Those of you who are Hornblower fans will recognise those words as the greeting the great man received at dawn as he awaited execution as a spy and renegade for leading the uprising in the Vendee against Bonaparte newly returned from Elba.
Those of you who are not, should be, as the hero of C S Forrester's books is one of the most complex and finely drawn in fiction. He is the most decisive yet indecisive of men; the most physical yet clumsy, weak and scrawny; the outwardly most confident yet inwardly least confident; the bravest yet the most cowardly.
Leading from the front at all times, he is forever throwing himself over gunwales and ramparts in a welter of tangled limbs and weapons.
Sometimes he is trodden on by the blood crazed seamen that follow him into the attack. But despite all this he rises to the occasion and not only survives, relatively unscathed, but wins the day and the prize money.
He is a true meritocrat rising from an humble birth to wealth, a peerage and marriage to Wellington's sister.
But the true irony of his life is that he needs war to improve his lot. Not only does peace bring about the laying off of men and ships, leading to loitering on shore on half pay, it slows the death rate in the Navy and therefore decelerates the climb up the promotion ladder. The prize money earned through capturing enemy ships was the only way to wealth and the proportion earned by an individual was relative to rank. Thus a Captain's share was much greater than that of a lowly Lieutenant.
So the calculated risks he takes are not just for the greater glory of Great Britain and King George, they are for Horny's higher rank and income.
His brother-in-law Wellington made his fortune while serving in India. Rubies the size of hens' eggs, sapphires the size of oranges, encrusted elephants. You've seen it at the movies.
British Generals ceased being directly rewarded financially for winning wars after the Great War. Somehow the slaughter and the overall involvement of the entire nation changed attitudes, plus the fact that at the end of WWII we were broke, having sold ourselves for a handful of old American destroyers.
Hornblower doesn't care too much for money. Even when rich with silk scarves, pearl-handled pistols with caps not flints - which fire when wet - and a fine larder of food on board, he was quite content with weevil filled ship's biscuit and rum.
He is a true career sailor, never happier than conning his ship to perfection and defeating the enemy with consummate strategy and tactics.
When the Frenchman enters Hornblower's cell to inform him that he will not be shot at dawn his only relief is that he will not now have to be dragged to a chair, as he is incapable of walking or standing, to be shot like a craven coward.
Death is an option he faces every day at sea. He lives with the motto 'It may be death' each time he goes into action.
Would that he was fact not fiction and existed now. Perhaps he does.
Bike Path Competition Results.
Back to the London Mall