‘Pass the word for Mr Bush,’ he bellowed; Bush, when he arrived, was handed the other letters without a word, nor did he stay for one, seeing that his captain was so deeply engaged in reading that he did not even look up.
Hornblower read, several times, that he was Maria’s Dearest Husband. The first two letters told him how much she missed her Angel, how happy she had been during their two days of marriage, and how anxious she was that her Hero was not running into danger, and how necessary it was to change his socks if they should get wet. The third letter was dated from Plymouth. Maria had ascertained that the Channel Fleet was based there, and she had decided to move so as to be on the spot should the necessities of the Service send Hotspur back into port; also, as she admitted sentimentally, she would be nearer her Beloved. She had made the journey in the coasting hoy, committing herself (with many thoughts of her Precious) to the Briny Deep for the first time, and as she gazed at the distant land she had reached a better understanding of the feelings of her Valiant Sailor Husband. Now she was comfortably established in lodgings kept by a most respectable woman, widow of a boatswain.
The fourth letter began precipitately with the most delightful, the most momentous news for her Darling. Maria hardly knew how to express this to her most Loved, her most Adored Idol. Their marriage, already so Blissful, was now to be further Blessed, or at least she fancied so. Hornblower opened the fifth letter in haste, passing over the hurried postscript which said that Maria had just learned the news of her Intrepid Warrior adding to his Laurels by engaging with the Loire, and that she hoped he had not exposed himself more than was necessary to his Glory. He found the news confirmed. Maria was more sure than ever that she was destined to be so vastly fortunate in the future as to be the Mother of the Child of her Ideal. And the sixth letter repeated the confirmation. There might be a Christmas Baby, or a New Year’s Child; Hornblower noted wryly that much more space in these later letters was devoted to the Blessed Increase than to her Longed-for but Distant Jewel. In any case Maria was consumed with hope that the Little Cherub, if a Boy, would be the Image of his Famous Father, or, if a Girl, that she should display his Sweetness of Disposition.
So that was the news. Hornblower sat with the six letters littered before him, his mind in just as much disorder. Perhaps to postpone realisation he dwelt at first on the thought of the two letters he had written – addressed to Southsea they would be a long time before they caught up with Maria – and their comparatively formal and perhaps chilling content. He would have to remedy that. He would have to write a letter full of affection and full of delight at the news, whether he were delighted or not – and at that point he could reach no decision. Plunged as he was into professional problems the episode of his marriage was suffused in his memory with unreal quality. The affair was so brief, and even at the time it had been so overlain by the business of getting to sea, that it had seemed strange to him that it should involve the lasting effects of marriage; and this news was an indication of more lasting and permanent effects still. He was going to be a father. For the life of him he could not tell if he were pleased or not. Certainly he was sorry for the child if he – or she – were destined to inherit his accursed unhappy temperament. The more the child should prove to be like him, whether in looks or in morals, the sorrier he would be. Yet was that quite true? Was there not something flattering, something gratifying, in the thought that his own characteristics might be perpetuated? It was hard to be honest with himself.
He could remember, with his mind now diverted from his present life, more clearly the details of his honeymoon. He could conjure up more exactly his memories of Maria’s doting affection, of the wholehearted way in which she gave herself to believe, that she could not give so much love without its being as hotly reciprocated. He must never let her guess at the quality of his feelings for her, because that would be a cruelty that he could not contemplate. He reached for pen and paper, returning to the commonplace world with his routine annoyance at having a left wing pen. Pens from the left wing of the goose were cheaper than right wing ones, because when held in position for writing they pointed towards the writer’s eye and not conveniently out over his elbow as right wing ones did. But at least he had cut a good point and the ink had not yet grown muddy. Grimly he applied himself to his task. Partly it was a literary exercise, an Essay on Unbounded Affection, and yet – and yet – he found himself smiling as he wrote; he felt tenderness within him, welling out perhaps along his arm and down his pen. He was even on the verge of admitting to himself that he was not entirely the cold-hearted and unscrupulous individual he believed himself to be.
Towards the close of the letter, as he searched for synonyms for ‘wife’ and ‘child’, his glance strayed back to the letters from Pellew, and he actually caught his breath, his thoughts reverting to his duty, to his plans for slaughter, to the harsh realities of the world he was living in. Hotspur was riding easily over the placid sea, but the very fact that she was lying hove-to meant that there was a fair wind out of Brest and that at any moment a shout from the top-mast-head would announce that the French Navy was on its way out to contest in thunder and smoke the mastery of the sea. And he had plans; even as he re-read the latest lines of his letter to Maria his vision was blurred by the insistence on his attention of his visualisation of the chart of the entrance to Brest. He had to take tight hold of himself to compel himself to finish the letter to Maria in the same strain as he had begun it. He made himself finish it, he made himself re-read it, he made himself fold it; a shout to the sentry brought in Grimes with a lighted dip with which to seal it, and when he had completed the tiresome process it was with eager relief that he laid the letter aside and reached for a fresh sheet of paper.
‘H.M. Sloop Hotspur, at sea, the Petit Minou bearing north one league.
May 14th, 1803
Sir—’
This was an end of mellifluous phrasing, of blundering attempts to deal with a totally unfamiliar situation; no longer was he addressing (as if in a dream) the Dear Companion of our Lives Together in Happy Years to Come. Now he was applying himself to a task that he felt competent and eager to do, and for phrasing he had only to draw upon the harsh and unrelieved wording of a myriad official letters before this one. He wrote rapidly and with little pause for consideration, because fantastically his plans had reached complete maturity during his pre-occupation with Maria. The sheet was covered, turned and half covered again, and the plan was sketched out in full detail. He wrote the conclusion:
‘Respectfully submitted by
Your ob’d’t servant
Horatio Hornblower.’
He wrote the address:
‘Captain Sir E. Pellew, K.B.
H.M.S. Tonnant.’
When the second letter was sealed he held the two of them in his hand; new life in the one, and death and misery in the other. That was a fanciful thought – of far more importance was the question as to whether Pellew would approve of his suggestions.
VIII
Hornblower lay stretched out on his cot waiting for the time to pass. He would have preferred to be asleep, but during the afternoon sleep had refused to come to him. It was better to go on lying here in any case, for he would need all his strength during the night to come, and if he followed his inclinations and went on deck he would not only tire himself but he would reveal his anxieties and tensions to his subordinates. So he lay as relaxed as he could manage, flat on his back with his hands behind his head; the sounds that he heard on deck told him of the progress of the ship’s routine. Just over his head the tell-tale compass which he had had fitted to the deckbeams was literally carrying out its functions and telling the tale of Hotspur’s small alterations of heading as she lay hove-to, and these could be correlated with the play of the beams of sunshine that came in through the stern windows. Those were now curtained, and the sunbeams came in around the curtains as they swayed gently with the ship’s motion. Most captains curtained – and furnished – their cabins wit
h gay chintz, or even, if wealthy, with damask, but these curtains were of canvas. They were of the finest, No. 8, sailcloth to be found in the ship and had only hung there for the last two days. Hornblower thought about this pleasantly, for they had been a present to him from the ward-room; Bush and Prowse, and the surgeon, Wallis, and the purser, Huffnell, had made the presentation after a mysterious request from Bush that they should be allowed to enter his cabin for a moment in his absence. Hornblower had returned to the cabin to find the deputation there and the cabin transformed. There were curtains and cushions – stuffed with oakum – and a coverlet, all gay with red and blue roses and green leaves painted on with ship’s paint by some unknown artist in the ship’s company. Hornblower had looked round in astonishment that made it impossible to conceal his pleasure. There was no time to glower or look stern, as nine captains out of ten would have done at such an unwarrantable liberty on the part of the ward-room. He could do no more than thank them in halting phrases; and the greatest pleasure only came after later consideration, when he faced the situation realistically. They had not done this as a joke, or in a silly attempt to win his favour. He had to believe the unbelievable, and accept the fact that they had done it because they liked him. That showed their poor judgement; gratification warred with guilt in his mind, yet the fact that they had dared to do such a thing was a strange but undeniable confirmation that the Hotspur was welding herself into a fighting entity.
Grimes knocked at the door and entered.
‘They’re calling the watch, sir,’ he said.
‘Thank you. I’ll come.’ The squeals of the pipes and the bellowings of the petty officers echoing through the ship made Grimes’ words a little superfluous, but Hornblower had to act the part of a newly awakened man. He retied his neckcloth and pulled on his coat, slipped on his shoes and walked out on deck. Bush was there with paper and pencil in his hand.
‘The semaphore’s been signalling, sir,’ he reported. ‘Two long messages at fifteen minutes past four and four-thirty. Two short ones at – there they go again, sir.’
The long gaunt arms of the semaphore were jerkily swinging out and up and back again.
‘Thank you, Mr Bush.’ It was sufficient to know that the semaphore had been busy. Hornblower took the glass and trained it out to seaward. The Inshore Squadron was sharply silhouetted against the clear sky; the sun just down on the horizon, was still so bright that he could not look towards it at all, but the squadron was well to the northward of it.
‘Tonnants signalling again, sir, but it’s a ninety-one signal,’ reported Foreman.
‘Thank you.’
It had been agreed that all flag-signals from Tonnant preceded by the numerals ninety-one should be disregarded; Tonnant was only making them to deceive the French on Petit Minou into thinking some violent action was being planned by the inshore squadron.
‘There goes Naiad, sir,’ said Bush.
Under easy sail the frigate was creeping northward from her station to the south where she had been watching over Camaret Bay, heading to join the big ships and the Doris. The sun was now touching the sea; small variations in the water content of the nearly clear air were causing strange freaks of refraction, so that the reddening disc was slightly out of shape as it sank.
‘They’re heaving the long boat up out of its chocks, sir,’ commented Bush.
‘Yes.’
The sun was half-way down in the sea, the remaining half pulled by refraction into twice its normal length. There was still plenty of light for an observer with a good glass on Petit Minou – and undoubtedly there was one – to pick out the preparations going on on the Doris’s deck and in the big ships. The sun had gone. Above where it had sunk a small sliver of cloud shone brilliantly gold and then turned to pink as he looked. Twilight was closing in on them.
‘Send the hands to the braces, if you please, Mr Bush. Fill the main-tops’l and lay her on the starboard tack.’
‘Starboard tack. Aye aye, sir.’
Hotspur crept northward through the growing night, following after Doris, heading towards the big ships and Point Matthew.
‘There goes the semaphore again, sir.’
‘Thank you.’
There was just light enough in the darkening sky to see the telegraphic arms silhouetted against it, as they spun round, signalling the latest move on the part of the British, this concentration towards the north – this relaxing of the hold of the British navy on the passages of the south.
‘Only just keep her going,’ said Hornblower to the quartermasters at the helm. ‘Don’t let the Frogs see what we’re up to.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Hornblower was feeling nervous; he did not want to leave the Toulinguet Passage too far behind him. He turned his glass towards the Inshore Squadron. Now there was a strip of red sky along the horizon behind it – the last light of day – and against it the sails of the ships of the line stood out in startling black. The red was fading rapidly, and above it Venus could be seen; Pellew over there was holding on to the last possible moment. Pellew was not only a man of iron nerve; he was a man who never underestimated his enemy. At last; the rectangles of the silhouetted topsails shortened, hesitated, and lengthened again.
‘Inshore Squadron’s hauled its wind, sir.’
‘Thank you.’
Already the topsails were out of sight with the complete fading of the sky. Pellew had timed the move perfectly. A Frenchman on Petit Minou could not help but think that Pellew, looking towards the night-covered east, had thought that his ships were now invisible, and had come to the wind without realising that the move could still be seen by an observer looking towards the west. Hornblower stared round him. His eyes were aching, so that with his hands on the hammock netting he closed his eyes to rest them. Never had a minute seemed so long as that one. Then he opened them again. The light was all gone. Venus was shining where once the sun had shone. The figures about him were almost invisible. Now one or two of the brighter stars could be seen, and Hotspur must be lost to sight, to that unknown observer on Petit Minou. He gulped, braced himself, and plunged into action.
‘Take in the tops’ls and topgallants!’
Hands rushed aloft. In the gentle night the vibration of the shrouds as fifty men ran up the ratlines could be distinctly heard.
‘Now, Mr Bush, wear the ship, if you please. Course sou’ by west.’
‘Sou’ by west, sir.’
Soon it was time for the next order.
‘Send the topgallant masts down!’
This was the time when drill and practice revealed their value. In the dark night what had once been a mere toilsome exercise was performed without a hitch.
‘Set the fore and main topmast stays’ls. Get the fores’l in.’
Hornblower walked over to the binnacle.
‘How does she handle under this sail?’
There was a pause while the almost invisible figure at the wheel spun it tentatively this way and that. ‘Well enough, sir.’
‘Very well.’
Hornblower had altered the silhouette of the Hotspur as entirely as he could. With only her fore and aft sails and her main course set, and her topgallant masts sent down, even an experienced seaman on this dark night would have to look twice or thrice to recognise what he saw. Hornblower peered at the chart in the faint light of the binnacle. He concentrated on it, to find the effort unnecessary. For two days now he had been studying it and memorising this particular section; it was fixed in his mind and it seemed as if he would be able to visualise it to his dying day – which might be today. He looked up, to find, as he expected, that exposure to that faint light had temporarily made his eyes quite blind in the darkness. He would not do it again.
‘Mr Prowse! You can keep your eye on the chart from now on when you think it necessary. Mr Bush! Choose the best two hands you know with the lead and send them aft to me.’ When the two dark figures reported Hornblower gave them curt orders. ‘Get into the main chains on each s
ide. I don’t want you to make a sound more than you can help. Don’t make a cast unless I order it. Haul your lines in and then let ’em out to four fathoms. We’re making three knots through the water, and when the flood starts we’ll be making next to nothing over the ground. Keep your fingers on your lines and pass the word quietly about what you feel. I’ll station hands to pass the word. Understand?’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Four bells struck to mark the end of the second dog watch.
‘Mr Bush, that’s the last time I want the bell to strike. Now you may clear for action. No, wait a moment, if you please. I want the guns loaded with two rounds of shot each and run out. Have the coigns in and the guns at extreme depression. And as soon as the men are at their quarters I don’t want to hear another sound. Not a word, not a whisper. The man who drops a hand-spike on the deck will get two dozen. Not the slightest sound.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Very well, Mr Bush. Carry on.’
There was a roar and a rattle as the hands went to their quarters, as the gun-ports opened and the guns were run out. Then silence closed in upon the ship. Everything was ready, from the gunner down in the magazine to the look-out in the foretop, as the Hotspur reached silently down to the southward with the wind one point abaft the beam.
The Young Hornblower Omnibus Page 65