Cecil Forester - Lord Hornblower

“Give way!” ordered Brown; the oars bit the water and the boat began to crawl towards the Flame, dancing over the little waves of the estuary.

Hornblower watched the brig as they approached; she lay hove-to, but Hornblower could see that her guns were run out and her boarding-nettings rigged, and she had clearly no intention of being taken by surprise. The hands were at their guns, there were lookouts aloft, a warrant officer aft with a telescope under his arm—not a sign in the world of mutiny on board.

“Boat ahoy!” came the hail across the water.

Brown held up his four fingers, the universal signal that there was a captain in the boat—four fingers for the four side-boys demanded by ceremonial.

“Who are ye?” hailed the voice.

Brown looked round at Hornblower, received a nod from him, and hailed back.

“Commodore Sir Horatio Hornblower, K.B.”

“We’ll allow Commodore Hornblower on board, but no one else. Come alongside, and we’ve cold shot here to drop into you if you play any tricks.”

Hornblower reached for the main-chains and swung himself up into them; a seaman raised the boarding-nettings so that he could struggle under them to the deck.

“Kindly tell your boat to sheer off, Commodore. We’re taking no risks,” said a voice.

It was a white-haired old man who addressed him, the telescope under his arm marking him out as officer of the watch. White hair fluttered about his ears; sharp blue eyes in a wrinkled face looked at Hornblower from under white brows. The only thing in the least bizarre about his appearance was a pistol stuck in his belt. Hornblower turned and gave the required order.

“And now may I ask your business here, Commodore?” asked the old man.

“I wish to speak to the leader of the mutineers.”

“I am captain of this ship. You can address yourself to me, Nathaniel Sweet, sir.”

“I have addressed myself to you as far as I desire, unless you are also the leader of the mutineers.”

“Then if you have done so, you can call back your boat and leave us, sir.”

An impasse already. Hornblower kept his eyes on the blue ones of the old man. There were several other men within earshot, but he could sense no wavering or doubt among them; they were prepared to support their captain. Yet it might be worth while speaking to them.

“Men!” said Hornblower, raising his voice.

“Belay that!” rapped out the old man. He whipped the pistol out of his belt and pointed it at Hornblower’s stomach. “One more word out of turn and you’ll get an ounce of lead through you.”

Hornblower looked steadily back at him and his weapon; he was curiously unafraid, feeling as if he were watching move and counter-move in some chess game, without remembering that he himself was one of the pawns in it with his life at stake.

“Kill me,” he said with a grim smile, “and England won’t rest until you’re swinging on a gallows.”

“England has sent you here to swing me on a gallows as it is,” said Sweet, bleakly.

“No,” said Hornblower. “I am here to recall you to your duty to King and Country.”

“Letting bygones be bygones?”

“You will have to stand a fair trial, you and your confederates.”

“That means the gallows, as I said,” replied Sweet. “The gallows for me, and I should be fortunate compared with some of these others.”

“A fair and honest trial,” said Hornblower, “with every mitigating circumstance taken into consideration.”

“The only trial I would attend,” replied the old man, “would be to bear witness against Chadwick. Full pardon for us—a fair trial for Chadwick. Those are our terms, sir.”

“You are foolish,” said Hornblower. “You are throwing away your last chance. Surrender now, with Mr. Chadwick unbound and the ship in good order, and those circumstances will weigh heavily in your favour at your trial. Refuse, and what have you to look for? Death. That is all. Death. What can save you from our country’s vengeance? Nothing.”

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but Boney can,” interposed the old man, dryly.

“You trust Bonaparte’s word?” said Hornblower, rallying desperately before this unexpected counter-attack. “He’d like to have this ship, no doubt. But you and your gang? Bonaparte won’t encourage mutiny—his power rests too much on his own army. He’ll hand you back for us to make an example of you.”

It was a wild shot in the dark, and it missed its bull’s-eye by an unmeasurable distance. Sweet stuck his pistol back into his belt and produced three letters from his pocket, waving them tauntingly in front of Hornblower.

“Here’s a letter from the Military Governor of Harbour-Grace,” he said. “That only promises us welcome. And here’s a letter from the Prefect of the Department of the Inferior Seine. That promises us provisions and water should we need them. And here’s a letter from Paris, sent down to us by post. It promises us immunity from arrest, civil rights in France, and a pension for every man from the age of sixty. That is signed ‘Marie Louise, Empress, Queen, and Regent’. Boney won’t go back on his wife’s word, sir.”

“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.