“It would be pleasant,” said Admiral Parry, “if we could restore the old currency, would it not? If the country could dispense with these dirty notes and go back again to our good old golden guineas?”
“Indeed it would,” said the colonel.
“The longshore sharks,” said Lambert, “meet every ship that comes in from abroad. Twentythree and sixpence they offer for every guinea, so you can be sure they are worth more than that.”
Parry took something from his pocket and laid it on the table.
“Boney has restored the French currency, you see,” he said. “They call this a napoleon, now that he is First Consul for life. A twentyfranc piece—a louis d’or, as we used to say.”
“Napoleon, First Consul,” said the colonel, looking at the coin with curiosity, and then he turned it over. “French Republic.”
“The ‘republic’ is mere hypocrisy, of course,” said Parry. “There never was a worse tyranny since the days of Nero.”
“We’ll show him up,” said Lambert.
“Amen to that,” said Parry, and then he put the coin away again. “But we are delaying the business of the evening. I fear that is my fault. Let us cut again. Ah, I partner you this time, colonel. Would you care to sit opposite me? I omitted to thank you, Mr. Hornblower, for your excellent partnership.”
“You are too kind, my lord,” said Hornblower, taking the chair at the admiral’s right.
The next rubber began and progressed silently to its close.
“I am glad to see that the cards have decided to be kind to you, Mr. Hornblower,” said Parry, “even though our honours have reduced your winnings. Fifteen shillings, I believe?”
“Thank you.” said Hornblower taking the money.
Bush remembered what Hornblower had said about being able to afford to lose three rubbers if he won the first two.
“Damned small stakes in my opinion, my lord,” said the colonel. “Must we play as low as this?”
“That is for the company to decide,” replied Parry. “I myself have no objection. Half a crown instead of a shilling? Let us ask Mr. Hornblower.”
Bush turned to look at Hornblower with renewed anxiety.
“As you will, my lord,” said Hornblower, with the most elaborate indifference.
“Sir Richard?”
“I don’t mind at all,” said Lambert.
“Half a crown a trick, then,” said Parry. “Waiter, fresh cards, if you please.”
Bush had hurriedly to revise his estimate of the amount of losses Hornblower could endure. With the stakes nearly trebled it would be bad if he lost a single rubber.
“You and I again, Mr. Hornblower,” said Parry, observing the cut. “You wish to retain your present seat?”
“I am indifferent, my lord.”
“I am not,” said Parry. “Nor am I yet so old as to decline to change my seat in accordance with the run of the cards. Our philosophers have not yet decided that it is a mere vulgar superstition.”
He heaved himself out of his chair and moved opposite Hornblower, and play began again, with Bush watching more anxiously even than at the start. He watched each side in turn take the odd trick, and then three times running he saw Hornblower lay the majority of tricks in front of him. During the next couple of hands he lost count of the score, but finally he was relieved to see only two tricks before the colonel when the rubber ended.
“Excellent,” said Parry, “a profitable rubber, Mr. Hornblower. I’m glad you decided to trump my knave of hearts. It must have been a difficult decision for you, but it was undoubtedly the right one.”
“It deprived me of a lead I could well have used,” said Lambert. “The opposition was indeed formidable, colonel.”
“Yes,” agreed the colonel, not quite as goodtemperedly.
“And twice I held hands neither an ace nor a king, which helped the opposition to be formidable. Can you give me change, Mr. Hornblower?”
There was a fivepound note among the money that the colonel handed over to Hornblower, and it went into the breast pocket of his coat.
“At least, colonel,” said Parry, when they cut again, “you have Mr. Hornblower as your partner this time.”
As the rubber proceeded Bush was aware that the flag lieutenant beside him was watching with greater and greater interest.
“By the odd trick, by George.” said he when the last cards were played.
“That was a close shave, partner,” said the colonel, his good humour clearly restored. “I hoped you held that queen, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Fortune was with us, sir,” said Hornblower.
The flag lieutenant glanced at Bush; it seemed as if the flag lieutenant was of opinion that the colonel should have been in no doubt, from the previous play, that Hornblower held the queen. Now that Bush’s attention was drawn to it, he decided that Hornblower must have thought just the same—the slightest inflection in his voice implied it—but was sensibly not saying so.
“I lose a rubber at five pounds ten and win one at fifteen shillings,” said the colonel, receiving his winnings from Lambert. “Who’d like to increase the stakes again?”
To the credit of the two admirals they both glanced at Hornblower without replying.
“As you gentlemen wish,” said Hornblower.
“In that case I’m quite agreeable,” said Parry.
“Five shillings a trick, then,” said the colonel. “That makes the game worth playing.”
“The game is always worth playing,” protested Parry.
“Of course, my lord,” said the colonel, but without suggesting that they should revert to the previous stakes.
Now the stakes were really serious; by Bush’s calculation a really disastrous rubber might cost Hornblower twenty pounds, and his further calculation told him that Hornblower could hardly have more than twenty pounds tucked away in his breast pocket. It was a relief to him when Hornblower and Lambert won the next rubber easily.
“This is a most enjoyable evening,” said Lambert, and he smiled with a glance down at the fistful of the colonel’s money he was holding; “nor am I referring to any monetary gains.”
“Instructive as well as amusing,” said Parry, paying out to Hornblower.
Play proceeded, silently as ever, the silence only broken by the brief interchanges of remarks between rubbers. Now that he could afford it, fortunately, Hornblower lost a rubber, but it was a cheap one, and he immediately won another profitable one. His gains mounted steadily with hardly a setback. It was growing late, and Bush was feeling weary, but the players showed few signs of fatigue, and the flag lieutenant stayed on with the limitless patience he must have acquired during his present appointment, philosophic and fatalistic since he could not possibly do anything to accelerate his admiral’s decision to go to bed. The other players drifted away from the room; later still the curtained door opened and the gamblers from the inner room came streaming out, some noisy, some silent, and the Marquis made his appearance, silent and unruffled, to watch the final rubbers with unobtrusive interest, seeing to it that the candles were snuffed and fresh ones brought, and new cards ready on demand. It was Parry who first glanced at the clock.
“Half past three,” he said. “Perhaps you gentlemen?”
“Too late to go to bed now, my lord,” said the colonel. “Sir Richard and I have to be up early, as you know.”
“My orders are all given,” said Lambert.
“So are mine,” said the colonel.
Bush was stupid with long late hours spent in a study atmosphere, but he thought he noticed an admonitory glance from Parry, directed at the two speakers. He wondered idly what orders Lambert and the colonel would have given, and still more idly why they should be orders that Parry did not wish to be mentioned. There seemed to be just the slightest trace of hurry, just the slightest hint of a desire to change the subject, in Parry’s manner when he spoke.
“Very well, then, we can play another rubber, if Mr. Hornblower has no objection
?”
“None at all, my lord.”
Hornblower was imperturbable; if he had noticed anything remarkable about the recent interchange he gave no sign of it. Probably he was weary, though—Bush was led to suspect that by his very imperturbability. Bush knew by now that Hornblower worked as hard to conceal his human weaknesses as some men worked to conceal ignoble birth.
Hornblower had the colonel as partner, and no one could be in the room without being aware that this final rubber was being played in an atmosphere of even fiercer competition than its predecessors. Not a word was spoken between the hands; the score was marked, the tricks swept up, the other pack proffered and cut in deadly silence. Each hand was desperately close, too. In nearly every case it was only a single trick that divided the victors and the vanquished, so that the rubber dragged on and on with painful slowness. Then a hand finished amid a climax of tension. The flag lieutenant and the Marquis had kept count of the score, and when Lambert took the last trick they uttered audible sighs, and the colonel was so moved that he broke the silence at last.
“Neck and neck, by God!” he said. “This next hand must settle it.”
But he was properly rebuked by the stony silence with which his remark was received. Parry merely took the cards from the colonel’s right side and passed them over to Hornblower to cut. Then Parry dealt, and turned up the king of diamonds as trump, and the colonel led. Trick succeeded trick. For a space, after losing a single trick, Lambert and Parry carried all before them. Six tricks lay before Parry, and only one before Hornblower. The colonel’s remark about being neck and neck was fresh in Bush’s ears. One more trick out of the next six would give the rubber to the two admirals. Five to one was long odds, and Bush uncomfortably resigned himself to his friend losing this final rubber. Then the colonel took a trick and the game was still alive. Hornblower took the next trick, so that there was still hope. Hornblower led the ace of diamonds, and before it could be played to he laid down his other three cards to claim the rest of the tricks; the queen and knave of diamonds lay conspicuously on the table.
“Rubber!” exclaimed the colonel, “we’ve won it, partner! I thought all was lost.”
Parry was ruefully contemplating his fallen king.
“I agree that you had to lead your ace, Mr. Hornblower,” he said, “but I would be enchanted to know why you were so certain that my king was unguarded. There were two other diamonds unaccounted for. Would it be asking too much of you to reveal the secret?”
Hornblower raised his eyebrows in some slight surprise at a question whose answer was so obvious.
“You were marked with the king, my lord,” he said, “but it was the rest of your hand which was significant, for you were also marked with holding three clubs. With only four cards in your hand the king could not be guarded.”
“A perfect explanation,” said Parry; “it only goes to confirm me in my conviction that you are an excellent whist player, Mr. Hornblower.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Parry’s quizzical smile had a great deal of friendship in it. If Hornblower’s previous behaviour had not already won Parry’s regard, this last coup certainly had.
“I’ll bear your name in mind, Mr. Hornblower,” he said. “Sir Richard has already told me the reason why it was familiar to me. It was regrettable that the policy of immediate economy imposed on the Admiralty by the Cabinet should have resulted in your commission as commander not being confirmed.”
“I thought I was the only one who regretted it, my lord.”
Bush winced again when he heard the words; this was the time for Hornblower to ingratiate himself with those in authority, not to offend them with unconcealed bitterness. This meeting with Parry was a stroke of good fortune that any, halfpay naval officer would give two fingers for. Bush was reassured, however, by a glance at the speakers. Hornblower was smiling with infectious lightheartedness, and Parry was smiling back at him. Either the implied bitterness had escaped Parry’s notice or it had only existed in Bush’s mind.
“I was actually forgetting that I owe you a further thirty-five shillings,” said Parry, with a start of recollection. “Forgive me. There, I think that settles my monied indebtedness; I am still in your debt for a valuable experience.”
It was a thick wad of money that Hornblower put back in his pocket.
“I trust you will keep a sharp lookout for footpads on your way back, Mr. Hornblower,” said Parry with a glance.
“Mr. Bush will be walking home with me, my lord. It could be a valiant footpad that would face him.”
“No need to worry about footpads tonight,” interposed the colonel. “Not tonight.”
The colonel wore a significant grin; the others displayed a momentary disapproval of what apparently was an indiscretion, but the disapproval faded out again when the colonel waved a hand at the clock.
“Our orders go into force at four, my lord,” said Lambert.
“And now it is half past. Excellent.”
The flag lieutenant came in at that moment; he had slipped out when the last card was played.
“The carriage is at the door, my lord,” he said.
“Thank you. I wish you gentlemen a good evening, then.”
They all walked to the door together; there was the carriage in the street, and the two admirals, the colonel and the flag lieutenant mounted into it. Hornblower and Bush watched it drive away.
“Now what the devil are those orders that come into force at four?” asked Bush. The earliest dawn was showing over the rooftops.
“God knows,” said Hornblower.
They headed for the corner of Highbury Street.
“How much did you win?”
“It was over forty pounds—it must be about fortyfive pounds,” said Hornblower.
“A good night’s work.”
“Yes. The chances usually right themselves in time.” There was something flat and listless in Hornblower’s tone as he spoke. He took several more strides before he burst out into speech again with a vigour that was in odd contrast. “I wish to God it had happened last week. Yesterday, even.”
“But why?”
“That girl. That poor girl.”
“God bless my soul!” said Bush. He had forgotten all about the fact that Maria had slipped half a crown into Hornblower’s pocket and he was surprised that Hornblower had not forgotten as well. “Why trouble your head about her?”
“I don’t know,” said Hornblower, and then he took two more strides. “But I do.”
Bush had no time to meditate over this curious avowal for he heard a sound that made him grasp Hornblower’s elbow with sudden excitement.
“Listen!”
Ahead of them, along the silent street, a heavy military tread could be heard. It was approaching. The faint light shone on white crossbelts and brass buttons. It was a military patrol, muskets at the slope, a sergeant marching beside it, his chevrons and his half pike revealing his rank.
“Now, what the deuce?” said Bush.
“Halt!” said the sergeant to his men; and then to the other two, “May I ask you two gentlemen who you are?”
“We are naval officers,” said Bush.
The lantern the sergeant carried was not really necessary to reveal them. The sergeant came to attention.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“What are you doing with this patrol, sergeant?” asked Bush.
“I have my orders, sir,” replied the sergeant. “Begging your pardon, sir. By the left, quick—march!”
The patrol strode forward, and the sergeant clapped his hand to his half pike in salute as he passed on.
“What in the name of all that’s holy?” wondered Bush. “Boney can’t have made a surprise landing. Every bell would be ringing if that were so. You’d think the press gang was out, a real hot press. But it can’t be.”
“Look there!” said Hornblower.
Another party of men was marching along the street, but not in red coats, not with the
military stiffness of the soldiers. Checked shirts and blue trousers; a midshipman marching at the head, white patches on his collar and his dirk at his side.
“The press gang for certain!” exclaimed Bush. “Look at the bludgeons!”
Every seaman carried a club in his hand.
“Midshipman!” said Hornblower, sharply. “What’s all this?”
The midshipman halted at the tone of command and the sight of the uniforms.
“Orders, sir,” he began, and then, realising that with the growing daylight he need no longer preserve secrecy, especially to naval men, he went on: “Press gang, sir. We’ve orders to press every seaman we find. The patrols are out on every road.”
“So I believe. But what’s the press for?”
“Dunno, sir. Orders, sir.”
That was sufficient answer, maybe.
“Very good. Carry on.”
“The press, by jingo!” said Bush. “Something’s happening.”
“I expect you’re right,” said Hornblower.
They had turned into Highbury Street now, and were making their way along to Mrs Mason’s house.
“There’s the first results,” said Hornblower.
They stood on the doorstep to watch them go by, a hundred men at least, escorted along by a score of seamen with staves, a midshipman in command. Some of the pressed men were bewildered and silent; some were talking volubly—the noise they were making was rousing the street. Every man among them had at least one hand in a trouser pocket; those who were not gesticulating had both hands in their pockets.
“It’s like old times,” said Bush with a grin. “They’ve cut their waistbands.”
With their waistbands cut it was necessary for them to keep a hand in a trouser pocket, as otherwise their trouser would fall down. No one could run away when handicapped in this fashion.
“A likely looking lot of prime seamen,” said Bush, running a professional eye over them.
“Hard luck on them, all the same,” said Hornblower.
“Hard luck?” said Bush in surprise.
Was the ox unlucky when it was turned into beef? Or for that matter was the guinea unlucky when it changed hands? This was life; for a merchant seaman to find himself a sailor of the King was as natural a thing as for his hair to turn grey if he should live so long. And the only way to secure him was to surprise him in the night, rouse him out of bed, snatch him from the grog shop and the brothel, converting him in a single second from a free man earning his livelihood in his own way into a pressed man who could not take a step on shore of his own free will without risking being flogged round the fleet. Bush could no more sympathise with the pressed man than he could sympathise with the night being replaced by day.
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