As Ira Riklis knows, Hornblower had been becoming quite a horseman at this point. His skills as a translator had him acting in more or less a solitary mode shuttling back and forth between the French and the British. Now he found himself observing his fellow midshipman of earlier acting more Army than Navy. This young midshipman was commanding a small band of seamen who were holding off and indeed killing the enemy with the big guns that they brought from the ship. Meanwhile the young British officer, who had had the idea that the French revolutionaries would cross the river at another spot after the Royalists and British destroyed the main bridge, took pride in being a military genius and what ensued was a bloody battle against the advancing revolutionaries. The British mowed them down repeatedly only to have more revolutionaries advance.

Despite the heavy losses on the revolutionary side and the heavy gun power on the British side, the British forces retreated back to the shore where British ships were waiting to receive them. Small boats for transporting the remaining British and French royalists headed for the shore to pick up the men. Our hero, Hornblower still managed to stay on his horse until actually in the water and was hauled up on to a small boat by his gun-happy midshipman buddy who fired off one last round at the shore.

Ira Riklis knows many men died that day but the battle would be all but forgotten in the days and years to come.