With these considerations racing through his mind he looked from one to the other, watching their expressions change from momentary excitement and hope to uneasy doubt. Something else came up in his mind that called for rapid action, and he turned away to bellow in his loudest and most penetrating voice to the groups clustered about the deck.
“Get down out of sight, all of you! I don’t want a single man to show himself! Get down out of sight!”
He turned back to meet a stony gaze from both Baddlestone and Meadows.
“I thought we’d better not show our hand until it’s played out,” he said. “With a glass the brig’ll soon be able to see we’re crowded with men, and it might be as well if she didn’t know.”
“I’m the senior,” snapped Meadows. “If anyone gives orders it’s me.”
“Sir —” began Hornblower.
“Commander May eighteen hundred,” said Meadows. “You’re not in the Gazette yet. You’ve not read yourself in.”
It was an important point, a decisive point. Hornblower’s appointment as Commander dated back only to April 1803.
Until his promised captaincy was actually official he must come under Meadows’ orders. That was something of a set-back. His polite attempts at conversation earlier with Meadows must have appeared as deferential currying for favour instead of the generous condescension he had intended. And it was irritating not to have thought of all this before. But that irritation was nothing compared with that roused by the realization that he was a junior officer again, forced to proffer advice instead of giving orders — and this after two years of practically independent command. It was a pill to swallow; oddly, as the metaphor occurred to him, he was actually swallowing hard to contain his annoyance, and the coincidence diverted him sufficiently to cut off the angry answer he might have made. They were all three of them tense, even explosive. A quarrel among them might well be the quickest way to a French prison.
“Of course, sir,” said Hornblower, and went on — if a thing was worth doing it was worth doing well — “I must beg your pardon. It was most thoughtless of me.”
“Granted,” said Meadows, only slightly grudgingly.
It was easy enough to change the subject — a glance towards the brig set the other two swinging round to look as well.
“Still headreaching on us, blast her!” said Baddlestone. “Weathering on us too.”
Obviously she was nearer, yet the bearing was unchanged; the chase would end with the brig close up to the Princess without any alteration of course — and the infuriating corollary was that any other action the Princess might take would only shorten the chase.
“We’ve no colours hoisted,” said Meadows.
“Not yet,” replied Baddlestone.
Hornblower caught his eye and stared hard at him. It was inadvisable to speak or even for Hornblower to shake his head, even a trifle, but somehow the message reached Baddlestone, perhaps by telepathy.
“No need to hoist ‘em yet,” went on Baddlestone. “It leaves our hands free.”
There was no need to take the smallest action that might commit them. There was not the least chance that the Frenchman would take the Princess to be anything other than a fleet auxiliary, but still … Things looked differently in a report, or even in a ship’s log. If the Frenchman tired of the chase, or was diverted somehow from it, it would be well to offer him a loophole excusing him; he could say he believed the Princess to be a Dane or a Bremener. And until the colours had been hoisted and hauled down again Princess was free to take any action that might become possible.
“It’s going to be dark before long,” said Hornblower.
“She’ll be right up to us by then,” snarled Meadows, and the filthy oaths streamed from his mouth as ever. “Cornered like rats.”
That was a good description; they were cornered, hemmed in by the invisible wall of the wind. Their only line of retreat was in the direction of the brig, and the brig was advancing remorselessly up that line, actually as well as relatively. If the Princess was a rat, the brig was a man striding forward club in hand. And being cornered meant that even in darkness there would be no room to escape, no room for any evasive manoeuvre, right under the guns of the brig. But like a rat they might still fly at their assailant with the courage of desperation.
“I wish to God,” said Meadows, “we’d run down on her when we sighted her. And my damned sword and pistols are at the bottom of the sea. What arms d’you have on board?”
Baddlestone listed the pitiful contents of the arms chest; even a waterhoy carried cutlasses and pistols for defence against hostile rowing boats, which were well known to push out from the French shore to snap up unarmed prizes in a calm.
“We could get a few more,” interposed Hornblower. “They’re bound to send a boat and a prize crew. And in the dark —”
“By God, you’re right!” shouted Meadows, and he turned on Baddlestone. “Don’t hoist those colours! We’ll get out of this! By God, we’ll take her!”
“We could try,” said Baddlestone.
“And by God, I’m the senior naval officer!” said Meadows.
A man returning to England under a cloud would be rehabilitated almost automatically if he brought a prize in with him. Meadows might possibly reach the captains’ list before Hornblower.
“Come on,” said Meadows. “Let’s get the hands told off.”
They were entering upon the wildest, the most reckless enterprise that could ever be imagined, but they were desperate men. Hornblower himself was desperate, although he told himself during the bustle of preparation that he was a man under orders with no alternative except to obey. He would not go so far as to point out to himself that they were carrying out the plan he himself had devised — and on which he would have acted, danger or no danger, had he been in command.
CHAPTER SIX
Princess was lying hove-to in the darkness. The mere fact of being hove-to could be construed by the enemy as an admission of surrender — but not by a legalistic mind. From her fore-stay flickered a lighted lantern, trimmed right down. That would give least chance of the brig observing what would be going on aft in the waist, and yet that tiny dot of light was visible in the total blackness to the brig a cable’s length — a cable and a half — to leeward, where the four bright lanterns hoisted in the fore — and main — rigging not only revealed her position but provided light for the business of hoisting out her boat.
“They’re coming,” growled Meadows, crouching at the gunwale. “Remember, cold steel.”
In the strong breeze that was blowing confused noises would pass unnoticed in the brig, but a shot would be heard clearly enough downwind. Now the crouching men could see a solid nucleus tossing in the darkness. Now they could hear the grind of oars; now they could hear French voices. Hornblower was waiting. He threw them a line as they hooked on.