The Commodore h-10

by Cecil Scott Forester

  Whitehall,

  10th April, 1812

  Sir,

  I am commanded by the Lords Commissioners to inform you that their Lordships desire to employ you immediately as Commodore with a Captain under you on a service which their Lordships consider worthy of an officer of your seniority and standing. You are hereby directed and required, therefore, to inform their Lordships through me as speedily as possible as to whether or not you will accept this appointment, and in the event of your accepting it you are further directed and required to present yourself in person at this office without delay in order to receive verbally their Lordships’ instructions and also those of any other Minister of State whom it may be judged necessary you should address.

  Your obed’t servant,

  E. NEPEAN, Secy to the Lords Commissioners

  of the Admiralty

  Hornblower had to read the letter twice—the first time it conveyed no meaning to him at all. But at the second reading the glorious import of the letter burst in upon him. The first thing he was conscious of was that this life here in Smallbridge or in Bond Street need not continue. He was free of all that; he could take a bath under a wash-deck pump instead of in a damned hip-bath with a kettleful of water in it; he could walk his own deck, breathe the sea air, take off these damned tight trousers and never put them on again, receive no deputations, speak to no damned tenants, never smell another pigsty or smack another horse’s back, And that was only the first thing; the second was that he was being offered appointment as Commodore—a Commodore of the first class, too, with a captain under him, so that he would be like an Admiral. He would have a broad pennant flying at the mainmast-head, compliments and honours—not that they mattered, but they would be outward signs of the trust reposed in him, of the promotion that was his. Louis at the Admiralty must have a good opinion of him, clearly, to appoint him Commodore when he was hardly more than half-way up the Captains’ list. Of course, that phrase about ‘worthy of his seniority and standing’ was merely formula, justifying the Admiralty in anticipation in putting him on half-pay should he decline; but—those last words, about consulting with Ministers of State, had enormous import. They meant that the mission to be entrusted to him would be one of responsibility, of international importance. Waves of excitement broke over him.

  He hauled out his watch. Ten-fifteen—the day was still young by civilian standards.

  “Where’s Brown?” he snapped at Wiggins.

  Brown materialized miraculously in the background—not too miraculously, perhaps; the whole house must be aware, of course, that the master had received a letter from the Admiralty.

  “Get out my best uniform and my sword. Have the horses put-to in the chariot. You had better come with me, Brown—I shall want you to drive. Have my things for the night ready and yours too.”

  The servants scattered in all directions, for not merely must the weighty orders of the master be obeyed, but this was an affair of State and doubly important in consequence. So that as Hornblower came out of his preoccupation Barbara was standing there alone.

  God, he had forgotten all about her in his excitement, and she was aware of it. She was drooping a little, and one corner of her mouth was down. Their eyes met then, and that corner of her mouth went up for a moment, but then it went down again.

  “It’s the Admiralty,” explained Hornblower lamely. “They’ll appoint me Commodore with a captain under me.”

  It was a pity that Hornblower could see her try to appear pleased.

  “That’s a high compliment,” she said. “No more than you deserve, my dear, all the same. You must be pleased, and I am too.”

  “It will take me away from you,” said Hornblower.

  “Darling, I have had six months with you. Six months of the kind of happiness you have given me is more than any woman deserves. And you will come back to me.”

  “Of course I will,” said Hornblower.

  Chapter Two

  This was typical April weather. It had been miraculously sunny during the ceremony at the foot of the steps of Smallbridge House, but it had rained torrentially once already during the twenty-mile drive to London. Then the sun had reappeared, had warmed and dried them; but now as they crossed Wimbledon Common the sky was black again, and the first drops began to drive into their faces. Hornblower pulled his cloak about him and rebuttoned the collar. His cocked hat with its gold lace and button lay on his knees under the sheltering tent of the cloak; cocked hats worn for long in the rain accumulated pools of water in both crown and brim and were pulled out of shape.

  Now it came, wind and rain, shrieking down from the west in unbelievable contrast with the delightful weather of only half an hour before. The near-side horse had the full brunt of it and was inclined to shirk its work in consequence. Brown laid the whiplash on its glistening haunch and it threw itself into the collar in a fresh spasm of energy. Brown was a good whip—he was good at everything. He had been the best captain’s coxswain Hornblower had ever known, he had been a loyal subordinate during the escape from France, and he had made himself into the best manservant heart could desire. Now he sat here, tolerant of the driving rain, the slippery leather of the reins grasped in a big brown hand; hand and wrist and forearm acted like a spring to maintain that subtle pressure upon the horses’ mouths—not enough pressure to interfere in the least with their work, but enough to give them confidence on the slippery road, and to have them under control in any emergency. They were pulling the chariot over the muddy macadam up the steep ascent of Wimbledon Common with a wholeheartedness they never displayed for Hornblower.

  “Would you like to go to sea again, Brown?” asked Hornblower. The mere fact that he allowed himself to make this unnecessary speech was proof of how much Hornblower was lifted out of himself with excitement.

  “I’d like it main well, sir,” said Brown shortly.

  Hornblower was left to guess what Brown really meant—whether his curtness was just the English way of concealing enthusiasm, or whether Brown was merely being in polite agreement with his master’s mood.

  The rain from Hornblower’s wet hair was trickling down his neck now inside his collar. He ought to have brought a sou’wester with him. He hunched himself together on the padded leather seat, resting his two hands on the hilt of the sword belted round his waist—the hundred-guinea sword given him by the Patriotic Fund. With the sword vertical his hands held the heavy wet cloak away from the cocked hat on his knees. Another little rivulet coursed down inside his clothes and made him squirm. By the time the shower had passed he was thoroughly damp and uncomfortable, but here once more came the glorious sun. The raindrops in the gorse and the brambles shone like diamonds; the horses steamed; larks resumed their song far overhead, and Hornblower threw open his cloak and wiped his damp hair and neck with his handkerchief. Brown eased the horses to a walk at the crest of the hill to breathe them before the brisk descent.

  “London, sir,” he said.

  And there it was. The rain had washed the smoke and dust out of the air so that even at that distance the gilt cross and bell over St. Paul’s gleamed in the sunshine. The church spires, dwarfed by the dome, stood out with unnatural clarity. The very roof-tops were distinct. Brown clicked his tongue at the horses and they broke once more into a trot, rattling the chariot down the steep descent into Wandsworth, and Hornblower pulled out his watch. It was no more than two o’clock, ample time to do business. Even though his shirt was damp inside his coat this was a far better day than he had anticipated when he sat in his bath that morning.

  Brown drew the horses to a halt outside the Admiralty, and a ragged urchin appeared who guarded the wheel so that it did not muddy Hornblower’s cloak and uniform as he climbed down from the chariot.

  “At the Golden Cross, then, Brown,” said Hornblower, fumbling for a copper for the urchin.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Brown, wheeling the horses round.

  Hornblower carefully put on his cocked hat, settled his coat more smo
othly, and centred the buckle of his sword-belt. At Smallbridge House he was Sir Horatio, master of the house, lord of the manor, autocrat undisputed, but now he was just Captain Hornblower going in to see the Lords of the Admiralty. But Admiral Louis was all cordiality. He left Hornblower waiting no more than three minutes in the anteroom—no longer than would be necessary to get rid of his visitor of the moment—and he shook hands with obvious pleasure at the sight of him; he rang the bell for a clerk to take Hornblower’s wet cloak away, and with his own hands he pulled up a chair for him beside the vast fire which Louis maintained summer and winter since his return from the command of the East Indian Station.

  “Lady Barbara is well, I trust?” he asked.

  “Very well, thank you, sir,” said Hornblower.

  “And Master Hornblower?”

  “Very well too, sir.”

  Hornblower was mastering his shyness rapidly. He sat farther back in his chair and welcomed the heat of the fire. That was a new portrait of Collingwood on the wall; it must have replaced the old one of Lord Barharn. It was pleasant to note the red ribbon and the star and to look down at his own breast and to see that he wore the same decoration.

  “And yet you left domestic bliss at the first moment you received our letter?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Hornblower realized that perhaps it might be more profitable not to be natural; it might be better to adopt a pose, to appear reluctant to take up his professional duties, or to make it look as if he were making a great personal sacrifice for his country, but for the life of him he could not do it. He was too pleased with his promotion, too full of curiosity regarding the mission the Admiralty had in mind for him. Louis’ keen eyes were studying him closely, and he met their gaze frankly.

  “What is it you plan for me, sir?” he asked; he would not even wait for Louis to make the first move.

  “The Baltic,” said Louis.

  So that was it. The two words terminated a morning of wild speculation, tore up a wide cobweb of possibilities. It might have been anywhere in the world; Java or Jamaica, Cape Horne or the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian Ocean or the Mediterranean, anywhere within the 25,000-mile circuit of the world where the British flag flew. And it was going to be the Baltic; Hornblower tried to sort out in his mind what he knew about the Baltic. He had not sailed in northern waters since he was a junior lieutenant.

  “Admiral Keats is commanding there, isn’t he?”

  “At the moment, yes. But Saumarez is replacing him. His orders will be to give you the widest latitude of discretion.”

  That was a curious thing to say. It hinted at division of command, and that was inherently vicious. Better a bad commander-in-chief than a divided command. To tell a subordinate that his superior was under orders to grant him wide discretion was a dangerous thing to do, unless the subordinate was a man of superlative loyalty and common sense. Hornblower gulped at that moment—he had honestly forgotten temporarily that he was the subordinate under consideration; maybe the Admiralty credited him with ‘superlative loyalty and common sense’.

  Louis was eyeing him curiously.

  “Don’t you want to hear the size of your command?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course,” answered Hornblower, but he did not mind very much. The fact that he was going to command something was much more important than what he was going to command.

  “You’ll have the Nonsuch, seventy-four,” said Louis. “That will give you a ship of force should you need one. For the rest you’ll have all the small stuff we can scrape together for you—Lotus and Raven, sloops; two bomb-ketches, Moth and Harvey, and the cutter Clam. That’s all so far, but by the time you sail we might have some more ready for you. We want you to be ready for all the inshore work that may come your way. There’s likely to be plenty.”

  “I expect so,” said Hornblower.

  “Don’t know whether you’ll be fighting for the Russians or against them,” mused Louis. “Same with the Swedes. God knows what’s building up, up there. But His Nibs’ll tell you all about that.”

  Hornblower looked a question.

  “Your revered brother-in-law, the most noble the Marquis Wellesley, K.P., His Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. We call him His Nibs for short. We’ll walk across and see him in a minute. But there’s something else important to settle. Who d’you want for captain in Nonsuch?”

  Hornblower gasped at that. This was patronage on a grand scale. He had sometimes appointed midshipmen and surgeon’s mates; a parson of shady record had once hungrily solicited him for nomination as chaplain in his ship, but to have a say in the appointment of a captain of a ship of the line was something infinitely more important than any of these. There were 120 captains junior to Hornblower, men of most distinguished record, whose achievements were talked of with bated breath in the four quarters of the world, and who had won their way to that rank at the cost of their blood and by the performance of feats of skill and daring unparalleled in history. Certainly half of these, perhaps more, would jump at the suggestion of the command of a seventy-four. Hornblower remembered his own joy at his appointment to Sutherland two years ago. Captains on half-pay, captains with shore appointments eating out their hearts with wailing for a sea command, it was in his power to change the whole life and career of one of these. Yet there was no hesitation about his decision. There might be more brilliant captains available, captains with more brains, but there was only one man that he wanted.

  “I’ll have Bush,” he said, “if he’s available.”

  “You can have him,” said Louis, with a nod. “I was expecting you to ask for him. That wooden leg of his won’t be too serious a handicap, you think.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Hornblower. It would have been irksome in the extreme to go to sea with any other captain than Bush.

  “Very well, then,” said Louis, looking round at the clock on the wall. “Let’s walk across and see His Nibs, if you’ve no objection.”

  Chapter Three

  Hornblower sat in his private sitting-room in the Golden Cross inn. There was a fire burning, and on the table at which he sat there were no fewer than four wax candles lighted. All this luxury—the private sitting-room, the fire, the wax candles—gave Hornblower uneasy delight. He had been poor for so long, he had had to scrape and economize so carefully all his life, that recklessness with money gave him this queer dubious pleasure, this guilty joy. His bill to-morrow would contain an item of at least half a crown for light, and if he had been content with rush dips the charge would not have been more than twopence. The fire would be a shilling, too. And you could trust an innkeeper to make the maximum charges to a guest who obviously could afford them, a Knight of the Bath, with a servant, and a two-horse chariot. To-morrow’s bill would be nearer two guineas than one, Hornblower touched his breast pocket to reassure himself that his thick wad of one-pound notes was still there. He could afford to spend two guineas a day.

  Reassured, he bent again to the notes which he had made during his interview with the Foreign Secretary. They were in irregular order, jotted down as first one thing and then another had come into Wellesley’s mind. It was quite clear that not even the Cabinet knew for certain whether the Russians were going to fight Bonaparte or not. No, that was the wrong way to put it. Nobody knew whether Bonaparte was going to fight the Russians or not. However much ill will the Tsar bore towards the French—and obviously it was great—he would not fight unless he had to, unless Bonaparte deliberately attacked him. Certainly the Tsar would make every possible concession rather than fight, at least at present while he was still trying to build up and reorganize his army.

  “It’s hard to think Boney will be mad enough to pick a quarrel,” Wellesley had said, “when he can get practically all he wants without fighting.”

  But if there was going to be war it was desirable that England should have a striking force in the Baltic.

  “If Boney chases Alexander out of Russia, I want yo
u to be on hand to pick him up,” said Wellesley. “We can always find a use for him.”

  Kings in exile were at least useful figureheads for any resistance that might still be maintained by countries which Bonaparte had overrun. Under her protecting wing England had the rulers of Sicily and Sardinia, the Netherlands and Portugal and Hesse, all of them helping to keep alive hope in the bosoms of their former subjects now ground beneath the tyrant’s heel.

  “So much depends on Sweden,” was another remark of Wellesley’s. “No one can guess what Bernadotte will do. Russia’s conquest of Finland has irritated the Swedes, too. We try and point out to them that of the two Bonaparte’s the worse menace to ‘em. He’s at the mouth of the Baltic, while Russia’s only at the top. But it can’t be comfortable for Sweden, having to choose between Russia and Bonaparte.”

  That was a pretty tangle, one way and the other—Sweden ruled by a Crown Prince who only three years before had been a French general, and some sort of connexion by marriage with Bonaparte at that; Denmark and Norway in the tyrant’s hands, Finland newly conquered by Russia, and the south shore of the Baltic swarming with Bonaparte’s troops.

  “He has army camps at Danzig and Stettin,” Wellesley had said, “and South German troops echelonned all the way back to Berlin, to say nothing of the Prussians and the Austrians and the other allies.”

  With Europe at his feet Bonaparte was able to drag in his train the armies of his late enemies; if he were to make war upon Russia it seemed as though a substantial part of his army would be foreigners—Italians and South Germans, Prussians and Austrians, Dutchmen and Danes.

  “There are even Spaniards and Portuguese, they tell me,” said Wellesley. “I hope they have enjoyed the recent winter in Poland. You speak Spanish, I understand?”

  Hornblower had said “Yes.”

  “And French too?”

  “Yes.”