 Call all hands, beat the quarters! Buy this turbot battery! One broadside, Indoor, if you please, Captain Bush. Pointes on target! Lint stops ready! Aye aye sir! Bad C.S. Foresters, Indomitable Man of the Sea, Horatio Hornblower. Well, if that's had the sheepfold. No, no, the ones showing the mouth of those you're on. I pencil in the positions of the French shore batteries. Uh, pull your chairs down to this end, gentlemen. I'll chase the puppy on the eyes just here. You've been wondering what I plan to do about her. Gentlemen, are going in with our small boats. Oh, so that's it, sir. A cutting-out expedition, eh? Precisely, Mr. Chet. Commander, we've already discussed it. Mr. Eggles, will you kindly outline our plan? Yes, sir. I shall have the launch, and Mr. Ross the cutter, and Mr. Chad and Mr. Mason will command the first and second gigs, and Mr. Hornblower will command the Jolly Boats, as usual. Each boat, except Mr. Hornblowers, will have a junior officer, a second command, of course. Yes, sir, as I was about to say, for the Jolly Boat, that won't be necessary, but it's a crew of only seven. Yes, sir. We'll be dispatching about a hundred men in all. The Papillon is a ship of war, no merchantmen. Ten guns aside, a crew of two hundred men, no doubt, but we'll be attacking her by night, taking her by surprise. Surprise is more than half the battle, gentlemen. Pardon the interruption, Mr. Eggles. Just now, we're out of sight of land. The French will think we have gone for good. We'll stand in again, as far as possible, after nightfall. Then deliver the attack at 4.30. Is their watch below? We'll have had time to go to sleep. But proceed, Mr. Eggles, proceed. My launch will attack on the starboard quarter, the cutter on the Larbott quarter. Mr. Mason's gig on the Larbott bow and Mr. Chad's on the starboard bow, understood? Yes, yes, yes. Mr. Chad must cut the Corbett's cable as soon as the other boats' crews have reached the quarter deck. Are you clear, Mr. Chad? Yes, Mr. Eggles, quite clear. Mr. Hornblower, with his Jolly Boat, will wait until the rest of you have gained a foothold on the deck. Then he'll board at the main chains and ascend the main rigging, paying no heed to whatever fighting is going on on deck. He'll see that the main topsoil is loosed and will sheet it home under seat of further orders. Clear, Mr. Hornblower? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I myself, or Mr. Ross, if I'm killed or wounded, will seize the wheel and attend to steering the Corbett as soon as she's underway. The tide will take us out and the interfatigable will be waiting just out of range at the shore batteries. That's how we fetch her out. It's a very simple gentleman. It seems so simple to me. At least not my own part of it. Of course, I should have spoken up then and there. I was no main topman. I hated going aloft, because I'm sure of myself in the dark up there. I was utterly appalled at the thought of finding my way amid strange rigging. Well, I opened my mouth to point this out. It was my duty to question my own fitness. Mr. Hornblower, what was this that Captain Pellew was saying? It seemed to concern me. And since we're sure-handed on midship, I'm sure Mr. Hornblower won't mind the rigging job, even if he has newly ascended to the heavy state of an acting lieutenant. After all, he's younger than most of us should be that more agile as a consequence. Mr. Hornblower? Well, I hope so, sir. Well, of course. Then you don't mind our assigning you as a topman. Well, no, not at all, sir. Well, then, I fancy you should all begin your preparations. The sun is about to set. You know your duties, and each of you will find you have plenty to do. I have no doubt. Somehow already, it seemed too late. I was hemmed in by most formed up at last, each man with arms. My jollyboats crew stood in the waist, awaiting me. And each of you has his own pistol and cutlass. Very good. Then keep all pistols at half cock. Don't want them going off to warn the French because of nerves. Jackson, here's up. As poxson of the jollyboat, you'll leave at last. I'll mind the rigging first, of course. But Jackson, be prepared to take command if I fall. I mean, in this instance, sir. Is that understood? I think then it would work. Just about ready to pull away as soon as word comes down from the quarter deck. Speaking of your pardon, sir, I don't feel quite right. What, sir? Who is that spoke to, sir? Hale, sir. I'm a little worried about Hale, sir. He's been acting kind of odd. Oh, is he? Oh, what's the trouble, Hale's? Oh, I'm not sure, sir. I just feel a bit, you know, queer like tonight. Oh, indeed? Well, you're not the only one who feels a bit unsettled, Hale's. Don't mean I'm afraid, sir. Honestly. Just keep your mouth shut. I don't miss a raw blower's busy. Look, let's have no more of this chattering. We're about to take off in a moment. Wait for the signal. Order on him, sir. There's the bailor, Andy. See, water or cure almost anything. Two arms. Shut up, you! It's too dark. Shut your mouth! He's out of his mind, sir. That's the truth. I don't miss... Mr. Raw Blower, sir. Shut up! Sir... Sir, we've got to silence him, haven't we? Mr. Jackson, yes, we must. Lives of a hundred minutes take. I know how I can do it, sir. And, uh, unship that pillar. Oh, Mr. Jackson. Yeah, put him up, too, Jackson. The only thing we could do, sir, lock him out. Looked like that flash came from the Corvette. Trying to make out what was happening on board, as our other crew swarmed over her sides from four different quarters of the ship. Stone sheets and sprang for the trains. Reached them with a mad leap and hauled myself up into the Rathlands with a thrust of... I'm right behind you, sir. At my elbow, I felt the futter trouts. I transferred my weight to them way down to the deck by load myself to the top, Miss Trouts, and began the last stage of the ascent. The shouting on the deck, then, here I was at last, at the top's yard itself. My arms gripped it. The footrope. Felt again. And then... No rope at all. Don't use one. Don't like that nose, sir. A hundred feet above the deck I hung, kicking and squirming with no hold for my feet. Yet the gaskets had to be cast off and the sail loosed. Our whole venture depended on that. Are you there, Jackson? Yes, sir. Look, you're one of the worst women who could run out along the odds, standing up like a... you know, like a tight rope walker. Well, sir, I have done it. Yes, in my younger days as well. It's the only way to reach the odd arm now. I was nothing but a coward. What, you see, sir? Nothing, Jackson. It was then that, suddenly, I remembered Hales, the man who felt, as he put it, queer like. I'd been stern enough in dealing with him. I'd even condoned his being struck down. I remembered my refusal to admit that I shared with Hales that panic and fear. And that thought I couldn't bear for one instant longer. It was even worse than the thought of falling through the night down to that deck. Yes, Father Jackson. Andrew's in Carson, right behind you. I saw. I brought my knee up onto the yard, heaving up till I stood upright. My instinct told me not to dally there for a seconder. Come on, man. Follow me out. Aye, aye, sir. It was 20 feet out to the odd arm, and I covered them in a few frantic strides. My hands found the gaskets. The men of my crew reached for them, too. Hunter had gone to the starboard yard arm, and the sail came loose like a charm. I felt a surge of triumph. Here was the brace right beside me, and I knew what I was going to do now. All right, Jackson. She's loose. And now I'll seat her home. You seem quite elated, sir. I am. I am. Sir, you're not sliding down the brace. Oh, why not? Quickest way down to the deck. But, sir, what? Did your hands... Yes. See you below, Jackson. Good-bye. Lydia's young fool, excited by the stemming of my fear, carried away by it. And I slid so fast down that rope that I nearly cried out in pain. The rope stripped the skin from my hands like peeling off a glove. You come at it down here like a cannonball. Yes. Yes, sir. Thompson, sir. Here now, you men. Stand by to give a hand with the sail, lively now. Aye, sir. A faint gray dawn was showing now. The signs of battle had almost died away. And I'd been far too occupied to notice. Mr. Chancellor, is it? Is there fighting all over? Oh, just about. It was a well-worked-out surprise, I'm clear to say. We took it in a single rush before the watch below could give the anchor much much help. We just cut the cable, and now we are... Why, what's the matter, Hornblower? Sir... Burn my hands a little on that brace. It's from the surgeon, sir. He said that I hurt you. No, no, no. Walk along that. That you did, sir. Right hand, sir. Good as I can do it, sir. Yes, sir. It's much better. We've got to report that Jolly Boat has lost. Lost? He's torn alongside you like the other boats. And, of course, we didn't leave no boat keeper in there. Well, why didn't you leave Wells? He's our boat keeper. I figured we'd need Wells in the rigging, sir, in place of Ales, seeing as our Ales was well. Well, I... I'm all about him. Well, where is Hale's, Jackson? He was still in the boat, sir, naturally. And the boat must have come adrift, sir, when the ship went about. Suddenly, my warm feeling of triumph was... If it hadn't been for Hale's and my remembering him at the right moment, perhaps I'd never have nerve myself to walk their yard. And at this moment, perhaps, I... I would be branded as a coward, unfit to be an officer. I think this was my first developing realization of the mysterious extent to which one man's small destiny can act upon another's. Music composes and conducted by Sydney Torch.