Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  Then he must proceed with his orders as if nothing had happened to McCullum. That meant he must undertake the salvage operations himself, and he knew nothing about the subject. A wave of fury passed over him as his mind dwelt on the inconvenience and loss occasioned by the duel. The idiotic Eisenbeiss and the bad-tempered McCullum. They had no business incommoding England in her struggle with Bonaparte merely to satisfy their own ridiculous passions. He himself had borne with Eisenbeiss’s elephantine nonsense. Why could not McCullum have done the same? And in any event why could not McCullum have held his pistol straighter and killed the ridiculous doctor instead of getting killed himself? But that sort of rhetorical question did not get him any further with his own urgent problems; he must not think along those lines. Moreover, with a grinding feeling of guilt another consideration crept in. He should have been aware of bad blood between the people in his ship. He remembered the lighthearted way in which he had put on Jones’s shoulders the responsibility for accommodating McCullum in his crowded little ship. In the wardroom the doctor and McCullum had probably got on each other’s nerves; there could be no doubt about that—and presumably ashore, over wine in some tavern, the enmity had flared up and brought about the duel. He should have known about the possibility and nipped it in the bud. Hornblower scourged himself spiritually for his remissness. He experienced bitter self-contempt at that moment Perhaps he was unfit to be captain of one of His Majesty’s ships.

  The thought brought about an even greater internal upheaval. He could not bear it. He must prove to himself that there was no truth in it, or he must break himself in the attempt. He must carry through that salvage operation by his own efforts if necessary. He must. He must.

  So that was the decision. He had only to reach it for the emotion to the down within him, to leave him thinking feverishly but clearly. He must of course do everything possible to ensure success, omit nothing that could help. McCullum had indented for “leather fuse-hose”; that was some indication of how the salvage problem was to be approached. And McCullum was not yet dead, as far as he knew. He might—no, it was hardly possible. No one ever survived a bullet through the lungs. And yet—

  “Mr. Nash!”

  “Sir!” said the master’s mate of the watch, coming at the run.

  “My gig. I’m going over to the hospital.”

  There was still just a little light in the sky, but overside the water was black as ink, reflecting in long, irregular lines the lights that showed in Valetta. The oars ground rhythmically in the rowlocks. Hornblower restrained himself from urging the men to pull harder. They could never have rowed fast enough to satisfy the pressing need for instant action that seethed inside him.

  The garrison officers were still at mess, sitting over their wine, and the mess sergeant, at Hornblower’s request, went in and fetched out the surgeon. He was a youngish man, and fortunately still sober. He stood with the candle-light on his face and listened attentively to Hornblower’s questions.

  “The bullet bit him in the right armpit,” said the surgeon. “One would expect that, as he would be standing with his shoulder turned to his opponent and his arm raised. The actual wound was on the posterior margin of the armpit, towards the back, in other words, and on the level of the fifth rib.”

  The heart was on the level of the fifth rib, as Hornblower knew, and the expression had an ominous sound.

  “I suppose the bullet did not go right through?” he asked.

  “No,” replied the surgeon. “It is very rare for a pistol bullet, if it touches bone, to go through the body, even at twelve paces. The powder charge is only one drachm. Naturally the bullet is still there, presumably within the chest cavity.”

  “So he is unlikely to live?”

  “Very unlikely, sir. It is a surprise he has lived so long. The haemoptysis—the spitting of blood, you understand, sir—has been extremely slight. Most chest wounds die of internal bleeding within an hour or two, but in this case the lung can hardly have been touched. There is considerable contusion under the right scapula—that is the shoulder blade—indicating that the bullet terminated its course there.”

  “Close to the heart?”

  “Close to the heart, sir. But it can have touched none of the great vessels there, most surprisingly, or he would have been dead within a few seconds.”

  “Then why do you think he will not live?”

  The doctor shook his head.

  “Once an opening has been made in the chest cavity, sir, there is little chance, and with the bullet still inside the chance is negligible. It will certainly have carried fragments of clothing in with it. We may expect internal mortification, in general gathering of malignant humours, and eventual death within a few days.”

  “You could not probe for the bullet?”

  “Within the chest wall? My dear sir!”

  “What action have you taken, then?”

  “I have bound up the wound of entry to put an end to the bleeding there. I have strapped up the chest to ensure that the jagged ends of the broken ribs do no more damage to the lungs. I took two ounces of blood from the left basilar vein, and I administered an opiate.”

  “An opiate? So he is not conscious now?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Hornblower felt hardly wiser than he had done when Jones first told him the news.

  “You say he may live a few days? How many?”

  “I know nothing about the patient’s constitution, sir. But he is a powerful man in the prime of life. It might be as much as a week. It might even be more. But on the other hand if events take a bad turn he might be dead tomorrow.”

  “But if it is several days? Will he retain his senses during that time?”

  “Likely enough. When he ceases to, it is a sign of the approaching end. Then we can expect fever, restlessness, delirium, and death.”

  Several days of consciousness were possible, therefore. And the faintest, remotest chance that McCullum would live after all.

  “Supposing I took him to sea with me? Would that help? Or hinder?”

  “You would have to ensure his immobility on account of the fractured ribs. But at sea he might even live longer. There are the usual Mediterranean agues in this island. And in addition there is an endemic low fever. My hospital is full of such cases.”

  Now this was a piece of information that really helped in coming to a decision.

  “Thank you, doctor,” said Hornblower, and he took his decision. Then it was only a matter of minutes to make the arrangements with the surgeon and to take his leave. The gig took him back through the darkness, over the black water, to where Atropos’ riding light showed faintly.

  “Pass the word for the doctor to come to my cabin at once,” was Hornblower’s reply to the salute of the officer of the watch.

  Eisenbeiss came slowly in. There was something of apprehension and something of bravado in his manner. He was prepared to defend himself against the storm he was certain was about to descend on him. What he did not expect was the reception he actually experienced. He approached the table behind which Hornblower was seated and stood sullen, meeting Hornblower’s eyes with the guilty defiance of a man who has just taken another human’s life.

  “Mr. McCullum,” began Hornblower, and the doctor’s thick lips showed a trace of a sneer, “is being sent on board here tonight. He is still alive.”

  “On board here?” repeated the doctor, surprised into a change of attitude.

  “You address me as ‘sir’. Yes, I am having him sent over from the hospital. My orders to you are to make every preparation for his reception.”

  The doctor’s response was unintelligible German, but there could be no doubt it was an ejaculation of astonishment.

  “Your answer to me is ‘aye aye, sir’,” snapped Hornblower, his pent-up emotion and strain almost making him tremble as he sat at the table. He could not prevent his fist from clenching, but he just managed to refrain from allowing it to pound the table. The intensity of his feeling
s must have had their effect telepathically.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the doctor grudgingly.

  “Mr. McCullum’s life is extremely valuable, doctor. Much more valuable than yours.”

  The doctor could only mumble in reply to that.

  “It is your duty to keep him alive.”

  Hornblower’s fist unclenched now, and he could make his points slowly, one by one, accentuating each with the slow tap of the tip of a lean forefinger on the table.

  “You are to do all you can for him. If there is anything special that you require for the purpose you are to inform me and I shall endeavour to obtain it for you. His life is to be saved, or if not, it is to be prolonged as far as possible. I would recommend you to establish a hospital for him abaft No. 6 carronade on the starboard side, where the motion of the ship will be least felt, and where it will be possible to rig a shelter for him from the weather. You will apply to Mr. Jones for that. The ship’s pigs can be taken for’rard where they will not discommode him.”

  Hornblower’s pause and glance called forth an “aye aye, sir” from the doctor’s lips like a cork from out of a bottle, so that Hornblower could proceed.

  “We sail at dawn tomorrow,” he went on. “Mr. McCullum is to live until we reach our destination, and until long after, long enough for him to execute the duty which has brought him from India. That is quite clear to you?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the doctor, although his puzzled expression proved that there was something about the orders which he could not explain to himself.

  “You had better keep him alive,” continued Hornblower. “You had certainly better. If he dies I can try you for murder under the ordinary laws of England. Don’t look at me like that. I am speaking the truth. The common law knows nothing about duels. I can hang you, doctor.”

  The doctor was a shade paler, and his big hands tried to express what his paralyzed tongue would not.

  “But simply hanging you would be too good for you, doctor,” said Hornblower. “I can do more than that, and I shall. You have a fat, fleshy back. The cat would sink deeply into it. You’ve seen men flogged—you saw two flogged last week. You heard them scream. You will scream at the gratings too, doctor. That I promise you.”

  “No!” said the doctor—“you can’t—”

  “You address me as ‘sir’, and you do not contradict me. You heard my promise? I shall carry it out. I can, and I shall.”

  In a ship detached far from superior authority there was nothing a captain might not do, and the doctor knew it. And with Hornblower’s grim face before him and those remorseless eyes staring into his the doctor could not doubt the possibility. Hornblower was trying to keep his expression set hard, and to pay no attention to the internal calculations that persisted in maintaining themselves inside him. There might be terrible trouble if the Admiralty ever heard he had flogged a warranted doctor, but then the Admiralty might never hear of an incident in the distant Levant And there was the other doubt—with McCullum once dead, so that nothing could bring him to life, Hornblower could not really believe he would torture a human being to no practical purpose. But as long as Eisenbeiss did not guess that, it did not matter.

  “That is all quite clear to you now, doctor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then my order is that you start making your arrangements now.”

  It was a really great surprise to Hornblower when Eisenbeiss still hesitated. He was about to speak more sharply still, cutting into the feverish gestures of the big hands, when Eisenbeiss spoke again.

  “Do you forget something, sir?”

  “What do you think I have forgotten?” asked Hornblower, playing for time instead of flatly refusing to listen to any arguments—proof enough that he was a little shaken by Eisenbeiss’s persistence.

  “Mr. McCullum and I—we are enemies,” said Eisenbeiss.

  It was true that Hornblower had forgotten that. He was so engrossed with his chessboard manipulation of human pieces that he had overlooked a vital factor. But he must not admit it.

  “And what of that?” he asked coldly, hoping his discomfiture was not too apparent.

  “I shot him,” said Eisenbeiss. There was a vivid gesture by the big right hand that had held the pistol, which enabled Hornblower to visualize the whole duel. “What will he say if I attend him?”

  “Whose was the challenge?” asked Hornblower, still playing for time.

  “He challenged me,” said Eisenbeiss. “He said—he said I was no Baron, and I said he was no gentleman. ‘I will kill you for that,’ he said, and so we fought.”

  Eisenbeiss had certainly said the thing that would best rouse McCullum’s fury.

  “You are convinced you are a Baron?” asked Hornblower—curiosity urged him to ask the question as well as the need for time to reassemble his thoughts. The Baron drew himself up as far as the deck-beams over his head allowed.

  “I know I am, sir. My patent of nobility is signed by His Serene Highness himself.”

  “When did he do that?”

  “As soon as—as soon as we were alone. Only His Serene Highness and I managed to cross the frontier when Bonaparte’s men entered Seitz-Bunau. The others all took service with the tyrant. It was not fit that His Serene Highness should be attended only by a bourgeois. Only a noble could attend him to bed or serve his food. He had to have a High Chamberlain to regulate his ceremonial, and a Secretary of State to manage his foreign affairs. So His Serene Highness ennobled me—that is why I bear the title of Baron—and gave me the high offices of State.

  “On your advice?”

  “I was the only adviser he had left.”

  This was very interesting and much as Hornblower had imagined it, but it was not the point. Hornblower was more ready now to face the real issue.

  “In the duel,” he asked, “you exchanged shots?”

  “His bullet went past my ear,” answered Eisenbeiss.

  “Then honour is satisfied on both sides,” said Hornblower, more to himself than to the doctor.

  Technically that was perfectly correct. An exchange of shots, and still more the shedding of blood, ended any affair of honour. The principals could meet again socially as if there had been no trouble between them. But to meet in the relative positions of doctor and patient might be something different. He would have to deal with that difficulty when it arose.

  “You are quite right to remind me about this, doctor,” he said, with the last appearance of judicial calm that he could summon up. “I shall bear it in mind.”

  Eisenbeiss looked at him a little blankly, and Hornblower put on his hard face again.

  “But it makes no difference at all to my promise to you. Rest assured of that,” he continued. “My orders still stand. They—still—stand.”

  It was several seconds before the reluctant answer came.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “On your way out would you please be good enough to pass the word for Mr. Turner, the new sailing master?”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  That showed the subtle difference between an order and a request—but both of them had to be obeyed.

  “Now, Mr. Turner,” said Hornblower when Turner arrived in the cabin, “our destination is Marmorice Bay, and we sail at dawn tomorrow. I want to know about the winds we can expect at this time of year. I want to lose no time at all in arriving there. Every hour—I may say every minute is of importance.”

  Time was of importance, to make the most of a dying man’s last hours.

  XI

  These were the blue waters where history had been made, where the future of civilization had been decided, more than once and more than twice. Here Greek had fought against Persian, Athenian against Spartan, Crusader against Saracen, Hospitaller against Turk. The penteconters of Byzantium had furrowed the seas here, and the caracks of Pisa. Great cities had luxuriated in untold wealth. Only just over the horizon on the port beam was Rhodes, where a comparatively minor city had erected one of the se
ven wonders of the world, so that two thousand years later the adjective colossal was part of the vocabulary of people whose ancestors wore skins and painted themselves with woad at the time when the Rhodians were debating the nature of the Infinite. Now conditions were reversed. Here came Atropos, guided by sextant and compass, driven by the wind harnessed to her well-planned sails, armed with her long guns and carronades—a triumph of modern invention, in short—emerging from the wealthiest corner of the world into one where misgovernment and disease, anarchy and war, had left deserts where there had been fertile fields, villages where there had been cities, and hovels where there had been palaces. But there was no time to philosophize in this profound fashion. The sands in the hour-glass beside the binnacle were running low, and the moment was approaching when course should be altered.

  “Mr. Turner!”

  “Sir!”

  “We’ll alter course when the watch is called.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Doctor!”

  “Sir!”

  “Stand by for a change of course.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  McCullum’s invalid bed was disposed athwart ships between Nos. 6 and 7 carronades on the starboard side; a simple tackle attached to the bedhead enabled the level of the bed to be adjusted with the change of course, so that the patient lay as horizontal as might be, whichever way the ship might be heeling. It was the doctor’s responsibility to attend to that.

  The watch was being called.

  “Very good, Mr. Turner.”