“I’d like to see him laying aloft on a stormy night,” muttered Kennedy. “D’ye think he could take the maintops’l earring?”
“These lobsters!” said Midshipman Bracegirdle.
The scarlet lines stood rigid, all five companies, the sergeants with their halberds indicating the intervals — from halberd to halberd the line of faces dipped down and then up again, with the men exactly sized off, the tallest men at the flanks and the shortest men in the centre of each company. Not a finger moved, not an eyebrow twitched. Down every back hung rigidly a powdered pigtail.
The mounted officer trotted down the line to where the naval party waited, and Lieutenant Bolton, in command, stepped forward with his hand to his hat rim.
“My men are ready to embark, sir,” said the army officer. “The baggage will be here immediately.”
“Aye aye, major,” said Bolton — the army title and the navy reply in strange contrast.
“It would be better to address me as ‘My lord’,” said the major.
“Aye aye, sir — my lord,” replied Bolton, caught quite off his balance.
His Lordship, the Earl of Edrington, major commanding this wing of the 43rd Foot, was a heavily built young man in his early twenties. He was a fine soldierly figure in his well-fitting uniform, and mounted on a magnificent charger, but he seemed a little young for his present responsible command. But the practice of the purchase of commissions was liable to put very young men in high command, and the Army seemed satisfied with the system.
“The French auxiliaries have their orders to report here,” went on Lord Edrington. “I suppose arrangements have been made for their transport as well?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Not one of the beggars can speak English, as far as I can make out. Have you got an officer to interpret?”
“Yes, sir. Mr Hornblower!”
“Sir!”
“You will attend to the embarkation of the French troops.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
More military music — Hornblower’s tone‑deaf ear distinguished it as making a thinner noise than the British infantry band — heralded the arrival of the Frenchmen farther down the quay by a side road, and Hornblower hastened there. This was the Royal, Christian, and Catholic French Army, or a detachment of it at least — a battalion of the force raised by the émigré French nobles to fight against the Revolution. There was the white flag with the golden lilies at the head of the column, and a group of mounted officers to whom Hornblower touched his hat. One of them acknowledged his salute.
“The Marquis of Pouzauges, Brigadier General in the service of His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVII,” said this individual in French by way of introduction. He wore a glittering white uniform with a blue ribbon across it.
Stumbling over the French words, Hornblower introduced himself as an aspirant of his Britannic Majesty’s Marine, deputed to arrange the embarkation of the French troops.
“Very good,” said Pouzauges. “We are ready.”
Hornblower looked down the French column. The men were standing in all attitudes, gazing about them. They were all well enough dressed, in blue uniforms which Hornblower guessed had been supplied by the British government, but the white crossbelts were already dirty, the metalwork tarnished, the arms dull. Yet doubtless they could fight.
“Those are the transports allotted to your men, sir,” said Hornblower, pointing. “The Sophia will take three hundred, and the Dumbarton — that one over there — will take two hundred and fifty. Here at the quay are the lighters to ferry the men out.”
“Give the orders, M. de Moncoutant,” said Pouzauges to one of the officers beside him.
The hired baggage carts had now come creaking up along the column, piled high with the men’s kits, and the column broke into chattering swarms as the men hunted up their possessions. It was some time before the men were reassembled, each with his own kit‑bag; and then there arose the question of detailing a fatigue party to deal with the regimental baggage, and the men who were given the task yielded up their bags with obvious reluctance to their comrades, clearly in despair of ever seeing any of the contents again. Hornblower was still giving out information.