“Plymouth tomorrow, sir,” said Hornblower conversationally when he reached Meadows’ side.
“No doubt, sir,” said Meadows.
“We’re in for a bit of a blow, I think,” said Hornblower gazing upwards into the rain. He knew he was being exaggerated in the casual manner he was trying to adopt, but he could not modify it.
“Maybe,” said Meadows.
“Likely enough we’ll have to make for Tor Bay instead,” suggested Hornblower.
“Likely enough,” agreed Meadows — although agreement was too strong a word for that stony indifference.
Hornblower would not admit defeat yet. He struggled on trying to make conversation, feeling a little noble — more than a little — at standing here growing wet to the skin in an endeavour to relieve another man’s troubles. It was some small comfort when the rain squall passed on over the Princess‘s lee bow, but it was a much greater relief when one of the seamen forward hailed loudly.
“Sail ho! Two points on the weather bow!”
Meadows came out of his apathy sufficiently to look forward along with Hornblower in the direction indicated. With the sudden clearing of the weather the vessel was no more than hull-down at this moment of sighting, no more than five or six miles away and in plain view, close hauled on the port tack on the Princess‘s starboard bow, on a course that would apparently come close to intercepting the course of the Princess within the hour.
“Brig,” commented Hornblower, making the obvious conversational remark, but he said no more as his eye recorded the other features that made themselves apparent.
There was that equality between the fore- and main-topmasts; there was that white sheen about her canvas; there was even something about the spacing of those masts — everything was both significant and dangerous. Hornblower felt Meadows’ hand clamp round his arm like a ring of iron.
“Frenchman!” said Meadows, with a string of oaths.
“May well be,” said Hornblower.
The spread of her yards made it almost certain that she was a ship of war, but even so there was a considerable chance that she was British, one of the innumerable prizes captured from the French and taken into the service recently enough to have undergone little alteration.
“Don’t like the looks of her!” said Meadows.
“Where’s Baddlestone?” exclaimed Hornblower turning to look aft.
He tore himself from Meadows’ grasp when he perceived Baddlestone, newly arrived on deck, with his telescope trained on the brig; the two of them at once started to push towards him.
“Come about, damn you!” yelled Meadows, but at that very same second Baddlestone had begun to bellow orders. There was a second or two of wild and dangerous confusion as the idle passengers attempted to aid, but they were all trained seamen. With the sheets hauled in against the violent pressure of the wind the helm was put over. Princess gybed neatly enough; the big lugsails flapped thunderously for a moment and then as the sheets were eased off she lay over close hauled on the other tack. As she did so, she lifted momentarily on a wave and Hornblower, his eyes still on the brig, saw the latter lift and heel at the same time. For half a second — long enough — he could see a line of gunports, the concluding fragment of evidence that she was a ship of war.
Now Princess and brig were close hauled on the same tack, with the brig on Princess‘s quarter. Despite the advantage of her fore and aft rig it seemed to the acute eye that Princess lay a trifle farther off the wind than did the brig. She was nothing like as weatherly and far slower; the brig would headreach and weather on her. Hornblower’s calculating eye told him that it would be only a question of hours before Princess would sag down right in to the brig’s gaping jaws; should the wind veer any farther the process would be correspondingly accelerated.
“Take a pull on that foresheet,” ordered Meadows, but before he could be obeyed the hands he addressed were checked by a shout from Baddlestone.
“Avast there!” Baddlestone turned on Meadows. “I command this ship and don’t you meddle!”
The barrel-shaped merchant captain, his hands belligerently on his hips, met the commander’s gaze imperiously. Meadows turned to Hornblower.
“Do we have to put up with this, Captain Hornblower?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Hornblower.
That was the legal position. Fighting men and naval officers though they were, they were only passengers, subject to the captain’s command. Even if it should come to a fight that rule held good; by the laws of war a merchant ship was entitled to defend herself, and in that case the captain would still be in command as he would be in going about or laying a course or in any other matter of ship-handling.
“Well I’m damned,” said Meadows.
Hornblower might not have answered quite so sharply and definitely if his curious mind had not taken note of one particular phenomenon. Just before Meadows had issued his order Hornblower had been entranced in close observation of the relative trim of the two big lugsails. They were sheeted in at slightly different angles, inefficiently to the inexperienced eye. Analysis of the complicated — and desperately interesting — problem in mechanics suggested significantly that the setting was correct; with one sail slightly diverting the wind towards the other the best results could be expected with the sails as they were trimmed at present. Hornblower had been familiar with the fascinating problem ever since as a midshipman he had had charge of a ship’s longboat. Meadows must have forgotten about it, or never studied it. His action would have slightly cut down the speed; Baddlestone could be expected to know how to get the best out of a ship he had long commanded and a rig he had sailed in all his life.
“There’s her colours,” said Baddlestone. “Frenchy, of course.”
“One of those new fast brigs they’ve been building,” said Hornblower. “Bricks, they call ‘em. Worth two of ours.”
“Are you going to fight her?” demanded Meadows.
“I’m going to run as long as I can,” answered Baddlestone.
That was so obviously the only thing to do.
“Two hours before dark. Nearer three,” said Hornblower. “Maybe we’ll be able to get away in a rain squall.”
“Once he gets up to us —” said Baddlestone, and left the sentence unfinished. The French guns could pound the hoy to pieces at close range; the slaughter in the crowded little craft would be horrible.
They all three turned to stare at the brig; she had gained on them perceptibly already, but all the same —
“It’ll be pretty well dark before she’s in range,” said Hornblower. “We’ve a chance.”
“Small enough,” said Meadows. “Oh, God —”
“D’ye think I want to rot in a French gaol?” burst out Baddlestone. “All I have is this hoy. Wife and children’ll starve.”
What about Maria, with one child born and another on the way? And — and — what about that promised post rank? Who would lift a finger for a forgotten near-captain in a French prison?
Meadows was blaspheming, emitting a stream of senseless oaths and insane filth.
“We’ve thirty men,” said Hornblower. “They won’t think we’ve more than half a dozen —”
“By God, we could board her!” exclaimed Meadows, the filth ending abruptly.
Could they? Could they get alongside? No French captain in his right mind would allow it, would risk damage to his precious ship in the strong breeze that was blowing. A spin of the wheel at the last moment, an order to luff in the last minute, and Princess would scrape by. A salvo of grape and the Princess would be a wreck; moreover the attempt would convey its own warning — the French captain and the French crew could anticipate trouble. The brig would have a crew of ninety at least, most likely more; unless there was total surprise thirty men would not have a chance against them. And Hornblower’s vivid imagination conjured up a mental picture of the Princess, with all the good fortune in the world, alongside the brig and rolling wildly as she undoubtedly would. There could be no wild rush; the thirty odd men would reach the brig’s deck in twos and threes, without a chance. It had to be complete, total surprise to stand the slightest chance of success.