“Longboat crew here!” called Gerard softly.
“Launch crew here!” echoed Rayner, and their allotted parties formed up quietly abreast the main mast.
The cutters’ crews were assembling on the quarterdeck; Hornblower was taking two hundred and fifty men altogether—if the expedition were a complete disaster Bush would hardly have sufficient men to navigate the Sutherland back to the rendezvous.
“You can heave-to, Mr. Bush,” he said.
One by one the boats were hoisted out, and lay on their oars a few yards off. Last of all, Hornblower went down the side and seated himself beside Brown and Longley in the stern of the barge; the men at the oars pushed off at a growl from Brown, and the flotilla, with muffled oars, began to pull steadily away from the ship. The darkness was intense, and, by the usual optical illusion, seemed still more intense close to the surface of the sea than up on the deck of the Sutherland. Slowly the barge drew ahead, and as the longboat and launch diverged out on each quarter they were rapidly lost to sight. The oars seemed to touch the velvety blackness of the sea without a sound.
Hornblower made himself sit still, his hand resting on the hilt of his fifty-guinea sword. He wanted to crane his neck round and look at the other boats; with every minute’s inaction he grew more nervous. Some fool of a marine might fiddle with the lock of his musket, or someone’s pistol, carelessly left at full cock, might go off as its owner tugged at his oar. The slightest warning given on shore would ruin the whole attack; might mean the loss of hundreds of lives, and call down upon his head—if he survived—a withering rebuke from his admiral. Grimly he made himself sit still for five more minutes before taking up his nightglass.
Then at last he caught the faintest possible glimpse of grey cliff. With his hand on the tiller he altered course until they were almost in the mouth of the inlet.
“Easy!” he breathed, and the boat glided silently forward under the stars. Close astern two tiny nuclei of greater darkness indicated where the two cutters rested on their oars. Holding his watch under his nose he could just see the time—he must wait three full minutes.
A distant sound reached his ear; there were oars pulling in the harbour. He heard them splashing two hundred yards ahead; he fancied he could see the splashes. The French were, as he expected, rowing a guard round their precious ship. Yet her captain had not realised that a guard boat rowing with muffled oars, creeping very slowly along, would be a far more dangerous obstacle to a cutting-out expedition than any boat merely busily rowing up and down across the entrance. He looked at his watch again.
“Oars,” he whispered, and the men braced themselves ready to pull. “There’s the guard boat ahead. Remember, men, cold steel. If any man fires before I do I’ll shoot him with my own hand. Give way!”
The barge crept forward again, stealing into the harbour. In a few more seconds she would be at the point where the batteries’ fire crossed, the point which sentries would have under constant observation, upon which the guns would be laid at nightfall so that a salvo would blow any approaching boat out of the water. For a horrible second Hornblower wondered whether launch and longboat had gone astray. Then he heard it. A loud challenge on his right, heard clearly across the water, followed by another on his left, and both instantly drowned in a wild rattle of musketry fire. Rayner and Gerard were leading their parties against the batteries, and both of them as their orders had dictated, were making an infernal noise about it so as to distract the gunners at the vital moment.
His eye caught the splashes of the guard boat’s oars, more noticeable than ever with the crew pulling wildly as they paid attention to the din on shore instead of to their own business. The barge shot silently and unnoticeable towards it. She was only fifty yards from the guard boat when someone at last caught sight of her.
“Qui va là!” cried someone, sharply, but before any answer could be expected the barge came crashing up against the guard boat’s side, as Hornblower dragged the tiller round.
His quick order had got the oars in a second before the collision, while the impact of the barge swept the oars of the guard boat away, tumbling half her crew in a tangle into the bottom of the boat. Hornblower’s sword was out, and at the instant of contact he leaped madly from the barge to the guard boat, choking with excitement and nervousness as he did so. He landed with both feet on someone in the stern, trod him down, and miraculously kept his own footing. There was a white face visible down by his knee, and he kicked at it, wildly, felt a jar up his leg as the kick went home, and at the same moment he cut with all his strength at another head before him. He felt the sword bite into bone; the boat rolled frightfully under him as more of the barge’s crew came tumbling into the guard boat. Someone was heaving himself upright before him—someone with a black gash of a moustache across his face in the starlight, and therefore no Englishman. Hornblower lunged fiercely as he reeled in the rocking boat, and he and his opponent came down together upon the men under their feet. When he scrambled up the struggle was over, without a shot being fired. The guard boat’s crew was dead, or overboard, or knocked unconscious. Hornblower felt his neck and his wrist wet and sticky—with blood, presumably, but he did not have time to think about that.
“Into the barge, men,” he said. “Give way.”
The whole fight had hardly taken more than a few seconds. At the batteries the racket of the attack was still continuing, and even as the barge pushed away from the derelict guard boat there came a sudden splutter of musketry fire from higher up the bay. The two cutters had reached the anchored ship without impediment, rowing, as Hornblower’s orders had dictated, past the two locked boats straight for her. With his hand on the tiller he set a course for the musket flashes. Apparently the cutters’ crews had not succeeded in carrying the ship at the first rush, for the sparkle of the firing stayed steady along the ship’s bulwark—she must have had her boarding nettings rigged and her crew fairly wide awake.
The child Longley at his side was leaping about in his seat with excitement.
“Sit still, boy,” growled Hornblower.
He put the tiller over and the barge swept under the ship’s stern towards the disengaged side of the ship.
“Oars!” hissed Hornblower. “Take hold, there, bowman. Now, all together, men, and give a cheer.”
It was a hard scramble up the side of the ship, and her boarding nettings were rigged, sure enough. Hornblower found foothold on the bulwark through the netting, swaying perilously, leaning far out over the water, for the nettings were rigged from the yardarms and sloped sharply outwards. He struggled in them like a fly in a web. Beside him he saw Longley, writhing similarly. The boy had his dirk between his teeth in the fashion he had heard about in sailors’ yarns. He looked so foolish hanging in the netting with that great clumsy weapon in his mouth that Hornblower giggled insanely on his insecure foothold. He snatched his sword from its sheath, clutching with the other hand, and slashed at the tarry cordage. The whole net was heaving and tossing as the barge’s crew wrenched at it; he was almost jerked from his hold.
But everyone around him was cheering madly. This surprise attack on the unguarded side must be shaking the nerve of the defenders trying to beat off the cutters’ crews. The fifty-guinea sword was of the finest steel and had a razor edge; it was cutting through strand after strand of the netting. Suddenly something parted with a rush. For one horrible second Hornblower lost his footing and nearly fell outwards, but with a convulsive effort he recovered and swung himself forward, falling through the net on his hands and knees, the sword clattering on the deck before him. A Frenchman was rushing at him; his eye caught a glimpse of the steel head of a levelled pike. He snatched hold of the shaft, twisting on to his back, guiding the weapon clear. The Frenchman’s knee crashed into the back of his head, and his neck was badly wrenched as the Frenchman tumbled over on top of him. He kicked himself clear, found his sword, miraculously, and stood to face the other dark shapes rushing at him.