“Tell your men not to fire,” said Hornblower. “Have you not received your new orders?”
The full dress, the confident bearing, the extraordinary circumstances puzzled the young artillery officer.
“New orders?” he asked feebly.
Hornblower simulated exasperation.
“Get your men away from those guns,” he said. “Otherwise there may be a deplorable accident.”
“But, monsieur—” The artillery lieutenant pointed down to the quay, and Hornblower now could spare the time to glance back, following the gesture. What he saw made his pounding heart pound harder yet for sheer pleasure. There was the Nonsuch against the quay, there was the Camilla just coming alongside; but more important yet, there was a big solid block of red coats forming up on the quay. One section with an officer at its head was already heading towards them at a quick step, muskets sloped.
“Send a messenger instantly to the other battery,” said Hornblower, “to make sure the officer in command there understands.”
“But, monsieur—”
Hornblower stamped his foot with impatience. He could hear the rhythmic tread of the marines behind him, and he gesticulated to them with his hand behind his back. They marched along past him.
“Eyes left!” ordered the subaltern in command, with a smart salute to the French officer. The courtesy took what little wind was left out of the sails of the Frenchman, so that his new protest died on his lips. The marine detachment wheeled to its left round the flank of the battery on the very verge of its dry ditch. Hornblower did not dare take his eyes from the young Frenchman on the parapet, but he sensed what was going on in the rear of the battery. The sally-port there was open, and the marines marched in, still in column of fours, still with their muskets sloped. Now they were in among the guns, pushing the gunners away from their pieces, knocking the smouldering linstocks out of their hands. The young officer was wringing his hands with anxiety.
“All’s well that ends well, monsieur,” said Hornblower. “There might have been a most unpleasant incident.”
Now he could spare a moment to look round. Another marine detachment was off at the quickstep, marching for the other battery. Other parties, seamen and marines, were heading for the other strategic points he had listed in his orders. Brown was coming panting up the slope to be at his side.
The clatter of a horse’s hoofs made him turn back again; a mounted French officer was galloping towards them, and reined up amid a shower of flying gravel.
“What is all this?” he demanded. “What is happening?”
“The news apparently has been delayed in reaching you, monsieur,” said Hornblower. “The greatest news France has known for twenty years.”
“What is it?”
“Bonaparte rules no more,” said Hornblower. “Long live the King!”
Those were magic words; words like those of some old-time spell or incantation. No one in the length and breadth of the Empire had dared to say ‘Vive le Roi!’ since 1792. The mounted officer’s jaw dropped for a moment.
“It is false!” he cried, recovering himself. “The Emperor reigns.”
He looked about him, gathering his reins into his hands, about to ride off.
“Stop him, Brown!” said Hornblower.
Brown took a stride forward, seized the officer’s leg in his huge hands, and with a single heave threw him out of the saddle, Hornblower grabbing the bridle in time to prevent the horse from bolting. Brown ran round and extricated the fallen officer’s feet from the stirrups.
“I have need of your horse, sir,” said Hornblower.
He got his foot into the stirrup and swung himself awkwardly up into the saddle. The excited brute plunged and almost threw him, but he squirmed back into the saddle, tugged the horse’s head round, and then let him go in a wild gallop towards the other battery. His cocked hat flew from his head, his sword and his epaulettes jerked and pounded as he struggled to keep his seat. He tore past the other marine detachment, and heard them cheer him, and then he managed to rein in the frantic horse on the edge of the ditch. Struck with a new idea, he trotted round to the rear of the battery to the main gate.
“Open,” he shouted, “in the name of the King!”
That was the word of power. There was a clatter of bolts and the upper half of the huge oaken door opened and a couple of startled faces looked out at him. Behind them he saw a musket levelled at him—someone who was a fanatical Bonapartist, probably, or someone too stolid to be taken in by appearances.
“Take that imbecile’s musket away from him!” ordered Hornblower. The pressing need of the moment gave an edge to his tone, so that he was obeyed on the instant. “Now, open the gate.”
He could hear the marines marching up towards him.
“Open the gate!” he roared.
They opened it, and Hornblower walked his horse forward into the battery.
There were twelve vast twenty-four-pounders mounted inside, pointing out through the embrasures down into the harbour. At the back stood the furnace for heating shot with a pyramid of balls beside it. If the two batteries had opened fire nothing hostile could have endured long on the water, and not merely the water but the quay and the waterfront could have been swept clean. And those batteries, with their parapets five feet thick and eight feet high, and their dry ditches, ten feet deep, cut square in the solid rock, could never have been stormed without regular siege methods. The bewildered gunners stared at him, and at the red-coated marines who came marching in behind him. A callow subaltern approached him.
“I do not understand this, sir,” he said. “Who are you, and why did you say what you did?”
The subaltern could not bring himself to utter the word ‘King’; it was a word that was taboo—he was like some old maid posing a delicate question to a doctor. Hornblower smiled at him, using all his self-control to conceal his exultation, for it would never do to triumph too openly.
“This is the beginning of a new age for France,” he said.
The sound of music came to his ears. Hornblower dismounted and left his horse free, and ran up the steps cut in the back of the parapet, the subaltern following. Standing on the top of the parapet with the vast arms of the semaphore over their heads, the whole panorama of the port was open to them; the squadron lying against the quay, the detachments of the landing party, red-coated or white-shirted, on the march hither and thither, and, on the quay itself, the marine band striding up towards the town, the drums thundering and the bugles braying, the red coats and the white crossbelts and the glittering instruments making a brave spectacle. That had been Hornblower’s crowning idea; nothing would be more likely to convince a wavering garrison that he came in peace than a band calmly playing selections as it marched in.
The harbour defences were secured now; he had carried out his part of the scheme. Whatever had happened to Lebrun, the squadron was not in serious danger; if the main garrison had refused to be seduced, and turned against him, he could spike the batteries’ guns, blow up the magazines, and warp his ships out almost at leisure, taking with him whatever prisoners and booty he could lay his hands on. The awkward moment had been when the guard-boat had fired its gun—firing is infectious. But the fact of only one shot being fired, the delay, the mist, had made the inexperienced officer in command at the batteries wait for orders, giving him time to use his personal influence. It was evident already that part of Lebrun’s scheme, at least, had been successful. Lebrun had not made up his mind, at the time of his leaving the Flame, whether it would be a banquet or a council of war to which he would summon the senior officers, but whichever it was he had clearly succeeded in depriving the harbour defences of all direction. Apparently, too, Lebrun’s story that a blockade runner was expected to arrive during the night, and his request that the harbour defences should hold their fire until certain as to the identity of any ship entering the port, had had their effect as well—Lebrun had told Hornblower of his intention of making much of the fact that the Flame, on her way in to surrender, had actually been attacked so as to give the English the opportunity to recapture her.