“I’ll have these men laid out under the table, if you please, Mr Bush,” said Hornblower. “All except the pilot. I want him on deck.”
The sergeant and the mate and the two hands were laid out, none too gently, and Hornblower went out on deck while the others dragged the pilot after him; it was nearly quite dark now, with only the moon shining. The galley slaves were squatting listlessly on the hatchcoaming. Hornblower addressed them quietly. Despite his difficulty with the language, his boiling excitement conveyed itself to them.
“I can set you men free,” he said. “There will be an end of beatings and slavery if you will do what I order. I am an English officer, and I am going to sail this ship to England. Does anyone not want to come?”
There was a little sigh from the group; it was as if they could not believe they were hearing aright — probably they could not.
“In England,” went on Hornblower, “you will be rewarded. There will be a new life awaiting you.”
Now at last they were beginning to understand that they had not been brought on board the cutter for further toil, that there really was a chance of freedom.
“Yes, sir,” said a voice.
“I am going to unfasten your chain,” said Hornblower. “Remember this. There is to be no noise. Sit still until you are told what to do.”
He fumbled for the padlock in the dim light, unlocked it and snapped it open — it was pathetic, the automatic gesture with which the first man lifted his arms. He was accustomed to being locked and unlocked daily, like an animal. Hornblower set free each man in turn, and the chain clanked on the deck; he stood back with his hands on the butts of his pistols ready in case of trouble, but there was no sign of any. The men stood dazed — the transition from slavery to freedom had taken no more than three minutes.
Hornblower felt the movement of the cutter under his feet as the wind swung her; she was bumping gently against the fends-off hung between her and the quay. A glance over the side confirmed his conclusions — the tide had not yet begun to ebb. There were still some minutes to wait, and he turned to Brown, standing restless aft of the mainmast with the pilot sitting miserably at his feet.
“Brown,” he said quietly, “run down to our boat and bring me my parcel of clothes. Run along now — what are you waiting for?”
Brown went unhappily. It seemed dreadful to him that his captain should waste precious minutes over recovering his clothes, and should even trouble to think of them. But Hornblower was not as mad as he might appear. They could not start until the tide turned, and Brown might as well be employed fetching clothes as standing fidgeting. For once in his life Hornblower had no intention of posing before his subordinates. His head was clear despite his excitement.
“Thank you,” he said, as Brown returned, panting with the canvas bag. “Get me my uniform coat out.”
He stripped off his colonel’s tunic and put on the coat which Brown held for him, experiencing a pleasant thrill as his fingers fastened the buttons with their crown and anchor. The coat was sadly crumpled, and the gold lace bent and broken, but still it was a uniform, even though the last time he had worn it was months ago when they had been capsized in the Loire. With this coat on his back he could no longer be accused of being a spy, and should their attempt result in failure and recapture it would shelter both himself and his subordinates. Failure and recapture were likely possibilities, as his logical brain told him, but secret murder now was not. The stealing of the cutter would attract sufficient public attention to make that impossible. Already he had bettered his position — he could not be shot as a spy nor be quietly strangled in prison. If he were recaptured now he could only be tried on the old charge of violation of the laws of war, and Hornblower felt that his recent exploits might win him sufficient public sympathy to make it impolitic for Bonaparte to press even that charge.
It was time for action now. He took a belaying pin from the rail, and walked up slowly to the seated pilot, weighing the instrument meditatively in his hand.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I want you to pilot this ship out to sea.”
The pilot goggled up at him in the faint moonlight.
“I cannot,” he gabbled. “My professional honour — my duty —”
Hornblower cut him short with a menacing gesture of the belaying pin.
“We are going to start now,” he said. “You can give instructions or not, as you choose. But I tell you this, monsieur. The moment this ship touches ground, I will beat your head into a paste with this.”
Hornblower eyed the white face of the pilot — his moustache was lop-sided and ridiculous now after his rough treatment. The man’s eyes were on the belaying pin with which Hornblower was tapping the palm of his hand, and Hornblower felt a little thrill of triumph. The threat of a pistol bullet through the head would not have been sufficient for this imaginative southerner. But the man could picture so clearly the crash of the belaying pin upon his skull, and the savage blows which would beat him to death, that the argument Hornblower had selected was the most effective one.
“Yes, monsieur,” said the pilot, weakly.
“Right,” said Hornblower. “Brown, lash him to the rail, there. Then we can start. Mr Bush, will you take the tiller, if you please?”
The necessary preparations were brief; the convicts were led to the halliards and the ropes put in their hands, ready to haul on the word of command. Hornblower and Brown had so often before had experience in pushing raw crews into their places, thanks to the all-embracing activities of the British press-gangs, and it was good to see that Brown’s French, eked out by the force of his example, was sufficient for the occasion.
“Cut the warps, sir?” volunteered Brown.
“No. Cast them off,” snapped Hornblower.
Cut warps left hanging to the bollards would be a sure proof of a hurried and probably illegal departure; to cast them off meant possibly delaying inquiry and pursuit by a few more minutes, and every minute of delay might be precious in the uncertain future. The first of the ebb was tightening the ropes now, simplifying the business of getting away from the quay. To handle the tiny fore-and-aft rigged ship was an operation calling for little either of the judgement or of the brute strength which a big square rigger would demand, and the present circumstances — the wind off the quay and the ebbing tide — made the only precaution necessary that of casting off the stern warp before the bow, as Brown understood as clearly as Hornblower. It happened in the natural course of events, for Hornblower had to fumble in the dim light to disentangle the clove hitches with which some French sailor had made fast, and Brown had completed his share long before him. The push of the tide was swinging the cutter away from the quay. Hornblower, in the uncertain light, had to time his moment for setting sail, making allowance for the unreliability of his crew, the eddy along the quayside, the tide and the wind.
“Hoist away,” said Hornblower, and then, to the men, “Tirez.”
Mainsail and jib rose, to the accompaniment of the creaking of the blocks. The sails flapped, bellied, flapped again. Then they filled, and Bush at the tiller — the cutter steered with a tiller, not a wheel — felt a steady pressure. The cutter was gathering way; she was changing from a dead thing to a live. She heeled the tiniest fraction to the breeze with a subdued creaking of her cordage, and simultaneously Hornblower heard a little musical chuckle from the bows as her forefoot bubbled through the water. He picked up the belaying pin again, and in three strides was at the pilot’s side, balancing the instrument in his hand.
“To the right, monsieur,” gabbled the individual. “Keep well to the right.”
“Port your helm, Mr Bush. We’re taking the starboard channel,” said Hornblower, and then, translating the further hurried instructions of the pilot. “Meet her! Keep her at that!”