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 headreaching 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 waterhoy 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.
CHAPTER SIX
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 fore-stay 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 main — rigging not only revealed her position but provided light for the business of hoisting out her boat.
“They’re coming,” growled Meadows, crouching at the gunwale. “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 blackfaced 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.
There was the longboat approaching the brig’s side, clearly visible in the light of the lanterns.
“Give way, port side!” The boat swung round as the oars bit. “Give way, starboard side!”
The boat began to move through the water, and the tiller under Hornblower’s hand came to life. He set his course; there was no need to call upon the oarsmen to pull with all their strength, as they were well aware of the details of the situation. Hornblower had read somewhere a fragment of English history, about a Saxon over-king who, in token of his pre-eminence, had been rowed on the river Dee by eight under-kings. Most of the oars in this boat were being pulled by officers — Bush was pulling bow oar starboard side, seconding the efforts of Wise the boatswain and Wallis the surgeon and two or three master’s mates, and the master and purser and gunner were packed in here and there with a seaman or two. The boat was crammed with men and low in the water, but every fighting man was needed.
She lurched and rolled over the dark water, the brig’s lanterns growing steadily nearer. There was still no sound of trouble from the brig — she was expecting the return of her boat and until it was actually alongside she would suspect nothing. It was too much to expect that Meadows would be granted the opportunity to get comfortably alongside to launch a simultaneous rush, so that the French crew would be confronted in a second by twenty furious enemies where they had looked for half a dozen friends, but it was possible.
There it was. A pistol shot, the sound coming up wind. Further shots. It had been settled that Meadows’ party should use their pistols as soon as they reached the deck. It would be necessary to shock and bewilder the surprised Frenchmen and get them into a panic; the arrival on deck of twenty men firing pistols right and left would be likely a means to bring this about.
“Easy all! Bowman!”
The boat surged alongside the brig, under her forechains, diametrically opposite to where an outburst of yelling and screaming indicated where Meadows was fighting. A dozen hands were reaching for the shrouds, Hornblower’s among them. It was a miracle the boat did not capsize — warrant officers could be as hare-brained and excitable as young seamen if the occasion were desperate enough.
“Go on!” yelled Hornblower.
To the devil with formality; these were not men who needed leading. The boat lightened as the blackfaced mob sprang up into the chains; Hornblower was not the first, but the fifth or sixth to reach the deck. There was no opposition, even though there were a good many figures hurrying about the dimly lighted deck.
Here they were beside the hatchway and a whitefaced figure was just emerging, waist level with the deck. A blackfaced figure swung an axe and the Frenchman went tumbling down again.
Now a hurrying figure cannoned into him and flung him aside, nearly knocking him off his feet. But there was no immediate danger to him; the hurrying Frenchman was intent only on descending, flinging himself bodily down the hatchway followed by a dozen other panic-stricken figures, a terrified herd pursued by two cutlass-swinging men with black faces. When the rush ended Hornblower leaned over the hatchway and fired his pistol down into the mass below; that was probably the most effective use for the single round which was all he had, for it would scare away from the hatchway those other Frenchmen who were trying to ascend.
“Get the hatch cover on!” said Hornblower. “Wise, get it battened down! Master’s mates, stay with Wise. Others follow me!”
He hurried aft, his brass-hilted Langer in his hand. Two or three distracted figures came rushing towards them. They had white faces, and they were struck down; it was no time for sentiment. Hornblower suddenly remembered to yell; if there were any real opposition aft it would be likely to dissolve at the sound of a hostile battle cry in the rear. What he saw was a sudden rectangle of light and a white figure, white shirt, white breeches, and white face coming through it; presumably the French captain emerging from his cabin, to be met by a huge figure rushing at him cutlass in air. Hornblower saw the French captain extend arm and knee in the classic lunge; he saw the cutlass come whirling down and then both figures tumbled out of sight.
The battle, if such it could be called, was almost over. The Frenchmen, unarmed, taken utterly by surprise, could do nothing except to try to save their lives. But every figure with a white face was hunted round the deck to be slaughtered pitilessly by men mad with excitement, except for one group that flung themselves grovelling on the deck screaming for mercy — the killing of one or two of them sated the bloodlust and the survivors were jostled into a corner by the taffrail. Hornblower had a feeling that a few men had dashed up the rigging and were sheltering there; they could be dealt with later.
He looked round the deck; to the eerie illumination afforded by the lanterns swinging in the shrouds was added, periodically, the light from the cabin door, coming and going as the door swayed open and shut with the rolling of the ship. It was grotesque as well as horrible, the deck littered with corpses. Was that a dead man coming to life? Someone recovering consciousness? Certainly it was a body heaving upward but in a way no living man would get to his feet. Anything was possible in these hideous surroundings. No! That man was dead and being shoved up from below. He must have fallen across the after scuttle and the crew below the deck was getting him out of the way. As Hornblower looked the dead body rolled and fell with a thump on to the deck and there was the scuttle with two hands uplifted through it. Hornblower leaped, slashing with his sword, and the hands disappeared to the accompaniment of a yell from below. Hornblower drew the sliding cover across and found the bolt and shot it. That would make things momentarily secure.
Hornblower straightened himself up to find himself face to face with another figure that had come forward to take the same precaution, and idiotically he tightened his grip on his sword hilt — he was not ready for a black face so close to his.
“We’ve settled it,” said Baddlestone’s voice — Hornblower recognized the silhouette at once, now.
“Where’s Meadows?” croaked Hornblower, his throat still dry with tension.
“He’s a goner,” answered Baddlestone, with a wave of his arm.
The cabin door swung open again as if in response, throwing an arc of light over the deck, and Hornblower remembered. On the far side of the scuttle lay two corpses. That one must be Meadows, lying half on his side, arms and legs asprawl. Standing out from his chest was the handle of a rapier, and it became apparent that two feet of the blade stuck out through his back so as to maintain him in that position. In the black face the teeth shone whitely, as Meadows had bared them in the ferocity of his attac
k; the swaying lights made his mouth look as if his lips were still going through contortions of rage. Beyond him lay the French captain in white shirt and breeches — only partly white now — but where face and head should be there was only something horrible. On the deck lay the cutlass which had dealt the shattering blow, wielded in one final explosion of Meadows’ vast strength as the rapier went through his heart. Years ago the émigré French nobleman who had given Hornblower fencing lessons had spoken of the ‘coup des deux veuves’, the reckless attack that made two widows — here was an example of it.
“Any orders, sir?” Here was Bush recalling him to reality.
“Ask Captain Baddlestone,” replied Hornblower.
A touch of formality would clear the nightmares from his mind, but at the same instant something else occurred to remind him that action was still instantly demanded. There was a crashing sound beside him and a jarring shock felt in the soles of his feet told him that the Frenchmen below were battering at the scuttle. From forward there came similar noises and a voice hailed.
“Cap’n, sir! They’re trying to bash up the hatch cover!”
“There was a whole watch below when we boarded,” said Baddlestone.
Of course, that would help to account for the comparative ease of the victory — thirty armed men attacking fifty men surprised and unarmed. But it meant that fifty enemies — more, including idlers — were below and refusing to be subdued.
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