10 Lord Hornblower hh-10 Page 11

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “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 Ho
rnblower 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.

  “I will have no more muddles of that sort,” Lebrun had said, with a grin. “Order, counter-order, disorder.”

  One way and another he had certainly contrived to create such disorder and such an atmosphere of uncertainty in the batteries as to give Hornblower every chance — the man was a born intriguer; but Hornblower still did not know whether the rest of his coup d’état had succeeded. This was no time for delay; there were too many examples in history of promising enterprises brought to naught after a good beginning solely because someone did not push on at the psychological moment.

  “Where is my horse?” said Hornblower, leaving the subaltern’s desire for information unsatisfied except by the vague statement that a new age was beginning for France.

  He climbed down from the parapet again, to find that an intelligent marine was holding the horse’s head. The redcoats were making a ludicrous attempt to fraternise with the French recruits. Hornblower climbed up into the saddle, and trotted out into the open. He wanted to make a bold push, but at the same time he felt nervous about involving his landing party in the narrow streets of the town without some assurance of a friendly reception there. Here came Howard, riding gracefully; apparently he, too, had been able to procure himself a horse.

  “Any orders, sir?” Howard asked. Two midshipmen and Brown were running beside him, the midshipmen presumably to act as messengers.

  “Not yet,” answered Hornblower, fuming inwardly with anxiety while trying to appear calm.

  “Your hat, sir,” said the admirable Brown, who had picked the thing up while on his way from the other battery.

  Here came a horseman at a gallop, a white band on his arm, a white handkerchief fluttering in his hand. He reined in when he saw Hornblower’s gold lace.

  “You are Monsieur — Monsieur —” he began.

  “Hornblower.” No Frenchman had ever been able to pronounce that name.

  “From Baron Momas, sir. The citadel is secure. He is about to descend into the main square.”

  “The soldiers in the barracks?”

  “They are tranquil.”

  “The main guard at the gate?”

  “I do not know, sir.”

  “Howard, take your reserve. March for the gate as hard as you can. This man will go with you to explain to the guard. If they will not come over, let them desert. They can march out into the open country — it will not matter. No bloodshed if you can help it, but make sure of the gate.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Hornblower explained to the Frenchman what he had said.

  “Brown, come with me. I shall be in the main square if needed, Howard.”

  It was not much of a procession Howard was able to form, two score marines and seamen, but the band blared out as best it could as Hornblower marched triumphantly up the street. The people on the route looked at them, curious or sullen or merely indifferent, but there was no sign of active resentment. In the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville there was far more bustle and life. Numerous men sat their horses there; a detachment of police, drawn up in line, gave an appearance of respectability to the proceedings. But what caught the eye was the multitude of white emblems. There were white cockades in the hats of the gendarmes, and the mounted officials wore white scarves or armbands. White flags — bed sheets, apparently — hung from most of the windows. For the first time in more than twenty years the Bourbon white was being flaunted on the soil of France. A fat man on foot, a white sash round his belly where (Hornblower guessed) yesterday he had worn the tricolour, hurried towards him as he rode in. Hornblower signalled frantically to the band to stop, and scrambled down from the saddle, handing the reins to Brown as he advanced towards the man he guessed to be Momas.

  “Our friend!” said Momas, his arms outspread. “Our ally!”

  Hornblower allowed himself to be embraced — even at that moment he wondered at what the leathernecks behind him would think about the sight of a commodore being kissed by a fat Frenchman — and then saluted the rest of the Mayor’s staff as they came to greet him. Lebrun was at their head, grinning.

  “A great moment, sir,” said the Mayor.

  “A great moment indeed, Monsieur le Baron.”

  The Mayor waved his hand towards the flagstaff that stood outside the Maine.

  “The ceremony is about to take place,” he said.

  Lebrun was at his side with a paper, and Momas took it and mounted the steps at the foot of the flagstaff. He inflated his lungs and began to read at the top of his voice. It was curious how the French love of legal forms and appearances showed itself even here, at this moment of treason; the proclamation was studded with archaisms and seemed interminable in its prolixity. It mentioned the misdeeds of the usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, it denounced all his pretensions to sovereignty, it disclaimed all allegiance to him. Instead it declared that all Frenchmen voluntarily recognised the unbroken reign of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XVIII, King of France and Navarre. At those resounding words the men at the foot of the flagstaff hauled busily at the halliards, and the white standard of the Bourbons soared up the mast. It was time for a gesture on the part of the British. Hornblower turned to his men.

  “Three cheers for the King!” he yelled.

  He waved his cocked hat over his head.

  “Hip — hip — hip —” he called.

  “Hooray!” yelled the marines.

  The cheer rang hollowly round the square; probably not one marine in ten had any idea as to which king he was cheering, but that did not matter.

  “Hip — hip — hip —”

  “Hooray!”

  “Hip — hip — hip —”

  “Hooray!”

  Hornblower replaced his hat and stiffly saluted the white flag Now it was time, and high time, to start organising the defence of the town against Bonaparte’s wrath.

  CHAPTER XI

  “Your Excellency,” said Lebrun, sidling into the room where Hornblower sat at his desk, “a fishermen’s deputation has asked for an audience.”

  “Yes?” said Hornblower. With Lebrun he was careful not to commit himself prematurely.

  “I have endeavoured to discover what it is they seek, Your Excellency.”

  Anyone could be quite sure that Lebrun would try to find things out. And so far Hornblower had carefully left Lebrun under the not unnatural illusion that he liked being addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ in every other sentence, and would be more malleable in consequence.

  “Yes?”

  “It is a question of one of their vessels being taken as a prize.”

  “Yes?”

  “It carried one of your certificates to the effect that the vessel was sailing from the free port of Le Havre, and yet an English ship of war took possession of her.”

  “Indeed?”

  What Lebrun did not know was that lying on the desk before him Hornblower had the report of the captain of the English brig which had made the capture. The captain was convinced that the vessel, before he took her, had just slipped out from Honfleur, across the estuary, having sold her catch there. Honfleur, being still under Bonaparte’s rule, and under blockade in consequence, would pay three times as much for fish as could be obtained in liberated Le Havre. It was a question of trading with the enemy, and the Prize Court could be relied upon to adjudicate on the matter.

  “We wish to retain the goodwill of the people, Your Excellency, especially of the maritime population. Could you not assure the deputation that the boat will be returned to its owners?”

  Hornblower wondered how much the fishing-boat owners of the city had paid Lebrun to exert his influence on their behalf. Lebrun must be making the fortune he craved as much as he craved power.

  “Bring the deputation in,” said Hornblower; he had a few seconds in which to compose his speech to them — that was always as well, beca
use his French was deficient enough to make circumlocutions necessary when a word or a grammatical construction evaded him.

  The deputation, three grey-haired Norman fishermen with an intense air of respectability and in their Sunday best, came in as near smiles as was possible to their solemn natures; Lebrun must have assured them in the anteroom of the certainty of their request being granted. They were quite taken aback when Hornblower addressed them on the subjects of trading with the enemy and its consequences. Hornblower pointed out that Le Havre was at war with Bonaparte, war to the death. Heads would fall in hundreds if Bonaparte should emerge victorious from this war and recapture Le Havre. The scenes of horror that had been witnessed when Toulon fell twenty years before would be reproduced a thousandfold in Le Havre. A united effort was still necessary to pull the tyrant down. Let them attend to that, and make no further attempt to increase their personal fortunes. Hornblower wound up by announcing not merely his intention of allowing the fishing-boat to come under the adjudication of the British Prize Court, but also his fixed determination, in the case of any repetition of the offence, to send officers and crew before a court martial whose sentence undoubtedly would be death.

  Lebrun ushered the deputation out again. For a moment Hornblower wondered how Lebrun would explain the failure, but he had no time to wonder for more than a moment. The demands upon the time and energy of the Governor of Le Havre were enormous; Hornblower sighed as he looked at the papers stacked on his desk. There was so much to do; Saxton, the engineer officer just arrived from England, was clamouring to build a new battery, a demi-lune or a redan in his barbarous sapper vocabulary — to cover the defences of the Rouen Gate. All very well, but he would have to exact forced labour from the citizens to construct it. There was a mass of papers from Whitehall, mostly reports of spies regarding Bonaparte’s strength and movements; he had skimmed through them, but one or two of them needed closer reading. There was the question of unloading the food ships which Whitehall had sent him — Le Havre should undoubtedly be well stocked with food in case of a close siege, but it was left to him to plan the warehousing of a thousand barrels of salt beef. There was the question of policing the streets. Old personal scores had been wiped out, Hornblower guessed, in the one or two murders of prominent Bonapartists — he even suspected Lebrun of having a hand in one of them — and there had already been some attempt at reprisal by secret assassination. He could run no risk, now that the city was under control, of allowing it to be divided against itself. The court martial was in progress of those mutineers of the Flame whom he had not pardoned. In every case the sentence would be death, inevitably, and there was food for thought in that He was Commodore of the British Squadron as well as Governor of Le Havre, and there was all the manifold business of the squadron to be attended to. He must decide about —