Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  ‘Caudebec in sight, sir,’ whispered Freeman; Hornblower had left orders to be told when this happened.

  With an apology to the Duchess and a bow to the Duke, Hornblower slipped unobtrusively out of the room; the etiquette of royalty even covered events on shipboard, and sailors could come and go with little ceremony if the management of the vessel demanded it. Caudebec was in sight at the top of the reach, and they were approaching it fast, so that it was only a matter of minutes before there was no need for the glass that Hornblower trained on the little town. The damage caused by the explosion which had cost Bush’s life was very obvious. Every house had been cut off short six or eight feet from the ground; the massive church had withstood the shock save that most of its roof had been stripped off and its windows blown in. The long wooden quay was in ruins, and a few stumps of blackened wrecks showed above water-level beside it. A single cannon – a twenty-four-pounder on a travelling carriage – stood on the river bank above the quay, all that remained of Quiot’s siege-train. A few people were to be seen; they stood staring at the two men-o’-war brigs sailing along the river past them.

  ‘A nasty sight, sir,’ said Freeman beside him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hornblower.

  This was where Bush died; Hornblower stood silent in tribute to his friend. When the war was over he would erect a little monument on the river bank there above the quay. He could wish that the ruined town would never be rebuilt; that would be the most striking monument to his friend’s memory – that or a pyramid of skulls.

  ‘Mains’l sheets! Jib sheets!’ roared Freeman.

  They had come to the head of the reach, and were beginning the long turn to starboard. Jibing a big brig in a narrow river was no child’s play. The flattened sails roared like thunder as they caught the back-lash of the wind from the heights. The brig’s way carried her forward, and she rounded to, slowly, round the bend. Letting out the mainsail sheet gave them the needed push and steerage way; the farther she came round the flatter the sails were hauled, until at last she was closehauled on a course almost opposite to the one by which she had approached Caudebec, sailing closehauled up the new reach which presented itself to their gaze.

  Here was Hau beside him now.

  ‘Monseigneur wishes to know,’ he said, ‘whether your business on deck is very urgent. His Royal Highness has a toast to propose, and wishes that you could join in it.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Hornblower.

  He took a last glance aft at Caudebec, vanishing round the bend, and hurried below. The big extemporised cabin was parti-coloured with sunlight coming in through the open ports. Angoulême caught sight of him as he entered, and rose to his feet, crouching under the low deckbeams.

  ‘To His Royal Highness the Prince Regent!’ he said, lifting his glass. The toast was drunk, and everyone looked to Hornblower for the proper response.

  ‘His Most Christian Majesty!’ said Hornblower, and when the ceremony was completed raised his glass again.

  ‘His Most Christian Majesty’s Regent in Normandy, Monseigneur His Royal Highness the Duc d’Angoulême!’

  The toast was drunk amid a roar of acclamation. There was something dramatic and painful about being down here below decks drinking toasts while an Empire was falling in ruins outside. The Porta Coeli was sailing as close to the wind as she could lie, so Hornblower guessed from the feel of the vessel under his feet and the sound of her passage through the water. Freeman on deck would have difficulty in weathering the next bend – he had noticed before he came down that the reach they had entered trended a little into the wind. Hornblower heard Freeman roar a fresh order on deck, and was consumed with restlessness. Down here it was like being with a nursery party of children, enjoying themselves while the adults attended to the management of the world. He made his apologetic bow again and slipped out to go on deck.

  It was as he thought; the Porta Coeli was as closehauled as she would lie, almost closer. Her sails were shivering and her motion sluggish, and the bend in the river that would give her relief was a full half-mile farther ahead. Freeman looked up at the flapping sails and shook his head.

  ‘You’ll have to clubhaul her, Mr Freeman,’ said Hornblower. To tack in that narrow channel, even with the tide behind them, would be too tricky an operation altogether.

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Freeman.

  He stood for a second judging his distances; the hands at the sheets, in no doubt about the delicacy of the ensuing manoeuvres, waiting keyed up for the rapid succession of orders that would follow. Filling the sails for a moment gave them plenty of way again, although it brought them perilously close to the leeward shore. Then in came the sheets, over went the helm, and the Porta Coeli snatched a few yards into the wind, losing most of her way in the process. Then out went the sheets, up came the helm a trifle, and she gathered way again, closehauled yet edging down perceptibly towards the lee shore.

  ‘Well done,’ said Hornblower. He wanted to add a word of advice to the effect that it would be as well not to leave it so late next time, but he glanced at Freeman sizing up the distances and decided it was unnecessary. Freeman wanted none of the brig’s way lost this time. The moment the sails flapped he threw them back, put his helm over, and this time gained the full width of the river into the wind. Looking aft, Hornblower saw that the Flame was following her consort’s example. The lee shore seemed to come to meet them; it seemed a very short time before the manoeuvre would have to be repeated, and Hornblower was relieved to see that the bend was appreciably nearer.

  It was at that moment that the Duke’s head appeared above the coaming as he climbed the little companion, and the royal party began to swarm on deck again. Freeman looked with despair at Hornblower, who took the necessary decision. He fixed the nearest courtier – the equerry, it happened to be – with a look that cut short the laughing speech he was addressing to the lady at his side.

  ‘It is not convenient for His Royal Highness and his suite to be on deck at present,’ Hornblower said loudly.

  The gay chatter stopped as if cut off with a knife; Hornblower looked at the crestfallen faces and was reminded of children again, spoiled children deprived of some minor pleasure.

  ‘The management of the ship calls for too much attention,’ went on Hornblower, to make his point quite clear. Freeman was already bellowing at the hands at the sheets.

  ‘Very well, Sir ’Oratio,’ said the Duke. ‘Come, ladies. Come, gentlemen.’

  He beat as dignified a retreat as possible, but the last courtier down the companion was sadly hustled by the rush of the hands across the deck.

  ‘Up helm!’ said Freeman to the steersman, and then, in the breathing space while they gathered way closehauled, ‘Shall I batten down, sir?’

  The outrageous suggestion was made with a grin.

  ‘No,’ snapped Hornblower, in no mood for joking.

  On the next tack Porta Coeli succeeded in weathering the point. Round she came and round; Freeman jibed her neatly, and once more with the wind on her quarter the brig was running free up the next reach, wooded hills on one side, fat meadow-land on the other. Hornblower thought for a moment of sending a message down that the royal party could come on deck for the next quarter of an hour, but thought better of it. Let ’em stay below, Barbara and all. He took his glass and laboriously climbed the main-shrouds; from the main-crosstrees his view over the countryside was greatly extended. It was oddly pleasant to sit up here and look over this green and lovely land of France like some sightseeing traveller. The peasants were at work in the fields, hardly looking up as the two beautiful vessels sailed past them. There was no sign of war or desolation here; Normandy beyond Caudebec was untouched as yet by invading armies. Then, for one moment, as the brig neared the next bend and preparations were being made for jibing her round, Hornblower caught a glimpse of Rouen far away across the country, cathedral towers and steeples. It gave him a queer thrill, but immediately the wooded heights as the brig came round cut off his view, a
nd he snapped his glass shut and descended again.

  ‘Not much of the tide left, sir,’ said Freeman.

  ‘No. We’ll anchor in the next reach, if you please, Mr Freeman. Anchor bow and stern, and make a signal to Flame to the same effect.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Natural phenomena, like nightfall and tides, were far more satisfactory things to deal with than human beings and their whims, than princes – and wives. The two brigs anchored in the stream to ride out the ebb tide and the hours of darkness to follow. Hornblower took the natural precautions against attack and surprise, rigging the boarding-nettings and keeping a couple of boats rowing guard during the night, but he knew there was little to fear from that exhausted and apathetic countryside. If there had been any of the army left within striking distance, if Bonaparte had been operating west of Paris instead of east, it would be a different story. But save for Bonaparte and the armed forces which he compelled to fight for him there was no resistance left in France; she lay helpless, the inert prize of the first conqueror to arrive.

  The party on board the Porta Coeli went on being gay. It was a nuisance that the Duke and Duchess and their suite continually discovered that servants or pieces of baggage needed in Porta Coeli were in Flame, and vice versa, so that there was a continual need for boats between the two vessels, but presumably that was only to be expected from these people. They made surprisingly little complaint about the crowding in the sleeping accommodations. Barbara went off philosophically to bed in Freeman’s cabin along with four other women – Freeman’s cabin would be uncomfortable quarters for two. The royal servants slung hammocks for themselves under the amused tuition of the hands with no demur at all; it seemed as if during twenty years of exile, of wandering through Europe, they had learned in adversity some lessons which they had not forgotten as yet. No one seemed likely to sleep – but in the prevailing excitement and pleasurable anticipation they would probably not have slept even in downy beds in palaces.

  Certainly Hornblower, after trying to compose himself for an hour or two in the hammock slung for him on deck (he had not slept in a hammock since the time when he refitted the Lydia at the island of Coiba), gave up the attempt, and lay looking up at the night sky, save when a couple of sharp showers drove him to cover himself over, head and all, with the tarpaulin provided for him. Staying awake did at least keep him assured that the westerly wind was still blowing, as might be expected at that time of year. If it had dropped or changed he was prepared to push on for Rouen in the ships’ boats. There was no need; dawn and an increase in the westerly breeze came together, along with more rain, and two hours after the first daylight the flood set in and Hornblower could give the word to up anchor.

  At the next bend Rouen’s cathedral towers were plain to the sight; at the one after that only a comparatively narrow neck of land separated them from the city, although there was still a long and beautiful curve of the river to navigate. It was still early afternoon when they rounded the last bend and saw the whole city stretched before them, the island with its bridges, its wharves cluttered with river boats, the market hall across the quay, and the soaring Gothic towers which had looked down upon the burning of Joan of Arc. It was a tricky business anchoring there just below the town with the last of the flood still running; Hornblower had to take advantage of a minor bend in the stream to throw all aback and anchor by the stern, two cables’ lengths farther from the city than he would have chosen in other circumstances. He scanned the city through his glass for signs of a deputation coming to greet them, and the Duke stood beside him, inclined to chafe at any delay.

  ‘I’ll have a boat, if you please, Mr Freeman,’ Hornblower said at length. ‘Will you pass the word for my coxswain?’

  Crowds were already gathering on the quays to stare at the English ships, at the White Ensign and at the Bourbon lilies; it was twenty years since either had been seen there. There was quite a mass of people assembled when Brown laid the boat alongside the quay just below the bridge. Hornblower walked up the steps, eyed by the crowd. They were apathetic and silent, not like any French crowd he had seen or heard before. He caught sight of a man in uniform, a sergeant of douaniers.

  ‘I wish to visit the Mayor,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the douanier respectfully.

  ‘Call a carriage for me,’ said Hornblower.

  There was a little hesitation; the douanier looked about him doubtfully, but soon voices from the crowd began to make suggestions, and it was not long before a rattling hackney coach made its appearance. Hornblower climbed in, and they clattered off. The Mayor received him on the threshold of the Hôtel de Ville, having hastened there to meet him from his desk as soon as he heard of his arrival.

  ‘Where is the reception for His Royal Highness?’ demanded Hornblower. ‘Why have no salutes been fired? Why are the church bells not ringing?’

  ‘Monsieur – Your Excellency—’ The Mayor knew not quite what Hornblower’s uniform and ribbon implied and wanted to be on the safe side. ‘We did not know – we were not certain—’

  ‘You saw the royal standard,’ said Hornblower. ‘You knew that His Royal Highness was on his way here from Le Havre.’

  ‘There had been rumours, yes,’ said the Mayor reluctantly. ‘But—’

  What the Mayor wanted to say was that he hoped the Duke would arrive not only with overpowering force but also would make an unassuming entrance so that nobody would have to commit themselves too definitely on the Bourbon side according him a welcome. And that was exactly what Hornblower had come to force him to do.

  ‘His Royal Highness,’ said Hornblower, ‘is seriously annoyed. If you wish to regain his favour, and that of His Majesty the King who will follow him, you will make all the amends in your power. A deputation – you, all your councillors, all the notables, the Prefect and the Sub-prefect if they are still here, every person of position, in fact, must be on hand two hours from now to welcome Monseigneur when he lands.’

  ‘Monsieur—’

  ‘Note will be taken of who is present. And of who is absent,’ said Hornblower. ‘The church bells can begin to ring immediately.’

  The Mayor tried to meet Hornblower’s eyes. He was still in fear of Bonaparte, still terrified in case some reversal of fortune should leave him at Bonaparte’s mercy, called to account for his actions in receiving the Bourbon. And, on the other hand, Hornblower knew well enough that if he could persuade the city to offer an open welcome, Rouen would think twice about changing sides again. He was determined upon winning allies for his cause.

  ‘Two hours,’ said Hornblower, ‘will be ample for all preparations to be made, for the deputation to assemble, for the streets to be decorated, for quarters to be prepared for His Royal Highness and his suite.’

  ‘Monsieur, you do not understand all that this implies,’ protested the Mayor. ‘It means—’

  ‘It means that you are having to decide whether to enjoy the King’s favour or not,’ said Hornblower. ‘That is the choice before you.’

  Hornblower ignored the point that the Mayor was also having to decide whether or not to risk the guillotine at Bonaparte’s hands.

  ‘A wise man,’ said Hornblower, meaningfully, ‘will not hesitate a moment.’

  So hesitant was the Mayor that Hornblower began to fear that he would have to use threats. He could threaten dire vengeance tomorrow or the next day when the advancing army should arrive; more effectively, he could threaten to knock the town to pieces immediately with his ships’ guns, but that was not a threat he wanted to put into execution at all; it would be far from establishing the impression he wished to convey of a people receiving its rulers with acclamation after years of suffering under a tyrant.

  ‘Time presses,’ said Hornblower, looking at his watch.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Mayor, taking the decision which might mean life or death to him. ‘I’ll do it. What does Your Excellency suggest?’

  It took only a matter of minutes to settle
the details; Hornblower had learned from Hau much about arranging the public appearances of royalty. Then he took his leave, and drove back again to the quay through the silent crowds, to where the boat lay with Brown growing anxious about him. They had hardly pushed off into the stream when Brown cocked his ear. A church carillon had begun its chimes, and within a minute another had joined in. On the deck of the Porta Coeli the Duke listened to what Hornblower had to tell him. The city was making ready to welcome him.

  And when they landed on the quay there was the assembly of notables, as promised; there were the carriages and the horses; there were the white banners in the streets. And there were the apathetic crowds, numbed with disaster. But it meant that even if Rouen was quiet during their stay there, the reception could at least have an appearance of gaiety, so that Barbara and Hornblower went to bed each night worn out.

  Hornblower turned his head on the pillow as the thumping on the door penetrated at last into his consciousness.