10 Lord Hornblower

arrangement. “The future is always more mysterious. I see a crown. A golden crown.”

He rearranged the pattern.

“A crown it is, sir, try it any way you will.”

“Horatio the First, King of the Cannibal Isles,” laughed Hornblower. The clearest proof of his present mellowness was this joke about his name — a sore subject usually with him.

“And here there is more danger. Danger and a fair woman. The two go together. Danger because of a fair woman — danger with a fair woman. There’s all kinds of danger here, sir. I’d advise you to beware of fair women.”

“No need to read cards to give that advice,” said Hornblower.

“Sometimes the cards speak truth,” replied Freeman, looking up at him with a peculiar intensity in his glittering eyes.

“A crown, a fair woman, danger,” repeated Hornblower. “What else?”

“That’s all that I can read, sir,” said Freeman, sweeping the cards together.

Howard was looking at the big silver watch that he pulled from his pocket.

If Freeman could have told us whether or no we will see a white flag over the citadel tomorrow,” he said, “it might help us to decide to prolong this pleasant evening. As it is, sir, I have my orders to give.”

Hornblower was genuinely sorry to see them go. He stood on the deck of the Flame and watched their gigs creep away in the black winter night, while the pipe of the bo’sun’s mate was calling the hands for the middle watch. It was piercing cold, especially after the warm stuffiness of the cabin, and he felt suddenly even more lonely than usual, maybe as a result. Here in the Flame he had only two watch-keeping officers, borrowed from the Porta Coeli; tomorrow he would borrow another from the Nonsuch or the Camilla. Tomorrow? That was today. And today perhaps Lebrun’s attempt to gain control of Le Havre might be successful. Today he might be dead.

CHAPTER X

It was as misty as might be expected of that season and place when day broke, or rather when the grey light crept almost unnoticed into one’s consciousness. The Porta Coeli was dimly visible, an almost unnoticeable denser nucleus in the fog. Hailing her at the top of his lungs, Hornblower received the faint reply that Nonsuch was in sight astern of her, and a few seconds later the additional information that Camilla was in sight of Nonsuch. He had his squadron in hand, then, and there was nothing to do but wait, and to ponder for the hundredth time over the question as to how the hands, barefooted with the icy water surging round their feet, could possibly bear their morning duty of washing down the decks. But they were laughing and skylarking as they did it; the British seaman was of tough material. Presumably the lower deck guessed that there was something in the wind, that this concentration of force portended fresh action, and they found the prospect exhilarating. Partly, Hornblower knew, it was because they felt assured of success in the unknown enterprise before them. It must be amazingly pleasant to be able to put one’s trust in a man and have no further doubts. Hornblower watched the men at work with envy as well as pity.

He himself was in a fever of anxiety, turning over in his mind the arrangements he had finally made with Lebrun before sending him ashore. They were simple enough; absurdly simple, it seemed to him now. The whole plan seemed a feeble thing with which to overturn an Empire that dominated Europe. Yet a conspiracy should be simple — the more elaborate the machinery the greater the chance of its breaking down. That was one reason why he had insisted on daylight for his part of the business. He had dreaded the possible mishaps if he bad plunged ashore in darkness into an unknown town with his little army. Daylight doubled the chances of success while it doubled at least the possible loss in case of failure.

Hornblower looked at his watch — for the last ten minutes he had been fighting down the urge to look at it.

“Mr. Crawley,” he said, to the master’s mate who was his new first lieutenant in the Flame. “Beat to quarters and clear the brig for action.”

The wind was a light air from the east, as he had expected. Fetching into Le Havre would be a ticklish business, and he was glad that he had resolved to lead in the small and hardy Flame so as to show the way to the ponderous old Nonsuch.

“Ship cleared for action, sir,” reported Crawley.

“Very good.”

Hornblower looked at his watch — it was fully a quarter-hour yet before he should move in. A hail to the Porta Coeli astern brought him the information that all the other vessels had cleared for action, and he smiled to himself. Freeman and Bush and Howard had no more been able to wait the time out than he had been.

“Remember, Mr. Crawley,” he said, “if I am killed as we go in, the Flame is to be laid alongside the quay. Captain Bush is to be informed as soon as possible, but the Flame is to go on.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Crawley. “I’ll remember.”

Damn his eyes, he need not be so infernally ordinary about it. From the tone of Crawley’s voice one might almost assume that he expected Hornblower to be killed. Hornblower turned away from him and walked the deck briskly to shake off the penetrating cold. He looked along at the men at their stations.

“Skylark, you men,” he ordered. “Let’s see how you can jump.”

There was no use going into action with men chilled to numbness. The men at the guns and waiting at the sheets began to caper at their posts.

“Jump, you men, jump!”

Hornblower leaped grotesquely up and down to set them an example; he wanted them thoroughly warmed up. He flapped his arms against his sides as he leaped, the epaulettes of the full-dress uniform he was wearing pounded on his shoulders.