“I’m sailing with the land breeze tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Whither bound, sir?”
“England,” said Hornblower.
Bush could not restrain a whistle at the news. There were men in the squadron who had not seen England for ten years.
“I’ll be back again,” said Hornblower. “A convoy to the Downs. Despatches for the Commissioners. Pick up the replies and a convoy out again. The usual round.”
For a sloop of war it was indeed the usual round. The Retribution with her eighteen guns and disciplined crew could fight almost any privateer afloat; with her speed and handiness she could cover a convoy more effectively than the ship of the line or even the frigates that accompanied the larger convoys to give solid protection.
“You’ll get your commission confirmed, sir,” said Bush, with a glance at Hornblower’s epaulette.
“I hope so,” said Hornblower.
Confirmation of a commission bestowed by a commander-in-chief on a foreign station was a mere formality.
“That is,” said Hornblower, “if they don’t make peace.”
“No chance of that, sir,” said Bush; and it was clear from Hornblower’s grin that he, too, thought there was no possibility of peace either, despite the hints in the two-months-old newspapers that came out from England to the effect that negotiations were possible. With Bonaparte in supreme power in France, restless, ambitious, and unscrupulous, and with none of the points settled that were in dispute between the two countries, no fighting man could believe that the negotiations could result even in an armistice, and certainly not in a permanent peace.
“Good luck in any case, sir,” said Bush, and there was no mere formality about those words.
They shook hands and parted; it says much for Bush’s feelings towards Hornblower that in the grey dawn next morning he rolled out of his cot and went up on deck to watch the Retribution, ghost-like under her topsails, and with the lead going in the chains, steal out round the point, wafted along by the land breeze. Bush watched her go; life in the service meant many partings. Meanwhile there was war to be waged against bedbugs.
Eleven weeks later the squadron was in the Mona Passage, beating against the trade winds. Lambert had brought them out here with the usual double objective of every admiral, to exercise his ships and to see an important convoy through the most dangerous part of its voyage. The hills of Santo Domingo were out of sight at the moment over the westerly horizon, but Mona was in sight ahead, table-topped and, from this point of view, an unrelieved oblong in outline; over on the port bow lay Mona’s little sister Monita, exhibiting a strong family resemblance.
The lookout frigate ahead sent up a signal.
“You’re too slow, Mr. Truscott,” bellowed Bush at the signal midshipman, as was right and proper.
“Sail in sight, bearing northeast,” read the signal midshipman, glass to eye.
That might be anything, from the advanced guard of a French squadron broken out from Brest to a wandering trader.
The signal came down and was almost instantly replaced.
“Friendly sail in sight bearing northeast,” read Truscott.
A squall came down and blotted out the horizon. The Renown had to pay off momentarily before its impact. The rain rattled on the deck as the ship lay over, and then the wind abruptly moderated, the sun came out again, and the squall was past. Bush busied himself with the task of regaining station, of laying the Renown her exact two cables’ length astern of her next ahead. She was last in the line of three, and the flagship was the first. Now the strange sail was well over the horizon. She was a sloop of war as the telescope showed at once; Bush thought for a moment that she might be the Retribution, returned after a very quick double passage, but it only took a second glance to make sure she was not. Truscott read her number and referred to the list.
“Clara, sloop of war: Captain Ford,” he announced.
The Clara had sailed for England with despatches three weeks before the Retribution, Bush knew.
“Clara to Flag,” went on Truscott. “Have despatches.”
She was nearing fast. Up the flagship’s halliards soared a string of black balls which broke into flags at the top.
“All ships,” read Truscott, with excitement evident in his voice, for this meant that the Renown would have orders to obey. “Heave-to.”
“Main tops’l braces!” yelled Bush. “Mr. Abbott! My respects to the captain and the squadron’s heaving-to.”
The squadron came to the wind and lay heaving easily over the rollers. Bush watched the Clara’s boat dancing over the waves towards the flagship.
“Keep the hands at the braces, Mr. Bush,” said Captain Cogshill. “I expect we’ll fill again as soon as the despatches are delivered.”
But Cogshill was wrong. Bush watched through his glass the officer from the Clara go up the flagship’s side, but the minutes passed and the flagship still lay hove-to, the squadron still pitched on the waves. Now a new string of black balls went up the flagship’s halliards.
“All ships,” read Truscott. “Captains repair on board the flagship.”
“Gig’s crew away!” roared Bush.
It must be important, or at least unusual, news for the admiral to wish to communicate it to the captains immediately and in person. Bush walked the quarterdeck with Buckland while they waited. The French fleet might be out; the North Alliance might be growing restive again. The King’s illness might have returned. It might be anything; they could be only certain that it was not nothing. The minutes passed and lengthened into half-hours; it could hardly be bad news—if it were, Lambert would not be wasting precious time like this, with the whole squadron going off slowly to leeward. Then at last the wind brought to their ears, over the blue water, the high-pitched sound of the pipes of the bosun’s mates in the flagship. Bush clapped his glass to his eye.
“First one’s coming off,” he said.
Gig after gig left the flagship’s side, and now they could see the Renown’s gig with her captain in the sternsheets. Buckland went to meet him as he came up the side. Cogshill touched his hat; he was looking a little dazed.
“It’s peace,” he said.
The wind brought them the sound of cheering from the flagship—the announcement must have been made to the ship’s company on board, and it was the sound of that cheering that gave any reality at all to the news the captain brought.
“Peace, sir?” asked Buckland.
“Yes, peace. Preliminaries are signed. The ambassadors meet in France next month to settle the terms, but it’s peace. All hostilities are at an end—they are to cease in every part of the world on arrival of this news.”
“Peace!” said Bush.
For nine years the world had been convulsed with war; ships had burned, the men had bled, from Manila to Panama, west about and east about. It was hard to believe that he was living now in a world where men did not fire cannons at each other on sight. Cogshill’s next remark had a bearing on this last thought.
“National ships of the French, Batavian, and Italian Republics will be saluted with the honours due to foreign ships of war,” he said.
Buckland whistled at that, as well he might. It meant that England had recognized the existence of the red republics against which she had fought for so long. Yesterday it had been almost treason to speak the word “republic”. Now a captain could use it casually in an official statement.
“And what happens to us, sir?” asked Buckland.
“That’s what we must wait to hear,” said Cogshill. “But the navy is to be reduced to peacetime establishment. That means that nine ships out of ten will be paid off.”
“Holy Moses!” said Bush.
Now the next ship ahead was cheering, the sound coming shrilly through the air.
“Call the hands,” said Cogshill. “They must be told.”
The ship’s company of the Renown rejoiced to hear the news. They cheered as wildly as did the crews of the other ships.
For them it meant the approaching end of savage discipline and incredible hardship. Freedom, liberty, a return to their homes. Bush looked down at the sea of ecstatic faces and wondered what the news implied for him. Freedom and liberty, possibly; but they meant life on a lieutenant’s half pay. That was something he had never experienced; in his earliest youth he had entered the navy as a midshipman—the peacetime navy which he could hardly remember—and during the nine years of the war he had only known two short intervals of leave. He was not too sure that he cared for the novel prospects that the future held out to him.
He glanced up at the flagship and turned to bellow at the signal midshipman.
“Mr. Truscott! Don’t you see that signal? Attend to your duties, or it will be the worse for you, peace or no peace.”
The wretched Truscott put his glass to his eye.
“All ships,” he read. “Form line on the larboard tack.”
Bush glanced at the captain for permission to proceed.
“Hands to the braces, there!” yelled Bush. “Fill that main tops’l. Smarter than that, you lubbers! Full and by, quartermaster. Mr. Cope, haven’t you eyes in your head? Take another pull at that weather-brace! God bless my soul! Easy there! Belay!”
“All ships,” read Truscott with his telescope, as the Renown gathered way and settled in the wake of her next ahead. “Tack in succession.”
“Stand by to go about!” yelled Bush.
He noted the progress of the next ahead, and then spared time to rate the watch for its dilatoriness in going to its stations for tacking ship.
“You slow-footed slobs! I’ll have some of you dancing at the gratings before long!”
The next ahead had tacked by now, and the Renown was advancing into the white water she had left behind.
“Ready about!” shouted Bush. “Headsail sheets! Helm-a-lee!”
The Renown came ponderously about and filled on the starboard tack.
“Course sou’west by west,” said Truscott, reading the next signal.
Southwest by west. The admiral must be heading back for Port Royal. He could guess that was the first step towards the reduction of the fleet to its peacetime establishment. The sun was warm and delightful, and the Renown, steadying before the wind, was roaring along over the blue Caribbean. She was keeping her station well; there was no need to shiver the mizzen topsail yet. This was a good life. He could not make himself believe that it was coming to an end. He tried to think of a winter’s day in England, with nothing to do. No ship to handle. Half pay—his sisters had half his pay as it was, which would mean there would be nothing for him, as well as nothing to do. A cold winter’s day. No, he simply could not imagine it, and he left off trying.
XVIII
It was a cold winter’s day in Portsmouth; a black frost, and there was a penetrating east wind blowing down the street as Bush came out of the dockyard gates. He turned up the collar of his pea-jacket over his muffler and crammed his hands into his pockets, and he bowed his head into the wind as he strode forward into it, his eyes watering, his nose running, while that east wind seemed to find its way between his ribs, making the scars that covered them ache anew. He would not allow himself to look up at the Keppel’s Head as he went past it. In there, he knew, there would be warmth and good company. The fortunate officers with prize money to spend; the incredibly fortunate officers who had found themselves appointments in the peacetime navy—they would be in there yarning and taking wine with each other. He could not afford wine. He thought longingly for a moment about a tankard of beer, but he rejected the idea immediately, although the temptation was strong. He had a month’s half pay in his pocket—he was on his way back from the Clerk of the Cheque from whom he had drawn it—but that had to last four and a half weeks and he knew he could not afford it.
He had tried of course for a billet in the merchant service, as mate, but that was as hopeless a prospect at present as obtaining an appointment as lieutenant. Having started life as a midshipman and spent all his adult life in the fighting service he did not know enough about bills of lading or cargo stowage. The merchant service looked on the navy with genial contempt, and said the latter always had a hundred men available to do a job the merchantman had to do with six. And with every ship that was paid off a fresh batch of master’s mates, trained for the merchant service and pressed from it, sought jobs in their old profession, heightening the competition every month.
Someone came out from a side street just in front of him and turned into the wind ahead of him—a naval officer. That gangling walk; those shoulders bent into the wind; he could not help but recognize Hornblower.
“Sir! Sir!” he called, and Hornblower turned.
There was a momentary irritation in his expression but it vanished the moment he recognized Bush.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, his hand held out.
“Good to see you, sir,” said Bush.
“Don’t call me ‘sir’,” said Hornblower.
“No, sir? What—why—?”
Hornblower had no greatcoat on; and his left shoulder was bare of the epaulette he should have worn as a commander. Bush’s eyes went to it automatically. He could see the old pin-holes in the material which showed where the epaulette had once been fastened.
“I’m not a commander,” said Hornblower. “They didn’t confirm my appointment.”
“Good God!”
Hornblower’s face was unnaturally white—Bush was accustomed to seeing it deeply tanned—and his cheeks were hollow, but his expression was set in the old unrevealing cast that Bush remembered so well.
“Preliminaries of peace were signed the day I took Retribution into Plymouth,” said Hornblower.
“What infernal luck!” said Bush.
Lieutenants waited all their lives for the fortunate combination of circumstances that might bring them promotion, and most of them waited in vain. It was more than likely now Hornblower would wait in vain for the rest of his life.
“Have you applied for an appointment as lieutenant?” asked Bush.
“Yes. And I suppose you have?” replied Hornblower.
“Yes.”
There was no need to say more than that on that subject. The peacetime navy employed one-tenth of the lieutenants who were employed in wartime; to receive an appointment one had to be of vast seniority or else have powerful friends.
“I spent a month in London,” said Hornblower. “There was always a crowd round the Admiralty and the Navy Office.”
“I expect so,” said Bush.
The wind came shrieking round the corner.
“God, but it’s cold!” said Bush.
His mind toyed with the thought of various ways to continue the conversation in shelter. If they went to the Keppel’s Head now it would mean paying for two pints of beer, and Hornblower would have to pay for the same.
“I’m going into the Long Rooms just here,” said Hornblower. “Come in with me—or are you busy?”
“No, I’m not busy,” said Bush, doubtfully “but—”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said Hornblower. “Come on.”
There was reassurance in the confident way in which Hornblower spoke about the Long Rooms. Bush only knew of them by reputation. They were frequented by officers of the navy and the army with money to spare. Bush had heard much about the high stakes that were indulged in at play there, and about the elegance of the refreshments offered by the proprietor. If Hornblower could speak thus casually about the Long Rooms he could not be as desperately hard up as he seemed to be. They crossed the street and Hornblower held open the door and ushered him through. It was a long oak-panelled room; the gloom of the outer day was made cheerful here by the light of candles, and a magnificent fire flamed on the hearth. In the centre several card tables with chairs round them stood ready for play; the ends of the room were furnished as comfortable lounges. A servant in a green baize apron was making the room tidy, and came to take their hats and Bush’s coat as they entered.
/> “Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning, Jenkins,” said Hornblower.
He walked with unconcealed haste over to the fire and stood before it warming himself. Bush saw that his teeth were chattering.
“A bad day to be out without your pea-jacket,” he said.
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
He clipped that affirmative a little short, so that in a minute degree it failed to be an indifferent, flat agreement. It was that which caused Bush to realize that it was not eccentricity or absent-mindedness that had brought Hornblower out into a black frost without his greatcoat. Bush looked at Hornblower sharply, and he might even have asked a tactless question if he had not been forestalled by the opening of an inner door beside them. A short, plump, but exceedingly elegant gentleman came in; he was dressed in the height of fashion, save that he wore his hair long, tied back and with powder in the style of the last generation. This made his age hard to guess. He looked at the pair of them with keen dark eyes.
“Good morning, Marquis,” said Hornblower. “It is a pleasure to present—M. le Marquis de Sainte-Croix—Lieutenant Bush.”
The Marquis bowed gracefully, and Bush endeavoured to imitate him. But for all that graceful bow, Bush was quite aware of the considering eyes running over him. A lieutenant looking over a likely hand, or a farmer looking at a pig at a fair, might have worn the same expression. Bush guessed that the Marquis was making a mental estimate as to how much Bush might be good for at the card tables, and suddenly became acutely conscious of his shabby uniform. Apparently the Marquis reached the same conclusion as Bush did, but he began a conversation nevertheless.
The Young Hornblower Omnibus Page 48
