The Young Hornblower Omnibus

by C. S. Forester

  “Welcome on board, sir;” said Hornblower, touching his hat again.

  “Very interesting,” said Sankey, when Bush had been swayed down into the hospital boat alongside and Sankey had taken his seat beside the stretcher. “Take charge, coxs’n. I knew Cogshill was a favourite of the admiral’s. Promotion to a ship of the line from a twenty-eight-gun frigate is a long step for our friend James Edward. Sir Richard has wasted no time.”

  “The orders said it was only—only temporary,” said Bush, not quite able to bring out the words “pro tempore” with any aplomb.

  “Time enough to make out the permanent orders in due form,” said Sankey. “It is from this moment that Cogshill’s pay is increased from ten shillings to two pounds a day.”

  The Negro oarsmen of the hospital boat were bending to their work, sending the launch skimming over the glittering water, and Sankey turned his head to look at the squadron lying at anchor in the distance—a three-decker and a couple of frigates.

  “That’s the Buckler,” he said, pointing. “Lucky for Cogshill his ship was in here at this moment. There’ll be plenty of promotion in the admiral’s gift now. You lost two lieutenants in the Renown?”

  “Yes,” said Bush. Roberts had been cut in two by a shot from Samaná during the first attack, and Smith had been killed at the post of duty defending the quarterdeck when the prisoners rose.

  “A captain and two lieutenants,” said Sankey meditatively. “Sawyer had been insane for some time, I understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet they killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “A chapter of accidents. It might have been better for your first lieutenant if he had met the same fate.”

  Bush did not make any reply to that remark, even though the same thought had occurred to him. Buckland had been taken prisoner in his bed, and he would never be able to live that down.

  “I think,” said Sankey, judicially, “he will never be able to look for promotion. Unfortunate for him, seeing that he could otherwise have expected it as a result of your successes in Santo Domingo, on which so far I have not congratulated you, sir. My felicitations.”

  “Thank you,” said Bush.

  “A resounding success. Now it will be interesting to see what use Sir Richard—may his name be ever revered—will make of all these vacancies. Cogshill to the Renown. That seems certain. Then a commander must be promoted to the Buckler. The ineffable joy of post rank! There are four commanders on this station—I wonder which of them will enter through the pearly gates? You have been on this station before, I believe, sir?”

  “Not for three years,” said Bush.

  “Then you can hardly be expected to be up to date regarding the relative standing of the officers here in Sir Richard’s esteem. Then a lieutenant will be made commander. No doubt about who that will be.”

  Sankey spared Bush a glance, and Bush asked the question which was expected of him.

  “Who?”

  “Dutton. First lieutenant of the flagship. Are you acquainted with him?”

  “I think so. Lanky fellow with a scar on his cheek?”

  “Yes. Sir Richard believes that the sun rises and sets on him. And I believe that Lieutenant Dutton—Commander as he soon will be—is of the same opinion.”

  Bush had no comment to make, and he would not have made one if he had. Surgeon Sankey was quite obviously a scatter-brained old gossip, and quite capable of repeating any remarks made to him. He merely nodded—as much of a nod as his sore neck and his recumbent position allowed—and waited for Sankey to continue his monologue.

  “So Dutton will be a commander. That’ll mean vacancies for three lieutenants. Sir Richard will be able to gladden the hearts of three of his friends by promoting their sons from midshipmen. Assuming, that is to say, that Sir Richard has as many as three friends.”

  “Oars! Bowman!” said the coxswain of the launch; they were rounding the tip of the jetty. The boat ran gently alongside and was secured; Sankey climbed out and supervised the lifting of the stretcher. With steady steps the Negro bearers began to carry the stretcher up the road towards the hospital, while the heat of the island closed round Bush like the warm water in a bath.

  “Let me see,” said Sankey, falling into step beside the stretcher. “We had just promoted three midshipmen to lieutenant. So among the warrant ranks there will be three vacancies. But let me see—I fancy you had casualties in the Renown?”

  “Plenty,” said Bush.

  Midshipmen and master’s mates had given their lives in defence of their ship.

  “Of course. That was only to be expected. So there will be many more than three vacancies. So the hearts of the supernumeraries, of the volunteers, of all those unfortunates serving without pay in the hope of eventual preferment, will be gladdened by numerous appointments. From the limbo of nothingness to the inferno of warrant rank. The path of glory—I do not have to asperse your knowledge of literature by reminding you of what the poet said.”

  Bush had no idea what the poet said, but he was not going to admit it.

  “And now we are arrived,” said Sankey. “I will attend you to your cabin.”

  Inside the building the darkness left Bush almost blind for a space after the dazzling sunshine. There were white-washed corridors; there was a long twilit ward divided by screens into minute rooms. He suddenly realized that he was quite exhausted, that all he wanted to do was to close his eyes and rest. The final lifting of him from the stretcher to the bed and the settling of him there seemed almost more than he could bear. He had no attention to spare for Sankey’s final chatter. When the mosquito net was at last drawn round his bed and he was left alone he felt as if he were at the summit of a long sleek green wave, down which he went gliding, gliding, endlessly gliding. It was almost a pleasant sensation, but not quite.

  When he reached the foot of the wave he had to struggle up it again, recovering his strength, through a night and a day and another night, and during that time he came to learn about the life in the hospital—the sounds, the groans that came from other patients behind other screens, the not-quite-muffled howls of lunatic patients at the far end of the whitewashed corridor; morning and evening rounds; by the end of his second day there he had begun to listen with appetite for the noises that presaged the bringing in of his meals.

  “You are a fortunate man,” remarked Sankey, examining his stitched-up body. “These are all incised wounds. Not a single deep puncture. It’s contrary to all my professional experience. Usually the Dagoes can be relied upon to use their knives in a more effective manner. Just look at this cut here.”

  The cut in question ran from Bush’s shoulder to his spine, so that Sankey could not literally mean what he had just said.

  “Eight inches long at least,” went on Sankey. “Yet not more than two inches deep, even though, as I suspect, the scapula is notched. Four inches with the point would have been far more effective. This other cut here seems to be the only one that indicates any ambition to plumb the arterial depths. Clearly the man who wielded the knife here intended to stab. But it was a stab from above downwards, and the jagged beginning of it shows how the point was turned by the ribs down which the knife slid, severing a few fibres of latissimus dorsi but tailing off at the end into a mere superficial laceration. The effort of a tyro. Turn over, please. Remember, Mr. Bush, if ever you use a knife, to give an upward inclination to the point. The human ribs lie open to welcome an upward thrust; before a downward thrust they overlap and forbid all entrance, and the descending knife, as in this case, bounds in vain from one rib to the next, knocking for admission at each in turn and being refused.”

  “I’m glad of that,” said Bush. “Ouch!”

  “And every cut is healing well,” said Sankey. “No sign of mortification.”

  Bush suddenly realized that Sankey was moving his nose about close to his body; it was by its smell that gangrene first became apparent.

  “A good clean cut,” said Sankey,
“rapidly sutured and bound up in its own blood, can be expected to heal by first intention more often than not. Many times more often than not. And these are mostly clean cuts, haggled, as I said, only a little here and there. Bend this knee if you please. Your honourable scars, Mr. Bush, will in the course of a few years become almost unnoticeable. Thin lines of white whose crisscross pattern will be hardly a blemish on your classic torso.”

  “Good,” said Bush; he was not quite sure what his torso was, but he was not going to ask Sankey to explain all these anatomical terms.

  This morning Sankey had hardly left him before he returned with a visitor.

  “Captain Cogshill to inspect you,” he said. “Here he is, sir.”

  Cogshill looked down at Bush upon the bed.

  “Doctor Sankey gives me the good news that you are recovering rapidly,” he said.

  “I think I am, sir.”

  “The admiral has ordered a court of inquiry, and I am nominated a member of the court. Naturally your evidence will be required, Mr. Bush, and it is my duty to ascertain how soon you will be able to give it.”

  Bush felt a little wave of apprehension ripple over him. A court of inquiry was only a shade less terrifying than the court-martial to which it might lead. Even with a conscience absolutely clear Bush would rather—far rather—handle a ship on a lee shore in a gale than face questions and have to give answers, submit his motives to analysis and misconstruction, and struggle against the entanglements of legal forms. But it was medicine that had to be swallowed, and the sensible thing was to hold his nose and gulp it down however nauseating.

  “I’m ready at any time, sir.”

  “Tomorrow I shall take out the sutures, sir,” interposed Sankey. “You will observe that Mr. Bush is still weak. He was entirely exsanguinated by his wounds.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean he was drained of his blood. And the ordeal of taking out the sutures—”

  “The stitches, do you mean?”

  “The stitches, sir. The ordeal of removing them may momentarily retard Mr. Bush’s recovery of his strength. But if the court will indulge him with a chair when he gives his evidence—”

  “That can certainly be granted.”

  “Then in three days from now he can answer any necessary questions.”

  “Next Friday, then?”

  “Yes, sir. That is the earliest. I could wish it would be later.”

  “To assemble a court on this station,” explained Cogshill with his cold courtesy, “is not easy, when every ship is away on necessary duty so much of the time. Next Friday will be convenient.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sankey.

  It was some sort of gratification to Bush, who had endured so much of Sankey’s chatter, to see him almost subdued in his manner when addressing someone as eminent as a captain.

  “Very well, then,” said Cogshill. He bowed to Bush. “I wish you the quickest of recoveries.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Bush.

  Even lying on his back he could not check the instinctive attempt to return the bow, but his wounds hurt him when he started to double up in the middle and prevented him from appearing ridiculous. With Cogshill gone Bush had time to worry about the future; the fear of it haunted him a little even while he ate his dinner, but the lob-lolly boy who came to take away the remains ushered in another visitor, the sight of whom drove away the black thoughts. It was Hornblower, standing at the door with a basket in his hand, and Bush’s face lit up at the sight of him.

  “How are you, sir?” asked Hornblower.

  They shook hands, each reflecting the pleasure of the other’s greeting.

  “All the better for seeing you,” said Bush, and meant it.

  “This is my first chance of coming ashore,” said Hornblower. “You can guess that I’ve been kept busy.”

  Bush could guess easily enough; it was no trouble to him to visualize all the duties that had been heaped on Hornblower, the necessity to complete Renown again with powder and shot, food and water, to clean up the ship after the prisoners had been removed, to eradicate the traces of the recent fighting, to attend to the formalities connected with the disposal of the prizes, the wounded, the sick, and the effects of the dead. And Bush was eager to hear the details, as a housewife might be when illness had removed her from the supervision of her household. He plied Hornblower with questions, and the technical discussion that ensued prevented Hornblower for some time from indicating the basket he had brought.

  “Pawpaws,” he said. “Mangoes. A pineapple. That’s only the second pineapple I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thank you. Very kind of you,” said Bush. But it was utterly beyond possibility that he could give the least hint of the feeling that the gift evoked in him, that after lying lonely for these days in the hospital he should find that someone cared about him—that in any case someone should give him so much as a thought. The words he spoke were limping and quite inadequate, and only a sensitive and sympathetic mind could guess at the feelings which the words concealed rather than expressed. But he was saved from further embarrassment by Hornblower abruptly introducing a new subject.

  “The admiral’s taking the Gaditana into the navy,” he announced.

  “Is he, by George!”

  “Yes. Eighteen guns—six-pounders and nines. She’ll rate as a sloop of war.”

  “So he’ll have to promote a commander for her.”

  “Yes.”

  “By George!” said Bush again.

  Some lucky lieutenant would get that important step. It might have been Buckland—it still might be, if no weight were given to the consideration that he had been captured asleep in bed.

  “Lambert’s renaming her the Retribution,” said Hornblower.

  “Not a bad name, either.”

  “No.”

  There was silence for a moment; each of them was reliving, from his own point of view, those awful minutes while the Renown was being recaptured, while the Spaniards who tried to fight it out were slaughtered without mercy.

  “You know about the court of inquiry, I suppose?” asked Bush; it was a logical step from his last train of thought.

  “Yes. How did you know about it?”

  “Cogshill’s just been in here to warn me that I’ll have to give evidence.”

  “I see.”

  There followed silence more pregnant than the last as they thought about the ordeal ahead. Hornblower deliberately broke it.

  “I was going to tell you,” he said, “that I had to reeve new tiller lines in Renown. Both of them were frayed—there’s too much wear there. I think they’re led round too sharp an angle.”

  That provoked a technical discussion which Hornblower encouraged until it was time for him to leave.

  XVI

  The court of inquiry was not nearly as awe-inspiring as a court-martial. There was no gun fired, no court-martial flag hoisted; the captains who constituted the board wore their everyday uniforms, and the witnesses were not required to give their evidence under oath; Bush had forgotten about this last fact until he was called into the court.

  “Please take a seat, Mr. Bush,” said the president. “I understand you are still weak from your wounds.”

  Bush hobbled across to the chair indicated and was just able to reach it in time to sit down. The great cabin of the Renown—here, where Captain Sawyer had lain quivering and weeping with fear—was sweltering hot. The president had the logbook and journal in front of him, and he held in his hand what Bush recognized to be his own report regarding the attack on Samaná which he had addressed to Buckland.

  “This report of yours does you credit, Mr. Bush,” said the president. “It appears that you stormed this fort with no more than six casualties, although it was constructed with a ditch, parapets, and ramparts in regular style, and defended by a garrison of seventy men, and armed with twenty-four-pounders.”

  “We took them by surprise, sir,” said Bush.

  “It is that
which is to your credit.”

  The surprise of the garrison of Samaná could not have been greater than Bush’s own surprise at this reception; he was expecting something far more unpleasant and inquisitorial. A glance across at Buckland, who had been called in before him, was not quite so reassuring; Buckland was pale and unhappy. But there was something he must say before the thought of Buckland should distract him.

  “The credit should be given to Lieutenant Hornblower, sir,” he said. “It was his plan.”

  “So you very handsomely say in your report. I may as well say at once that it is the opinion of this court that all the circumstances regarding the attack on Samaná and the subsequent capitulation are in accordance with the best traditions of the service.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now we come to the next matter. The attempt of the prisoners to capture the Renown. You were by this time acting as first lieutenant of the ship, Mr. Bush?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Step by step Bush was taken through the events of that night. He was responsible under Buckland for the arrangements made for guarding and feeding the prisoners. There were fifty women, wives of the prisoners, under guard in the midshipmen’s berth. Yes, it was difficult to supervise them as closely as the men. Yes, he had gone his rounds after pipedown. Yes, he had heard a disturbance. And so on.

  “And you were found lying among the dead, unconscious from your wounds?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bush.”

  A fresh-faced young captain at the end of the table asked a question.

  “And all this time Captain Sawyer was confined to his cabin, until he was murdered?”

  The president interposed.

  “Captain Hibbert, Mr. Buckland has already enlightened us regarding Captain Sawyer’s indisposition.”