Lord Hornblower. C. S. Forester

“Hands to the sheets, Mr. Freeman, please. I’m going between them — there. Stand to your guns, men! Now, hard down!”

The wheel went over, and the Porta Coeli came about on the other tack, handily as anyone could desire. Hornblower heard the thunder of a shot close under her bows, and then the deck erupted in a flying shower of splinters from a jagged hole close to the mainmast bitts — a twenty-four-pound shot, fired upwards at close elevation, had pierced the brig’s frail timbers, and, continuing its flight, had burst through the deck.

“Ready about! Hard over!” yelled Hornblower, and the Porta Coeli tacked again into the narrow gap between two gunboats. Her carronades went off in rapid succession on both sides. Looking to starboard, Hornblower had one gunboat under his eye. He saw her there, half a dozen men standing by the tiller aft, two men at each sweep amidships tugging wildly to swing her round, a dozen men at the gun forward. A man with a red handkerchief round his head stood by the mast, resting his hand against it — Hornblower could even see his open mouth as his jaw dropped and he saw death upon him. Then the shots came smashing in. The man with the red handkerchief disappeared — maybe he was dashed overboard, but most likely he was smashed into pulp. The frail frame of the gunboat — nothing more than a big rowing-boat strengthened forward for a gun — disintegrated ; her side caved in under the shots as though under the blows of some vast hammer. The sea poured in even as Hornblower looked; the shots, fired with extreme depression, must have gone on through the gunboat’s bottom after piercing her side. The dead weight of the gun in her bows took charge as her stability vanished, and her bows surged under while her stern was still above water. Then the gun slid out, relieving her of its weight, and the wreck righted itself for an instant before capsizing. A few men swam among the wreckage. Hornblower looked over to port; the other gunboat had been as hard hit, lying at that moment just at the surface with the remains of her crew swimming by her. Whoever had been in command of those gunboats had been a reckless fool to expose the frail vessels to the fire of a real vessel of war — even one as tiny as the Porta Coeli — as long as the latter was under proper command. Gunboats were only of use to batter into submission ships helplessly aground or dismasted.

The chasse-marée and the Flame, still alongside each other, were close ahead.

“Mr. Freeman, load with canister, if you please. We’ll run alongside the Frenchman. One broadside, and we’ll board her in the smoke.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Freeman turned to bellow orders to his crew.

“Mr. Freeman, I shall want every available hand in the boarding-party. You’ll stay here —”

“Sir!”

“You’ll stay here. Pick six good seamen to stay with you to work the brig out again if we don’t come back. Is that clear, Mr. Freeman?”

“Yes, Sir Horatio.”

There was still time for Freeman to make the arrangements as the Porta Coeli surged up towards the Frenchman. There was still time for Hornblower to realise with surprise that what he had said about not coming back was sincere, and no mere bombast to stimulate the men. He was most oddly determined to conquer or die, he, the man who was afraid of shadows. The men were yelling madly as the Porta Coeli drew up to the Frenchman, whose name — the Bonne Celestine of Honfleur — was now visible on her stern. Blue uniforms and white breeches could be seen aboard her; soldiers — it was true, then, that Bonaparte’s need for trained artillerymen had forced him to conscript his seamen, replacing them with raw conscript soldiers. A pity the action was not taking place out at sea, for then they would most of them be sea-sick.

“Lay us alongside,” said Hornblower to the helmsman. There was confusion on the decks of the Bonne Celestine; Hornblower could see men running to the guns on her disengaged port side.

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