“Heading for the Strait’s mouth, do you think?”

Baddlestone eyed him with a trace of pity.

“No farther than Finisterre,” he vouchsafed.

“But why?”

Baddlestone found it clearly hard to believe that Hornblower could be ignorant of what was being discussed throughout the fleet and the dockyard.

“Villainnoove,” he said.

That was Villeneuve, the French admiral commanding the fleet that had broken out of the Mediterranean some weeks before and fled across the Atlantic to the West Indies.

“What about him?” asked Hornblower.

“He’s heading back again, making for Brest. Going to pick up the French fleet there, so Boney thinks. Then the Channel. Boney’s army’s waiting at Boulong, and Boney thinks he’ll eat his next dish of frogs in Windsor Castle.”

“Where’s Nelson?” demanded Hornblower.

“Hot on Villainnoove’s trail. If Nelson don’t catch him Calder will. Boney’s going to wait a long time before he sees French tops’ls in the Channel.”

“How do you know this?”

“Sloop came in from Nelson while I was waiting for a wind in Plymouth. The whole town knew in half an hour, bless you.”

This was the most vital and the most recent information imaginable, and yet it was common knowledge. Bonaparte at Boulogne had a quarter of a million men trained, equipped, and ready. Transporting them across the Channel might be difficult despite the thousands of flat bottomed boats that crowded the French Channel ports, but with twenty, thirty, possibly forty French and Spanish ships of the line to cover the crossing something might be achieved. In a month Bonaparte might well be eating frogs in Windsor Castle. The destiny of the world, the fate of civilization, depended on the concerted movements of the British fleets. If so much was known in Plymouth last week it would be known in Bonaparte’s headquarters today; detailed knowledge of the British movements was vital for the French in executing what appeared to be essentially a plan of evasion.