“Sick leave, sir. After typhus. And since then —”
“Since then,” interjected Howard, a handsome, dark, young-looking man, “a cutting-out action. A battle. Three prizes taken. Two vessels sunk. An invasion planned. A midnight council of war.”
Hornblower felt suddenly irritated.
“Are you gentlemen trying to tell me,” he demanded, glowering round at them, “that I’m unfit for service?”
They quailed before his anger.
“No, sir,” said Bush.
“Then be so good as to keep your opinions to yourselves.”
It was hard luck on Bush, who, after all, was only making a kindly inquiry about his friend’s health. Hornblower knew it, and be knew how desperately unfair it was to make Bush pay for the miseries Hornblower had suffered that day. Yet he could not resist the temptation for the moment. He swept his glance round them again, forcing them to drop their gaze to the deck, and he had no sooner done it, no sooner obtained for himself this pitiful bit of self-gratification, than he regretted it and sought to make amends.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I spoke in haste. We must all have the most complete confidence in each other when we go into action tomorrow. Will you forgive me?”
They mumbled back at him, Bush profoundly embarrassed at receiving an apology from a man who, in his opinion, was free to say what he liked to anyone.
“You all understand what I want done tomorrow — if tomorrow is the day?” Hornblower went on.
They nodded, turning their eyes to the chart spread out in front of them.
“No questions?”
“No, sir.”
“I know this is only the sketchiest plan. There will be contingencies, emergencies. No one can possibly foresee what will happen. But of one thing I am certain, and that is that the ships of this squadron will be commanded in a way that will bring credit to the service. Captain Bush and Mr. Freeman have acted with bravery and decision under my own eyes too often, and I know Captain Howard too well by reputation for me to have any doubt about that. When we attack Havre, gentlemen, we shall be turning a page, we shall be writing the end of a chapter in the history of tyranny.”
They were pleased with what he said, and they could have no doubt regarding his sincerity, because he spoke from his heart. They smiled as he met their eyes. Maria, when she was alive, had sometimes made use of a strange expression about polite phrases uttered in order to get the recipient into a good humour. She referred to them as ‘a little bit of sugar for the bird’. That was what this final speech of his had been, a little bit of sugar for the bird — and yet he had meant every word of it. No, not quite — he was still almost ignorant of Howard’s achievements. To that extent the speech was formal. But it had served its purpose.
“Then we have finished with business, gentlemen. What can I offer you by way of entertainment? Captain Bush can remember games of whist played on the nights before going into action. But he is by no means an enthusiastic whist player.”
That was understating the case — Bush was the most reluctant whist player in the world, and he grinned sheepishly in acknowledgment of Hornblower’s gentle gibe; but it was pathetic to see him pleased at Hornblower’s remembering this about him.
“You should have a night’s rest, sir,” he said, speaking, as the senior, for the other two, who looked to him for guidance.
“I should get back to my ship, sir,” echoed Howard.
“So should I, sir,” said Freeman.
“I don’t want to see you go,” protested Hornblower.
Freeman caught sight of the playing-cards on the shelf against the bulkhead.
“I’ll tell your fortunes before we leave,” he volunteered. “Perhaps I can remember what my gipsy grandmother taught me, sir.”
So there really was gipsy blood in Freeman’s veins; Hornblower had often wondered about it, noticing his swarthy skin and dark eyes. Hornblower was a little surprised at the carelessness with which Freeman admitted it.
“Tell Sir Horatio’s,” said Bush.
Freeman was shuffling the pack with expert fingers; he laid it on the table, and took Hornblower’s hand and placed it on the pack.
“Cut three times, sir.”
Hornblower went through the mumbo-jumbo tolerantly, cutting and cutting again as Freeman shuffled. Finally Freeman caught up the pack and began to deal it face upward on the table.
“On this side is the past,” he announced, scanning the complicated pattern, “on that side is the future. Here in the past there is much to read. I see money, gold. I see danger. Danger, danger, danger. I see prison — prison twice, sir. I see a dark woman. And a fair woman. You have journeyed over sea.”
He poured out his patter professionally enough, reeling it off without stopping to take breath. He made a neat résumé of Hornblower’s career, and Hornblower listened with some amusement and a good deal of admiration for Freeman’s glibness. What Freeman was saying could be said by anyone with an ordinary knowledge of Hornblower’s past. Hornblower’s eyebrows came together in momentary irritation at the brief allusion to the dead Maria, but he smiled again when Freeman passed rapidly on, telling of Hornblower’s experiences in the Baltic, translating the phrases of ordinary speech into the gipsy clichés with a deftness that could not but amuse.
“And there’s an illness, sir,” he concluded, “a very serious illness, ending only a short time back.”
“Amazing!” said Hornblower, in mock admiration. The glow of anticipated action always brought out his best qualities; he was cordial and human towards this junior officer in a way that would be impossible to him at any other time.
“Amazing’s the word, sir,” said Bush.
Hornblower was astonished to see that Bush was actually impressed; the fact that he was taken in by Freeman’s adroit use of his knowledge of the past would go far towards explaining the success of the charlatans of this world.
“What about the future, Freeman?” asked Howard. It was a relief to see that Howard was only tolerantly interested.
“The future,” said Freeman, drumming with his fingers on the table as he turned to the other half of the arrangement. “The future is always more mysterious. I see a crown. A golden crown.”
He rearranged the pattern.
“A crown it is, sir, try it any way you will.”
“Horatio the First, King of the Cannibal Isles,” laughed Hornblower. The clearest proof of his present mellowness was this joke about his name — a sore subject usually with him.
“And here there is more danger. Danger and a fair woman. The two go together. Danger because of a fair woman — danger with a fair woman. There’s all kinds of danger here, sir. I’d advise you to beware of fair women.”
“No need to read cards to give that advice,” said Hornblower.
“Sometimes the cards speak truth,” replied Freeman, looking up at him with a peculiar intensity in his glittering eyes.
“A crown, a fair woman, danger,” repeated Hornblower. “What else?”
“That’s all that I can read, sir,” said Freeman, sweeping the cards together.
Howard was looking at the big silver watch that he pulled from his pocket.
If Freeman could have told us whether or no we will see a white flag over the citadel tomorrow,” he said, “it might help us to decide to prolong this pleasant evening. As it is, sir, I have my orders to give.”
Hornblower was genuinely sorry to see them go. He stood on the deck of the Flame and watched their gigs creep away in the black winter night, while the pipe of the bo’sun’s mate was calling the hands for the middle watch. It was piercing cold, especially after the warm stuffiness of the cabin, and he felt suddenly even more lonely than usual, maybe as a result. Here in the Flame he had only two watch-keeping officers, borrowed from the Porta Coeli; tomorrow he would borrow another from the Nonsuch or the Camilla. Tomorrow? That was today. And today perhaps Lebrun’s attempt to gain control of Le Havre might be successful. Today he might be d
ead.
CHAPTER X
It was as misty as might be expected of that season and place when day broke, or rather when the grey light crept almost unnoticed into one’s consciousness. The Porta Coeli was dimly visible, an almost unnoticeable denser nucleus in the fog. Hailing her at the top of his lungs, Hornblower received the faint reply that Nonsuch was in sight astern of her, and a few seconds later the additional information that Camilla was in sight of Nonsuch. He had his squadron in hand, then, and there was nothing to do but wait, and to ponder for the hundredth time over the question as to how the hands, barefooted with the icy water surging round their feet, could possibly bear their morning duty of washing down the decks. But they were laughing and skylarking as they did it; the British seaman was of tough material. Presumably the lower deck guessed that there was something in the wind, that this concentration of force portended fresh action, and they found the prospect exhilarating. Partly, Hornblower knew, it was because they felt assured of success in the unknown enterprise before them. It must be amazingly pleasant to be able to put one’s trust in a man and have no further doubts. Hornblower watched the men at work with envy as well as pity.
He himself was in a fever of anxiety, turning over in his mind the arrangements he had finally made with Lebrun before sending him ashore. They were simple enough; absurdly simple, it seemed to him now. The whole plan seemed a feeble thing with which to overturn an Empire that dominated Europe. Yet a conspiracy should be simple — the more elaborate the machinery the greater the chance of its breaking down. That was one reason why he had insisted on daylight for his part of the business. He had dreaded the possible mishaps if he bad plunged ashore in darkness into an unknown town with his little army. Daylight doubled the chances of success while it doubled at least the possible loss in case of failure.
Hornblower looked at his watch — for the last ten minutes he had been fighting down the urge to look at it.
“Mr. Crawley,” he said, to the master’s mate who was his new first lieutenant in the Flame. “Beat to quarters and clear the brig for action.”
The wind was a light air from the east, as he had expected. Fetching into Le Havre would be a ticklish business, and he was glad that he had resolved to lead in the small and hardy Flame so as to show the way to the ponderous old Nonsuch.
“Ship cleared for action, sir,” reported Crawley.
“Very good.”
Hornblower looked at his watch — it was fully a quarter-hour yet before he should move in. A hail to the Porta Coeli astern brought him the information that all the other vessels had cleared for action, and he smiled to himself. Freeman and Bush and Howard had no more been able to wait the time out than he had been.
“Remember, Mr. Crawley,” he said, “if I am killed as we go in, the Flame is to be laid alongside the quay. Captain Bush is to be informed as soon as possible, but the Flame is to go on.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Crawley. “I’ll remember.”
Damn his eyes, he need not be so infernally ordinary about it. From the tone of Crawley’s voice one might almost assume that he expected Hornblower to be killed. Hornblower turned away from him and walked the deck briskly to shake off the penetrating cold. He looked along at the men at their stations.
“Skylark, you men,” he ordered. “Let’s see how you can jump.”
There was no use going into action with men chilled to numbness. The men at the guns and waiting at the sheets began to caper at their posts.
“Jump, you men, jump!”
Hornblower leaped grotesquely up and down to set them an example; he wanted them thoroughly warmed up. He flapped his arms against his sides as he leaped, the epaulettes of the full-dress uniform he was wearing pounded on his shoulders.
“Higher than that! Higher!”
His legs were beginning to ache, and his breath came with difficulty, but he would not stop before the men did, although he soon came to regret the impulse which had made him start.
“Still!” he shouted at last, the monosyllable taking almost the last breath from his body. He stood panting, the men grinning.
“Horny for ever!” yelled an unidentifiable voice forward, and a ragged cheer came from the men.
“Silence!”
Brown was beside him with his pistols, a twinkle in his eye.
“Take that grin off your face!” snapped Hornblower.
There would be another Hornblower legend growing up in the Navy, similar to the one about the hornpipe danced on the deck of the Lydia during the pursuit of the Natividad. Hornblower pulled out his watch, and when he had replaced it took up his speaking-trumpet.
“Mr. Freeman! I am going about on the other tack. Hail the squadron to tack in succession. Mr. Crawley!”
“Sir!”
“Two hands at the lead, if you please.”
One man might be killed, and Hornblower wanted no possible cessation in the calling of soundings.
“Headsail sheets! Mains’l sheets!”
The Flame went about on the starboard tack, making about three knots under fore and aft sail in the light breeze. Hornblower saw the shadowy Porta Coeli follow the Flame‘s example. Behind her, and invisible, was the old Nonsuch — Hornblower had still to set eyes on her since her arrival. He had not seen her, for that matter, since he quitted her to catch the typhus in Riga. Good old Bush. It gave Hornblower some comfort to think that he would be supported today by the Nonsuch‘s thundering broadsides and Bush’s stolid loyalty.
The leadsmen were already chanting the depths as the Flame felt her way up the fairway towards Le Havre. Hornblower wondered what was going on in the city, and then petulantly told himself that he would know soon enough. It seemed to him as if he could remember every single word of the long discussion he had had with Lebrun, when between them they had settled the details of Lebrun’s harebrained scheme. They had taken into account the possibility of fog — any seaman would be a fool who did not do so in the Bay of the Seine in winter.
“Buoy on the starboard bow, sir,” reported Crawley.
That would mark the middle ground — it was the only buoy the French had left on the approaches to Le Havre. Hornblower watched it pass close alongside and then astern; the flowing tide was heeling it a little and piling up against the seaward side of it. They were nearing the entrance.
“Listen to me, you men,” said Hornblower, loudly. “Not a shot is to be fired without my orders. The man who fires a gun, for no matter what reason, unless I tell him to, I will not merely flog. I’ll hang him. Before sunset today he’ll be at the yardarm. D’you hear me?”
Hornblower had every intention of executing his threat — at least at that moment — and as he looked round him his expression showed it. A few muttered Aye aye, sir’s showed him he had been understood.
“Qui va là?” screamed a voice through the fog from close overside; Hornblower could just see the French boat which habitually rowed guard over the entrance in thick weather. The guard-boat, as Hornblower and Lebrun had agreed, would not be easily diverted from its duty.
“Despatches for M. le Baron Momas,” hailed Hornblower in return.
The confident voice, the fluent French, the use of Momas’ name, might all gain time for the squadron to enter.
“What ship?”
It was inconceivable that the seamen in the guard-boat did not recognise the Flame — the question must be a merely rhetorical one asked while the puzzled officer in command collected his thoughts.
“British brig Flame,” called Hornblower; he had the helm put over at that moment to make the turn past the point.
“Heave-to, or I will fire into you!”
“If you fire, you will have the responsibility,” replied Hornblower. “We bear despatches for Baron Momas.”
It was a fair wind now for the quay. The turn had brought the guard-boat close alongside; Hornblower could see the officer standing up in the bows beside the bow-gun, a seaman at his shoulder with a glowing linstock in his hand. Hornblower’s
own full-dress uniform must be visible and cause some delay, too, for men expecting to fight would not be expected to wear full dress. He saw the officer give a violent start, having caught sight of the Porta Coeli looming up in the mist astern of the Flame. He saw the order given, saw the spark thrust on the touchhole. The three-pounder roared, and the shot crashed into the Flame‘s side. That would give the alarm to the batteries at the point and above the quay.
“We do not fire back,” he hailed — maybe he could gain a little more time, and maybe that tune would be of use, although he doubted it.
Here inside the harbour the mist was not so thick. He could see the shadowy shape of the quay rapidly defining itself. In the next few seconds he would know if this were a trap or not, if the batteries should open in a tempest of flame. One part of his mind raced through the data, while another part was working out how to approach the quay. He could not believe that Lebrun was playing a double game, but if it were so only he and the Flame would be lost — the other vessels would have a chance to get clear.
” Luff!” he said to the helmsman. There were a few busy seconds as he applied himself to the business of bringing the Flame alongside the quay as speedily as possible and yet without damaging her too severely. She came alongside with a creak and a clatter, the fenders groaning as if in agony. Hornblower sprang onto the bulwark and from there to the quay, sword, cocked hat, epaulettes and all. He could not spare time to look round, but he had no doubt that the Porta Coeli had anchored, ready to give assistance where necessary, and that the Nonsuch in her turn was nearing the quay, her marines drawn up ready for instant landing. He strode up the quay, his heart pounding. There was the first battery, the guns glaring through the embrasures. He could see movement behind the guns, and more men running to the battery from the guardhouse in the rear. Now he had reached the edge of the moat, his left hand held up in a gesture to restrain the men at the guns.
“Where is your officer?” he shouted.
There was a momentary delay, and then a young man in blue and red artillery uniform sprang upon the parapet.
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