“By the mark ten!” called the leadsman.
“Raven in sight beyond the chase, sir,” reported a midshipman. “Heading to cut her off.”
“Very good,” said Hornblower.
“Rügen in sight, too, sir,” said Bush. “That’s Stubbenkammer, or whatever they call it — a white cliff, anyway.”
Hornblower swung his glass round the horizon; fate was closing in on the Blanchefleur, unless she took refuge in the waters of Swedish Pomerania. And that was clearly what she was intending to do. Bush had the chart spread out before him and was taking bearings on the distant white streak of the Stubbenkammer. Hornblower studied the chart, looked over at the distant ships, and back at the chart again. Stralsund was a fortress — it had stood more than one siege lately. If Blanchefleur got in there she would be safe if the Swedes saw fit to protect her. But the rest of the coast ahead was merely shoals and sandbanks; a couple of bays had water enough for coasting vessels — there were batteries marked in the chart to defend their entrances. Something might be attempted if Blanchefleur ran in one of those — she was probably of light enough draught — but it would be hopeless if she reached Stralsund.
“Signal Lotus,” he said. “‘Set course to cut chase off from Stralsund’.”
In the course of the interminable war every aid to navigation had disappeared. There was not a buoy left to make the deep-water channel — the Bodden, the chart called it — up to Stralsund. Vickery in the lotus would have to look lively with the lead as he found his way into it.
“By the mark seven!” called the leadsman; Nonsuch was in dangerously shoal water already; Bush was looking anxious.
“Shorten sail, if you please, Captain Bush.”
There was no chance of Nonsuch overhauling Blanchefleur, and if they were going to run aground they might as well do so as gently as possible.
“Chase is hauling her wind, sir,” said Hurst.
So she was; she was clearly giving up the attempt to reach Stralsund. That was thanks to Vickery, who had gone charging with gallant recklessness under full sail through the shoals to head her off.
“Raven‘ll have a chance at her if she holds that course long!” said Bush in high excitement.
“Chase is going on the other tack!” said Hurst.
“And a half five!” called the leadsman.
Bush was biting his lips with anxiety; his precious ship was entangling herself among the shoals on a lee shore, and there was only thirty-three feet of water under her now.
“Heave to, Captain Bush,” said Hornblower. There was no reason to run any farther now until they could see what Blanchefleur intended. Nonsuch rounded-to and lay with her port bow breasting the gentle swell. The sun was pleasantly warm.
“What’s happened to Raven?” exclaimed Bush.
The sloop’s foretopmast, with yard and sail and everything, had broken clear off and was hanging down in a frightful tangle among her headsails.
“Aground, sir,” said Hurst, glass to eye.
The force with which she had hit the sand had snapped her topmast clean off.
“She draws eight feet less than us, sir,” said Bush, but all Hornblower’s attention was directed again to Blanchefleur.
Obviously she was finding her way up a channel to the shelter of Hiddensoe. On the chart there was a single sounding marked there, a laconic ‘2½’. Fifteen feet of water, and a battery at the head of the long peninsula. Blanchefleur could reckon herself safe if the Swedes would defend her. On the horizon to windward Hornblower saw the queer topsails of the bomb-ketches; Duncan and Mound, after blundering about in the fog, must have caught sight of Nonsuch while on their way to the rendezvous off Cape Arcona.
“Send the boats to assist Raven, if you please, Captain Bush,” said Hornblower.
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hoisting longboat and cutter off their chocks and overside was an evolution calling for a couple of hundred hands. Pipes squealed and the bos’un’s cane stirred up the laggards. The sheaves squeaked in the blocks, bare feet stamped the decks, and even Nonsuch‘s massive bulk heeled a little with the transfer of weight. Hornblower betook himself to his telescope again.
Blanchefleur had found herself a curious anchorage. She lay between the main island of Rügen and the long narrow strip of Hiddensoe; the latter was more of a sandspit than an island, a thread of sand-dunes emerging from the yellow shallows. In fact Blanchefleur’s spars were still in plain sight against the background of the low mud cliffs of Rügen; it was only her hull which was concealed by the dunes of Hiddensoe lying like a long curving breakwater in front of her. On one end of Hiddensoe was a battery — Hornblower could see the silhouettes of the guns, black against the green of the grass-grown embrasures — which covered one entrance to the tiny roadstead ; at the other end the breaking waves showed that there was not water enough even for a ship’s longboat to pass. The squadron had succeeded in cutting off the privateer’s escape into Stralsund, but it seemed as if she were just as safe where she was now, with miles of shoals all round her and a battery to protect her; any attempt to cut her out must be made by the ship’s boats, rowing in plain view for miles through the shallows, then through a narrow channel under the guns of the battery, and finally bringing out the prize under the same guns and over the unknown shoals. That was not a tempting prospect; he could land marines on the seaward front of Hiddensoe and try to storm the battery by brute force, but the attempt would be inviting a bloody repulse if there were no surprise to cover the assaulting party. Besides, the battery’s garrison would be Swedes, and he did not want to shed Swedish blood — Sweden was only a nominal enemy, but any vigorous action on his part might easily make her an active one. Hornblower remembered the paragraphs of his instructions which bore on this very point
As if in echo to his thoughts the signal midshipman saluted with a new report.
“Signal from Lotus, sir.”
Hornblower read the message written in crude capitals on the slate.
“Flags of truce coming out from Stralsund. Have allowed them to pass.”
“Acknowledge,” said Hornblower.
What the devil did that mean? One flag of truce he could expect, but Vickery was reporting two at least. He swung his glass over to where Vickery had very sensibly anchored Lotus, right between Blanchefleur‘s refuge and any possible succour from Stralsund. There were one — two — three — small sails heading straight for the Nonsuch, having just rounded Lotus. They were all of them of the queer Baltic rig, like Dutchmen with a foreign flavour — rounded bows and lee-boards and big gaff-mainsails. Close-hauled, with the white water creaming under their blunt bows and the spray flying in sheets even in this moderate breeze, they were clearly being sailed for all they were worth, as if it were a race.