Lord Hornblower. C. S. Forester

Hornblower looked at his watch — for the last ten minutes he had been fighting down the urge to look at it.

“Mr. Crawley,” he said, to the master’s mate who was his new first lieutenant in the Flame. “Beat to quarters and clear the brig for action.”

The wind was a light air from the east, as he had expected. Fetching into Le Havre would be a ticklish business, and he was glad that he had resolved to lead in the small and hardy Flame so as to show the way to the ponderous old Nonsuch.

“Ship cleared for action, sir,” reported Crawley.

“Very good.”

Hornblower looked at his watch — it was fully a quarter-hour yet before he should move in. A hail to the Porta Coeli astern brought him the information that all the other vessels had cleared for action, and he smiled to himself. Freeman and Bush and Howard had no more been able to wait the time out than he had been.

“Remember, Mr. Crawley,” he said, “if I am killed as we go in, the Flame is to be laid alongside the quay. Captain Bush is to be informed as soon as possible, but the Flame is to go on.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Crawley. “I’ll remember.”

Damn his eyes, he need not be so infernally ordinary about it. From the tone of Crawley’s voice one might almost assume that he expected Hornblower to be killed. Hornblower turned away from him and walked the deck briskly to shake off the penetrating cold. He looked along at the men at their stations.

“Skylark, you men,” he ordered. “Let’s see how you can jump.”

There was no use going into action with men chilled to numbness. The men at the guns and waiting at the sheets began to caper at their posts.

“Jump, you men, jump!”

Hornblower leaped grotesquely up and down to set them an example; he wanted them thoroughly warmed up. He flapped his arms against his sides as he leaped, the epaulettes of the full-dress uniform he was wearing pounded on his shoulders.

“Higher than that! Higher!”

His legs were beginning to ache, and his breath came with difficulty, but he would not stop before the men did, although he soon came to regret the impulse which had made him start.

“Still!” he shouted at last, the monosyllable taking almost the last breath from his body. He stood panting, the men grinning.

“Horny for ever!” yelled an unidentifiable voice forward, and a ragged cheer came from the men.

“Silence!”

Brown was beside him with his pistols, a twinkle in his eye.

“Take that grin off your face!” snapped Hornblower.

There would be another Hornblower legend growing up in the Navy, similar to the one about the hornpipe danced on the deck of the Lydia during the pursuit of the Natividad. Hornblower pulled out his watch, and when he had replaced it took up his speaking-trumpet.

“Mr. Freeman! I am going about on the other tack. Hail the squadron to tack in succession. Mr. Crawley!”

“Sir!”

“Two hands at the lead, if you please.”

One man might be killed, and Hornblower wanted no possible cessation in the calling of soundings.

“Headsail sheets! Mains’l sheets!”

The Flame went about on the starboard tack, making about three knots under fore and aft sail in the light breeze. Hornblower saw the shadowy Porta Coeli follow the Flame’s example. Behind her, and invisible, was the old Nonsuch — Hornblower had still to set eyes on her since her arrival. He had not seen her, for that matter, since he quitted her to catch the typhus in Riga. Good old Bush. It gave Hornblower some comfort to think that he would be supported today by the Nonsuch’s thundering broadsides and Bush’s stolid loyalty.

The leadsmen were already chanting the depths as the Flame felt her way up the fairway towards Le Havre. Hornblower wondered what was going on in the city, and then petulantly told himself that he would know soon enough. It seemed to him as if he could remember every single word of the long discussion he had had with Lebrun, when between them they had settled the details of Lebrun’s harebrained scheme. They had taken into account the possibility of fog — any seaman would be a fool who did not do so in the Bay of the Seine in winter.

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