“Heading for the Strait’s mouth, do you think?”
Baddlestone eyed him with a trace of pity.
“No farther than Finisterre,” he vouchsafed.
“But why?”
Baddlestone found it clearly hard to believe that Hornblower could be ignorant of what was being discussed throughout the fleet and the dockyard.
“Villain‑noove,” he said.
That was Villeneuve, the French admiral commanding the fleet that had broken out of the Mediterranean some weeks before and fled across the Atlantic to the West Indies.
“What about him?” asked Hornblower.
“He’s heading back again, making for Brest. Going to pick up the French fleet there, so Boney thinks. Then the Channel. Boney’s army’s waiting at Boulong, and Boney thinks he’ll eat his next dish of frogs in Windsor Castle.”
“Where’s Nelson?” demanded Hornblower.
“Hot on Villain‑noove’s trail. If Nelson don’t catch him Calder will. Boney’s going to wait a long time before he sees French tops’ls in the Channel.”
“How do you know this?”
“Sloop came in from Nelson while I was waiting for a wind in Plymouth. The whole town knew in half an hour, bless you.”
This was the most vital and the most recent information imaginable, and yet it was common knowledge. Bonaparte at Boulogne had a quarter of a million men trained, equipped, and ready. Transporting them across the Channel might be difficult despite the thousands of flat bottomed boats that crowded the French Channel ports, but with twenty, thirty, possibly forty French and Spanish ships of the line to cover the crossing something might be achieved. In a month Bonaparte might well be eating frogs in Windsor Castle. The destiny of the world, the fate of civilization, depended on the concerted movements of the British fleets. If so much was known in Plymouth last week it would be known in Bonaparte’s headquarters today; detailed knowledge of the British movements was vital for the French in executing what appeared to be essentially a plan of evasion.
Baddlestone was watching him curiously; Hornblower must have allowed some of his emotions to show in his expression.
“No good ever came of worrying,” said Baddlestone, and now it was Hornblower’s turn to return the sharp gaze.
Until this conversation the pair of them had not exchanged twenty words during this two days of waiting for a wind. Baddlestone apparently cherished hard feelings towards naval officers; maybe Hornblower’s refusal to make any advances towards intimacy had softened them.
“Worry?” said Hornblower bravely. “Why should I worry? We’ll deal with Boney when the time comes.”
Already Baddlestone seemed to regret his voluntary loquacity. As every captain should while on deck, he had been darting repeated glances at the leech of the mainsail and now he rounded on the helmsman.
“Watch what you’re doing, blast you!” he roared, unexpectedly. “Keep her full and by! D’ye want us to end up in Spain? An empty waterhoy and a ham‑fisted no-seaman at the wheel letting her box the compass.”
Hornblower drifted away during this tirade. His feelings were agitated by apprehensions additional to those Baddlestone had hinted at. Here was the crisis of the naval war approaching; there were battles to be fought, and he had no ship. All he had was a promise of one, a promise of being ‘made post’ when he could call upon the Admiralty to redeem that promise. He had endured two years of hardship and danger, monotony and strain, in the blockade of Brest, and now, at the very moment when the war was reaching a climax, he was unemployed. He would be falling between two stools — the battle might well be fought, the crisis over, before he could get to sea again. Calder might intercept Villeneuve within the week, or Bonaparte might be attempting his crossing within a fortnight. Better to be a mere Commander with a ship than an ungazetted Captain without one. It was enough to drive a man perfectly frantic — and for the last two days the wind had blown steadily from the northeast, keeping him a prisoner in this accursed hoy, while allowing every opportunity to Meadows in the Hotspur to distinguish himself. After ten years of experience Hornblower should have had more sense (and he knew it) than to fret himself into a fever over winds, the uncontrollable unpredictable winds that had governed his life since boyhood. But here he was fretting himself into a fever.