Lieutenant Hornblower h-2

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “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 grayhaired over convoys in the Mona Passage. And we’ve brought three prizes in. He’ll have his oneeighth 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, muzzymindedly, 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 loblolly boy—sickberth 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 realised 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, whitehaired 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 fiftythree stitches,” added Clive.

  “That will look well in the Gazette,” said Sankey with giggle; and proceeded to extemporise 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 realised 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 recognised 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 cutthroat 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 attached to the stretcher.

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

  That was news demanding instant consideration.

  “Goodbye, 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.

  “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 twentyeightgun 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 threedecker 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 scatterbrained 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 along side 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 whitewashed corridors; there was a long twilit ward divided by screens into minute rooms. He suddenly realised 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 notquite-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 stitchedup body. “These are all incised wounds. Not a single deep puncture. It’s con
trary 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 realised 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.