“You’ve been in communication with the shore?” gasped Hornblower. It was quite impossible for him to make any pretence at composure.
“We have,” said the old man. “And if you had the chance before you, Captain, of being flogged round the fleet, you would have done the same.”
It was hopeless to continue the present discussion. At least at the moment, the mutineers were unassailable. The only terms to which they would listen would be their own. There was no sign of doubt or dissension on board. But maybe if they were allowed more time to think about it, maybe if they had a few hours in which to consider the fact that Hornblower himself was on their trail, doubt might creep in. A party might form determined to save their necks by recapturing the ship; they might get at the liquor — Hornblower was completely puzzled by the fact that a mutinous British crew was not all roaring drunk — something might happen. But he must make a fighting retreat, not ignominiously crawl overside with his tail between his legs.
“So you are traitors as well as mutineers?” he blared. “I might have expected it. I might have guessed what kind of curs you are. I won’t foul my lungs by breathing the same air as you.”
He turned to the side and hailed for his boat.
“We’re the kind of curs,” said the old man, “who will let you go when we could clap you down below in the orlop with Chadwick. We could give you a taste of the cat, Commodore Sir Horatio Hornblower. How would you like that, sir? Remember, tomorrow, that the flesh is still on your ribs because we spared you. Good morning to you, Captain.”
There was sting and venom in those last words; they called up pictures in Hornblower’s imagination that made his flesh creep. He did not feel in the least dignified as he wriggled under the boarding-netting.
The Flame still rode peacefully to the wind as the boat danced back over the waves. Hornblower gazed from the Flame to the Porta Coeli, the two sister-ships, identical in appearance save for the white cross-shaped patch on the Flame’s foretopsail. It was ironical that not even a trained eye could see any difference in appearance between the brig that was loyal to the King and the brig that was in open rebellion against him. The thought increased his bitterness; he had failed, utterly and completely, in his first attempt to win over the mutineers. He did not think there was the least possibility of their abating their terms; he would have to choose between agreeing to them, between promising the mutineers a free pardon and driving them into the hands of Bonaparte. In either case he would have failed in his mission; the merest least experienced midshipman in the Navy could have done as much. There was still some time to spare, for there was still little chance of news of the mutiny leaking out, but unless time brought dissension among the mutineers — and he saw no chance of that — it would be merely wasted time as far as he could see.
The boat was now half-way between the two brigs; with those two vessels under his command he could wage a lively war against the Normandy coast; he felt in his bones that he could set the whole Seine estuary in an uproar. His bitterness surged up stronger still, and then abruptly checked itself. An idea had come to him, and with the idea all the well-known old symptoms, the dryness in his throat, the tingling in his legs, the accelerated heartbeat. He swept his glance back and forth between the two brigs, excitement welling up inside him; calculations of wind and tide and daylight already formulating themselves, unsummoned, in his mind.
“Pull harder you men,” he said to the boat’s crew, and they obeyed him, but the gig could not possibly travel fast enough to satisfy him in his new mood.
Brown was looking at him sidelong, wondering what plan was evoking itself in his captain’s brain; Brown himself — as well aware of the circumstances as Hornblower was — could see no possible way out of the situation. All he knew was that his captain looked back over his shoulder time and time again at the mutinous brig.