“Hands to the sheets!” yelled Harcourt.
The air was so light that they could not even feel it on their sweating faces, but it sufficed to push the booms out, and a moment later the helmsman could feel the rudder take hold just enough to give him control. With Crab‘s bowsprit pointed straight at Daring the breath of wind was coming in over the starboard quarter, almost dead astern, almost dead foul for Daring if ever it should reach her, but she was still becalmed. The breath of wind increased until they could feel it, until they could hear under the bows the music of the schooner’s progress through the water, and then it died away abruptly, leaving Crab to wallow on the swell. Then it breathed again, over the port quarter this time, and then it drew farther aft, so that the topsails were braced square and the foresail could be hauled over to the port side and Crab ran wing-and-wing for ten blessed minutes until the wind dropped again, to a dead, flaming calm. They could see Daring catch a wind, see her trim her sails, but only momentarily, only long enough to reveal her intentions before she lay once more helpless. Despite her vast sail area her greater dead weight made her less susceptible to these very faint airs.
“Thank God for that,” said Gerard, glass to his eye, as he watched her swing idly again. “I think she aims to pass us beyond cannon-shot, My Lord.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised at that,” agreed Hornblower.
Another breath, another slight closing of the gap, another dead calm.
“Mr Harcourt, perhaps it would be best if you let the men have their dinners now.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
Salt beef and pease pudding under a noonday sun in the tropics — who could have any appetite for that, especially with the excitement of watching for a wind? And in the middle of dinner hands were sent again to the sheets and braces to take advantage of another breath of wind.
“At what time will you have your dinner, My Lord?” asked Giles.
“Not now,” was all the answer Hornblower would give him, glass to eye.
“He’s hoisted his colours, My Lord,” pointed out Gerard. “American colours.”
The Stars and Stripes, regarding which he had been expressly ordered to be particularly tender. But he could be nothing else in any case, seeing that Daring mounted twelve-pounders and was full of men.
Now both vessels had a wind, but Crab was creeping bravely along at a full two knots, and Daring, trying to head to the southward close-hauled, was hardly moving; now she was not moving at all, turning aimlessly in a breeze too faint to give her steerage way.
“I can see very few people on her deck, My Lord,” said Harcourt; the eye with which he had been staring through his glass was watering with the glare of sun and sea.
“She’d keep ‘em below out of sight,” said Gerard.
That was so likely as to be certain. Whatever Daring, and Cambronne, thought of Crab‘s intentions, it would be safest to conceal the fact that she had five hundred men on board while heading for the South Atlantic.
And between her and that South Atlantic lay Crab, the frailest barrier imaginable. Let Daring once pass through the channel out into the open sea and nothing could be done to stop her. No ship could hope to overtake her. She would reach St Helena to strike her blow there, and no possible warning could be given. It was now or never, and it was Hornblower’s fault that matters had reached such a pass. He had been utterly fooled in New Orleans. He had allowed Cambronne to steal a march on him. Now he had to make any sacrifice that circumstances demanded of him, any sacrifice whatever, to redeem the peace of the world. Crab could do nothing to stop Daring. It could only be done by his own personal exertions.
“Mr Harcourt,” said Hornblower, in his harsh, expressionless monotone. “I’ll have the quarterboat cleared away ready to lower, if you please. Have a full boat’s crew told off, to double bank the oars.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
“Who’ll go in her, My Lord?” asked Gerard.
“I will,” said Hornblower.
The mainsail flapped, the boom came creaking inboard, swung out again, swung in. The breeze was dying away again. For a few minutes more Crab held her course, and then the bowsprit began to turn away from Daring.
“Can’t keep her on her course, sir,” reported the quartermaster.
Hornblower swept his gaze round the horizon in the blazing afternoon. There was no sign of a further breeze. The decisive moment had come, and he snapped his telescope shut.
“I’ll take that boat now, Mr Harcourt.”
“Let me come too, My Lord,” said Gerard, a note of protest in his voice.
“No,” said Hornblower.
In case a breeze should get up during the next half hour, he wanted no useless weight in the boat while crossing the two-mile gap.
“Put your backs into it,” said Hornblower to the boat’s crew as they shoved off. The oarblades dipped in the blue, blue water, shining gold against the blue. The boat rounded Crab‘s stern, with anxious eyes looking down on them; Hornblower brought the tiller over and pointed straight for Daring. They soared up a gentle swell, and down again, up again and down again; with each rise and fall Crab was perceptibly smaller and Daring perceptibly larger, lovely in the afternoon light, during what Hornblower told himself were the last hours of his professional life. They drew nearer and nearer to Daring, until at last a hail came borne by the heated air.
“Boat ahoy!”
“Coming aboard!” hailed Hornblower back again. He stood up in the stern-sheets so that his gold-laced Admiral’s uniform was in plain sight.
“Keep off!” hailed the voice, but Hornblower held his course.
There could be no international incident made out of this, an unarmed boat’s crew taking an Admiral alone on board a becalmed ship. He directed the boat towards the mizzen chains.
“Keep off!” hailed the voice, an American voice.
Hornblower swung the boat in.
“In oars!” he ordered.
With the way she carried the boat surged towards the ship; Hornblower timed his movements to the best of his ability, knowing his own clumsiness. He leaped for the chains, got one shoe full of water, but held on and dragged himself up.
“Lie off and wait for me!” he ordered the boat’s crew, and then turned to swing himself over on to the deck of the ship.
The tall, thin man with a cigar in his mouth must be the American captain; the burly fellow beside him one of the mates. The guns were cast off, although not run out, and the American seamen were standing round them ready to open fire.
“Did you hear me say keep off, mister?” asked the captain.
“I must apologise for this intrusion, sir,” said Hornblower. “I am Rear Admiral Lord Hornblower of His Britannic Majesty’s service, and I have the most urgent business with Count Cambronne.”
For a moment on the sunlit deck they stood and looked at each other, and then Hornblower saw Cambronne approaching.
“Ah, Count,” said Hornblower, and then made himself speak French. “It is a pleasure to meet Monsieur le Comte again.”
He took off his cocked hat and held it over his breast and doubled himself in a bow which he knew to be ungainly.
“And to what do I owe this pleasure, milord?” asked Cambronne. He was standing very stiff and straight, his cat’s-whisker moustache bristling out on either side.
“I have come to bring you the very worst of news, I regret to say,” said Hornblower. Through many sleepless nights he had rehearsed these speeches to himself. Now he was forcing himself to make them naturally. “And I have come also to do you a service, Count.”