Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  “I understand, my Lord,” said Hornblower.

  “Lord William has some suggestions to make which may soften the blow,” said Collingwood, and Hornblower shifted his glance.

  “You can be retained in command of Atropos,” said Bentinck—what a moment of joy, just one fleeting moment!—“if you transfer to the Sicilian service. His Majesty will appoint you Commodore, and you can hoist a broad pendant. I am sure he will also confer upon you an order of high distinction as well.”

  “No,” said Hornblower. That was the only thing he could possibly say.

  “I thought that would be your answer,” said Collingwood. “And if a letter from me to the Admiralty carries any weight you can hope, on your return to England, to be appointed to the frigate to which your present seniority entitles you.”

  “Thank you, my Lord. So I am to return to England?”

  He would have a glimpse of Maria and the children then.

  “I see no alternative, Captain, I am afraid, as of course you understand. But if Their Lordships see fit to send you back here with your new command, no one would be more delighted than I.”

  “What sort of a man is your first lieutenant?” demanded Bentinck.

  “Well, my Lord—” Hornblower looked from Bentinck to Collingwood. It was hard to make a public condemnation even of the abject Jones. “He is a worthy enough man. The fact that he is John Jones the Ninth in the lieutenants’ list may have held him back from promotion.”

  A wintry twinkle appeared in Bentinck’s eye.

  “I fancy he would be John Jones the First in the Sicilian Navy List.”

  “I expect so indeed, my Lord.”

  “Do you think he would take service as captain under the King of the Two Sicilies?”

  “I should be surprised if he did not.”

  That would be Jones’s only chance of ever becoming a captain, and most likely Jones was aware of it, however he might excuse himself for it in his own thoughts.

  Collingwood entered the conversation again at this point.

  “Joseph Bonaparte over in Naples has just proclaimed himself King of the Two Sicilies as well,” he remarked. “That makes four Sicilies.”

  Now they were all smiling together, and it was a moment before Hornblower’s unhappiness returned to him, when he remembered that he had to give up the ship he had brought to perfection and the crew he had trained so carefully, and his Mediterranean station of honour. He turned to Collingwood.

  “What are your orders, my Lord?”

  “You will receive them in writing, of course. But verbally you are under orders not to move until you are officially informed of the transfer of your ship to the Sicilian flag. I’ll distribute your ship’s company through the Fleet—I can use them.”

  No doubt about that; probably every ship under Collingwood’s command was undermanned and would welcome a contingent of prime seamen.

  “Aye aye, my Lord.”

  “I’ll take the Prince into my flagship here—there’s a vacancy.”

  The Prince had had seven months in a sloop of war; probably he had learned as much in that time as he would learn in seven years in an Admiral’s flagship.

  “Aye aye, my Lord.” Hornblower waited for a moment; it was hard to go on. “And your orders for me personally?”

  “The Aguila—she’s an empty troop transport—sails for Portsmouth immediately without convoy, because she’s a fast ship. The monthly convoy is assembling, but it’s far from complete as yet. As you know, I am only responsible for their escort as far as Gibraltar, so that if you choose to go in a King’s ship you will have to transfer there. Penelope will be the escorting vessel, as far as I can tell at present. And when I can spare her—God knows when that will be—I shall send the old Temeraire to England direct.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “I would be glad if you would choose for yourself, Captain. I’ll frame my orders in accordance with your wishes. You can sail in Aquila, or Penelope, or wait for Temeraire, whichever you prefer.”

  Aquila was sailing for Portsmouth immediately, and she was a fast ship, sailing alone. In a month, even in less with fair winds, he could be setting foot on shore half an hour’s walk from where Maria was living with the children. In a month he might be making his request to the Admiralty for further employment. He might be posted to that frigate that Collingwood had mentioned—he did not want to miss any opportunity. The sooner the better, as always. And he would see Maria and the children.

  “I would like orders for Aquila, if you would be so kind, my Lord.”

  “I expected you would say that.”

  So that was the news that Hornblower brought back to his ship. The dreary little cabin which he had never had time to fit out properly seemed sadly homelike when he sat in it again; the sailcloth pillow supported once more a sleepless head, as so often before, when at last he could force himself to go to bed. It was strangely painful to say goodbye to the officers and crew, good characters and bad, even though he felt a little spurt of amusement at sight of Jones, gorgeous in the uniform of a captain in the Sicilian Navy, and another at the sight of the twenty volunteers from the ship’s company whom Jones had been permitted to recruit into the Sicilian service. They were the bad characters, of course, laughed at by the others for exchanging the grog and hardtack of old England for the pasta and the daily quart of wine of Sicily. But even to the bad characters it was hard to say good-bye—a sentimental fool, Hornblower called himself.

  It was a dreary two days that Hornblower waited for Aquila to make ready to sail. Bentinck had advised him to see the Palace chapel, to take a carriage out to Monreale and see the mosaics there, but like a sulky child he would not. The dreamlike city of Palermo turns its back upon the sea, and Hornblower turned his back upon Palermo, until Aquila was working her way out round Monte Pellegrino, and then he stood aft, by the taffrail, looking back at Atropos lying there, and Nightingale at the careenage, and the palaces of Palermo beyond. He was forlorn and lonely, a negligible passenger amid all the bustle of getting under way.

  “By your leave, sir,” said a seaman, hastening to the peak halliards—a little more, and he would have been elbowed out of the way.

  “Good morning, sir,” said the captain of the ship, and instantly turned to shout orders to the men at the main topsail halliards; the captain of a hired transport did not want to offer any encouragement to a King’s captain to comment on the handling of the ship. King’s officers would only grudgingly admit that even admirals came between them and God.

  Aquila dipped her colours to the flagship, and Ocean returned the compliment, the White Ensign slowly descending and rising again. That was the last memory Hornblower was to have of Palermo and of his voyage in the Atropos. Aquila braced round her sails and caught the first of the land breeze, heading boldly northward out to sea, and Sicily began to fade into the distance, while Hornblower tried to displace his unaccountable sadness by telling himself that he was on his way to Maria and the children. He tried to stimulate himself into excitement over the thought that a new command awaited him, and new adventures. Collingwood’s flag lieutenant had passed on to him the gossip that the Admiralty was still commissioning ships as fast as they could be made ready for sea; there was a frigate, the Lydia, making ready, which would be an appropriate command for a captain of his seniority. But it was only slowly that he was able to overcome his sense of loss and frustration, as slowly as the captain of the Aquila made him welcome when he was taking his noon sights, as slowly as the days passed while Aquila beat her way to the Straits and out into the Atlantic.

  Autumn was waiting for them beyond the straits, with the roaring westerly gales of the equinox, gale after gale, when fortunately they had made westing enough to keep them safe from the coast of Portugal while they lay hove-to for long hours in the latitude of Lisbon, in the latitude of Oporto, and then in the Bay of Biscay. It was on the tail of the last of the gales that they drove wildly up the Channel, storm-battered and leaky, with p
umps going and topsails treble reefed. And there was England, dimly seen, but well remembered, the vague outline to be gazed at with a catch in the breath. The Start, and at last St. Catharine’s, and the hour of uncertainty as to whether they could get into the lee of the Wight or would have to submit to being blown all the way up-channel. A fortunate slant of wind gave them their opportunity, and they attained the more sheltered waters of Spithead, with the unbelievable green of the Isle of Wight on their left hand, and so they attained to Portsmouth, to drop anchor where the quiet and calm made it seem as if all the turmoil outside had been merely imagined.

  A shore boat took Hornblower to the Sally Port, and he set foot on English soil again, with a surge of genuine emotion, mounting the steps and looking round him at the familiar buildings of Portsmouth. A shore loafer—an old, bent man—hurried away on twisted legs to fetch his barrow while Hornblower looked round him; when he returned Hornblower had to help him lift his chests on to the barrow.

  “Thank’ee, cap’n, thank’ee,” said the old man. He used the title automatically, without knowing Hornblower’s rank.

  No one in England knew as yet—Maria did not know—that Hornblower was in England. For that matter no one in England knew as yet about the last exploit of the Atropos and the capture of Castilla. Copies of Ford’s and Hornblower’s reports to Collingwood were on board Aquila, in the sealed mailbag in the captain’s charge, to be sent on to the Secretary of the Admiralty “for the information of Their Lordships”. In a day or two they might be in the Gazette, and they might even be copied to appear in the Naval Chronicle and the daily newspapers. Most of the honour and glory, of course, would go to Ford, but a few crumbs might come Hornblower’s way; there was enough chance of that to put Hornblower in a good temper as he walked along with the wooden wheels of the barrow thumping and squeaking over the cobbles behind him.

  The sadness and distress he had suffered when he parted from Atropos had largely died away by now. He was back in England, walking as fast as the old man’s legs would allow towards Maria and the children, free for the moment from all demands upon his patience or his endurance, free to be happy for a while, free to indulge in ambitious dreams of the frigate Their Lordships might give him, free to relax in Maria’s happy and indifferent chatter, with little Horatio running round the room, and with little Maria making valiant efforts to crawl at his feet. The thumping of the barrow wheels beat out a pleasant rhythm to accompany his dreams.

  Here was the house and the well-remembered door. He could hear the echo within as he let the knocker fall, and he turned to help the old man lift off the chests. He put a shilling into the shaky hand and turned back quickly as he heard the door open. Maria was there with a child in her arms. She stood beside the door looking at him without recognition for a long second, and when at last she spoke it was as if she were dazed.

  “Horry!” she said. “Horry!”

  There was no smile on her bewildered face.

  “I’ve come home, dearest,” said Hornblower.

  “I—I thought you were the apothecary,” said Maria, speaking slowly, “the—the babies aren’t so well.”

  She offered the child in her arms for his inspection. It must be little Maria, althought he did not know the flushed, feverish face. The closed eyes opened, and then shut again with the pain of the light, and the little head turned away fretfully but wearily, and the mouth opened to emit a low cry.

  “Sh—sh,” said Maria, folding the child to her breast again, bowing her head over the wailing bundle. Then she looked up at Hornblower again.

  “You must come in,” she said. “The—the cold. It will strike the fever inward.”

  The remembered hall; the room at the side where he had asked Maria to marry him; the staircase to the bedroom. Mrs. Mason was there, her grey hair untidy even in the curtained twilight of the room.

  “The apothecary?” she asked from where she bent over the bed.

  “No, mother. It’s Horry come back again.”

  “Horry? Horatio!”

  Mrs. Mason looked up to confirm what her daughter said, and Hornblower came towards the bedside. A tiny little figure lay there, half on its side, one hand outside the bedclothes holding Mrs. Mason’s finger.

  “He’s sick,” said Mrs. Mason. “Poor little man. He’s so sick.”

  Hornblower knelt beside the bed and bent over his son. He put out his hand and touched the feverish cheek. He tried to soothe his son’s forehead as the head turned on the pillow. That forehead; it felt strange; like small shot felt through velvet. And Hornblower knew what that meant. He knew it well, and he had to admit the certainty to himself before telling the women what it meant. Smallpox.

  Before he rose to his feet he had reached another conclusion, too. There was still duty to be done, his duty to his King and Country and to the Service and to Maria. Maria must be comforted. He must always comfort her, as long as life lasted.

  THE HAPPY RETURN

  I

  It was not long after dawn that Captain Hornblower came up on the quarterdeck of the Lydia. Bush, the first lieutenant, was officer of the watch, and touched his hat but did not speak to him; in a voyage which had by now lasted seven months without touching land he had learned something of his captain’s likes and dislikes. During this first hour of the day the captain was not to be spoken to, nor his train of thought interrupted.

  In accordance with standing orders – hallowed by now with the tradition which is likely to accumulate during a voyage of such incredible length – Brown, the captain’s coxswain, had seen to it that the weather side of the quarterdeck had been holystoned and sanded at the first peep of daylight. Bush and the midshipman with him withdrew to the lee side at Hornblower’s first appearance, and Hornblower immediately began his daily hour’s walk up and down, up and down the twenty-one feet of deck which had been sanded for him. On one hand his walk was limited by the slides of the quarterdeck carronades; on the other by the row of ringbolts in the deck for the attachment of the carronade train tackles; the space of deck on which Captain Hornblower was accustomed to exercise himself for an hour each morning was thus five feet wide and twenty-one feet long.

  Up and down, up and down, paced Captain Hornblower. Although he was entirely lost in thought, his subordinates knew by experience that his sailor’s instinct was quite alert; subconsciously his mind took note of the shadow of the main rigging across the deck, and of the feel of the breeze on his cheek, so that the slightest inattention on the part of the quartermaster at the wheel called forth a bitter rebuke from the captain – the more bitter in that he had been disturbed in this, the most important hour of his day. In the same way he was aware, without having taken special note, of all the salient facts of the prevailing conditions. On his awakening in his cot he had seen (without willing it) from the tell tale compass in the deck over his head that the course was north east, as it had been for the last three days. At the moment of his arrival on deck he had subconsciously noted that the wind was from the west, and just strong enough to give the ship steerage way, with all sail set to the royals, that the sky was of its perennial blue, and that the sea was almost flat calm, with a long peaceful swell over which the Lydia seared and swooped with profound regularity.

  The first thing Captain Hornblower was aware of thinking was that the Pacific in the morning, deep blue overside and changing to silver towards the horizon, was like some heraldic blazon of argent and azure – and then he almost smiled to himself because that simile had come up in his mind every morning for the last fortnight. With the thought and the smile his mind was instantly working smoothly and rapidly. He looked down the gangways at the men at work holystoning; down on the maindeck, as he came forward, he could see another party engaged on the same task. They were talking in ordinary tones. Twice he heard a laugh. That was well. Men who could talk and laugh in that fashion were not likely to be plotting mutiny – and Captain Hornblower had that possibility much in mind lately. Seven months at sea had almost consumed
the ship’s stores. A week ago he had cut the daily ration of water to three pints a day, and three pints a day was hardly sufficient for men living on salt meat and biscuit in ten degrees north latitude, especially as water seven months in cask was half solid with green living things.

  A week ago, too, the very last of the lemon juice had been served out, and there would be scurvy to reckon with within a month and no surgeon on board. Hankey the surgeon had died of all the complications of drink and syphilis off the Horn. For a month now tobacco had been doled out in half ounces weekly – Hornblower congratulated himself now on having taken the tobacco under his sole charge. If he had not done so the thoughtless fools would have used up their whole store, and men deprived of tobacco were men who could not be relied upon. He knew that the men were more concerned about the shortage of tobacco than about the shortage of fuel for the galley which caused them each day to be given their salt pork only just brought to the boil in seawater.

  The shortage of tobacco, of water and of wood was nothing nearly as important, however, as the imminent shortage of grog. He had not dared to cut that daily issue, and there was only rum for ten more days in the ship. Not the finest crew in the world could be relied on if deprived of their ration of rum. Here they were in the South Sea, with no other King’s ship within two thousand miles of them. Somewhere to the westward were islands of romance, with beautiful women, and food to be got without labour. A life of happy idleness was within their reach. Some knave among the crew, better informed than the rest, would give the hint. It would not be attended to at present, but in the future, with no blessed interval of grog at noon, the men would be ready to listen. Ever since the crew of the Bounty had mutinied, seduced by the charms of the Pacific, the captain of every ship of His Britannic Majesty whose duty took him there was haunted by this fear.

  Hornblower, pacing the deck, looked sharply once more at the crew. Seven months at sea without once touching land had given an admirable opportunity for training the gang of gaolbirds and pressed men into seamen, but it was too long without distraction. The sooner now that he could reach the coast of Nicaragua, the better. A run ashore would distract the men, and there would be water and fresh food and tobacco and spirits to be got. Hornblower’s mind began to run back through his recent calculations of the ship’s position. He was certain about his latitude, and last night’s lunar observations had seemed to confirm the chronometer’s indication of the longitude – even though it seemed incredible that chronometers could be relied upon at all after a seven months’ voyage. Probably less than one hundred miles ahead, at most three hundred, lay the Pacific coast of Central America. Crystal the master had shaken his head in doubt at Hornblower’s positiveness, but Crystal was an old fool, and of no use as a navigator. Anyway, two or three more days would see who was right.