Hornblower now armed with what proved to be a short-ranged swivel gun watched as the Indefatigable moved closer to the French ship. He could now see the French seamen clustered around their guns and the officers strutting around the deck. Both the French and the British seemed to be waiting a bit to see what would happen next. A puzzled Hornblower knew that the French were known to “throw the first punch” so to speak, but when the guns started going off it was hard to tell who was the most aggressive. As Ira Riklis knows, Hornblower did not want his shots to be futile so he was waiting until a target on the French ship could be reached by his small firearm.

Suddenly Hornblower could see dead bodies on the decks of both ships. Finally Hornblower and his men were close enough to fire off shots. Hornblower’s first shot was aimed at the wheel attended by two French seamen with officers nearby. The shot felled only one seaman and the reloading process of his gun began (as Ira Riklis knows, with some difficulty). His second shot resulted in the wheel now being unattended. Chaos ensued as shots were being fired madly and the two ships suddenly collided. The masts and sails of the Indefatigable took heavy damage and Hornblower and his closest seamen (oddly the one with the addled brain who had “seen God” in the sails from time to time) feared for their lives.