Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  It was a staggering blow; Hornblower looked out over the raging river and the fields and vineyards warm in the young day. Marie and the Count were waiting for a decision from him.

  ‘We can make that boat float,’ said Hornblower. ‘The oars are still here. Two empty kegs fastened under the thwarts – there’ll be kegs to be found here, seeing they make wine. We can patch a little, stuff the holes, and with the kegs to keep her afloat we’ll cross all right. Brown, you and I had better get it done.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Brown. ‘There’ll be tools in the wagon shed yonder.’

  It was necessary to guard against surprise; the repair work on the boat would take some hours.

  ‘Marie,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Yes, ’Oratio?’

  ‘Ride up above the vineyard there. Keep a watch on the high road. Remember to keep yourself and your horse hidden.’

  ‘Yes, ’Oratio.’

  Simply ‘Yes, ’Oratio’, as Hornblower realised a moment later. Any other woman would have made it clear by word or intonation that the last sentence of his instructions was superfluous to someone who had learned her job. As it was she mounted and rode off in simple obedience. Hornblower caught the Count’s eye. He wanted to tell him to rest – the Count’s face was as grey as the stubble that grew thick on his cheeks – but he refrained from brutally saying so. It was necessary to keep the Count in good spirits, and that was not the way to do so.

  ‘We shall need your help, sir, soon,’ he said. ‘Can we call on you when it is needed?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Count.

  Brown appeared with barrel staves, hammer, and nails, some lengths of cord.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Hornblower.

  Feverishly they went to work on the boat. In two places both strakes and frames were smashed. To patch the holes was a comparatively simple matter, but the broken frames presented a more difficult problem. To cross that fast current they would have to row vigorously, and the boat might buckle under the strain. The simplest way to stiffen it would be to strengthen the strakes with one or two diagonal thicknesses of new planking.

  ‘When we turn her over we’ll see how she looks,’ said Hornblower.

  The hammers rang out as they drove the nails home and clinched them. Hornblower thought of the lusty tugs on the oars necessary to drive the boat through those turbulent waters. Both longitudinally and transversely the strain on the fabric would be severe. They worked furiously. The old man hovered round them. He expected the Hussars back again at any moment, he said – they were constantly patrolling along the river bank. He told them this with that seeming delight in calamity that distinguished his type.

  And he had hardly repeated his warning when the sound of hoofs caused them to look up from their work; it was Marie, pushing her horse down the slope as hard as it would move.

  ‘Hussars!’ she said briefly. ‘Coming along the main road from the south. Twenty of them, I should think.’

  It did not seem possible that Fate could be as unkind as she appeared to be. Another hour’s work would see the boat ready to float.

  ‘They’ll come down here,’ said the old man gloatingly. ‘They always do.’

  Once more it was matter for instant decision.

  ‘We must ride off and hide,’ said Hornblower. ‘Nothing else for it. Come on.’

  ‘But the repairs on the boat, sir? They’ll see ’em,’ said Brown.

  ‘They were only a mile away,’ said Marie. ‘They’ll be here in five minutes.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Hornblower. ‘Count, please get on your horse.’

  ‘Tell the Hussars if they come it was you who was making these repairs,’ said Brown to the old man. Brown thrust his shaggy face close to the wrinkled one.

  ‘Come along, Brown,’ said Hornblower.

  They rode back to the hollow place where they had hidden themselves before. They tethered the horses to the willows, and crawled back among the rocks to watch. They had hardly settled themselves when a murmur from Marie called their attention to the coming of the Hussars. It was only a small patrol – half a dozen troopers and a non-commissioned officer. The plumed busbies came in sight first, over the ridge, and then the grey jackets. They trotted down the cart-track beside the vineyard to the farm. The old man was waiting for them at the entrance to the courtyard, and the fugitives watched as they reined up and questioned him. There was a catch in Hornblower’s breath as he watched the old man, his face raised to the mounted men, replying to the questions. Hornblower saw the non-commissioned officer lean out of his saddle and take the old man by the breast of his coat and shake him. He knew now they would get the truth out of him. Those threats in Clausen’s proclamation were not empty ones. A single reminder would make the old man talk – he would only hesitate long enough to salve his conscience. The non-commissioned officer shook him again; a trooper apparently idly walked his horse towards the river and the boat and returned at once with the news of the repairs. Now the old man was talking; excitement was infecting the Hussars’ horses, which were moving about restlessly. At a wave from the non-commissioned officer’s hand a trooper set his horse up the slope, clearly to carry word to the remainder of the squadron. The old man was pointing in their direction; the Hussars wheeled their horses about, and, spreading out, began to trot towards them. This was the end.

  Hornblower glanced at his companions, who looked back at him. In the flying seconds minds worked quickly. There was no purpose in trying to ride away – the fresh horses of the Hussars would overtake them in an instant. The Count had drawn his pistols and looked to the priming.

  ‘I left my musket at the ford,’ said Marie, in a choking tone, but she, too, had a pistol in her hand.

  Brown was coolly looking about him at the tactical situation.

  They were going to fight it out to the very end, then. All the feeling of finality, of inevitability, that had haunted Hornblower from the very beginning of the rebellion – since the interview with the Duchesse d’Angoulême – came over him with renewed force. This was indeed the end. To die among the rocks today, or before a firing party tomorrow. Neither of them very dignified ends, but perhaps this one was the better. Yet it did not seem right or fitting that he should die now. For the moment he could not accept his fate with the apparent indifference of his companions; he knew actual fear. Then it passed as suddenly as it came, and he was ready to fight, ready to play out the losing hand to the drop of the last card.

  A trooper was riding towards them, not more than a few yards away now. Brown levelled his pistol and fired.

  ‘Missed him, by God!’ said Brown.

  The Hussar reined his horse round and galloped out of range; the sound of the shot attracted the notice of all the rest of the patrol, which promptly sheered away out of musket-shot and began to circle, spreading out. The forlorn situation of the group in the rocky hollow must have become apparent to them immediately. Any attempt on the fugitives’ part to escape must result in their being immediately ridden down, so that there was no need for hurry. The Hussars sat their horses and waited.

  It was not more than half an hour before reinforcements arrived, two more troops under an officer whose aigrette and gold-laced dolman displayed the dandyism traditional in the Hussar regiments; the trumpeter beside him was nearly as resplendent. Hornblower watched as the sergeant’s hand pointed out the tactical situation, and then he saw the officer’s hand indicate the movements he wanted his men to make. The officer could see at a glance the ground was too broken for concerted mounted action; with disciplined rapidity the new arrivals dismounted, and the horses were led off by threes while the remainder of the two troops, carbine in hand, prepared to advance in skirmishing order against the hollow from two directions. For dismounted cavalry deployed as skirmishers, with their long boots and spurs and inaccurate carbines and lack of drill, Hornblower would nominally have felt nothing but contempt, but fifty of them advancing against three men and a woman armed only with pistols meant defea
t and death.

  ‘Make every shot tell, this time,’ said Hornblower – the first words anyone had spoken for a long time.

  Brown and the Count were lying in niches between rocks; Marie was crawling round so as to bring herself to face the flanking column. At a hundred yards the skirmishers grew more cautious, stealing forward trying to shelter themselves behind bushes and rocks, and obviously expecting the musket-shots that did not come. One or two of them fired their carbines, so wildly that Hornblower did not even hear the bullets; he could imagine the non-commissioned officers rating the men who were thus wasting ammunition. They were within possible range now of his own rifled pistols – Barbara’s gift to him. He lay with his right arm extended, his forearm supported on the rock that sheltered him, and took prolonged and careful aim at the easiest mark before him – a Hussar walking towards him in the open, his carbine across his body. He pressed the trigger, and through the smoke saw the Hussar whirl round and fall, to rise to a sitting position a moment later with his hand to his wounded arm. Hot with a new battle fury, Hornblower fired the other barrel, and the Hussar fell back, limp and motionless; Hornblower cursed himself for wasting a shot and for killing a wounded man who would have been out of the battle in any event. A fierce yell went up from the ring of skirmishers, while Hornblower reloaded his empty pistols, restraining himself as his fever tempted him to hurry. He poured the charges into the barrels, wrapped the bullets and rammed them home, and carefully placed the caps upon the nipples. The sight of their comrade’s fall had instilled extra caution into the skirmishers, despite their battle yell – no one wished to be the next inglorious victim. That was a sergeant, there, calling to his men to come on. Hornblower sighted again and fired, and the sergeant dropped. This was better. There was a savage satisfaction in killing when he was about to be killed. Carbines were firing from all round the ring; Hornblower would hear the bullets passing overhead.

  At that moment a loud fanfare from the trumpet attracted the attention of everyone; it was repeated, and Hornblower looked round while the carbine-fire died away. The officer was walking his horse towards them, a white handkerchief waving from his hand, while the trumpeter rode close behind blowing for a parley in accordance with military etiquette.

  ‘Shall I kill him sir?’ asked Brown.

  ‘No,’ said Hornblower. It would be pleasant to take the officer with him to hell, but it would give Bonaparte too good an opportunity to sully his name and thus discredit the Bourbon movement. He knelt up behind his rock and shouted ‘Come no farther!’

  The officer reined up.

  ‘Why not surrender?’ he shouted back. ‘You have nothing to gain by further resistance.’

  ‘What terms do you offer?’

  The officer with difficulty suppressed a shrug.

  ‘A fair trial,’ he shouted back. ‘You can appeal to the mercy of the Emperor.’

  The irony of those sentences could not have been greater if it had been deliberate.

  ‘To hell with you!’ yelled Hornblower. ‘And to hell with the 10th Hussars! Run, or I fire!’

  He raised his pistol, and the officer hastily wheeled his horse and trotted back without dignity. Why should it be that with death only half an hour away there should be any satisfaction in thus humiliating the man? He had only been doing his duty, trying to save the lives of his men; why this bitter personal animosity? This insane self-analysis coursed through Hornblower’s mind even while he dropped on his stomach again and wriggled into a firing position. He had time to think scorn of himself before a bullet passing close above his head drove him to think about nothing save the business in hand. If the Hussars would only rise to their feet and charge in they might lose half a dozen lives but it would be over quickly. Marie’s pistol cracked not far from his right hand, and he looked round at her.

  At that moment it happened; Hornblower heard the impact of the bullet, saw the force of it half roll her over. He saw the puzzled look on her face, saw the puzzled look change to a grimace of agony, and without even knowing what he was doing he sprang to her and knelt beside her. A bullet had struck her on the thigh; Hornblower turned back the short skirt of her riding habit. One leg of her dark breeches was already soaked with blood, and while he was gathering himself to act he twice saw the blood pulsate redly – the great artery of the thigh was torn. A tourniquet – pressure – Hornblower’s mind hastily recalled all it had ever learned about emergency treatment of the wounded. He thrust his fingers into her groin, unavailingly, the folds of the breeches balking his attempt to apply pressure to the artery. Yet every moment was precious. He felt for his penknife to rip open her breeches, and at the same time a shattering blow on his shoulder flung him on to the ground beside her. He had heard nothing of the Hussars’ charge, nothing of the pistol-shots fired by Brown and the Count unavailingly to turn the charge back. Until the carbine-butt struck him down he had been ignorant of what was going on. Even as it was he struggled to his knees again with only the thought in his head of the urgent need to stop the artery. He vaguely heard a shout beside him as a sergeant stopped a trooper from striking him again, but he thought nothing of it. He opened his knife, but Marie’s body was limp and lifeless under his hands. He glanced at her grimy face; it was white under the dirt and sunburn, her mouth hung open, and her eyes stared up at the sky as only the eyes of the dead stare. Hornblower knelt looking down on her, his open penknife still in his hand, completely numb. The penknife fell from his fingers, and he became aware of another face beside his own looking down on Marie.

  ‘She is dead,’ said a French voice. ‘A pity.’

  The officer rose again to his feet, while Hornblower knelt over the body.

  ‘Come, you,’ said a harsher voice, and Hornblower was roughly shaken by a hand on his shoulder. He stood up, still dazed, and looked round him. There was the Count, on his feet, between two Hussars; there was Brown sitting on the ground with his hand to his head slowly recovering from the blow which had struck him senseless, while over him stood a trooper with his carbine cocked.

  ‘Madame’s life would have been spared after trial,’ said the officer, his voice coming from miles away. The bitterness of that remark helped to clear the fog from Hornblower’s brain. He made a wild movement, and two men sprang forward and seized his arms, sending a wave of agony through his shoulder where the carbine-butt had struck him. There was a momentary pause.

  ‘I shall take these men to headquarters,’ announced the officer. ‘Sergeant, take the bodies down to the farmhouse. I will send you orders later.’

  A low moan came from the Count’s lips like the cry of a hurt child.

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Bring the horses up,’ went on the officer. ‘Is that man well enough to ride? Yes.’

  Brown was looking dazedly around him, one side of his face swollen and bruised. It was all like a dream, with Marie lying there glaring at the sky.

  ‘Come along,’ said someone, and they dragged at Hornblower’s arms to lead him out of the hollow. His legs were weak under him, his blistered feet resented the movement and he would have fallen if they had not helped him up and dragged him forward.

  ‘Courage, coward,’ said one of his guards.

  No one – save himself – had ever called him that before. He tried to shake himself free, but they only held him the harder, his shoulder paining him excruciatingly. A third man put his hands on his back and all three ran him up out of the hollow without dignity. Here were the horses, a hundred of them, moving about restlessly still under the influence of the recent excitement. They shoved him up into the saddle of a horse, and divided the reins, a trooper mounting on each side and taking half the reins each. It added to Hornblower’s feeling of helplessness to sit in a saddle with no reins to hold, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly sit upright. As the horse fidgeted under him he saw Brown and the Count made to mount as well, and then the cavalcade moved up to the road. There they broke into a rapid trot, which tossed hi
m about in his saddle as he held on to the pommel. Once he came near to losing his balance, and the trooper beside him put an arm round him and hove him back into a vertical position.

  ‘If you fell in a column like this,’ said the trooper, not unkindly, ‘that would be the end of your troubles.’

  His troubles! Marie was dead back there, and it might just as well have been his own hand that killed her. She was dead – dead – dead. He had been mad to try to start this rebellion, madder still, infinitely madder, to allow Marie to take part in it. Why had he done it? And a man more skilful with his hands, more ready of resource, would have been able to compress that spouting artery. Hankey, the surgeon of the Lydia, had said once (as though licking his lips) that thirty seconds was as long as anyone ever lived after the femoral artery was cut. No matter. He had allowed Marie to die under his hands. He had had thirty seconds, and he had failed. Failed everywhere, failed in war, failed in love, failed with Barbara – God, why did he think of Barbara?

  The pain in his shoulder may have saved him from madness, for the jolting of the horse was causing him agony of which he could no longer remain ignorant. He slipped his dangling hand between the buttons of his coat as a makeshift sling, which brought him a little relief, and a short while later he received further relief when a shouted order from the officer at the head of the column reduced the horses’ pace to a walk. Exhaustion was overcoming him, too; although thoughts were whirling through his brains they were ceasing to be well-defined and logical thoughts – rather were they nightmare images, terrifying but blurred. He had sunk into a delirious stupor when a new order which sent the horses into a trot again roused him from it. Walk and trot, walk and trot; the cavalry was pushing along the road as fast as the horses could go, hurrying him to his doom.

  The château guarded by half a battalion of soldiers was General Clausen’s headquarters; the prisoners and their escorts rode into the courtyard and dismounted there. The Count was almost unrecognisable by reason of the grey stubble thick over his face; Brown, as well as being bearded, had one eye and cheek swollen purple with a bruise. There was no time to exchange more than a look, no time for a word, when a dapper dismounted officer came out to them.