The Young Hornblower Omnibus

by C. S. Forester

  He saw the ferocious bloody battle that was waged, a fight as wild and as irregular as the one that had preceded it, when little groups of men seemed to appear from nowhere and fling themselves into the struggle, sometimes on this side and sometimes on that. Now came another surge of men, nearly naked seamen with Silk at their head; Silk was swinging the rammer of a gun, a vast unwieldy weapon with which he struck out right and left at the Spaniards who broke before them. Another swirl and eddy in the fight; a Spanish soldier trying to run, limping, with a wounded thigh, and a British seaman with a boarding pike in pursuit, stabbing the wretched man under the ribs and leaving him moving feebly in the blood that poured from him.

  Now the maindeck was clear save for the corpses that lay heaped upon it, although below decks he could hear the fight going on, shots and screams and crashes. It all seemed to die away. This weakness was not exactly pleasant. To allow himself to put his head down on his arm and forget his responsibilities might seem tempting, but just over the horizon of his conscious mind there were hideous nightmare things waiting to spring out on him, of which he was frightened, but it made him weaker still to struggle against them. But his head was down on his arm, and it was a tremendous effort to lift it again; later it was a worse effort still, but he tried to force himself to make it, to rise and deal with all the things that must be done. Now there was a hard voice speaking, painful to his ears.

  “This ’ere’s Mr. Bush, sir. ’Ere ’e is!”

  Hands were lifting his head. The sunshine was agonizing as it poured into his eyes, and he closed his eyelids tight to keep it out.

  “Bush! Bush!” That was Hornblower’s voice, pleading and tender. “Bush, please, speak to me.”

  Two gentle hands were holding his face between them. Bush could just separate his eyelids sufficiently to see Hornblower bending over him, but to speak called for more strength than he possessed. He could only shake his head a little, smiling because of the sense of comfort and security conveyed by Hornblower’s hands.

  XV

  “Mr. Hornblower’s respects, sir,” said the messenger, putting his head inside Bush’s cabin after knocking on the door. “The admiral’s flag is flying off Mosquito Point, an’ we’re just goin’ to fire the salute, sir.”

  “Very good,” said Bush

  Lying on his cot he had followed in his mind’s eye all that had been going on in the ship. She was on the port tack at the moment and had clewed up all sail save topsails and jib. They must be inside Gun Key, then. He heard Hornblower’s voice hailing.

  “Lee braces, there! Hands wear ship.”

  He heard the grumble of the tiller ropes as the wheel was put over; they must be rounding Port Royal point. The Renown rose to a level keel—she had been heeling very slightly—and then lay over to port, so little that, lying on his cot, Bush could hardly feel it. Then came the bang of the first saluting gun. Despite the kindly warning that Hornblower had sent down Bush was taken sufficiently by surprise to start a little at the sound. He was as weak and nervous as a kitten, he told himself. At five-second intervals the salute went on, while Bush resettled himself in bed. Movement was not very easy, even allowing for his weakness, on account of all the stitches that closed the numerous cuts and gashes on his body. He was sewn together like a crazy quilt; and any movement was painful.

  The ship fell oddly quiet again when the salute was over—he was nearly sure it had been fifteen guns; Lambert presumably had been promoted to vice-admiral. They must be gliding northward up Port Royal bay; Bush tried to remember how Salt Pond Hill looked, and the mountains in the background—what were they called? Liguanea, or something like that—he could never tackle these Dago names. They called it the Long Mountain behind Rock Fort.

  “Tops’l sheets!” came Hornblower’s voice from above. “Tops’l clew lines.”

  The ship must be gliding slowly to her anchorage.

  “Helm-a-lee!”

  Turning into the wind would take her way off her.

  “Silence, there in the waist!”

  Bush could imagine how the hands would be excited and chattering at coming into harbour—the old hands would be telling the new ones about the grog shops and the unholy entertainments that Kingston, just up the channel, provided for seamen.

  “Let go!”

  That rumble and vibration; no sailor, not even one as matter-of-fact as Bush, could hear the sound of the cable roaring through the hawsehole without a certain amount of emotion. And this was a moment of very mixed and violent emotions. This was no homecoming; it might be the end of an incident, but it would be most certainly the beginning of a new series of incidents. The immediate future held the likelihood of calamity. Not the risk of death or wounds; Bush would have welcomed that as an alternative to the ordeal that lay ahead. Even in his weak state he could still feel the tension mount in his body as his mind tried to foresee the future. He would like to move about, at least fidget and wriggle if he could not walk, in an endeavour to ease that tension, but he could not even fidget while fifty-three stitches held together the half-closed gashes on his body. There would most certainly be an inquiry into the doings on board H.M.S. Renown, and there was a possibility of a court-martial—of a whole series of courts-martial—as a result.

  Captain Sawyer was dead. Someone among the Spaniards, drunk with blood lust, at the time when the prisoners had tried to retake the ship, had struck down the wretched lunatic when they had burst into the cabin where he was confined. Hell had no fire hot enough for the man—or woman—who could do such a thing, even though it might be looked upon as a merciful release for the poor soul which had cowered before imagined terrors for so long. It was a strange irony that at the moment a merciless hand had cut the madman’s throat some among the free prisoners had spared Buckland, had taken him prisoner as he lay in his cot and bound him with his bedding so that he lay helpless while the battle for his ship was being fought out to its bloody end. Buckland would have much to explain to a court of inquiry.

  Bush heard the pipes of the bosun’s mates and strained his ears to hear the orders given.

  “Gig’s crew away! Hands to lower the gig!”

  Buckland would of course be going off at once to report to the admiral, and just as Bush came to that conclusion Buckland came into the cabin. Naturally he was dressed with the utmost care, in spotless white trousers and his best uniform coat. He was smoothly shaved, and the formal regularity of his neckcloth was the best proof of the anxious attention he had given to it. He carried his cocked hat in his hand as he stooped under the deck beams, and his sword hung from his hip. But he could not speak immediately; he could only stand and stare at Bush. Usually his cheeks were somewhat pudgy, but this morning they were hollow with care; the staring eyes were glassy, and the lips were twitching. A man on his way to the gallows might look like that.

  “You’re going to make your report, sir?” asked Bush, after waiting for his superior to speak first.

  “Yes,” said Buckland.

  Beside his cocked hat he held in his hand the sealed reports over which he had been labouring. Bush had been called in to help him compose the first, the anxious one regarding the displacement of Captain Sawyer from command; and his own personal report was embodied in the second one, redolent with conscious virtue, telling of the capitulation of the Spanish forces in Santo Domingo. But the third, with its account of the uprising of the prisoners on board, and its confession that Buckland had been taken prisoner asleep in bed, had been written without Bush’s help.

  “I wish to God I was dead,” said Buckland.

  “Don’t say that, sir,” said Bush, as cheerfully as his own apprehensions and his weak state would allow.

  “I wish I was,” repeated Buckland.

  “Your gig’s alongside, sir,” said Hornblower’s voice. “And the prizes are just anchoring astern of us.”

  Buckland turned his dead-fish eyes towards him; Hornblower was not quite as neat in appearance, but he had clearly gone to some pains with his
uniform.

  “Thank you,” said Buckland; and then, after a pause, he asked his question explosively: “Tell me, Mr. Hornblower—this is the last chance—how did the captain come to fall down the hatchway?”

  “I am quite unable to tell you, sir,” said Hornblower.

  There was no hint whatever to be gleaned from his expressionless face or from the words he used.

  “Now, Mr. Hornblower,” said Buckland, nervously tapping the reports in his hand. “I’m treating you well. You’ll find I’ve given you all the praise I could in these reports. I’ve given you full credit for what you did at Santo Domingo, and for boarding the ship when the prisoners rose. Full credit, Mr. Hornblower. Won’t you—won’t you—?”

  “I really cannot add anything to what you already know, sir,” said Hornblower.

  “But what am I going to say when they start asking me?” asked Buckland.

  “Just say the truth, sir, that the captain was found under the hatchway and that no inquiry could establish any other indication than that he fell by accident.”

  “I wish I knew,” said Buckland.

  “You know all that will ever be known, sir. Your pardon, sir”—Hornblower extended his hand and picked a thread of oakum from off Buckland’s lapel before he went on speaking—“the admiral will be overjoyed at hearing that we’ve wiped out the Dons at Samaná, sir. He’s probably been worrying himself grey-haired over convoys in the Mona Passage. And we’ve brought three prizes in. He’ll have his one-eighth of their value. You can’t believe he’ll resent that, can you, sir?”

  “I suppose not,” said Buckland.

  “He’ll have seen the prizes coming in with us—everyone in the flagship’s looking at them now and wondering about them. He’ll be expecting good news. He’ll be in no mood to ask questions this morning, sir. Except perhaps to ask you if you’ll take Madeira or sherry.”

  For the life of him Bush could not guess whether Hornblower’s smile was natural or not, but he was a witness of the infusion of new spirits into Buckland.

  “But later on—” said Buckland.

  “Later on’s another day, sir. We can be sure of one thing, though—admirals don’t like to be kept waiting, sir.”

  “I suppose I’d better go,” said Buckland.

  Hornblower returned to Bush’s cabin after having supervised the departure of the gig. This time his smile was clearly not forced; it played whimsically about the corners of his mouth.

  “I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said Bush.

  He tried to ease his position under the sheet that covered him. Now that the ship was stationary and the nearby land interfered with the free course of the wind the ship was much warmer already; the sun was shining down mercilessly, almost vertically over the deck that lay hardly more than a yard above Bush’s upturned face.

  “You’re quite right, sir,” said Hornblower, stooping over him and adjusting the sheet. “There’s nothing to laugh at.”

  “Then take that damned grin off your face,” said Bush, petulantly. Excitement and the heat were working on his weakness to make his head swim again.

  “Aye aye, sir. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No,” said Bush.

  “Very good, sir. I’ll attend to my other duties, then.”

  Alone in his cabin Bush rather regretted Hornblower’s absence. As far as his weakness would permit, he would have liked to discuss the immediate future; he lay and thought about it, muzzy-mindedly, while the sweat soaked the bandages that swathed him. But there could be no logical order in his thoughts. He swore feebly to himself. Listening, he tried to guess what was going on in the ship with hardly more success than when he had tried to guess the future. He closed his eyes to sleep, and he opened them again when he started wondering about how Buckland was progressing in his interview with Admiral Lambert.

  A lob-lolly boy—sick-berth attendant—came in with a tray that bore a jug and a glass. He poured out a glassful of liquid and with an arm supporting Bush’s neck he held it to Bush’s lips. At the touch of the cool liquid, and as its refreshing scent reached his nose, Bush suddenly realized he was horribly thirsty, and he drank eagerly, draining the glass.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Lemonade, sir, with Mr. Hornblower’s respects.”

  “Mr. Hornblower?”

  “Yes, sir. There’s a bumboat alongside an’ Mr. Hornblower bought some lemons an’ told me to squeeze ’em for you.”

  “My thanks to Mr. Hornblower.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Another glass, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  That was better. Later on there were a whole succession of noises which he found hard to explain to himself: the tramp of booted feet on the deck, shouted orders, oars and more oars rowing alongside. Then there were steps outside his cabin door and Clive, the surgeon, entered, ushering in a stranger, a skinny, white-haired man with twinkling blue eyes.

  “I’m Sankey, surgeon of the naval hospital ashore,” he announced. “I’ve come to take you where you’ll be more comfortable.”

  “I don’t want to leave the ship,” said Bush.

  “In the service,” said Sankey with professional cheerfulness, “you should have learned that it is the rule always to have to do what you don’t want to do.”

  He turned back the sheet and contemplated Bush’s bandaged form.

  “Pardon this liberty,” he said, still hatefully cheerful, “but I have to sign a receipt for you—I trust you’ve never signed a receipt for ship’s stores without examining into their condition, Lieutenant”

  “Damn you to hell!” said Bush.

  “A nasty temper,” said Sankey with a glance at Clive. “I fear you have not prescribed a sufficiency of opening medicine.”

  He laid hands on Bush, and with Clive’s assistance dexterously twitched him over so that he lay face downward.

  “The Dagoes seem to have done a crude job of carving you, sir,” went on Sankey, addressing Bush’s defenceless back. “Nine wounds, I understand.”

  “And fifty-three stitches,” added Clive.

  “That will look well in the Gazette,” said Sankey with a giggle; and proceeded to extemporize a quotation: “Lieutenant—ah—Bush received no fewer than nine wounds in the course of his heroic defence, but I am happy to state that he is rapidly recovering from them.”

  Bush tried to turn his head so as to snarl out an appropriate reply, but his neck was one of the sorest parts of him and he could only growl unintelligibly, and he was not turned on to his back again until his growls had died down.

  “And now we’ll whisk our little cupid away,” said Sankey. “Come in, you stretcher men.”

  Carried out on to the maindeck Bush found the sunlight blinding, and Sankey stooped to draw the sheet over his eyes.

  “Belay that!” said Bush, as he realized his intention, and there was enough of the old bellow in his voice to cause Sankey to pause. “I want to see!”

  The explanation of the trampling and bustle on the deck was plain now. Across the waist was drawn up a guard of one of the West Indian regiments, bayonets fixed and every man at attention. The Spanish prisoners were being brought up through the hatchways for despatch to the shore in the lighters alongside. Bush recognized Ortega, limping along with a man on either side to support him; one trouser leg had been cut off and his thigh was bandaged, and the bandage and the other trouser leg were black with dried blood.

  “A cut-throat crew, to be sure,” said Sankey. “And now, if you have feasted your eyes on them long enough, we can sway you down into the boat.”

  Hornblower came hurrying down from the quarterdeck and went down on his knee beside the stretcher.

  “Are you all right, sir?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yes, thank’ee,” said Bush.

  “I’ll have your gear packed and sent ashore after you, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Careful with those slings,” snapped Hornblower, as the tackles were being attach
ed to the stretcher.

  “Sir! Sir!” Midshipman James was dancing about at Hornblower’s elbow, anxious for his attention. “Boat’s heading for us with a captain aboard.”

  That was news demanding instant consideration.

  “Good-bye, sir,” said Hornblower. “Best of luck, sir. See you soon.”

  He turned away and Bush felt no ill will at this brief farewell, for a captain coming on board had to be received with the correct compliments. Moreover, Bush himself was desperately anxious to know the business that brought this captain on board.

  “Hoist away!” ordered Sankey.

  “Avast!” said Bush; and in reply to Sankey’s look of inquiry, “Let’s wait a minute.”

  “I have no objection myself to knowing what’s going on,” said Sankey.

  The calls of the bosun’s mates shrilled along the deck. The sideboys came running; the military guard wheeled to face the entry port; the marines formed up beside them. Up through the entry port came the captain, his gold lace flaming in the sunshine. Hornblower touched his hat.

  “You are Mr. Hornblower, at present the senior lieutenant on board this ship?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower, at your service.”

  “My name is Cogshill,” said the captain, and he produced a paper which he proceeded to unfold and read aloud. “Orders from Sir Richard Lambert, Vice Admiral of the Blue, Knight of the Bath, Commanding His Majesty’s ships and vessels on the Jamaica station, to Captain James Edward Cogshill, of His Majesty’s ship Buckler. You are hereby requested and required to repair immediately on board of His Majesty’s ship Renown now lying in Port Royal bay and to take command pro tempore of the aforesaid ship Renown.”

  Cogshill folded his paper again. The assumption of command, even temporarily, of a king’s ship was a solemn act, only to be performed with the correct ceremonial. No orders that Cogshill might give on board would be legal until he had read aloud the authority by which he gave them. Now he had “read himself in”, and now he held the enormous powers of a captain on board—he could make and unmake warrant officers, he could order imprisonment or the lash, by virtue of the delegation of power from the King in Council down through the Lords of the Admiralty and Sir Richard Lambert.