Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  “Headsail sheets! Hands to the braces!”

  Turner was an efficient seaman, despite his age. Hornblower could be sure of that by now. He stood by and watched him lay the ship close to the wind. Still came and touched his hat to Turner to take over the watch.

  “We ought to raise the Seven Capes on this tack, sir,” said Turner, coming over to Hornblower.

  “I fancy so,” said Hornblower.

  The passage from Malta had been comfortingly rapid. They had lain becalmed for a single night to the south of Crete, but with the morning the wind had got up again from a westerly quarter. There had not been a single breath of Levanter—the equinox was still too far off for that, apparently—and every day had seen at least a hundred miles made good. And McCullum was still alive.

  Hornblower walked forward to where he lay. Eisenbeiss was bending over him, his fingers on his pulse, and with the cessation of the bustle of going about the three Ceylonese divers had returned, to squat round the foot of the bed, their eyes on their master. To have those three pairs of melancholy eyes gazing at him would, Hornblower thought, have a most depressing effect, but apparently McCullum had no objection.

  “All well, Mr. McCullum?” asked Hornblower.

  “Not—quite as well as I would like.”

  It was distressing to see how slowly and painfully the head turned on the pillow. The heavy beard that had sprouted over his face could not conceal the fact that McCullum was more hollow-cheeked, more feverish-eyed, than yesterday. The decline had been very marked; the day they sailed McCullum had appeared hardly more than slightly wounded, and the second day he had seemed better still—he had protested against being kept in bed, but that night he had taken a turn for the worse and had sunk steadily ever since, just as the garrison surgeon and Eisenbeiss had gloomily predicted.

  Of course those had not been his only protests. McCullum had been as angry as his muddled condition would allow when he emerged from his narcotic to find he was under the treatment of the man who had shot him. He had struggled against his weakness and his bandages. It had called for Hornblower’s personal intervention—fortunately Atropos was clear of the harbour mouth when McCullum regained consciousness—to calm him down. “It’s a blackguard trick to pursue an affair of honour after an exchange of shots,” Hornblower had said, and “It’s the Doctor who’s attending to you, not the Baron,” and then the clinching argument “Don’t be a fool, man. There’s no other surgeon within fifty miles. Do you want to die?” So McCullum had yielded, and had submitted his tortured body to Eisenbeiss’s ministrations, perhaps deriving some comfort from the ignoble things the doctor had to do for him.

  And now all that spirit had gone. McCullum was a very sick man. He closed his eyes as Eisenbeiss laid his hand on his forehead. The pale lips muttered, and Hornblower, stooping, could only hear disjointed phrases. There was something about “fuses under water”. McCullum was thinking, then, of the salvage operation ahead. Hornblower looked up and met Eisenbeiss’s eyes. There was deep concern in them, and there was the least perceptible shake of the head. Eisenbeiss thought McCullum was going to die.

  “It hurts—it hurts,” said McCullum, moaning a little.

  He moved restlessly, and Eisenbeiss’s large powerful hands eased him into a more comfortable position on his left side. Hornblower noticed that Eisenbeiss laid one hand, as if inquiringly, over McCulIum’s right shoulder-blade, and then lower down, towards the short ribs, and McCullum moaned again. There was no change in the gravity of Eisenbeiss’s expression.

  This was horrible. It was horrible to see this magnificently constructed creature dying. And it was equally horrible that Hornblower was aware that his deep sympathy was allayed with concern for himself. He could not imagine how he would carry through the salvage operation with McCullum dead, or even with McCullum as helpless as he was at present. He would return empty-handed, to face Collingwood’s wrath and contempt. What was the use of all his endeavours? Hornblower suddenly boiled with exasperation at the duelling convention which had claimed the life of a valuable man and at the same time had imperilled his own professional reputation. Within himself he was a whirlpool of emotions conflicting with each other.

  “Land! Land ho! Land on the starboard bow!”

  The cry came ringing down from the fore topmast head. No one could hear it without at least a little excitement. McCullum opened his eyes and turned his head again, but Eisenbeiss, stooping over him, endeavoured to soothe him. Hornblower’s place was aft, and he turned away from the bed and walked back, trying to restrain himself from appearing too eager. Turner was already there, brought up from his watch below at the cry, and by the lee bulwark the other officers were rapidly assembling in a group.

  “A good landfall, sir,” said Turner.

  “An hour earlier than I was led to expect,” answered Hornblower.

  “The current sets northerly here with steady winds from the West, sir,” said Turner. “We’ll raise Atairo in Rhodes to port soon, and then we’ll have a cross-bearing.”

  “Yes,” replied Hornblower. He was aware of his shortness of manner, but only dimly aware of its cause; he was uneasy with a sailing master on board who knew more about local conditions than he did, although that sailing master had been assigned to him to save him from uneasiness.

  Atropos was shouldering her way valiantly through the short but steep seas that came hurrying forward to assail her port bow. Her motion was easy; she was carrying exactly the right amount of sail for that wind. Turner put a telescope in his pocket and walked forward to ascend the main shrouds, while Hornblower stood on the weather side with the wind blowing against his sunburned cheeks. Turner came aft again, his smile denoting self-satisfaction.

  “That’s the Seven Capes, sir,” he said. “Two points on the starboard bow.”

  “There’s a northerly set here, you say?” asked Hornblower.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hornblower walked over and looked at the compass, and up at the trim of the sails. The northerly set would help, and the wind was coming from the southward of west, but there was no sense in going unnecessarily far to leeward.

  “Mr. Still! You can come closer to the wind than this. Brace her up.”

  He did not want to have to beat his way in at the last, and he was making allowance for the danger of the current setting in on Cape Kum.

  Now here was the doctor, touching his hat to demand attention.

  “What is it, doctor?” asked Hornblower.

  The hands were hauling on the maintack.

  “May I speak to you, sir?”

  That was exactly what he was doing, and at a moment by no means opportune. But of course what he wanted was a chance to speak to him in privacy, and not on this bustling deck.

  “It’s about the patient, sir,” supplemented Eisenbeiss. “I think it is very important.”

  “Oh, very well,” said Hornblower, restraining himself from using bad language. He led the way down into the cabin, and seated himself to face the doctor. “Well? What do you have to say?”

  Eisenbeiss was nervous, that was plain.

  “I have formed a theory, sir.”

  He failed, as ever, with the “th” sound, and the word was so unusual and his pronunciation of it was so odd that Hornblower had to think for a moment before he could guess what it was Eisenbeiss had said.

  “And what is this theory?”

  “It is about the position of the bullet, sir,” answered Eisenbeiss; he, too, took a moment to digest what was the English pronunciation of the word.

  “The garrison surgeon at Malta told me it was in the chest cavity. Do you know any more than that?”

  That expression “chest cavity” was an odd one, but the garrison surgeon had used it. It implied an empty space, and was an obvious misnomer. Lungs and heart and the great blood-vessels must fill that cavity full.

  “I believe it may not be in there at all, sir,” said Eisenbeiss, clearly taking a plunge.

  “Indeed?”
This might be exceedingly important news if it were true. “Then why is he so ill?”

  Now that Eisenbeiss had committed himself he became voluble again. Explanations poured out of him, accompanied by jerky gestures. But the explanations were hard to follow. In this highly technical matter Eisenbeiss had been thinking in his native language even more than usual, and now he was having to translate into technical terms unfamiliar to him and still more unfamilar to Hornblower, who grasped despairingly at one contorted sentence.

  “You think that the bullet, after breaking those ribs, may have bounced off again?” he asked. At the last moment he substituted the word “bounce” for “ricochet” in the hope of retaining clarity.

  “Yes, sir. Bullets often do that.”

  “And where do you say you think it went then?”

  Eisenbeiss tried to stretch his left hand far under his right armpit; his body was too bulky to permit it to go far enough to make his demonstration quite complete.

  “Under the scapula, sir—the—the shoulder-blade.”

  “Land ho! Land on the port bow?”

  Hornblower heard the cry come down through the skylight from above. That must be Rhodes they had sighted. Here they were heading into Rhodes Channel, and he was down below talking about ribs and scapulas. And yet the one was as important as the other.

  “I can’t stay down here much longer, doctor. Tell me why you think this is the case?”

  Eisenbeiss fell into explanation again. He talked about the patient’s fever, and about his comparative wellbeing the morning after he had been wounded, and about the small amount of blood he had spat up. He was in the full flood of his talk when a knock at the door interrupted him.

  “Come in,” said Hornblower.

  It was His Serene Highness the Prince of Seitz-Bunau, with a speech that he had obviously prepared carefully on his way down.

  “Mr. Still’s respects, sir,” he said. “Land in sight on the port bow.”

  “Very well, Mr. Prince. Thank you.”

  It was a pity there was not time to compliment the boy on his rapid acquirement of English. Hornblower turned back to Eisenbeiss.

  “So I think the bullet went round the back, sir. The skin is—is tough, sir, and the ribs are—are elastic.”

  “Yes?” Hornblower had heard of bullets going round the body before this.

  “And the patient has much muscle. Much.”

  “And you think the bullet has lodged in the muscles of the back?”

  “Yes. Deep against the ribs. Under the lower point of the scapula, sir.”

  “And the fever? The illness?”

  They could be accounted for, according to Eisenbeiss’s torrential explanation, by the presence of the foreign body deep inside the tissues, especially if, as was probable, it had carried fragments of clothing in along with it. It all seemed plausible enough.

  “And you are trying to say that if the bullet is there and not inside the chest you might be able to extract it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Eisenbeiss showed by his manner that he knew that those words had finally committed him.

  “You think that you can do that? It means using the knife?”

  As soon as Hornblower finished asking the second question he was aware that it was impolitic to ask two questions at once of a man who had enough trouble answering one. Eisenbeiss had to think a long time over the phrasing of his answers.

  “It means using the knife,” he said at length. “It means a difficult operation. I do not know if I can do it.”

  “But you hope you can?”

  “I hope so.”

  “And do you think you will be successful?”

  “I do not think. I hope.”

  “And if you are not successful?”

  “He will die.”

  “But you think he will die in any case if you do not attempt the operation?”

  That was the point. Eisenbeiss twice opened his mouth and shut it again before he answered.

  “Yes.”

  Down through the skylight, as Hornblower sat studying Eisenbeiss’s expression, came a new cry, faintly borne from the weather main-chains.

  “No bottom! No bottom with this line!”

  Turner and Still had very properly decided to take a cast of the lead; they were still out of soundings, as was to be expected. Hornblower brought his mind back from the situation of the ship to the decision regarding McCullum. The latter might have some claim to be consulted on the matter, but the claim was specious. His life was his country’s. A seaman was not consulted first when he was carried into the ordeal of battle.

  “So that is your opinion, doctor. If you operate and fail you will only have shortened the patient’s life by a few hours?”

  “A few hours. A few days.”

  A few days might suffice for the salvage operation; but with McCullum as sick as he was he would be no use during those few days. On the other hand there was no knowing at present whether or not he might possibly recover after those few days, without being operated on.

  “What are the difficulties of the operation?” asked Hornblower.

  “There are several layers of muscle there,” explained Eisenbeiss. “Infraspinatus. Subscapularis, many of them. In each case the—the threads run in a different direction. That makes it difficult to work quickly and yet without doing great damage. And there is the big artery, the subscapular. The patient is weak already and unable to withstand much shock.”

  “Have you everything you need for this operation if you carry it out?”

  Eisenbeiss hunched his thick shoulders.

  “The two attendants—loblolly boys, you call them, sir—are experienced. They have both served in ships in action. I have my instruments. But I should like—”

  Eisenbeiss clearly wanted something he believed to be difficult to grant.

  “What?”

  “I should like the ship to be still. At anchor. And a good light.”

  That turned the scale of the decision.

  “Before nightfall,” said Hornblower, “this ship will be at anchor in a landlocked harbour. You can make your preparations for the operation.”

  “Yes, sir.” Again a pause before Eisenbeiss asked an important question. “And your promise, sir?”

  Hornblower did not have to think very long about the question as to whether Eisenbeiss would work more efficiently or not if he were faced with the certainty of flogging and hanging if he failed. The man would do all he could out of sheer professional pride. And the thought that his life was at stake might possibly make him nervous.

  “I’ll take my promise back,” said Hornblower. “You’ll suffer no harm, whatever happens.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “No bottom!” called the leadsman in the chains.

  “Very well, then. You have until this evening to make what preparations you can.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  With Eisenbeiss out of the cabin Hornblower sat for hardly a moment retracing the grounds of his decision. His ship was entering Rhodes Channel and he must be on deck.

  “Wind’s come southerly a point, sir,” said Still, touching his hat.

  The first thing, of course, that Hornblower had noticed as he came up the companion was that Atropos was still braced up as close to the wind as she would lie. Still and Turner had acted correctly without troubling him about it.

  “Very well, Mr. Still.”

  Hornblower put his glass to his eye and swept the horizon. A bold, wildly rugged coast on the one hand; on the other a low sandy shore. He bent to study the chart.

  “Cape Angistro to starboard, sir,” said Turner at his side. “Cape Kum abaft the port beam.”

  “Thank you.”

  Everything was as it should be. Hornblower straightened up and turned his glass upon the Turkish coast. It was steep, with bold cliffs, behind which rose a chain of steeply undulating hills.

  “They’re only green at this time of year, sir,” explained Tur
ner. “The rest of the year they’re brown.”

  “Yes.”

  Hornblower had read all he could about the Eastern Mediterranean, and he knew something of the climatic conditions.

  “Not many people live there now, sir,” went on Turner. “Farmers, a few. Shepherds. Little fishing villages in some of the coves. A little coasting trade in caiques from Rhodes—not so much of that now, sir. There’s piracy in all these waters, on account of the feuds between the Greeks and the Turks. There’s a bit of trade in honey an’ timber, but precious little.”

  “Yes.”

  It was fortunate the wind had backed southerly, even by so little. It eased one of the myriad complications in his complicated life.

  “Ruins a-plenty along that coast, though, sir,” droned on Turner. “Cities—temples—you’d be surprised.”

  Ancient Greek civilization had flourished here. Over there had stood Artemisia and a score of other Greek cities, pulsating with life and beauty.

  “Yes,” said Hornblower.

  “The villages mostly stand where the old cities were,” persisted Turner. “Ruins all round ’em. Half the cottages are built of marble from the temples.”

  “Yes.”

  In other circumstances Hornblower could have been deeply interested, but as it was Turner was merely distraction. There was not merely the immediate business in hand of taking Atropos up into Marmorice harbour; there was the business of how to deal with the Turkish authorities; of how to set about the problems of salvage; there was the question—the urgent, anxious question—as to whether McCullum would live. There was the routine of the ship; when Hornblower looked round him he could see the hands and the officers clustered along the ship’s sides gazing out eagerly at the shores. There were Greeks dwelling among the Mohammedans of the mainland—that would be important when it came to a question of keeping liquor from the men. And he would like to fill his water barrels; and there was the matter of obtaining fresh vegetables.

  Here was Still with a routine question. Hornblower nodded in agreement.

  “Up spirits!”

  The cry went through the little ship, and when they heard it the men had no ears for any siren song from the shore. This was the great moment of the day for most of them, when they would pour their tiny issue of rum-and-water down their eager throats. To deprive a man of his ration was like barring a saint from Paradise. The speculations that went on among the men, their dealings with their rum rations, the exchanging, the buying, the selling, made the South Sea Bubble seem small by comparison. But Hornblower decided he need not vaunt himself above the herd, he need not look down with condescension at the men as if they were Circe’s hogs swilling at a trough; it was perfectly true that this was the great moment of their day, but it was because they had no other moment at all, for months and for years, confined within the wooden walls of their little ship, often seeing not a shilling of money in all that time, not a fresh face, not a single human problem on which to exercise their wits. Perhaps it was better to be a captain and have too many problems.