10 Lord Hornblower hh-10

by C. S. Forester

  The blue eyes bulged a little wider still at the sight of the three wrecks of men dragged in before him. He looked from one to another with uncontrolled surprise; the dapper aide-de-camp who had slipped into a seat beside him, with paper and pens before him, made more effort to conceal his astonishment.

  “Who are you?” asked the General.

  After a moment the Count spoke first

  “Louis-Antoine-Hector-Savinien de Ladon, Comte de Graçay,” he said, with a lift of his chin.

  The round blue eyes turned towards Brown.

  “And you?”

  “My name is Brown.”

  “Ah, the servant who was one of the ringleaders. And you?”

  “Horatio, Lord Hornblower.” Hornblower’s voice cracked as he spoke; his throat was parched.

  “Lord ‘Ornblower. The Comte de Graçay,” said the General, looking from one to the other. He made no spoken comment — his mere glance was a commentary. The head of the oldest family in France, the most distinguished of the younger officers of the British Navy — these two exhausted tatterdemalions.

  “The court martial which will try you will assemble this evening,” said the General. “You have today in which to prepare your defence.”

  He did not add ‘if any’.

  A thought came into Hornblower’s mind. He made himself speak.

  “This man Brown, monsieur. He is a prisoner of war.”

  The arched sandy eyebrows arched higher yet.

  “He is a sailor of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy. He was doing his duty under my orders as his superior officer. He is not amenable to court martial in consequence. He is a legitimate combatant.”

  “He fought with rebels.”

  “That does not affect the case, sir. He is a member of the armed forces of the British Crown, with the grade of — of —”

  For the life of him Hornblower could not remember the French equivalent of ‘coxswain’, and for lack of anything better he used the English word. The blue eyes suddenly narrowed.

  “This is the same defence as you will be putting forward at your court martial,” said Clausen. “It will not avail you.”

  “I had not thought about my defence,” said Hornblower, so genuinely that his tone could not but carry conviction. “I was only thinking about Brown. There is nothing of which you can accuse him. You are a soldier yourself, and must understand that.”

  His interest in the present discussion made him forget his weariness, made him forget his own instant peril. The genuineness and sincerity of his anxiety about Brown’s welfare had their effect on Clausen, who could not fail to be affected by these pleadings for a subordinate by a man who himself was about to lose his life. The blue eyes softened with a hint of admiration that was lost on Hornblower, keenwitted and sympathetic though the latter was. To him it was such an obvious thing to do to look after Brown that it did not cross his mind that it might be admirable as well.

  “I will take the matter under consideration,” said Clausen, and then, addressing the escort. “Take the prisoners away”.

  The dapper aide-de-camp whispered hurriedly to him, and he nodded with Alsatian solemnity.

  “Take what measures you think fit,” he said. “I make you responsible.”

  The aide-de-camp rose from his seat and accompanied them out of the hall as the soldiers helped Hornblower to walk. Once through the door the aide-de-camp issued his orders.

  “Take that man” — indicating Brown — “to the guardhouse. That man” — this was the Count — “to the room there. Sergeant, you will have charge of him. Lieutenant, you will be personally responsible for this man ‘Ornblower. You will keep two men with you, and you and they will never let him out of your sight. Not for a moment. There is a dungeon under the château here. Take him to it, and stay there with him, and I will come and inspect at intervals. This is the man who escaped four years ago from the Imperial gendarmerie, and who has already been condemned to death in his absence. He is desperate, and you can expect him to be cunning.”

  “Very well, sir,” said the lieutenant.

  A stone staircase led down to the dungeon, a relic of the not so distant days when the lord of the manor had the right of the high justice, the middle and the low. Now the dungeon showed every sign of long disuse when the clashing bars opened the door into it. It was not damp; on the contrary, it was thick with dust. Through the high barred window came a shaft of sunlight, just sufficient to illuminate the place. The lieutenant looked round at the bare walls; two iron chains stapled to the floor comprised the only furniture.

  “Bring some chairs,” he said to one of the men with him, and, after a glance at his weary prisoner. “And find a mattress and bring that too. A palliasse of straw at the least.”

  It was chill in the dungeon, and yet Hornblower felt sweat upon his forehead. His weakness was growing with every second, his legs giving way under him even while he stood still, his head swimming. The mattress had hardly been laid upon the floor before he staggered to it and collapsed across it. Everything was forgotten in that moment, even his misery regarding Marie’s death. There was no room for remorse, none for apprehension. He lay there face downward, not quite unconscious, not quite asleep, but oblivious; the throbbing in his legs, the roaring in his ears, the pain in his shoulder, the misery in his soul — all these were nothings at that moment of collapse.

  When the bars at the door clashed to herald the entrance of the aide-de-camp Hornblower had recovered somewhat. He was still lying face downward, by now almost enjoying the lack of need to move or think, when the aide-de-camp came in.

  “Has the prisoner spoken at all?” he heard the aide-de-camp ask.

  “Not a single word,” said the lieutenant.

  “The depths of despair,” commented the aide-de-camp with facile sententiousness.

  The remark irritated Hornblower, and he was further annoyed at being caught in such an undignified attitude. He turned over and sat up on his palliasse and glared up at the aide-de-camp.

  “You have no requests to make?” asked the latter. “No letters you wish to write?”

  He did not wish to write a letter upon which his gaolers would fall like vultures upon a corpse. Yet he had to be exigent, had to do something to remove that impression of being in despair. And with that he knew what he wanted and how desperately he wanted it.

  “A bath,” he said. He put his hand to his hairy face. “A shave. Clean clothes.”

  “A bath?” repeated the aide-de-camp, a little startled. Then a look of suspicion came into his face. “I cannot trust you with a razor. You would try to cheat the firing party.”

  “Have one of your men shave me,” said Hornblower, and seeking for something to say to irritate he added. “You can tie my hands while he does it. But first a bucket of hot water, soap, and a towel. And a clean shirt at least.”

  The aide-de-camp yielded.

  “Very well,” he said.

  A queer mood of light-headed exaltation came to Hornblower’s rescue. It was nothing to strip himself naked under the eyes of four curious men, to wash the filth from his body and to towel himself dry, ignoring the pain in his injured shoulder. It was not the legendary and strange Englishman that they were interested in so much as in the man about to die. This man soaping himself was shortly to pass through the gates ahead of them all; this white body was soon to be torn asunder by musket bullets. Telepathically he felt his gaolers’ morbid curiosity, and proudly and disdainfully he would indulge it. He dressed himself again while they watched his every movement. A trooper came in with his hands full of lather-bowls and razors.

  “The regimental barber,” said the aide-de-camp. “He will shave you.”

  There was no suggestion now of tying his hands; as Hornblower sat with the razor rasping over his throat he thought of reaching suddenly up and grasping the blade. His jugular vein, his carotid artery were there; one deep cut at the side and he would be out of his torment, and there would be the additional satisfaction of ha
ving completely outwitted the supercilious aide-de-camp. The temptation was momentarily keen; he could visualise his corpse collapsing in the chair, blood pouring from his throat, to the consternation of the officers. So clear was the vision for the moment that he dallied with it, enjoying it. But the fate of a suicide would not arouse nearly as much resentment as a judicial murder. He must let Bonaparte kill him, he must make that one last sacrifice to his duty. And Barbara — he would not like Barbara to think of him as a suicide.

  The barber held a mirror before him just in time to break this new chain of thought; the face he looked at was the same familiar one, deeply sunburned. The lines about his mouth were perhaps more noticeable. The eyes were perhaps more pathetic than ever, more appealing. Disgustingly the forehead was a little higher, the scalp more visible. He nodded his approval to the barber, and rose to his feet as the towel was taken from under his chin, making himself stand firm despite the pain of the blisters on his feet. He swept his glance imperiously round, abashing the curious stares. The aide-de-camp pulled out his watch, most likely to conceal some embarrassment.

  “In an hour the court martial will assemble,” he said. “Do you wish for food?”

  “Certainly,” said Hornblower.

  They brought him an omelette, bread, wine, cheese. There was no suggestion that anyone should eat with him; they sat and stared as he carried each mouthful to his lips. He had not eaten for a long time, and now that he felt clean he was ravenously hungry. Let them stare; he wanted to eat and drink. The wine was delicious, and he drank of it thirstily.

  “The Emperor won two great victories last week,” said the aide-de-camp suddenly, breaking into Hornblower’s mood. Hornblower paused in the act of wiping his mouth with his napkin to stare at him.

  “Your Wellington,” went on the aide-de-camp, “has met his destiny at last. Ney beat him thoroughly at a place south of Brussels called Les Quatre Bras, and on the same day His Majesty destroyed Blücher and the Prussians at Ligny, which is the old battlefield of Fleurus, according to the map. It was a pair of victories as decisive as Jena and Auerstadt.”

  Hornblower forced himself to complete the wiping of his mouth apparently unmoved. He addressed himself to pouring himself out another glass of wine; he felt that the aide-de-camp, annoyed by his apparent indifference to his fate, was telling him this news in an endeavour to penetrate his armour. He tried to think of a riposte.

  “How did this news reach you?” he asked, apparently all polite attention.

  “The official bulletin reached us three days back. The Emperor was in full march for Brussels.”

  “My felicitations, monsieur. For your sake I hope the news is true. But is there not a saying in your army about ‘to lie like a bulletin’?”

  “This bulletin is from the Emperor’s own headquarters,” said the aide-de-camp indignantly.

  “Then there can be no doubt about it, of course. Let us hope that Ney informed the Emperor correctly of the facts, for his defeat of Wellington is a remarkable reversal of history. In Spain Wellington defeated Ney several times, as well as Massena and Soult and Victor and Junot and all the others.”

  The aide-de-camp’s expression showed how much the speech nettled him.

  “There can be no doubt of this victory,” he said, and he added viciously, “Paris will hear the same day of the Emperor’s entry into Brussels and of the final suppression of brigandage in the Nivernais.”

  “Oh,” said Hornblower politely, with raised eyebrows. “You have brigands in the Nivernais? I commiserate with you, sir — but I met none in my travels through the country.”

  The aide-de-camp’s mortification showed in his face more plainly than ever, and Hornblower sipped his wine and felt pleased with himself. What with the wine and his lightheaded elation he could find little to fear in the prospect that soon he would be condemned to death. The aide-de-camp rose and clanked out of the cell, while Hornblower pushed back his chair and stretched his legs with an elaborate pose of well-being that was only partly assumed. They sat on in silence, himself and his three watchers, for some considerable time before the clash of the bars told of the door being opened afresh.

  “The court is waiting. Come,” said the aide-de-camp.

  No sense of well-being could disguise from Hornblower the soreness of his feet. He tried to walk with dignity, but he could only limp grotesquely — he remembered how only yesterday he had found that the first hundred yards after a halt was acutely painful until his feet grew numb. And today it was far less than a hundred yards to the great hall of the château. As Hornblower and his escort came up onto ground level they met the Count, walking between two Hussars, and the groups paused for a moment.

  “My son, my son,” said the Count, “forgive me for what I have done.”

  There was nothing odd to Hornblower’s mind in being addressed as ‘son’ by the Count. Quite automatically he made the equivalent reply.

  “There is nothing for me to forgive, Father,” he said, “but it is I who ask forgiveness.”

  What compelling motive was it that made him drop on his knee and bow his head? And why did an old free-thinker and Voltairean like the Count extend his hand to him?

  “Bless you, my son. God bless you,” he said.

  Then he passed on, and when Hornblower looked back the grey head and spare figure turned the corner and disappeared.

  “He is to be shot at dawn tomorrow,” explained the aide-de-camp, as he opened the door into the great hall.

  Clausen at his table was now flanked by three officers on either side, and at each end of the table sat a junior officer with papers before them. Hornblower hobbled towards them, struggling and failing to walk with any dignity. When he reached the table the officer at one end rose.

  “Your name?” he asked.

  “Horatio, Lord Hornblower, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Commodore in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.”

  The court exchanged glances; the officer at the other end of the table, who was apparently acting as secretary, scribbled furiously. The officer who had asked the question — clearly the prosecutor — turned to address the court.

  “The prisoner has admitted his identity. And I understand that he had previously already done so, to General Count Clausen and to Captain Fleury. His appearance also corresponds with his published description. It is submitted, then, that his identity is proved.”

  Clausen looked round at his fellow judges, who nodded.

  “It only remains, then,” went on the prosecutor, “to submit to the court the verdict of a court martial held on June 10th, 1811, wherein this said ‘Oratio ‘Ornblower was condemned to death, he having purposely absented himself, on charges of piracy and violation of the laws of war; that sentence being confirmed on June 14th of the same year by His Imperial and Royal Majesty the Emperor. The judges will find attested copies before them. I must request that the death sentence be enforced.”

  Again Clausen looked at his fellow judges, and received a sixfold nod. Clausen looked down at the table before him, and drummed for a moment with his fingers before he looked up again. He was making himself meet Hornblower’s eyes, and when he did Hornblower’s strange clairvoyance told him of the repeated orders that had come from Bonaparte to Clausen — ‘this Hornblower is to be taken and shot wherever found’, or something to that effect. There was a decided apology in Clausen’s blue eyes.

  “It is the order of this military commission,” said Clausen slowly, “that the said ‘Oratio ‘Ornblower suffer death by shooting at dawn tomorrow, immediately after the execution of the rebel Graçay.”

  “Pirates are hanged, Your Excellency,” said the prosecutor.

  “It is the order of this commission that ‘Ornblower be shot,” repeated Clausen. “Remove the prisoner. The commission is terminated.”

  There it was. Hornblower knew that every eye was on his back as he turned away and walked down the hall. He wished he could stride out, head up and shoulders back, but he could on
ly hobble out, with halting steps and shoulders bent. He had had no opportunity to say a word in his own defence, and perhaps it was as well. He might have stammered and hesitated, tongue-tied, for he had made no speech ready. He hobbled down the steps. At least he was to be shot and not hanged — but would the impact of the bullets on his chest be any less agonising than the tightening of the rope round his throat? He stumbled into the cell, which was now quite dark. He found the mattress and sat down on it. This was final defeat — he had not looked upon it in that light before. Bonaparte had won the last round of the struggle he had waged against him for twenty years. There was no arguing with bullets.

  They brought in three candles, which brightly lit the cell. Yes, this was defeat. With bitter self-contempt Hornblower remembered so recently preening himself on his silly verbal victories over the aide-de-camp. Fool that he was! The Count condemned to death, and Marie — oh, Marie, Marie! He found actual tears in his eyes, and he hurriedly shifted his position on the mattress so that the watchers should not see them. Marie had loved him, and his own folly had killed her. His own folly and Bonaparte’s superior genius. God, if only he could have the chance to live the last three months over again. Marie, Marie. He was going to sink his head into his hands, and checked himself when he remembered there were three pairs of eyes stolidly watching him. He must not have it said of himself that he died like a coward. For little Richard’s sake, for Barbara’s sake, that must not be. Barbara would love and cherish Richard, he could be sure of that. What would she think of her late husband? She would know — she would guess — why he had come to France, and she would guess at his infidelity. She would be deeply hurt. She would be blameless if she held no allegiance to his memory. She would marry again. Still young, beautiful, wealthy, well connected; of course she would. Oh God, that added to the pain, to think of Barbara in another man’s arms, laughing with the joy of it. And yet he had lain in Marie’s. Oh, Marie.

  His nails were hurting his palms, so tightly were his fists clenched. He glanced round to find the eyes still on him. He must show no weakness. If that thunderstorm had not burst and flooded the Loire, he would still be at liberty, Marie would still be alive, the rebellion would still be active. It had called for the direct interposition of fate as well as Bonaparte’s genius to defeat him. Those battles that had been fought in Belgium — maybe the bulletins had lied about Bonaparte’s victories. Maybe they were not decisive. Maybe Clausen’s division, kept inactive in the Nivernais, might have made them decisive had it been present. Maybe — what a fool he was to try to comfort himself with these vain delusions! He was going to die, he was going to solve the mystery that he had only sometimes allowed himself to think about. By this time tomorrow — in a few hours — he would have gone the road so many others had trodden before him.