“Those gunboats are closing in on her, sir,” said Freeman, glass to eye. “And that chasse-marée lugger’s full of men. Christ! There’s a gun.”
Someone in the Flame had fired a warning shot, perhaps to tell the French vessels to keep their distance until the debate on her deck had reached a conclusion. Then she wore round, as if suddenly realising the hostile intent of the French, and as she wore the small craft closed in on her, like hounds upon a deer. Half a dozen shots were fired, too ragged to be called a broadside. The gunboats were heading straight at her, their sweeps out, six a side, giving them additional speed and handiness. Smoke spouted from their bows, and over the water came the deep-toned heavy boom of the twenty-four-pounders they mounted—a sound quite different from the higher-pitched, sharper bang of the Flame’s carronades. The lugger ran alongside her, and through his glass Hornblower could see the boarders pouring onto the Flame’s deck.
“I’ll have the guns run out, Mr. Freeman, if you please,” he said.
The situation was developing with bewildering rapidity—he had foreseen nothing like this. There was desperate fighting ahead, but at least it would be against Frenchmen and not against Englishmen. He could see puffs of smoke on the Flame’s deck—some, at least, of the crew were offering resistance.
He walked forward a few yards, and addressed himself to the gunners.
“Listen to me, you men. Those gunboats must be sunk when we get in among ‘em. One broadside for each will do that business for ‘em if you make your shots tell. Aim true, at the base of their masts. Don’t fire until you’re sure you’ll hit.”
“Aye aye, sir,” came a few voices in reply.
Hornblower found Brown beside him.
“Your pistols, sir. I loaded ‘em afresh, an’ primed ‘em with new caps.”
“Thank you,” said Hornblower. He stuck the weapons into his belt, one on each side, where either hand could grasp them as necessary. It was like a boy playing at pirates, but his life might depend on those pistols in five minutes’ time. He half drew his sword to see that it was free in its sheath, and he was already hastening back to take his stand by the wheel as he thrust it in again.
“Luff a little,” he said. “Steady!”
Flame had flown up into the wind and lay all aback—apparently there was no one at the helm at the moment. The lugger was still alongside her, and the four gunboats, having taken in their sails, were resting on their oars, interposing between the Porta Coeli and the pair of ships. Hornblower could see the guns’ crews bending over the twenty-four-pounders in their bows.
“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–aslong 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.
“Quiet, you men!” bellowed Hornblower. “Quiet!”
Silence fell on the brig; Hornblower had hardly to raise his voice to make himself heard on the tiny deck.
“See that every shot tells, you gunners,” said Hornblower. “Boarders, are you ready to come with me?”
Another yell answered him. Thirty men were crouching by the bulwarks with pikes and cutlasses; the firing of the broadside and the dropping of the mainsail would set free thirty more, a small enough force unless the broadside should do great execution and the untrained landsmen in the Bonne Celestine should flinch. Hornblower stole a glance at the helmsman, a grey-bearded seaman, who was coolly gauging the distance between the two vessels while at the same time watching the mainsail as it shivered as the Porta Coeli came to the wind. A good seaman, that—Hornblower made a mental note to remember him for commendation. The helmsman whirled the wheel over.
“Down mains’l,” roared Freeman.
The Bonne Celestine’s guns bellowed deafeningly, and Hornblower felt powder grains strike his face as the smoke eddied round him. He drew his sword as the Porta Coeli’s carronades crashed out, and the two vessels came together with a squealing of timber. He sprang upon the bulwark in the smoke, sword in hand; at the same moment a figure beside him cleared the bulwark in a single motion and dropped upon the Bonne Celestine’s deck—Brown, waving a cutlass. Hornblower leaped after him, but Brown stayed in front of him, striking to left and right at the shadowy figures looming in the smoke. Here there was a pile of dead and wounded men, caught in the blast of canister from one of the Porta Coeli’s carronades. Hornblower stumbled over a limb, and recovered himself in time to see a bayonet on the end of a musket lunging at him. A violent twisting of his body evaded the thrust. There was a pistol in his left hand, and he fired with the muzzle almost against the Frenchman’s breast. Now the wind had blown the cannon-smoke clear. Forward some of the boarders were fighting with a group of the enemy cornered in the bow—the clash of the blades came clearly to Hornblower’s ears—but aft there was not a Frenchman to be seen. Gibbons, master’s mate, was at the halliards running down the tricolour from the masthead. At the starboard side lay the Flame, and over her bulwarks were visible French infantry shakoes; Hornblower saw a man’s head and shoulders appear, saw a musket being pointed. It shifted its aim from Gibbons to Hornblower, and in that instant Hornblower fired the other barrel of his pistol, and the Frenchman fell down below the bulwarks, just as a fresh wave of boarders came pouring on board from the Porta Coeli.