“Hewitt! Get for’ard to the gun. It’s loaded with grape. Fire when it bears.” Then he spoke to the oarsmen and to Cargill at the tiller. “Hard-a-port. Starboard-side oars, back water.”
“Port side, back water.”
The launch ceased to turn; she was pointed straight at the jetty, and Hewitt, having shoved the other men aside, was cold-bloodedly looking along the sights of the four-pounder carronade mounted in the bows, fiddling with the elevating coign. Then he leaned over to one side and pulled the lanyard. The whole boat jerked sternwards abruptly with the recoil, as though when underway she had struck a rock, and the smoke came back round them in a sullen pall.
“Give way, starboard side! Pull! Hard-a-starboard!” The boat turned ponderously. “Give way, port side!”
Nine quarter pound grapeshot-balls had swept through the group on the jetty; there were struggling figures, quiescent figures, lying there. Bonaparte had a quarter of a million soldiers under arms, but he had now lost some of them. It could not be called a drop out of the bucketful, but perhaps a molecule. Now they were out of musket shot, and Hornblower turned to Cargill in the stern sheets beside him.
“You managed your part of the business well enough, Mr Cargill.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Cargill had been appointed by Hornblower to land with the marines and to take charge of the boats and prepare them for the evacuation.
“But it might have been better if you’d sent the launch away first and kept the yawl back until the last. Then the launch could have lain off and covered the others with her gun.”
“I thought of that, sir. But I couldn’t be sure until the last moment how many men would be coming down in the last group. I had to keep the launch for that.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Hornblower, grudgingly, and then, his sense of justice prevailing, “In fact I’m sure you’re right.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Cargill again, and, after a pause, “I wish you had let me come with you, sir.”
Some people had queer tastes, thought Hornblower bitterly to himself, having regard to Côtard lying unconscious with a shattered arm at their feet, but he had to smooth down ruffled feelings in these touchy young men thirsting for honour and for the promotion that honour might bring.
“Use your wits, man,” he said, bracing himself once more to think logically. “Someone had to be in charge on the jetty, and you were the best man for the job.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Cargill all over again, but still wistfully, and therefore still idiotically.
A sudden thought struck Hornblower, and he turned and stared back over his shoulder. He actually had to look twice, although he knew what he was looking for. The silhouette of the hills had changed. Then he saw a wisp of black smoke still rising from the summit. The semaphore was gone. The towering thing that had spied on their movements and had reported every disposition of the Inshore Squadron was no more. Trained British seamen and riggers and carpenters could not replace it – if they had such a job to do – in less than a week’s work. Probably the French would take two weeks at least; his own estimate would be three.
And there was Hotspur waiting for them, main-topsail aback, as he had seen her half an hour ago; half an hour that seemed like a week. The lobster-boat and the yawl were already going round to her port side, and Cargill steered for her starboard side; in these calm waters and with such a gentle wind there was no need for the boats to be offered a lee.
“Oars!” said Cargill, and the launch ran alongside, and there was Bush looking down on them from close overhead. Hornblower seized the entering-ropes and swung himself up. It was his right as captain to go first, and it was also his duty. He cut Bush’s congratulations short.
“Get the wounded out as quick as you can, Mr Bush. Send a stretcher down for Mr Côtard.”
“Is he wounded, sir?”
“Yes.” Hornblower had no desire to enter into unnecessary explanations. “You’ll have to lash him to it and then sway the stretcher up with a whip from the yardarm. His arm’s in splinters.”