Hornblower and the Crisis

Chapter Five

In the Princess conditions were intolerably crowded. Where Hornblower’s hammock had been slung there were now seven more, so that each of the eight officers occupied no more space than might be found inside a coffin. They were packed together in an almost solid mass, but not quite solid; as the Princess leaped and bounded there was just enough play for everyone to bump against his neighbour or against a bulkhead, maddeningly, every second or two. Hornblower in the lower tier (which he had selected sensibly enough to avoid the poisonous upper air) had Meadows above him, a bulkhead on one side and Bush on the other. Sometimes the weight of the three bodies to his left compressed him against the bulkhead, and sometimes he swayed the other way and thumped Bush in the ribs; sometimes the deck below rose up to meet him and sometimes Meadows’ vast bulk above came down to impress itself on him — Meadows was an inch or two longer than the cabin and lay in a pronounced curve. Hornblower’s restless mind deduced that these latter contacts were proof of how much the Princess ‘worked’—the cabin was pulled out of shape when she rolled, diminishing its height by an inch or two, as was confirmed by the creaking and crackling that went on all round him. Long before midnight Hornblower wriggled with difficulty out of his hammock and then, snaking along on his back under the lower tier, crawled out of the cabin to where the purer air outside fluttered his shirt tails. After the first night common sense dictated another arrangement whereby the passengers, officers and ratings alike, slept ‘watch and watch’, four hours in bed and four hours squatting in sheltered corners on deck. It was a system to which they were all inured, and was extended, naturally and perforce, to cooking and meals and every other activity. Even so, the Princess was not a happy ship, with the passengers likely to snarl at each other at small provocation, and potential trouble on a far greater scale only a hair’s breadth away as the experts with whom the hoy swarmed criticized Baddlestone’s handling of her. For the persistent summer breezes still blew from between north and east, and she lost distance to leeward in a manner perfectly infuriating to men who for months and years had not seen homeland or family. That wind meant sparkling and delightful weather; it might mean a splendid harvest in England, but it meant irritation in the Princess, where bitter arguments developed between those who advocated that Baddlestone should reach to the westward, into the Atlantic, in the hope of finding a favourable slant of wind there, and those who still had sufficient patience to recommend beating about where they were — but both schools were ready to agree that the trim of the sails, the handling of the helm, the course set when under way, and the tack selected when lying to could and should be improved upon.

Hope came timorously to life one noontime; there had been disappointments before and, despite all the previous discussions, hardly a soul dared speak a word when, after a period of almost imperceptible easterly airs something a trifle more vigorous awoke, with a hint of south in it, backing and strengthening so that the sheets could be hauled in, with Baddlestone bellowing at the hands and the motion of the Princess changing from spiritless wallowing to a flatfooted advance, an ungainly movement over the waves like a cart horse trying to canter over wet furrow.

“What’s her course, d’you think?” asked Hornblower.

“Nor’east, sir,” said Bush, tentatively, but Prowse shook his head as his natural pessimism asserted itself.

“Nor’east by east, sir,” he said.

“A trifle of north in it, anyway,” said Hornblower.

Such a course would bring them no nearer Plymouth, but it might give them a better chance of catching a westerly slant outside the mouth of the Channel.

“She’s making a lot of leeway,” said Prowse, gloomily, his glance sweeping round from the set of the sails to the barely perceptible wake.

“We can always hope,” said Hornblower. “Look at those clouds building up. We’ve seen nothing like that for days.”

“Hope’s cheap enough, sir,” said Prowse gloomily.

Hornblower looked over towards Meadows, standing at the mainmast. His face bore that bleak expression still unchanged; he stood solitary in a crowd, yet even he was impelled to study wake and sail trim and rudder, until Hornblower’s gaze drew his glance and he looked over at them, hardly seeing them.

“I’d give something to know what the glass is doing,” said Bush. “Maybe it’s dropping, sir.”

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” said Hornblower.

He could remember so acutely running for Tor Bay in a howling gale. Maria was in Plymouth, and the second child was on the way.

Prowse cleared his throat; he spoke unwillingly, because he had something cheerful to say.

“Wind’s still veering, sir,” he said at length.

“Freshening a trifle, too, I fancy,” said Hornblower. “Something may come of this.”

In those latitudes heavy weather was likely at that time of year when the wind veered instead of backing, when it swung towards south from northeast, and when it freshened as it undoubtedly was doing, and when dark clouds began to build up as they were doing at the moment. The mate was marking up the traverse board.

“What’s the course, Mister?” asked Hornblower.

“Nor’ by East half North.”

“Just another point or two’s all we need,” said Bush.

“Got to give Ushant a wide berth anyway,” said Prowse.

Even on this course they were actually lessening the distance that lay between them and Plymouth; it was in a quite unimportant fashion, but it was a comforting thought. The horizon was closing in on them a little with the diminishing visibility. There was still a sail or two in sight, all towards the east, for no vessel made as much leeway as the Princess. But it was indication of the vastness of the ocean that there were so few sails visible although they were in the immediate vicinity of the Channel Fleet.

Here came a much stronger gust of wind, putting the Princess over on her lee side with men and movables cascading across the deck until the helmsman allowed her to pay off a point.

“She steers like a dray,” commented Bush.

“Like a wooden piggin,” said Hornblower. “Sideways as easily as forwards.”

It was better when the wind veered still farther round, and then came the moment when Bush struck one fist into the palm of the other hand.

“We’re running a point free!” he exclaimed.

That meant everything in the world. It meant that they were not running on a compromise course where as much might be lost or gained. It meant that they were steering a course direct for Plymouth, or as direct as Baddlestone’s calculations indicated; if they were correct leeway had now become a source of profit instead of loss. It meant that the wind was a trifle on the Princess’s quarter, and that would almost certainly be her best point of sailing, considering her shape. It meant that they were getting finally clear of the coast of France. Soon they would be well in the mouth of the Channel with considerable freedom of action. Finally it had to be repeated that they were running free, a fantastic, marvellous change for men who had endured for so long the depressing alternatives of lying to or sailing close hauled.

Someone near at hand raised his voice; Hornblower could tell that he was not hailing, or quarrelling, but singing, going through an exercise incomprehensible and purposeless for the sake of some strange pleasure it gave. ‘From Ushant to Scilly is thirtyfive leagues.’ That was perfectly true, and Hornblower supposed that circumstances justified making this sort of noise about it. He steeled himself to a stoical endurance as others joined in, ‘Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies’. It was very noticeable that the atmosphere in the Princess had changed metaphorically as well as actually; spirits had risen with the fall in the barometer. There were smiles, there were grins to be seen. With the wind veering another couple of points, as it did, there was a decided probability that the evening of next day would see them into Plymouth. As if she had caught the prevailing infection the Princess began to leap over the waves; in her clumsiness there was something almost lewd, like a tubby old lady showing her legs in a drunken attempt to dance.

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’s 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 hulldown 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’s 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 gunports, 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’s 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 headreach 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 barrelshaped 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 shiphandling.

“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 setback. 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.