After Elba a campaign of a hundred days had been needed to overthrow Bonaparte at Waterloo, but a hundred thousand men had died during those hundred days, millions and millions of money had been expended. This time it might not even be as easy as that. Bonaparte might find allies in the disturbed state of Europe. There might be twenty more years of war, leaving Europe in ruins. Hornblower had fought through twenty years of war; he felt physically sick at the thought of their repetition. The prospect was so monstrous that he went back through the deductions he had been making, but he could not avoid reaching the same conclusion.
Cambronne was a Bonapartist; no man who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guard could be anything else. It was even indicated by a triflehe had worn the Bonapartist Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour instead of the Bourbon Grand Cordon which had been substituted for it. He had done that with Vautours knowledge and agreement. Vautour was a servant of the Bourbons, but he must be a traitorous one; the whole business of chartering the Daring and sending her fatal freight on board could only have been carried out with the connivance of the French authoritiespresumably France was riddled with a fresh Bonapartist conspiracy. The Baronesss behaviour was further proof.
Central America and the West Indies might be in a turmoil, but there was no particular strategic point there (as he well knew after so much pondering about it) inviting an invasion by the Imperial Guard in uniforms and bearskins. It must be St. Helena, and then France. He could have no doubt about it now. Now the lives of millions, the peace of the whole world, depended on the decisions he had to make at this moment.
There was a rush of feet on the deck just above his head. He heard ropes slapping down upon it, orders being given, loud creakings. The cabin suddenly leaned over sideways with the setting of sail, catching him completely unaware, so that he staggered and dropped the bearskin cap, which lay unnoticed at his feet. Crab rose to an even keel again. The deck under his feet felt suddenly lively, as if the breath of life had been breathed into it. They were at sea; they were heading for Corpus Christi. With the wind east by north Crab would be running wing-and-wing, possibly. Now he had to think fast, with every second of value. He could not afford to run to leeward in this fashion if he were going to change his plans.
And he knew he was going to change them. He had yearned so desperately for a chance to guess whither Daring would head after calling at Corpus Christi. Now he could intervene. Now he had a chance to preserve the peace of the world. With his eyes, unseeing, focused upon an infinite distance, he stood in the swaying cabin calling up into his mental sight the charts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The North-east Trades blew across them, not quite as reliably at this time of year as during the winter, but constantly enough to be a calculable factor. A ship bound for the South Atlanticfor St. Helenafrom Corpus Christi would be bound to take the Yucatan Channel. Thenespecially if her business were such as not to invite attentionshe would head for the shoulder of South America, down the centre of the Caribbean, with scores of miles of open sea on either beam. But she would have to pass through the chain of the Antilles before breaking through into the Atlantic.
There were a hundred passages available, but only one obvious one, only one route that would be considered for a moment by a captain bound for St. Helena and with the trade winds to contend with. He would round Galera Point, the northernmost extremity of Trinidad. He would give it as wide a berth as possible, but he could not give it a very wide berth because to the northward of Galera Point lay the island of Tobago, and the Tobago Channel between the two was no more thanHornblower could not be sure exactlycertainly no more than fifty miles wide. In favourable conditions a single ship could patrol that channel and make certain that nothing passed through unsighted. It was a typical example of maritime strategy on a tiny scale. Sea power made its influence felt all over the wide oceans, but it was in the narrow seas, at the focal points, that the decisive moments occurred. The Yucatan Channel would not be nearly as suitable as the Tobago Channel, for the former was more than a hundred miles wide. Crab would get there first; that could be taken for granted seeing that Daring would have two sides of a triangle to cover, calling at Corpus Christi, and with a long beat to windward as a result. It would be best to employ the advantage so gained to hasten to the Tobago Channel. There would be just time to anticipate Daring therejust timeand there was a substantial chance that on the way he might meet some ship of his squadron, to take her along with him. A frigate, now. That would give him all the force he needed. He made his resolve at that moment, conscious as he did so of his quickened heartbeat.