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.

“Higher than that! Higher!”

His legs were beginning to ache, and his breath came with difficulty, but he would not stop before the men did, although he soon came to regret the impulse which had made him start.

“Still!” he shouted at last, the monosyllable taking almost the last breath from his body. He stood panting, the men grinning.

“Horny for ever!” yelled an unidentifiable voice forward, and a ragged cheer came from the men.

“Silence!”

Brown was beside him with his pistols, a twinkle in his eye.

“Take that grin off your face!” snapped Hornblower.

There would be another Hornblower legend growing up in the Navy, similar to the one about the hornpipe danced on the deck of the Lydia during the pursuit of the Natividad. Hornblower pulled out his watch, and when he had replaced it took up his speaking-trumpet.

“Mr. Freeman! I am going about on the other tack. Hail the squadron to tack in succession. Mr. Crawley!”

“Sir!”

“Two hands at the lead, if you please.”

One man might be killed, and Hornblower wanted no possible cessation in the calling of soundings.

“Headsail sheets! Mains’l sheets!”

The Flame went about on the starboard tack, making about three knots under fore and aft sail in the light breeze. Hornblower saw the shadowy Porta Coeli follow the Flame’s example. Behind her, and invisible, was the old Nonsuch—Hornblower had still to set eyes on her since her arrival. He had not seen her, for that matter, since he quitted her to catch the typhus in Riga. Good old Bush. It gave Hornblower some comfort to think that he would be supported today by the Nonsuch’s thundering broadsides and Bush’s stolid loyalty.

The leadsmen were already chanting the depths as the Flame felt her way up the fairway towards Le Havre. Hornblower wondered what was going on in the city, and then petulantly told himself that he would know soon enough. It seemed to him as if he could remember every single word of the long discussion he had had with Lebrun, when between them they had settled the details of Lebrun’s harebrained scheme. They had taken into account the possibility of fog—any seaman would be a fool who did not do so in the Bay of the Seine in winter.

“Buoy on the starboard bow, sir,” reported Crawley.

That would mark the middle ground—it was the only buoy the French had left on the approaches to Le Havre. Hornblower watched it pass close alongside and then astern; the flowing tide was heeling it a little and piling up against the seaward side of it. They were nearing the entrance.

“Listen to me, you men,” said Hornblower, loudly. “Not a shot is to be fired without my orders. The man who fires a gun, for no matter what reason, unless I tell him to, I will not merely flog. I’ll hang him. Before sunset today he’ll be at the yardarm. D’you hear me?”

Hornblower had every intention of executing his threat—at least at that moment—and as he looked round him his expression showed it. A few muttered Aye aye, sir’s showed him he had been understood.

“Qui va là?” screamed a voice through the fog from close overside; Hornblower could just see the French boat which habitually rowed guard over the entrance in thick weather. The guard-boat, as Hornblower and Lebrun had agreed, would not be easily diverted from its duty.

“Despatches for M. le Baron Momas,” hailed Hornblower in return.

The confident voice, the fluent French, the use of Momas’ name, might all gain time for the squadron to enter.

“What ship?”

It was inconceivable that the seamen in the guard-boat did not recognise the Flame—the question must be a merely rhetorical one asked while the puzzled officer in command collected his thoughts.

“British brig Flame,” called Hornblower; he had the helm put over at that moment to make the turn past the point.

“Heave-to, or I will fire into you!”

“If you fire, you will have the responsibility,” replied Hornblower. “We bear despatches for Baron Momas.”

It was a fair wind now for the quay. The turn had brought the guard-boat close alongside; Hornblower could see the officer standing up in the bows beside the bow-gun, a seaman at his shoulder with a glowing linstock in his hand. Hornblower’s own full-dress uniform must be visible and cause some delay, too, for men expecting to fight would not be expected to wear full dress. He saw the officer give a violent start, having caught sight of the Porta Coeli looming up in the mist astern of the Flame. He saw the order given, saw the spark thrust on the touchhole. The three-pounder roared, and the shot crashed into the Flame’s side. That would give the alarm to the batteries at the point and above the quay.

“We do not fire back,” he hailed—maybe he could gain a little more time, and maybe that tune would be of use, although he doubted it.

Here inside the harbour the mist was not so thick. He could see the shadowy shape of the quay rapidly defining itself. In the next few seconds he would know if this were a trap or not, if the batteries should open in a tempest of flame. One part of his mind raced through the data, while another part was working out how to approach the quay. He could not believe that Lebrun was playing a double game, but if it were so only he and the Flame would be lost—the other vessels would have a chance to get clear.

” Luff!” he said to the helmsman. There were a few busy seconds as he applied himself to the business of bringing the Flame alongside the quay as speedily as possible and yet without damaging her too severely. She came alongside with a creak and a clatter, the fenders groaning as if in agony. Hornblower sprang onto the bulwark and from there to the quay, sword, cocked hat, epaulettes and all. He could not spare time to look round, but he had no doubt that the Porta Coeli had anchored, ready to give assistance where necessary, and that the Nonsuch in her turn was nearing the quay, her marines drawn up ready for instant landing. He strode up the quay, his heart pounding. There was the first battery, the guns glaring through the embrasures. He could see movement behind the guns, and more men running to the battery from the guardhouse in the rear. Now he had reached the edge of the moat, his left hand held up in a gesture to restrain the men at the guns.