“What’s her course?”
“Same as ours, sir. She’s gone again now.”
“Shall we bear down on her, sir?” asked Bush.
“Not yet,” said Hornblower.
“Stand to your guns on the port side!” ordered Bush.
Even a distant broadside might knock away a spar or two and leave the chase helpless.
“Tell the men not to fire without orders,” said Hornblower. “That may be Lotus.”
“So it may, by God,” said Bush.
Lotus had been on Nonsuch’s port beam in the cordon sweeping down towards Rugen. Someone had undoubtedly been firing—that must have been Lotus, and she would have turned in pursuit of the Blanchefleur, which could bring her into just the position where those royals had been seen; and the royals of two ship-rigged sloops, seen through mist, would resemble each other closely enough to deceive the eye even of an experienced seaman.
“Wind’s freshening, sir,” commented Hurst.
“That’s so,” said Bush. “Please God it clears this fog away.”
Nonsuch was perceptibly leaning over to the freshening breeze. From forward came the cheerful music of the sea under the bows.
“By the deep eighteen!” called the leadsman.
Then twenty voices yelled together.
“There she is! Sail on the port beam! That’s Lotus!”
The fog had cleared in this quarter, and there was Lotus under all sail, three cables’ lengths away.
“Ask her where’s the chase,” snapped Bush.
“Sail—last—seen—ahead,” read of the signal midshipman, glass to eye.
“Much use that is to us,” Bush grumbled. There were enough streaks of fog still remaining to obscure the whole circle of the horizon, even though there was a thin watery sunshine in the air, and a pale sun—silver instead of gold—visible to the eastward.
“There she is!” suddenly yelled someone at the masthead. “Hull down on the port quarter!”
“Stole away, by God!” said Hurst. “She must have put up her helm the moment she saw us.”
The Blanchefleur was a good six miles away, with only her royals visible from the deck of the Nonsuch, heading downwind under all sail. A string of signal flags ran up Lotus’s mast, and a gun from her called attention to the urgency of her signal.
“She’s seen her too,” said Bush.
“Wear ship, Captain Bush, if you please. Signal ‘general chase’.”
Nonsuch came round on the other tack, amid the curses of the officers hurled at the men for their slowness. Lotus swung round with her bow pointing straight at Blanchefleur. With the coast of Pomerania ahead, Nonsuch to windward, and Lotus and R.aven on either side, Blanchefleur was hemmed in.
“Raven must be nearly level with her over there, sir,” said Bush, rubbing his hands. “And we’ll pick the bombs up again soon, wherever they got to in the fog.”
“By the deep fourteen!” chanted the leadsman. Hornblower watched the man in the chains, whirling the lead with practised strength, dropping it in far ahead, reading off the depth as the ship passed over the vertical line, and then hauling in ready for a fresh cast. It was tiring work, continuous severe exercise; moreover, the leadsman was bound to wet himself to the skin, hauling in a hundred feet of dripping line. Hornblower knew enough about life below decks to know that the man would have small chance of ever getting his clothes dry again; he could remember as a midshipman in Pellew’s Indefatigable being at the lead that wild night when they went in and destroyed the Droits de l’homme in the Biscay surf. He had been chilled to the bone that night, with fingers so numb as almost to be unable to feel the difference between the markers—the white calico and the leather with a hole in it and all the others. He probably could not heave the lead now if he tried, and he was quite sure he could not remember the arbitrary order of the markers. He hoped Bush would have the humanity and the common sense to see that his leadsmen were relieved at proper intervals, and given special facilities for drying their clothes, but he could not interfere directly in the matter. Bush was personally responsible for the interior economy of the ship and would be quite rightly jealous of any interference; there were crumpled roseleaves in the bed even of a Commodore.
“By the mark ten!” called the leadsman.
“Raven in sight beyond the chase, sir,” reported a midshipman. “Heading to cut her off.”
“Very good,” said Hornblower.
“Rugen in sight, too, sir,” said Bush. “That’s Stubbenkammer, or whatever they call it—a white cliff, anyway.”
Hornblower swung his glass round the horizon; fate was closing in on the Blanchefleur, unless she took refuge in the waters of Swedish Pomerania. And that was clearly what she was intending to do. Bush had the chart spread out before him and was taking bearings on the distant white streak of the Stubbenkammer. Hornblower studied the chart, looked over at the distant ships, and back at the chart again. Stralsund was a fortress—it had stood more than one siege lately. If Blanchefleur got in there she would be safe if the Swedes saw fit to protect her. But the rest of the coast ahead was merely shoals and sandbanks; a couple of bays had water enough for coasting vessels—there were batteries marked in the chart to defend their entrances. Something might be attempted if Blanchefleur ran in one of those—she was probably of light enough draught—but it would be hopeless if she reached Stralsund.
“Signal Lotus,” he said. “’Setcourse to cut chase off from Stralsund’.”
In the course of the interminable war every aid to navigation had disappeared. There was not a buoy left to make the deep-water channel—the Bodden, the chart called it—up to Stralsund. Vickery in the lotus would have to look lively with the lead as he found his way into it.
“By the mark seven!” called the leadsman; Nonsuch was in dangerously shoal water already; Bush was looking anxious.
“Shorten sail, if you please, Captain Bush.”
There was no chance of Nonsuch overhauling Blanchefleur, and if they were going to run aground they might as well do so as gently as possible.
“Chase is hauling her wind, sir,” said Hurst.
So she was; she was clearly giving up the attempt to reach Stralsund. That was thanks to Vickery, who had gone charging with gallant recklessness under full sail through the shoals to head her off.
“Raven’ll have a chance at her if she holds that course long!” said Bush in high excitement.
“Chase is going on the other tack!” said Hurst.
“And a half five!” called the leadsman.
Bush was biting his lips with anxiety; his precious ship was entangling herself among the shoals on a lee shore, and there was only thirty-three feet of water under her now.
“Heave to, Captain Bush,” said Hornblower. There was no reason to run any farther now until they could see what Blanchefleur intended. Nonsuch rounded-to and lay with her port bow breasting the gentle swell. The sun was pleasantly warm.
“What’s happened to Raven?” exclaimed Bush.
The sloop’s foretopmast, with yard and sail and everything, had broken clear off and was hanging down in a frightful tangle among her headsails.
“Aground, sir,” said Hurst, glass to eye.
The force with which she had hit the sand had snapped her topmast clean off.
“She draws eight feet less than us, sir,” said Bush, but all Hornblower’s attention was directed again to Blanchefleur.
