Hornblower and Freeman exchanged glances; it was a full year since the world had begun to look for the end of the war, and many hopes had blossomed and wilted during that year. But the Russians on the Rhine! Even though the English army’s entrance upon the soil of France in the south had not shaken down the Empire, this new invasion might bring that about. Yet there had been plenty of forecasts — Hornblower had made some — to the effect that the first defeat of Bonaparte in the open field would bring to an end at the same time both his reputation for invincibility and his reign. These forecasts about the invasion of the Empire might be as inaccurate.
“Sail-ho!” yelled the lookout, and in the same breath, “She’s the Flame, sir.”
There she was, as before; the parting mist revealed her for only a moment before closing round her again, and then a fresh breath of wind shredded the mist and left her in plain sight. Hornblower reached the decision he had so far been unable to make.
“Clear the ship for action, Mr. Freeman, if you please. We’re going to fetch her out.”
Of course, it was the only thing to do. During the night, within an hour of the cutting-out of the French Indiaman, the word would be sent flying round warning all French ports in the neighbourhood that the British brig with the white cross on her foretopsail was playing a double game, and only masquerading as a mutinous vessel. The news must have reached this side of the estuary by midnight — the courier could cross on the ferry at Quilleboeuf or elsewhere. Everyone would be on the watch for the brig to attempt another coup, and this bank of the river would be the obvious place. Any delay would give the mutineers a chance to reopen communication with the shore and to clear up the situation; if the authorities on shore were once to discover that there were two brigs, sister-ships, in the Bay of the Seine the mutineers might be saved that trouble. Not an hour ought to be lost.
It was all very clear and logical, yet Hornblower found himself gulping nervously as he stood on the quarter-deck. It could only mean a hammer-and-tongs battle — he would be in the thick of it in an hour. This deck which he trod would be swept by the grapeshot of the Flame’s carronades; within the hour he might be dead; within the hour he might be shrieking under the surgeon’s knife. Last night he had faced disaster, but this morning he was facing death. That warm glow which his bath had induced in him had vanished completely, so that he found himself on the point of shivering in the chill of the morning. He scowled at himself in frantic self-contempt, and forced himself to pace brightly and jerkily up and down the tiny quarter-deck. His memories were unmanning him, he told himself. The memory of Richard trotting beside him in the sunset, holding his finger in an unbreakable clutch; the memory of Barbara; the memory even of Smallbridge or of Bond Street — he did not want to be separated from these things, to ‘leave the warm precincts of the cheerful day’. He wanted to live, and soon he might die.
Flame had set more sail — boom-mainsail and jibs; close-hauled she could fetch Honfleur without ever coming within range of the Porta Coeli’s guns. Hornblower’s fears withdrew into the background as his restless mind, despite itself, interested itself in the tactical aspects of the problem before it.
“See that the hands have some breakfast, if you please, Mr. Freeman,” he said. “And it would be best if the guns were not run out yet.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
It might be a long, hard battle, and the men should have their breakfast first. And running out the guns would tell the people in Flame that the Porta Coeli expected a fight, and that would warn them that maybe their escape into French protection might not be easy. The more perfect the surprise, the greater the chance of an easy victory. Hornblower glowered at the Flame through his glass. He felt a dull, sullen rage against the mutineers who had caused all this trouble, whose mad action was imperilling his life. The sympathy he had felt towards them when he was seated in the safety of the Admiralty was replaced now by a fierce resentment. The villains deserved hanging — the thought changed his mood so that he could smile as he met Freeman’s eyes when the latter reported the brig cleared for action.