“Port a little! Steady!”
He resented having to give that additional order; he wished he could have headed straight for his station with no alteration of course. The leading ship—she wore a rear admiral’s flag—of the weather column was now nearly on his port beam. Four cables’ length was the distance between the two columns, but as his station was to windward of the flagship, nearly on her starboard beam, he would be by no means between the two ships, nor equidistant from them. He juggled in his mind with the scalene triangle that could be drawn connecting Atropos with the two flagships.
“Mr. Jones! Clue up the mizzen tops’l.” Now Atropos would have a reserve of speed that he could call for if necessary. He was glad that he had subjected his crew to ceaseless sail drill ever since leaving Deptford. “Stand by the mizzen tops’l sheets.”
The reduction in the aftersail would make Atropos a little slower in coming to the wind; he must bear it in mind. They were fast approaching their station. His eye darted from one column of ships to the other; he could see all the starboard sides of one and all the port sides of the other. It might be useful to take sextant angles, but he would rather trust his eye in a trigonometrical problem as uncomplicated as this. His judgment told him this must be the moment. The bows were pointing at the flagship’s jibboom.
“Port your helm,” he ordered. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps the little ship’s response would be delayed. Perhaps—He had to keep his voice steady. “Bring her to the wind.”
The wheel spun over. There was a nervous second or two. Then he felt the heel of the ship alter under his feet; and he saw the flagship come round on Atropos’ port beam, and he knew Atropos was turning.
“Steady!”
The yards were braced up; strong arms were hauling on the tacks. A moment or two while Atropos regained the small amount of way she had lost through her turn; but even making allowance for that he could see that the flagship was slowly headreaching on her.
“Mr. Jones! Sheet home the mizzen tops’l.”
With the mizzen topsail drawing full they would headreach in turn upon the flagship.
“Keep the hands at the braces there!”
Occasionally spilling the wind from the mizzen topsail would enable Atropos to keep her speed equal to the flagship’s. Hornblower felt the wind on his neck; he looked up at the pendant and at the flagship. He was exactly to windward of her, and there was two cables’ lengths between them.
“Mr. Jones! You may begin the salute.”
Fifteen guns for a viceadmiral, a minute and a quarter to fire them. That might be long enough for him to regain his composure, and for his heart to resume its normal rate of beating. Now they were part of the Mediterranean Fleet, the tiniest, most insignificant part of it. Hornblower looked down the massive lines of ships ploughing along behind them, threedeckers, twodeckers, ships of a hundred guns and ships of seventyfour, the ships which had fought at Trafalgar, the roar of whose cannons had dashed from Bonaparte’s lips the heady cup of world domination. On the invisibly distant Mediterranean shores that encompassed them armies might march, kings might be set up and kings might be pulled down; but it was these ships which in the end would decide the destiny of the world, as long as the men who sailed them retained their skill, as long as they remained ready to endure danger and hardship, as long as the government at home remained resolute and unafraid.
“Our number, sir! Flag to Atropos. ‘Welcome.’”
“Reply to Flag. ‘Respectful greetings.’” Eager hands worked vigorously on the signal halyards.
“Signal ‘Atropos to Flag. Have aboard dispatches and letters for fleet’.”
“Flagship acknowledges, sir.”
“Flagship’s signalling again,” announced Still; from a point of vantage on the weather side he could see through his glass enough of the flagship’s quarter-deck, despite the fact that she was heeling away from him, to make out that signal ratings were bending fresh flags on the halliards. The dark lumps soared up to the flagship’s yardarm and broke into gailycoloured bunting.
“General signal. ‘Heave to on the starboard tack.’”
“Acknowledge, Mr. Jones! Clue up the courses.”
Hornblower watched the hands at the cluegarnets and buntlines, the hands at the tacks and sheets.
“Signal’s down, sir.”
Hornblower had already seen the first movement of descent.
“Back the mizzen tops’l. Let her come up.”
Atropos rode easily, just meeting the waves with her bow, as the sharp struggle with the wind changed to yielding acquiescence, like a girl’s resistance giving way in her lover’s arms. But this was no time for that sort of sentimental simile—here was another long signal from the flagship.
“General signal. ‘Send to’—our number, sir—‘for letters.’”
“Mr. Carslake! Have those mailbags on deck at once. You’ll have a boat from every ship in the fleet alongside.”
It was at least a month—it might well be two—since any letters had reached the Fleet from England. Not a newspaper, not a word. Possibly some of the ships present had not yet seen the accounts in the press of the victory they had won at Trafalgar four months before. Atropos had brought a respite from the dreadful isolation in which a fleet at sea habitually lived. Boats would be hastening as fast as sail or oar could drive them to collect the pitifully lean mailbags.
Another signal.
“Our number, sir. ‘Flag to Atropos. Come and report.’”
“Call away my gig.”
He was wearing the shabbier of his two coats. There was just time, when he ran below to get the packets of dispatches, change his coat, to pass a comb through his hair, and twitch his neckcloth into position. He was back on deck just as his gig touched the water. Lusty work at the oars carried him round to the flagship. A chair dangled at her side, now almost lipped as a wave rose at it, now high above the water as the wave passed on. He had to watch carefully for his chance; as it was there was an uncomfortable moment when he hung by his arms as the gig went away from under him. But he managed to seat himself, and he felt the chair soar swiftly upwards as the hands above hauled on the tackle. The pipes shrilled as his head reached the level of the maindeck and the chair was swung in. He stepped aboard with his hand to the brim of his hat.
The deck was as white as paper, as white as the gloves and the shirts of the sideboys. Gold leaf gleamed in the sun, the most elaborate Turks’ heads adorned the ropework. The King’s own yacht could not be smarter than the quarterdeck of the Ocean–that was what could be done in the flagship of a victorious admiral. It was as well to remember that Collingwood’s previous flagship, the Royal Sovereign, had been pounded into a mastless hulk, with four hundred dead and wounded on board her, at Trafalgar. The lieutenant of the watch, his telescope quite dazzling with polished brass and pipe clayed twine, wore spotless and unwrinkled white trousers; the buttons on his wellfitting coat winked in the sunshine. It occurred to Hornblower that to be always as smart as that, in a ship additionally crowded by the presence of an admiral and his staff, could be by no means easy. Service in a flagship might be the quick way to promotion, but there were many crumpled petals in the bed of roses. The flag captain, Rotherham—Hornblower knew his name; it had appeared in a hundred newspaper accounts of Trafalgar—and the flag lieutenant were equally smart as they made him welcome.
“His Lordship is awaiting you below, sir,” said the flag lieutenant “Will you come this way?”
Collingwood shook hands with him in the great cabin below. He was a large man, stoopshouldered, with a pleasant smile. He eagerly took the packets Hornblower offered him, glancing at the superscriptions. One he kept in his hands, the others he gave to his secretary. He remembered his manners as he was about to break the seal.