Today the last of the flood did not make until two o’clock in the afternoon, a most inconvenient time, for it was not until then that Hotspur could venture in to make her daily reconnaissance at closest range. To do so earlier would be to risk that a failure of the wind, leaving her at the mercy of the tide, would sweep her helplessly up, within range of the batteries on Petit Minou and the Capuchins — the Toulinguet battery; and more assuredly fatal than the batteries would be the reefs, Pollux and the Little Girls.
Hornblower came out on deck with the earliest light — not very early on this almost the shortest day of the year — to check the position of the ship while Prowse took the bearings of the Petit Minou and the Grand Gouin.
“Merry Christmas, sir,” said Bush. It was typical of a military service that Bush should have to touch his hat while saying those words.
“Thank you. The same to you, Mr Bush.”
It was typical, also, that Hornblower should have been acutely aware that it was December 25th and yet should have forgotten that it was Christmas Day; tide tables made no reference to the festivals of the church.
“Any news of your good lady, sir?” asked Bush.
“Not yet,” answered Hornblower, with a smile that was only half-forced. “The letter I had yesterday was dated the eighteenth, but there’s nothing as yet.”
It was one more indication of the way the wind had been blowing, that he should have received a letter from Maria in six days; a victualler had brought it out with a fair wind. That also implied that it might be six weeks before his reply reached Maria, and in six weeks — in one week — everything would be changed, and the child would be born. A naval officer writing to his wife had to keep one eye on the wind-vane just as the Lords of the Admiralty had to do when drafting their orders for the movements of fleets. New Year’s Day was the date Maria and the midwife had decided upon; at that time Maria would be reading the letters he wrote a month ago. He wished he had written more sympathetically, but nothing he could do could recall, alter, or supplement those letters.
All he could do would be to spend some of this morning composing a letter that might belatedly compensate for the deficiencies of its predecessors (and Hornblower realized with a stab of conscience that this was not the first time he had reached that decision) while it would be even more difficult than usual because it would have to be composed with on eye to all eventualities. All eventualities; Hornblower felt in that moment the misgivings of every prospective father.
He spent until eleven o’clock on these unsatisfactory literary exercises and it was with guilty relief that he returned to the quarter-deck to take Hotspur up with the last of the tide with the well-remembered coasts closing in upon her on both sides. The weather was reasonably clear; not a sparkling Christmas Day, but with little enough haze at noon, when Hornblower gave the orders to hove Hotspur to, as close to Pollux Reef as he dared. The dull thud of a gun from Petit Minou coincided with his orders. The rebuilt battery there was firing its usual range-testing shot in the hope that this time he had come in too far. Did they recognize the ship that had done them so much damage? Presumably.
“Their morning salute, sir,” said Bush.
“Yes.”
Hornblower took the telescope into his gloved, yet frozen, hands and trained it up the Goulet as he always did. Often there was something new to observe. Today there was much.
“Four new ships at anchor, sir,” said Bush.
“I make it five. Isn’t that a new one — the frigate in line with the church steeple?”
“Don’t think so, sir. She’s shifted anchorage. Only four new ones by my count.”
“You’re right, Mr Bush.”
“Yards crossed, sir. And — sir, would you look at those tops’l yards?”
Hornblower was already looking.
“I can’t be sure.”
“I think those are tops’ls furled over-all, sir.”
“It’s possible.”
A sail furled over-all was much thinner and less noticeable, with the loose part gathered into the bunt about the mast, than one furled in the usual fashion.
“I’ll go up to the masthead myself, sir. And young Foreman has good eyes. I’ll take him with me.”
“Very well. No, wait a moment. Mr Bush. I’ll go myself. Take charge of the ship, if you please. But you can send Foreman up.”
Hornblower’s decision to go aloft was proof of the importance he attached to observation of the new ships. He was uncomfortably aware of his slowness and awkwardness, and it was only reluctantly that he exhibited them to his lightfooted and lighthearted subordinates. But there was something about chose ships …
He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the fore-topmast-head, and it took several seconds to steady himself sufficiently to fix the ships in the field of the telescope, but he was much warmer. Foreman was there already, and the regular look-out shrank away out of the notice of his betters. Neither Foreman nor the look-out could be sure about those furled top sails.
They thought it likely, yet they would not commit themselves.
“D’you make out anything else about those ships, Mr Foreman?”
“Well, no, sir. I can’t say that I do.”
“D’you think they’re riding high?”
“Maybe, yes, sir.”
Two of the new arrivals were small two-deckers — sixty-fours, probably — and the lower tier of gun-ports in each case might be farther above the water line than one might expect. It was not a matter of measurement, all the same; it was more a matter of intuition, of good taste. Those hulls were just not quite right, although, Foreman, willing enough to oblige, clearly did not share his feelings.
Hornblower’s glass swept the shores round the anchorage, questing for any further data. There were the rows of hutments that housed the troops. French soldiers were notoriously well able to look after themselves, to build themselves adequate shelter; the smoke of their cooking fires was clearly visible — today, of course, they would be cooking their Christmas dinners. It was from here that had come the battalion that had chased him back to the boats the day he blew up the battery. Hornblower’s glass checked itself, moved along, and returned again. With the breeze that was blowing he could not be certain, but it seemed to him that from two rows of huts there was no smoke to be seen. It was all a little vague; he could not even estimate the number of troops those huts would house; two thousand men, five thousand men; and he was still doubtful about the absence of cooking smoke.
“Captain, sir!” Bush was hailing from the deck. “The tide’s turned.”
“Very well. I’ll come down.”
He was abstracted and thoughtful when he reached the deck.
“Mr Bush, I’ll be wanting fish for my dinner soon. Keep a special look-out for the Duke’s Freers.”
He had to pronounce it that way to make sure Bush under stood him. Two days later he found himself in his cabin drinking rum — pretending to drink rum — with the captain of the Deux Frères. He had bought himself half a dozen unidentifiable fish, which the captain strongly recommended as good eating. ‘Carrelets,’ the captain called them — Hornblower had a vague idea that they might be flounders. At any rate, he paid for them with a gold piece which the captain slipped without comment into the pockets of his scale-covered serge trousers.