Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  When the door was shut Hornblower was all good manners.

  ‘Please sit down, Mr Cobb. Then you can tell me at your ease what really happened.’

  ‘Thank you, My Lord.’

  ‘Well, now?’

  ‘That young ’Udnutt, My Lord, ’e’s a fool if ever there was one. I’m sorry this ’as ’appened, My Lord, but ’e deserves all ’e’s going to get.’

  ‘Yes? He’s a fool, you say?’

  ‘’E’s a downright fool, My Lord. I’m not saying ’e isn’t a good musician, ’cause ’e is. There ain’t no one ’oo can play the cornet the way ’e does. That’s the truth, My Lord. ’E’s a boy wonder at it. The cornet’s a newfangled instrument, My Lord. We ain’t ’ad it in our bands for more’n a year. Blow it like a trumpet, you do, you ’ave to ’ave a lip for it, although it ’as keys as well, My Lord. An’ ’e’s a marvel at it, or ’e was, My Lord.’

  That change to the past tense indicated that in Cobb’s positive opinion Hudnutt, through death or disablement, would never play the cornet again.

  ‘He’s young?’

  ‘Nineteen, My Lord.’

  ‘And what did he do?’

  ‘It was mutiny, My Lord, flat mutiny, although I’ve only charged him with disobedience to orders.’

  Mutiny meant death by the Articles of War; disobedience to orders meant ‘death or such less penalty—’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Well, My Lord, it was like this. We was rehearsing the new march that come out in the last packet. Dondello, it’s called, My Lord. Just the cornet an’ the drums. An’ it sounded different, an’ I had ’Udnutt play it again. I could ’ear what ’e was doin’, My Lord. There’s a lot of B flat accidentals in that march, an’ ’e wasn’t flatting them. I asked ’im what ’e meant by it, an’ he said it sounded too sweet. That’s what ’e said, My Lord. An’ it’s written on the music. Dolce, it says, and dolce means sweet, My Lord.’

  ‘I know,’ lied Hornblower.

  ‘So I says, “You play that again and you flat those B’s.” An’ ’e says, “I can’t.” An’ I says, “You mean you won’t?” An’ then I says, “I’ll give you one more chance” – although by rights I shouldn’t ’ave, My Lord – an’ I says, “This is an order, remember,” ’an I gives ’em the beat an’ they starts off and there was the B naturals. So I says, “You ’eard me give you an order?” an’ ’e says, “yes.” So there wasn’t nothing I could do after that, My Lord. I calls the guard an’ I ’ad ’im marched to the guard-’ouse. An’ then I ’ad to prefer charges, My Lord.’

  ‘This happened with the band present?’

  ‘Yes, My Lord. The ’ole band, sixteen of ’em.’

  Wilful disobedience to an order, before sixteen witnesses. It hardly mattered if there were six or sixteen or sixty; the point was that everyone in Hornblower’s command knew by now that discipline had been defied, an order deliberately disobeyed. The man must die, or he must be flogged into a crippled wreck, lest other men defy orders. Hornblower knew he had his command well in hand, but he knew, too, of the turbulence that lay below the surface. And yet – if the order that had been disobeyed had been something different, if there had been a refusal to lay out along a yard, say, however perilous the conditions, Hornblower would not have given all this thought to the matter, despite his detestation of physical cruelty. That sort of order must be instantly obeyed. ‘Artistic conscience,’ Spendlove had said. Hornblower had no idea of any difference between B and B flat, but he could dimly understand that it might be important to some people. A man might be tempted to refuse to do something that offended his artistic sensibilities.

  ‘I suppose the man was sober?’ he demanded suddenly.

  ‘As sober as you and me, My Lord.’

  Another idea crossed Hornblower’s mind.

  ‘What’s the chances of a misprint in the music?’ he asked; he was struggling with things he did not understand.

  ‘Well, My Lord, there is such things. But it’s for me to say if there’s a misprint or not. An’ although he can read music I don’t know if ’e can read print, My Lord, an’ if ’e can I don’t expect ’e can read Eyetalian, but there it says dolce, it says, on the official music, My Lord.’

  In Cobb’s eyes this aggravated the offence, if aggravation were possible. Not only had his order been disobeyed, but Hudnutt had not respected the written instructions sent by whoever was responsible in London for sending out music to marine bands. Cobb was a marine first and a musician second; Hudnutt might be a musician first and a marine second. But – Hornblower pulled himself up sharply – that made Hudnutt’s condemnation all the more necessary. A marine had to be a marine, first, foremost, and all the time. If marines started to choose whether they could be marines or not, the Royal Regiment would cease to be a military body, and it was his duty to maintain it as a military body.

  Hornblower studied Cobb’s expression intently. The man was speaking the truth, at least as far as the truth was apparent to him. He was not wilfully distorting facts because of personal prejudice or as a result of some old feud. If his action, and his report on it, had been influenced by jealousy or natural cruelty, he was unaware of it. A court martial would be impressed by his reliability as a witness. And he remained unperturbed under Hornblower’s steady stare.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cobb,’ said Hornblower at last. ‘I am glad to have had such a clear statement of the facts. That will be all for the present.’

  ‘Thank you, My Lord,’ answered Cobb, shooting his great bulk up out of the chair with an astonishing mixture of agility and military rigidity. His heels clashed as his hand swept up in the salute; he turned about with parade precision, and marched out of the room with resounding steps as precise as if timed by his own metronome.

  Gerard and Spendlove came back into the room to find Hornblower staring at nothing, but Hornblower shook off his preoccupation instantly. It would never do for his subordinates to guess that he was moved by human feelings over a mere administrative matter.

  ‘Draft an answer to Sir Thomas for my signature, if you please, Mr Spendlove. It can be a mere acknowledgement, but then add that there is no possibility of immediate action, because I cannot assemble the necessary number of captains at present with so many ships detached.’

  Except in emergency a court where sentence of death might be passed could not be convened unless there were seven captains and commanders at least available as judges. That gave him time to consider what action he should take.

  ‘This man’s in the dockyard prison, I suppose,’ went on Hornblower. ‘Remind me to take a look at him on my way through the dockyard today.’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord,’ said Gerard, careful to betray no surprise at an Admiral allotting time to visit a mutinous marine.

  Yet it was not far out of Hornblower’s way. When the time came he strolled slowly down through the beautiful garden of Admiralty House, and Evans, the disabled sailor who was head gardener, came in a jerky hurry to open the wicket gate in the fifteen-foot palisade that protected the dockyard from thieves, in this portion of its course dividing the Admiralty garden from the dockyard. Evans took off his hat and stood bobbing by the gate, his pigtail bobbing at his back, and his swarthy face split by a beaming smile.

  ‘Thank you, Evans,’ said Hornblower, passing through.

  The prison stood isolated at the edge of the dockyard, a small cubical building of mahogany logs, set diagonally in a curious fashion, possibly – probably – more than one layer. It was roofed with palm thatch a yard or more thick, which might at least help to keep it cool under the glaring sun. Gerard had run on ahead from the gate – with Hornblower grinning at the thought of the healthful sweat the exercise would produce – to find the officer-in-charge and obtain the key to the prison, and Hornblower stood by while the padlock was unfastened and he could look into the darkness within. Hudnutt had risen to his feet at the sound of the key, and when he stepped forward into the light he was revealed as a painfully young
man, his cheeks hardly showing a trace of his one-day’s beard. He was naked except for a waistcloth, and the officer-in-charge clucked with annoyance.

  ‘Get some clothes on and be decent,’ he growled, but Hornblower checked him.

  ‘No matter. I’ve very little time. I want this man to tell me why he is under charges. You others keep out of earshot.’

  Hudnutt had been taken by surprise by this sudden visit, but he was a bewildered person in any case, obviously. He blinked big blue eyes in the sunlight and wriggled his gangling form with embarrassment.

  ‘What happened? Tell me,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Well, sir—’

  Hornblower had to coax the story out of him, but bit by bit it confirmed all that Cobb had said.

  ‘I couldn’t play that music, sir, not for nothing.’

  The blue eyes looked over Hornblower’s head at infinity; perhaps at some vision invisible to the rest of the world.

  ‘You were a fool to disobey an order.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mebbe so, sir.’

  The broad Yorkshire which Hudnutt spoke sounded odd in this tropical setting.

  ‘How did you come to enlist?’

  ‘For the music, sir.’

  It called for more questions to extract the story. A boy in a Yorkshire village, not infrequently hungry. A cavalry regiment billeted there, in the last years of war. The music of its band was like a miracle to this child, who had heard no music save that of wandering pipers in the ten years of his life. It made him conscious of – it did not create for it already existed – a frightful, overwhelming need. All the children of the village hung round the band (Hudnutt smiled disarmingly as he said this) but none so persistently as he. The trumpeters noticed him soon enough, laughed at his infantile comments about music, but laughed with sympathy as time went on; they let him try to blow their instruments, showed him how to cultivate a lip, and were impressed by the eventual result. The regiment returned after Waterloo, and for two more years the boy went on learning, even though those were the hungry years following the peace, when he should have been bird-scaring and stone-picking from dawn to dark.

  And then the regiment was transferred and the hungry years went on, and the boy labourer began to handle the plough still yearning for music, while a trumpet cost more than a year’s full wages for a man. Then an interlude of pure bliss – the disarming smile again – when he joined a wandering theatrical troupe, as odd-job boy and musician; that was how he came to be able to read music although he could not read the printed word. His belly was empty as often as before; a stable yard meant a luxurious bed to him; those months were months of flea-bitten nights and foot-sore days, and they ended in his being left behind sick. That happened in Portsmouth, and then it was inevitable that, hungry and weak, he should be picked up by a marine recruiting-sergeant marching through the streets with a band. His enlistment coincided with the introduction of the cornet à pistons into military music, and the next thing that happened to him was that he was shipped off to the West Indies to take his place in the Commander-in-Chief’s band under the direction of Drum-Major Cobb.

  ‘I see,’ said Hornblower; and indeed he could dimly see.

  Six months with a travelling theatrical troupe would be poor preparation for the discipline of the Royal Marines; that was obvious, but he could guess at the rest, at this sensitiveness about music which was the real cause of the trouble. He eyed the boy again, seeking for ideas regarding how to deal with this situation.

  ‘My Lord! My Lord!’ This was Gerard hastening up to him. ‘The packet’s signalled, My Lord. You can see the flag at the look-out station mast-head!’

  The packet? Barbara would be on board. It was three years since he had seen her last, and for three weeks now he had been awaiting her from minute to minute.

  ‘Call away my barge. I’m coming,’ he said.

  A wave of excitement swept away his concern regarding the Hudnutt affair. He was about to hurry after Gerard, and then hesitated. What could he say in two seconds to a man awaiting trial for his life? What could he say when he himself was bubbling with happiness, to this man caged like an animal, like an ox helplessly awaiting the butcher?

  ‘Good-bye, Hudnutt.’ That was all he could say, leaving him standing dumbly there – he could hear the clash of keys and padlock as he hastened after Gerard.

  Eight oars bit into the blue water, but no speed that they could give the dancing barge could be fast enough to satisfy him. There was the brig, her sails trimmed to catch the first hesitant puffs of the sea breeze. There was a white dot at her side, a white figure – Barbara waving her handkerchief. The barge surged alongside and Hornblower swung himself up into the main chains, and there was Barbara in his arms; there were her lips against his, and then her grey eyes smiling at him, and then her lips against his again, and the afternoon sun blazing down on them both. Then they could stand at arm’s length and look at each other, and Barbara could raise her hands and twitch his neckcloth straight, so that he could be sure they were really together, for Barbara’s first gesture was always to straighten his neckcloth.

  ‘You look well, my dear,’ she said.

  ‘So do you!’

  Her cheeks were golden with sunburn after a month at sea; Barbara never strove after the fashionable creaminess that distinguished the lady of leisure from the milkmaid or the goose-girl. And they laughed in each other’s faces out of sheer happiness before they kissed again and then eventually drew apart.

  ‘Dear, this is Captain Knyvett, who has looked after me so kindly on the voyage.’

  ‘Welcome aboard, My Lord.’ Knyvett was short and stocky and grizzled. ‘But I fancy you’ll not be staying with us long today.’

  ‘We’ll both be your passengers when you sail again,’ said Barbara.

  ‘If my relief has come,’ said Hornblower, adding to Barbara, ‘Triton hasn’t arrived yet.’

  ‘’Twill be two full weeks before we’re ready to sail again, My Lord,’ said Knyvett. ‘I trust we shall have the pleasure of your company and her Ladyship’s.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ said Hornblower. ‘Meanwhile we’ll leave you for now – I hope you’ll dine at Admiralty House as soon as you have leisure. Can you get down into the barge, my dear?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Gerard, you’ll stay on board and look after Her Ladyship’s baggage.’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord.’

  ‘No time even to say how d’ye do to you, Mr Gerard,’ said Barbara, as Hornblower led her away to the main chains.

  Barbara had no hoops in her skirts; she knew enough about shipboard breezes to dispense with those. Hornblower dropped down into the stern-sheets of the barge, and a growl from the coxswain at the tiller turned the eyes of the boat’s crew to seaward so that they would see nothing they should not see, while Knyvett and Gerard swung Barbara down into Hornblower’s arms in a flurry of petticoats.

  ‘Give way!’

  The barge surged away from the ship’s side, over the blue water, towards the Admiralty House pier, with Barbara and Hornblower hand-in-hand in the stern-sheets.

  ‘Delightful, dear,’ said Barbara, looking about her when she landed. ‘A Commander-in-Chief’s life is spent in pleasant places.’

  Pleasant enough, thought Hornblower, except for yellow fever and pirates and international crises and temperamental marines awaiting trial, but this was not the time to mention such things. Evans, hobbling on his wooden leg, was at the pier to greet them, and Hornblower could see that he was Barbara’s slave from the first moment that he was presented to her.

  ‘You must take me round the gardens the first moment I’m free,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Yes, Your Ladyship. Of course, Your Ladyship.’

  They walked slowly up to the house; here it was a delicate business to show Barbara round and to present the staff to her, for Admiralty House was run along lines laid down at the Admiralty; to alter a stick of furniture or to change the status of any of the na
val ratings working there was something Barbara would not be able to do. She was only a tolerated visitor there, and barely tolerated at that. She would certainly itch to change the furniture about and to reorganise the staff, but she was doomed to frustration.

  ‘It seems to be as well, darling,’ said Barbara with a twinkle, ‘that my stay here is to be short. How short?’

  ‘Until Ransome arrives in Triton,’ answered Hornblower. ‘You should know that, dear, considering how much gossip you picked up from Lady Exmouth and the others.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s still confusing to me. When does your appointment end?’

  ‘It ended yesterday, legally. But my command continues until I am legally relieved of it by Ransome when he comes. Triton has made a long passage.’

  ‘And when Ransome comes?’

  ‘He takes over from me, and, of course, moves into this house. His Excellency has invited us to be his guests at Government House until we sail for home, dear.’

  ‘I see. And if Ransome is so late that we miss the packet?’

  ‘Then we wait for the next. I hope not. It would be uncomfortable.’

  ‘Is Government House as bad as that?’

  ‘It’s tolerable, dear. But I was thinking of Ransome. No new Commander-in-Chief wants to have his predecessor staying on.’

  ‘Criticising all his actions, of course. Is that what you’d do, dear?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be human if I did not.’

  ‘And I know so well you’re human, dear,’ said Barbara, putting out her hand to him. They were in the bedroom now, out of sight of servants and staff, and they could be human for a few precious moments until a thunderous knock at the door heralded the arrival of Gerard and the baggage, and on his heels came Spendlove with a note for Barbara.

  ‘A note of welcome from Her Excellency, dear,’ explained Barbara when she had read it. ‘We are commanded to dinner en famille.’

  ‘No more than I expected,’ said Hornblower, and then, looking round to see that Spendlove had withdrawn, ‘no more than I feared.’

  Barbara smiled into his eyes conspiratorially.