Lieutenant Hornblower h-2

by Cecil Scott Forester

  Hornblower was still looking at the press gang and the recruits.

  “It may be war,” he said, slowly.

  “War!” said Bush.

  “We’ll know when the mail comes in,” said Hornblower. “Party could have told us last night, I fancy.”

  “But—war!” said Bush.

  The crowd went on down the street towards the dockyard, its noise dwindling with the increasing distance, and Hornblower turned towards the street door, taking the ponderous key out of his pocket. When they entered the house they saw Maria standing at the foot of the staircase, a candlestick with an unlighted candle in her hand. She wore a long coat over her nightclothes; she had put on her mobcap hastily, for a couple of curling papers showed under its edge.

  “You’re safe!” she said.

  “Of course we’re safe, Maria,” said Hornblower. “What do you think could happen to us?”

  “There was all that noise in the street,” said Maria. “I looked out. Was it the press gang?”

  “That’s just what it was,” said Bush.

  “Is it—is it war?”

  “That’s what it may be.”

  “Oh!” Maria’s face revealed her distress. “Oh!”

  Her eyes searched their faces.

  “No need to worry, Miss Maria,” said Bush. “It’ll be many a long year before Boney brings his flatbottoms up Spithead.”

  “It’s not that,” said Maria. Now she was looking only at Hornblower. In a flash she had forgotten Bush’s existence.

  “You’ll be going away!” she said.

  “I shall have my duty to do if I am called upon, Maria,” said Hornblower.

  Now a grim figure appeared climbing the stairs from the basement—Mrs Mason; she had no mobcap on so that her curl papers were all visible.

  “You’ll disturb my other gentlemen with all this noise,” she said.

  “Mother, they think it’s going to be war,” said Maria.

  “And not a bad thing perhaps if it means some people will pay what they owe.”

  “I’ll do that this minute,” said Hornblower hotly. “What’s my reckoning, Mrs Mason?”

  “Oh, please, please—” said Maria, interposing.

  “You just shut your mouth, miss,” snapped Mrs Mason. “It’s only because of you that I’ve let this young spark run on.”

  “Mother!”

  ” ‘I’ll pay my reckoning’ he says, like a lord. And not a shirt in his chest. His chest’d be at the pawnbroker’s too if I hadn’t nobbled it.”

  “I said I’d pay my reckoning and I mean it, Mrs Mason,” said Hornblower with enormous dignity.

  “Let’s see the colour of your money, then,” stipulated Mrs Mason, not in the least convinced. “Twentyseven and six.”

  Hornblower brought a fistful of silver out of his trouser pocket. But there was not enough there, and he had to extract a note from his breast pocket, revealing as he did so that there were many more.

  “So!” said Mrs Mason. She looked down at the money in her hand as if it were fairy gold, and opposing emotions waged war in her expression.

  “I think I might give you a week’s warning, too,” said Hornblower, harshly.

  “Oh no!” said Maria.

  “That’s a nice room you have upstairs,” said Mrs Mason. “You wouldn’t be leaving me just on account of a few words.”

  “Don’t leave us, Mr. Hornblower,” said Maria.

  If ever there was a man completely at a loss it was Hornblower. After a glance at him Bush found it hard not to grin. The man who could keep a cool head when playing for high stakes with admirals—the man who fired the broadside that shook the Renown off the mud when under the fire of redhot shot—was helpless when confronted by a couple of women. It would be a picturesque gesture to pay his reckoning—if necessary to pay an extra week’s rent in lieu of warning—and to shake the dust of the place from his feet. But on the other hand he had been allowed credit here, and it would be a poor return for that consideration to leave the moment he could pay. But to stay on in a house that knew his secrets was an irksome prospect too. The dignified Hornblower who was ashamed of ever appearing human would hardly feel at home among people who knew that he had been human enough to be in debt. Bush was aware of all these problems as they confronted Hornblower, of the kindly feelings and the embittered ones. And Bush could be fond of him even while he laughed at him, and could respect him even while he knew of his weaknesses.

  “When did you gennelmen have supper?” asked Mrs Mason.

  “I don’t think we did,” answered Hornblower, with a side glance at Bush.

  “You must be hungry, then, if you was up all night. Let me cook you a nice breakfast. A couple of thick chops for each of you. Now how about that?”

  “By George!” said Hornblower.

  “You go on up,” said Mrs Mason. “I’ll send the girl up with hot water an’ you can shave. Then when you come down there’ll be a nice breakfast ready for you. Maria, run and make the fire up.”

  Up in the attic Hornblower looked whimsically at Bush.

  “That bed you paid a shilling for is still virgin,” he said. “You haven’t had a wink of sleep all night and it’s my fault. Please forgive me.”

  “It’s not the first night I haven’t slept,” said Bush. He had not slept on the night they stormed Samaná; many were the occasions in foul weather when he had kept the deck for twentyfour hours continuously. And after a month of living with his sisters in the Chichester cottage, of nothing to do except to weed the garden, of trying to sleep for twelve hours a night for that very reason, the variety of excitement he had gone through had been actually pleasant. He sat down on the bed while Hornblower paced the floor.

  “You’ll have plenty more if it’s war,” Hornblower said; and Bush shrugged his shoulders.

  A thump on the door announced the arrival of the maid of all work of the house, a can of hot water in each hand. Her ragged dress was too large for her—handed down presumably from Mrs Mason or from Maria—and her hair was tousled, but she, too, turned wide eyes on Hornblower as she brought in the hot water. Those wide eves were too big for her skinny face, and they followed Hornblower as he moved about the room, and never had a glance for Bush. It was plain that Hornblower was as much the hero of this fourteenyearold foundling as he was of Maria.

  “Thank you, Susie,” said Hornblower; and Susie dropped an angular curtsey before she scuttled from the room with one last glance round the door as she left.

  Hornblower waved a hand at the washhand stand and the hot water.

  “You first,” said Bush.

  Hornblower peeled off his coat and his shirt and addressed himself to the business of shaving. The razor blade rasped on his bristly cheeks; he turned his face this way and that so as to apply the edge. Neither of them felt any need for conversation, and it was practically in silence that Hornblower washed himself, poured the wash water into the slop pail, and stood aside for Bush to shave himself.

  “Make the most of it,” said Hornblower. “A pint of fresh water twice a week for shaving’ll be all you’ll get if you have your wish.”

  “Who cares?” said Bush.

  He shaved, restropped his razor with care, and put it back into his roll of toilet articles. The scars that seamed his ribs gleamed pale as he moved. When he had finished dressing he glanced at Hornblower.

  “Chops,” said Hornblower. “Thick chops. Come on.”

  There were several places laid at the table in the diningroom opening out of the hall, but nobody else was present; apparently it was not the breakfast hour of Mrs Mason’s other gentlemen.

  “Only a minute, sir,” said Susie, showing up in the doorway for a moment before hurrying down into the kitchen.

  She came staggering back laden with a tray; Hornblower pushed back his chair and was about to help her, but she checked him with a scandalised squeak and managed to put the tray safely on the side table without accident.

  “I can serve you, sir,”
she said.

  She scuttled back and forward between the two tables like the boys running with the nippers when the cab was being hove in. Coffeepot and toast, butter and jam, sugar and milk, cruet and hot plates and finally a wide dish which she laid before Hornblower; she took off the cover and there was a noble dish of chops whose delightful scent, hitherto pent up, filled the room.

  “Ah!” said Hornblower, taking up a spoon and fork to serve. “Have you had your breakfast, Susie?”

  “Me, sir? No, sir. Not yet, sir.”

  Hornblower paused, spoon and fork in hand, looking from the chops to Susie and back again. Then he put down the spoon and thrust his right hand into his trouser pocket.

  “There’s no way in which you can have one of these chops?” he said.

  “Me, sir? Of course not, sir.”

  “Now here’s half a crown.”

  “Half a crown, sir!”

  That was more than a day’s wages for a labourer.

  “I want a promise from you, Susie.”

  “Sir—sir—!”

  Susie’s hands were behind her.

  “Take this, and promise me that the first chance that comes your way, the moment Mrs Mason lets you out, you’ll buy yourself something to eat. Fill that wretched little belly of yours. Faggots and Pease pudding, pig’s trotters, all the things you like. Promise me.”

  “But, sir—”

  Half a crown, the prospect of unlimited food, were things that could not be real.

  “Oh, take it,” said Hornblower testily.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Susie clasped the coin in her skinny hand.

  “Don’t forget I have your promise.”

  “Yes, sir, please, sir, thank you, sir.”

  “Now put it away and clear out quick.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She fled out of the room and Hornblower began once more to serve the chops.

  “I’ll be able to enjoy my breakfast now,” said Hornblower selfconsciously.

  “No doubt,” said Bush; he buttered himself a piece of toast, dabbed mustard on his plate—to eat mustard with mutton marked him as a sailor, but he did it without a thought. With good food in front of him there was no need for thought, and he ate in silence. It was only when Hornblower spoke again that Bush realised that Hornblower had been construing the silence as accusatory of something.

  “Half a crown,” said Hornblower, defensively, “may mean many things to many people. Yesterday—”

  “You’re quite right,” said Bush, filling in the gap as politeness dictated, and then he looked up and realised that it was not because he had no more to say that Hornblower had left the sentence uncompleted.

  Maria was standing framed in the diningroom door; her bonnet, gloves, and shawl indicated that she was about to go out, presumably to early marketing since the school where she taught was temporarily closed.

  “I—I looked in to see that you had everything you wanted,” she said. The hesitation in her speech seemed to indicate that she had heard Hornblower’s last words, but it was not certain.

  “Thank you. Delightful,” mumbled Hornblower.

  “Please don’t get up,” said Maria, hastily and with a hint of hostility, as Hornblower and Bush began to rise. Her eyes were wet.

  A knocking on the street door relieved the tension, and Maria fled to answer it. From the diningroom they heard a masculine voice, and Maria reappeared, a corporal of marines towering behind her dumpy form.

  “Lieutenant Hornblower?” he asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “From the admiral, sir.”

  The corporal held out a letter and a folded newspaper. There was a maddening delay while a pencil was found for Hornblower to sign the receipt. Then the corporal took his leave with a clicking of heels and Hornblower stood with the letter in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

  “Oh, open it—please open it,” said Maria.

  Hornblower tore the wafer and unfolded the sheet. He read the note, and then reread it, nodding his head as if the note confirmed some preconceived theory.

  “You see that sometimes it is profitable to play whist,” he said, “in more ways than one.”

  He handed the note over to Bush; his smile was a little lopsided.

  SIR [1]

  It is with pleasure that I take this opportunity of informing you in advance of any official notification that your promotion to Commander is now confirmed and that you will shortly be appointed to the Command of a Sloop of War.

  “By God, sir!” said Bush. “Congratulations. For the second time, sir. It’s only what you deserve, as I said before.”

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower. “Finish reading it.”

  The arrival at this moment of the Mail Coach with the London newspapers [2] enables me to send you the information regarding the changed situation without being unnecessarily prolix in this letter. You will gather from what you read in the accompanying copy of the Sun the reasons why conditions of military secrecy should prevail during our very pleasant evening so that I need not apologise for not having enlightened you, while I remain,

  Your obedient servant,

  PARRY

  By the time Bush had finished the letter Hornblower had opened the newspaper at the relevant passage, which he pointed out to Bush.

  Message from HIS MAJESTY

  House of Commons, March 8, 1803

  The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER brought down the following message from HIS MAJESTY:

  ’His Majesty thinks it necessary to acquaint the House of Commons, that, as very considerable military preparations are carrying on in the ports of France and Holland, he has judged it expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the security of his dominions.

  GEORGE R.’

  That was all Bush needed to read. Boney’s fleet of flat-bottomed boats, and his army of invasion mustered along the Channel coast, were being met by the appropriate and necessary countermove. Last night’s pressgang measures, planned and carried out with a secrecy for which Bush could feel nothing except wholehearted approval (he had led too many press gangs not to know how completely seamen made themselves scarce at the first hint of a press), would provide the crews for the ships necessary to secure England’s safety. There were ships in plenty, laid up in every harbour in England; and officers—Bush knew very well how many officers were available. With the fleet manned and at sea England could laugh at the treacherous attack Boney had planned.

  “They’ve done the right thing for once, by God!” said Bush, slapping the newspaper.

  “But what is it?” asked Maria.

  She had been standing silent, watching the two men, her glance shifting from one to the other in an endeavour to read their expressions. Bush remembered that she had winced at his outburst of congratulation.

  “It’ll be war next week,” said Hornblower. “Boney won’t endure a bold answer.”

  “Oh,” said Maria. “But you—what about you?”

  “I’m made commander,” said Hornblower. “I’m going to be appointed to a sloop of war.”

  “Oh,” said Maria again.

  There was a second or two of agonised effort at selfcontrol, and then she broke down. Her head dropped farther and farther, until she put her gloved hands to her face, turning away from the two men so that they only saw her shoulders with the shawl across them, shaking with sobs.

  “Maria,” said Hornblower gently. “Please, Maria, please don’t.”

  Maria turned and presented a slobbered face to him, unevenly framed in the bonnet which had been pushed askew.

  “I’ll n-nnever see you again,” sobbed Maria. “I’ve been so happy with the mmmumps at school, I thought I’d mmmake your bed and do your room. And nnow this happens!”

  “But, Maria,” said Hornblower—his hands flapped helplessly—“I’ve my duty to do.”

  “I wish I was ddead! Indeed I wish I was dead!” said Maria, and the tears poured down her cheeks to drip upon her shawl; th
ey streamed from eyes which had a fixed look of despair, while the wide mouth was shapeless.

  This was something Bush could not endure. He liked pretty, saucy women. What he was looking at now jarred on him unbearably—perhaps it rasped his aesthetic sensibility, unlikely though it might seem that Bush should have such a thing. Perhaps he was merely irritated by the spectacle of uncontrolled hysteria, but if that was the case he was irritated beyond all bearing. He felt that if he had to put up with Maria’s waterworks for another minute he would break a blood vessel.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Hornblower.

  In reply he received a look of surprise. It had not occurred to Hornblower that he might run away from a situation for which his temperament necessarily made him feel responsible. Bush knew perfectly well that, given time, Maria would recover. He knew that women who wished themselves dead one day could be as lively as crickets the next day after another man had chucked them under the chin. In any case he did not see why he and Hornblower should concern themselves about something which was entirely Maria’s fault.

  “Oh!” said Maria; she stumbled forward and supported herself with her hands upon the table with its cooling coffeepot and its congealing halfconsumed chops. She lifted her head and wailed again.

  “Oh, for God’s sake—” said Bush in disgust. He turned to Hornblower. “Come along.”

  By the time Bush was on the staircase he realised that Hornblower had not followed him, would not follow him. And Bush did not go back to fetch him. Even though Bush was not a man to desert a comrade in peril; even though he would gladly take his place in a boat launching out through the most dreadful surf to rescue men in danger; even though he would stand shoulder to shoulder with Hornblower and be hewn to pieces with him by an overwhelming enemy; for all this he would not go back to save Hornblower. If Hornblower was going to be foolish Bush felt he could not stop him. And he salved his conscience by telling himself that perhaps Hornblower would not be foolish.