweden is neutral.’