Hornblower 05 - Hornblower and the Atropos (15 page)

“Where's the crew?” asked Hornblower.

The Frenchman pointed forward, and at a gesture from Hornblower one of his men ran to release the brig's crew from their confinement in the forecastle, half a dozen coloured hands and a couple of officers.

“Much obliged to you, mister,” said the captain, coming forward.

“I'm Captain Hornblower of His Majesty's ship Atropos,” said Hornblower.

“I beg your pardon, Captain.” He was an elderly man, his white hair and blue eyes in marked contrast with his mahogany tan. “You've saved my ship.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower, “you had better disarm those men.”

“Gladly, sir. See to it, Jack.”

The other officer, presumably the mate, walked aft to take muskets and swords from the unresisting Frenchmen.

“They came out of the fog and laid me alongside before I was aware, almost, sir,” went on the captain. “A King's ship took my four best hands when we was off the Start, or I'd have made a better account of them. I only got one crack at them as it was.”

“It was that crack that brought me here,” said Hornblower shortly. “Where did they come from?”

“Now that's just what I was asking myself,” said the captain. “Not from France in that boat, they couldn't have come.”

They turned their gaze inquiringly upon the dejected group of Frenchmen. It was a question of considerable importance. The Frenchmen must have come from a ship, and that ship must be anchored somewhere amid the crowded vessels in the Downs. And at that rate she must be disguised as a British vessel or a neutral, coming in with the others before the wind dropped and the fog closed down. There had been plenty of similar incidents during the war. It was an easy way to snap up a prize. But it meant that somewhere close at hand there was a wolf in sheep's clothing, a disguised French privateer, probably crammed with men — she might have made more than one prize. In the bustle and confusion that would ensue when a breeze should get up, with everyone anxious to up anchor and away, she could count on being able to make her escape along with her prizes.

“When the fog closed down,” said the captain, “the nearest vessel to us was a Ramsgate trawler. She anchored at the same time as we did. I doubt if it could be her.”

It was a matter of so much importance that Hornblower could not keep still. He turned and paced the deck for a space, his mind working rapidly. Yet his mind was not completely made up when he turned back and gave his first order in execution of the vague plan. He did not know if he would have the resolution to go through with it.

“Leadbitter,” he said to the coxswain

“Sir!”

“Tie those men's hands behind them.”

“Sir?”

“You heard what I said.”

To bind prisoners was almost a violation of the laws of war. When Leadbitter approached to carry out his orders the Frenchmen showed evident resentment. A buzz of voices arose.

“You can't do this, sir,” said their spokesman. “We have —”

“Shut your mouth,” snapped Hornblower.

Even having to give that order put him in a bad temper, and his bad temper was made worse by his doubts about himself. Now that the Frenchmen were disarmed they could offer no resistance in face of the drawn pistols of the British sailors. With loud protests they had to submit, as Leadbitter went from man to man tying their wrists behind their backs. Hornblower was hating himself for the part he had to play, even while his calculating mind told him that he had a fair chance of success. He had to pose as a bloodthirsty man, delighting in the taking of human life, without mercy in his soul, gratified by the sight of the death struggles of a fellow-human. Such men did exist, he knew. There were gloomy tyrants in the King's service. In the past ten years of war at sea there had been some outrages, a few, on both sides. These Frenchmen did not know him for what he really was, nor did the West India crew. Nor for that matter his own men. Their acquaintance had been so short that they had no reason to believe him not to have homicidal tendencies, so that their behaviour would not weaken the impression he wished to convey. He turned to one of his men.

“Run aloft,” he said. “Reeve a whip through the block at the main yardarm.”

That portended a hanging. The man looked at him with a momentary unbelief, but the scowl on Hornblower's face sent him scurrying up the ratlines. Then Hornblower strode to where the wretched Frenchmen were standing bound; their glance shifted from the man at the yardarm to Hornblower's grim face, and their anxious chattering died away.

“You are pirates,” said Hornblower, speaking slowly and distinctly. “I am going to hang you.”

In case the English-speaking Frenchman's vocabulary did not include the word “hang” he pointed significantly to the man at the yardarm. They could all understand that. They remained silent for a second or two, and then several of them began to speak at once in torrential French which Hornblower could not well follow, and then the leader, having pulled himself together, began his protest in English.

“We are not pirates,” he said.

“I think you are,” said Hornblower.

“We are privateersmen,” said the Frenchman.

“Pirates,” said Hornblower.

The talk among the Frenchmen rose to a fresh height; Hornblower's French was good enough for him to make out that the leader was translating his curt words to his companions, and they were urging him to explain more fully their position.

“I assure you, sir,” said the wretched man, striving to be eloquent in a strange language, “we are privateersmen and not pirates.”

Hornblower regarded him with a stony countenance, and without answering turned away to give further orders.

“Leadbitter,” he said, “I'll have a hangman's noose on the end of that line.”

Then he turned back to the Frenchmen.

“Who do you say you are then?” he asked. He tried to utter the words as indifferently as he could.

“We are from the privateer Vengeance of Dunkirk, sir. I am Jacques Lebon, prizemaster.”

Privateers usually went to sea with several extra officers, who could be put into prizes to navigate them back to a French port without impairing the fighting efficiency of the privateer, which could continue her cruise. These officers were usually selected for their ability to speak English and for the knowledge of English seagoing ways, and they bore the title of “prizemaster”. Hornblower turned back to observe the noose now dangling significantly from the yardarm, and then addressed the prizemaster.

“You have no papers,” he said.

He forced his lips into a sneer as he spoke; to the wretched men studying every line in his face his expression appeared quite unnatural, as indeed it was. And Hornblower was gambling a little when he said what he did. If the prizemaster had been able to produce any papers the whole line of attack would have to be altered; but it was not much of a gamble. Hornblower was certain when he spoke that if Lebon had had papers in his pocket he would have already mentioned them, asking someone to dive into his pocket for them. That would be the first reaction of any Frenchman whose identity had been put in question.

“No,” said Lebon, crestfallen. It was hardly likely that he would have, when engaged on an ordinary operation of war.

“Then you hang,” said Hornblower. “All of you. One by one.”

The laugh he forced himself to produce sounded positively inhuman, horrible. Anyone hearing it would be justified in thinking that he was inspired by the anticipated pleasure of watching the death struggles of a dozen men. The white-haired captain of the Amelia Jane could not bear the prospect, and came forward to enter into the discussion.

“Sir,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

“I am going to attend to my own business, sir,” said Hornblower, striving to throw into his voice all the harshness he had ever heard employed by all the insolent officers he had met during his service. “May I ask you to be kind enough to do the same?”

“But you can't be meaning to hang the poor devils,” went on the captain.

“But that is what I do mean.”

“But not in my ship, sir — not now — not without trial.”

“In your ship, sir, which you allowed to be captured. And now. Pirates taken red-handed can be hanged instantly, as you know, sir. And that is what I shall do.”

It was a stroke of good fortune that the captain should have entered into the discussion. His appearance of sick dismay and the tone of his protests were convincingly genuine — they would never have been so if he had been admitted previously to a planned scheme. Hornblower's attitude towards him was brutal, but it was for the good of the cause.

“Sir,” persisted the captain, “I'm sure they're only privateersmen —”

“Please refrain from interfering with a King's officer in the execution of his duty. You two men, there, come here.”

The two of the crew of the gig that he indicated approached obediently. Probably they had seen hangings before, along with every kind of brutality in a brutal service. But the imminent certainty of taking personal part in a hanging obviously impressed them. There was some reluctance visible in their expressions, but the hard discipline of the service would make certain they would obey the orders of this one man, unarmed and outnumbered.

Hornblower looked along the line of faces. Momentarily he felt a horrid sickness in his stomach as it occurred to him to wonder how he would be feeling if he really was selecting a victim.

“I'll have that one first,” he said, pointing.

The bull-throated swarthy man whom he indicated paled and shuddered; backing away he tried to shelter himself among his fellows. They were all speaking at once, jerking their arms frantically against the bonds that secured their wrists behind them.

“Sir!” said Lebon. “Please — I beg of you — I implore —”

Hornblower condescended to spare him a glance, and Lebon went on in a wild struggle against the difficulties of language and the handicap of not being free to gesticulate.

“We are privateersmen. We fight for the Empire, for France.” Now he was on his knees, his face lifted. As he could not use his hands he was actually nuzzling with his mouth against the skirts of Hornblower's pea-jacket. “We surrendered. We did not fight. We caused no death.”

“Take this man away from me,” said Hornblower, withdrawing out of reach.

But Lebon on his knee followed him over the deck, nuzzling and pleading

“Captain,” said the English captain, interceding once again. “Can't you at least wait and land 'em for trial? If they're pirates it'll be proved quick enough.”

“I want to see 'em dangling,” said Hornblower, searching feverishly in his mind for the most impressive thing he could say.

The two English seamen, taking advantage of the volume of protest, had paused in the execution of their orders. Hornblower looked up at the noose, dangling dimly but horribly in the fog.

“I don't believe for one single moment,” went on Hornblower, “that these men are what they say they are. Just a band of thieves, pirates. Leadbitter, put four men on that line. I'll give the word when they are to walk away with it.”

“Sir,” said Lebon, “I assure you, word of honour, we are from the privateer Vengeance.”

“Bah!” replied Hornblower. “Where is she?”

“Over there,” said Lebon. He could not point with his hands; he pointed with his chin, over the port bow of the anchored Amelia Jane. It was not a very definite indication, but it was a considerable help, even that much.

“Did you see any vessel over there before the fog closed down, captain?” demanded Hornblower, turning to the English captain.

“Only the Ramsgate trawler,” he said, reluctantly.

“That is our ship!” said Lebon. “That is the Vengeance! She was a Dunkirk trawler — we — we made her look like that.”

So that was it. A Dunkirk trawler. Her fish-holds could be crammed full of men. A slight alteration of gear, an “R” painted on her mainsail, a suitable name painted on her stern and then she could wander about the narrow seas without question, snapping up prizes almost at will.

“Where did you say she lay?” demanded Hornblower.

“There — oh!”

Lebon checked himself as he realized how much information he was giving away.

“I can hazard a good guess as to how she bears from us,” interposed the English captain, “I saw — oh!”

He broke off exactly as Lebon had done, but from surprise. He was staring at Hornblower. It was like the denouement scene in some silly farce. The lost heir was at last revealed. The idea of now accepting the admiration of his unwitting fellow players, of modestly admitting that he was not the monster of ferocity he had pretended to be, irritated Hornblower beyond all bearing. All his instincts and good taste rose against the trite and the obvious. Now that he had acquired the information he had sought he could please himself as long as he acted instantly on that information. The scowl he wished to retain rested the more easily on his features with this revulsion of feeling.

“I'd be sorry to miss a hanging,” he said, half to himself, and he allowed his eye to wander again from the dangling noose to the shrinking group of Frenchmen who were still ignorant of what had just happened. “If that thick neck were stretched a little —”

He broke off and took a brief turn up and down the deck, eyed by every man who stood on it.

“Very well,” he said, halting. “It's against my better judgment, but I'll wait before I hang these men. What was the approximate bearing of that trawler when she anchored, captain?”

“It was at slack water,” began the captain, making his calculations. “We were just beginning to swing. I should say —”

The captain was obviously a man of sober judgment and keen observation. Hornblower listened to what he had to say.

“Very well,” said Hornblower when he had finished. “Leadbitter, I'll leave you on board with two men. Keep an eye on these prisoners and see they don't retake the brig. I'm returning to the ship now. Wait here for further orders.”

He went down into his gig; the captain accompanying him to the ship's side was clearly and gratifyingly puzzled. It was almost beyond his belief that Hornblower could be the demoniac monster that he had appeared to be, and if he were it was strange good fortune that his ferocity should have obtained, by pure chance, the information that the prisoners had just given him. Yet on the other hand it was almost beyond his belief that if Hornblower had employed a clever ruse to gain the information he should refuse to enjoy the plaudits of his audience and not to bask in their surprise and admiration. Either notion was puzzling. That was well. Let him be puzzled. Let them all be puzzled — although it seemed as if the sobered hands pulling at the oars of the gig were not at all puzzled. Unheeding of all that had been at stake they were clearly convinced that their captain had shown himself in his true colours, and was a man who would sooner see a man's death agonies than eat his dinner. Let 'em think so. It would do no harm. Hornblower could spare them no thought in any case, with all his attention glued upon the compass card. It would be ludicrous — it would be horribly comic — if after all this he were to miss Atropos on his way back to her, if he were to blunder about in the fog for hours looking for his own ship. The reciprocal of North by East half East was South by West half West, and he kept the gig rigidly on that course. With what still remained of the ebb tide behind them it would only be a few seconds before they ought to sight Atropos. It was a very great comfort when they did.