A Ship of the Line. C. S. Forester

Longley came sliding down the backstay, the whole height from topmast head to the deck, his face white with excitement.

“Vincent sent me, sir. Cassandra’s signalling, and he thinks it’s ‘Flag to Sutherland, no. 21’. Twenty-one’s ‘Engage the enemy’, sir. But it’s hard to read the flags.”

“Very good. Acknowledge.”

So Leighton at least had the moral courage to assume the responsibility for sending one ship against four. In that respect he was worthy of being Barbara’s husband.

“Mr Bush,” he said. “We’ve a quarter of an hour. See that the men get a bite to eat in that time.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

He looked again at the four ships all steering slowly down upon him. He could not hope to turn them back, but he could only hope to accompany them in their race to Rosas Bay. Any ship that he could totally dismast would fall a prey to Leighton; the others he must damage so sorely that they could not repair themselves in Rosas, which had the smallest dockyard facilities. Then they would stay there until fireships, or a large scale cutting out expedition, or a properly organised attack by land on the fortress, should result in their destruction. He thought he ought to succeed in that, but he could not bring himself to visualise what would happen to the Sutherland meanwhile. He swallowed hard, and set himself to plan the manoeuvres of the first encounter. The leading French ship mounted eighty guns — they were run out and grinning at him through her open ports, while each of the Frenchmen had, as though in bravado, at least four tricolour flags floating in the rigging. He looked up at the battered red ensign hanging from the peak against the blue of the sky, and then he plunged into realities.

“Hands to the braces, Mr Bush. I want the ship handled like lightning when the time comes. Mr Gerard! I’ll have every gun captain flogged tomorrow who fires before his gun bears.”

The men at the guns grinned; they would give of their best for him without any threat of flogging, and they knew he knew it.

Bow to bow the Sutherland was approaching the eighty-gun ship, unwavering; if both captains held their courses steadily there would be a collision which might sink both ships. Hornblower kept his eye on the Frenchman to detect the first signs of irresolution; the Sutherland was lying as near to the wind as she could, with her sails on the point of flapping. If the French captain had the sense to bring his ship to the wind the Sutherland could do nothing decisive against her, but the chances were he would leave his decision to the last moment and then instinctively put his ship before the wind as the easiest course with an unhandy crew. At half a mile smoke suddenly eddied round the Frenchman’s bows, and a shot came humming overhead. She was firing her bow chasers, but there was no need to warn Gerard not to reply — he knew the value of that first unhurried broadside too well. With the distance halved two holes appeared in the Sutherland’s main topsail; Hornblower did not hear the passing of the shot, so intent was he on noting the Frenchman’s actions.

“Which way will he go?” said Bush, beating one hand with the other. “Which way? He’s holding on farther than I thought.”

The farther the better; the more hurried the Frenchman’s manoeuvre the more helpless he would be. The bowsprits were only a hundred yards apart now, and Hornblower set his teeth so as not to give the instinctive order to up helm. Then he saw a flurry on the Frenchman’s decks, and her bow swung away from him — to leeward.

“Hold your fire!” Hornblower shouted to Gerard, fearful lest a premature broadside should waste the opportunity. Gerard waved his hat in reply, with a flash of white teeth in his brown face. The two ships were overlapping now, not thirty yards apart, and the Frenchman’s guns were beginning to bear. In the bright sunlight Hornblower could see the flash of the epaulettes of the officers on the quarterdeck, the men at the forecastle cannonades stooping to look along the sights. This was the moment.