12 Hornblower and the Crisis hh-12

by C. S. Forester

  “Windward Isles, sir.”

  “I might have guessed that seeing it says ‘Martinique’,” admitted Foster. “But I never had a head for French. Now —”

  He fingered the penknife on his desk. He studied the tarred twine that bound the leaden sandwich. Then he put the knife down reluctantly and looked up at Hornblower.

  “I don’t think I’d better meddle,” he said. “This’ll be best left for Their Lordships.”

  Hornblower had had the same thought although he had not ventured to voice it. Foster was looking at him searchingly.

  “You intend going to London, of course, Captain?” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Naturally. You want a ship, I think.”

  “Yes, sir. Admiral Cornwallis named me for promotion last month.”

  “Well — This —” Foster tapped the dispatch. “This will save you time and money. Flags!”

  “Sir!” The flag-lieutenant was instantly in attendance.

  “Captain Hornblower will need a post-chaise.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Have it at the gate immediately.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Have a travel warrant made out for London.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Foster turned his attention once more to Hornblower and smiled sardonically at the bewilderment and surprise he saw in his face. For once Hornblower had been caught off his guard and had allowed his emotions to show.

  “Seventeen guineas that will cost King George, God bless him,” said Foster. “Aren’t you grateful for his bounty?”

  Hornblower had regained control over himself; he was even able to conceal his irritation at his lapse.

  “Of course, sir,” he said, in almost an even tone and with an expressionless face.

  “Every day — ten times a day sometimes,” said Foster, “I have officers coming in here, even admirals sometimes, trying to get travel warrants to London. The excuses I’ve heard! And here you don’t care.”

  “Of course I’m delighted, sir,” said Hornblower. “And greatly obliged, too.”

  Maria would be waiting at the gate, but he was too proud to show any further weakness under Foster’s sardonic gaze. A King’s officer had his duty to do. And it was less than three months since he had last seen Maria; some officers had been parted from their wives since the outbreak of war more than two years ago.

  “No need to be obliged to me,” said Foster. “This is what decided me.”

  ‘This’ was of course the dispatch which he tapped again.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Their Lordships should think it’s worth seventeen guineas. I’m not doing it for your sweet sake.”

  “Naturally, sir.”

  “Oh yes. And I’d better give you a note to Marsden. It will get you past the doorkeeper.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Those last two speeches — Hornblower digested them while Foster scribbled away at the letter — were hardly tactful when considered in relation to each other. They implied a certain lack of charm. Marsden was the Secretary to the Lords of the Admiralty, and the suggestion that Hornblower needed a note to gain admittance was an unexpressed but disparaging comment on his appearance.

  “Chaise will be at the gates, sir,” announced the flag-lieutenant.

  “Very well.” Foster sanded his letter and poured the sand back into the caster, folded the letter and addressed it, sanded it once more, and once more returned the sand. “Seal that, if you please.”

  As the flag-lieutenant busied himself with candle and wax and seal Foster folded his hands and looked over again at Hornblower.

  “You’re going to be pestered for news at every relay,” he said. “The country can’t think about anything except ‘What’s Nelson doing?’ and ‘Has Boney crossed yet?’. They’ll discuss Villain-noove and Calder the way they used to discuss Tom Cribb and Jem Belcher.”

  “Indeed, sir? I fear I know nothing about any of them.”

  Tom Cribb and Jem Belcher were disputing the heavyweight championship of England at this period.

  “Just as well.”

  “Ready, sir,” said the flag-lieutenant, handing the sealed letter to Hornblower, who held it for an embarrassed second before putting it in his pocket — it seemed rather cavalier treatment for a dispatch to the Secretary of the Admiralty.

  “Goodbye captain,” said Foster, “and a pleasant journey.”

  “I’ve had your baggage put in the chaise, sir,” said the flag-lieutenant on the way to the gate.

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower.

  Outside the gate there was the usual small crowd of labourers waiting to be hired, of anxious wives, and of mere sightseers. Their attention was at this moment taken up by the post-chaise which stood waiting with the postilion at the horses’ heads.

  “Well, goodbye, sir, and a pleasant journey,” said the flag-lieutenant, handing over the blanket-bundle.

  From outside the gate came a well-remembered voice.

  “Horry! Horry!”

  Maria in bonnet and shawl stood there by the wicket gate, with little Horatio in her arms.

  “That’s my wife and my child,” said Hornblower abruptly. “Goodbye, sir.”

  He strode out through the gate and found himself clasping Maria and the child in the same embrace.

  “Horry, darling. My precious,” said Maria. “You’re back again. Here’s your son — look how he’s growing up. He runs about all day long. There, smile at your daddy, poppet.”

  Little Horatio did indeed smile, for a fleeting instant, before hiding his face in Maria’s bosom.

  “He looks well indeed,” said Hornblower. “And how about you, my dear?”

  He stood back to look her over. There was no visible sign at present of her pregnancy, except perhaps in the expression in her face.

  “To see you is to give me new life, my loved one,” said Maria.

  It was painful to realize that what she said was so close to the truth. And it was horribly painful to know that he had next to tell her that he was leaving her in this very moment of meeting.

  Already, and inevitably, Maria had put out her right hand to twitch at his coat, while holding little Horatio in her left arm.

  “Your clothes look poorly, Horry darling,” she said. “How crumpled this coat is. I’d like to get at it with an iron.”

  “My dear —” said Hornblower.

  This was the moment to break the news, but Maria anticipated him.

  “I know,” she said, quickly. “I saw your chest and bag being put into the chaise. You’re going away.”

  “I fear so.”

  “To London?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not one little moment with me — with us?”

  “I fear not, my dear.”

  Maria was being very brave. She held her head back and looked straight at him unflinchingly; there was jus the tiniest quiver of her lips to indicate the stresses within.

  “And after that, darling?” asked Maria; when she spoke her tone gave a further hint of those stresses.

  “I hope to get a ship. I shall be a captain, remember dear.”

  “Yes.” Just the one word, of heartbroken acquiescence.

  Perhaps it was fortunate then that Maria noticed something that distracted her, but Hornblower was inclined to believe that Maria deliberately and bravely distracted herself. She lifted her hand to his cheek, to his jawbone, below his left ear.

  “What’s this?” she asked. “It looks like paint. Black paint. You haven’t looked after yourself very well, dear.”

  “Very likely it’s paint,” agreed Hornblower.

  He had repressed the almost automatic reaction to draw back from a public caress, before he realized what it was that Maria had observed. Now there was a flood of recollection. The night before last he had stormed on to the deck of the Guèpe with a gang of yelling madmen with blackened faces. He had heard a cutlass blade crunch on bone, he had heard screams fo
r mercy, he had seen nine pounds of canister fired down into a crowded ‘tweendecks. Only the night before last, and here was Maria, simple and innocent and ignorant, and his child, and the staring onlookers, in the English sunshine. It was only a step out of one world into another, but it was a step infinitely long, over a bottomless chasm.

  “Horry, darling?” said Maria, inquiringly, and broke the spell.

  She was looking at him anxiously, studying him and frightened by what she saw; he felt he must have been scowling, even snarling, as his expression revealed the emotions he was re-experiencing. It was time to smile.

  “It wasn’t easy to clean up in Princess,” he said. It had been hard to apply turpentine to his face before a mirror in the leaping waterhoy with the wind on the quarter.

  “You must do it as soon as ever you can,” said Maria. She was scrubbing at his jaw with her handkerchief. “It won’t come off for me.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  He realized that what had been a death’s head grin was softening into something more natural, and this was the moment, with reassurance restored to Maria’s face, to tear himself from her.

  “And now goodbye, dear,” he said gently.

  “Yes, dear.”

  She had learned her lesson well during half a dozen farewells since their marriage. She knew that her incomprehensible husband disliked any show of emotion even in private, and disliked it twenty times as much with a third party present. She had learned that he had moments of withdrawal which she should not resent because he was sorry for them afterwards. And above all that she had learned that she weighed in the scale nothing, nothing at all, against his duty. She knew that if she were to pit herself and her child against this it would only end in a terrible hurt which she could not risk because it would hurt him as much or more.

  It was only a few steps to the waiting chaise; he took note that his sea chest and ditty bag were under the seat on which he put his precious bundle, and turned back to his wife and child.

  “Goodbye, son,” he said. Once more he was rewarded with a smile instantly concealed. “Goodbye my dear. I shall write to you, of course.”

  She put up her mouth for kissing, but she held herself back from throwing herself into his arms, and she was alert to terminate the kiss at the same moment as he saw fit to withdraw. Hornblower climbed up into the chaise, and sat there, feeling oddly isolated. The postilion mounted and looked back over his shoulder.

  “London,” said Hornblower.

  The horses moved forward and the small crowd of onlookers raised something like a cheer. Then the hoofs clattered on the cobbles and the chaise swung round the corner, abruptly cutting Maria off out of his sight.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “This’ll do,” said Hornblower to the landlady.

  “Bring ‘em up, ‘Arry,” yelled the landlady over her shoulder, and Hornblower heard the heavy feet of the idiot son on the uncarpeted stairs as he carried up his sea chest.

  There was a bed and a chair and a wash-hand stand; a mirror on the wall; all a man could need. These were the cheap lodgings recommended to him by the last postilion; there had been a certain commotion in the frowsy street when the post-chaise had turned into it from the Westminster Bridge Road and had pulled up outside the house — it was not at all the sort of street where post-chaises could be expected to be seen. The cries of the children outside who had been attracted by the sight could still be heard through the narrow window.

  “Anything you want?” asked the landlady.

  “Hot water,” said Hornblower.

  The landlady looked a little harder at the man who wanted hot water at nine in the morning.

  “Or right. I’ll get you some,” she said.

  Hornblower looked round him at the room; it seemed to his disordered mind that if he were to relax his attention the room would have revolved round him on its own. He sat down in the chair; his backside felt as if it were one big bruise, as if it had been beaten with a club. It would have been far more comfortable to stretch out on the bed, but that he dared not do. He kicked off his shoes and wriggled out of his coat, and became aware that he stank.

  “‘Ere’s your ‘ot water,” said the landlady, re-entering.

  “Thank you.”

  When the door closed again Hornblower pulled himself wearily to his feet and took off the rest of his clothes. That was better; he had not had them off for three days, and this room was sweltering hot with the June sun blazing down on the roof above. Stupid with fatigue, he more than once had to stop to think what he should do next, as he sought out clean clothing and unrolled his housewife. The face he saw in the mirror was covered with hair on which the dust lay thick and he turned away from it in disgust.

  It was a grisly and awkward business to wash himself inch by inch in the wash basin, but it was restorative in some small degree. Everything he had been wearing was infiltrated with dust, which had penetrated everywhere — some had even seeped into his sea chest and pattered out when he lifted out his clothes. With his final pint of hot water he applied himself to shave.

  That brought about a decided improvement in his appearance although even now the face that looked out at him from the mirror was drawn very fine and with a pallor that made his tan look as if it were something painted on — that reminded him to look closely at his left jaw. Wear and tear as well as the shave had removed the paint that Maria had noticed. He put on clean clothes — of course they were faintly damp as always when newly come from the sea and would stay so until he could get them washed in fresh water. Now he was ready; he had consumed exactly the hour he had allowed himself. He picked up his bundle of papers and walked stiffly down the stairs.

  He was still incredibly stupid with fatigue. During the last hours in the post-chaise he had nodded off repeatedly while sitting up and lurching over the rutted roads. To travel post-haste had a romantic sound but it was utterly exhausting. When changing horses he had allowed himself sometimes half an hour — ten minutes in which to eat and twenty in which to doze with his head pillowed on his arms resting on the table. Better to be a sea officer than a courier, he decided. He paid his halfpenny toll on the bridge; normally he would have been greatly interested in the river traffic below him, but he could not spare it a glance at present. Then he turned up Whitehall and reached the Admiralty.

  Dreadnought Foster had displayed good sense in giving him that note; the doorkeeper eyed him and his bundle with intense suspicion when he first applied himself to him — it was not only cranks and madmen that he had to turn away, but the naval officers who came to pester Their Lordships for employment.

  “I have a letter for Mr Marsden from Admiral Foster,” said Hornblower, and was interested to see the doorkeeper’s expression soften at once.

  “Would you please write a note to that effect on this form, sir?” he asked.

  Hornblower wrote ‘Bringing a message from Rear-Admiral Harry Foster’ and signed it, along with his boarding-house address.

  “This way, sir,” said the doorkeeper. Presumably — certainly, indeed — the Admiral commanding at Plymouth would have the right of immediate access, personally or through an emissary, to Their Lordships’ Secretary.

  The doorkeeper led Hornblower into a waiting room and bustled off with the note and the letter; in the waiting room there were several officers sitting in attitudes of expectancy or impatience or resignation, and Hornblower exchanged formal ‘good mornings’ with them before sitting down in a corner of the room. It was a wooden chair, unfriendly to his tormented sitting parts, but it had a high back with wings against which it was comfortable to lean.

  Somehow Frenchmen had boarded the Princess by surprise, in the darkness. Now they were raging through the little ship, swinging cutlasses. Everything on board was in a turmoil while Hornblower struggled to free himself from his hammock to fight for his life. Someone was shouting ‘Wake up, sir!’ which was the very thing he wanted to do but could not. Then he realized that the words were being shouted into his
ear and someone was shaking him by the shoulder. He blinked twice and came back to life and consciousness.

  “Mr Marsden will see you now, sir,” said the unfamiliar figure who had awakened him.

  “Thank you,” replied Hornblower, seizing his bundle and getting stiffly to his feet.

  “Fair off you was, sir,” said the messenger. “Come this way, sir, please sir.”

  Hornblower could not remember whether the other individuals waiting were the same as he had first seen or had changed, but they eyed him with envious hostility as he walked out of the room.

  Mr Marsden was a tall and incredibly elegant gentleman of middle age, old-fashioned in that his hair was tied at the back with a ribbon, yet elegant all the same because the style exactly suited him. Hornblower knew him to be already a legendary figure. His name was known throughout England because it was to him that dispatches were addressed (‘Sir, I have the honour to inform you for the further information of Their Lordships that —’) and printed in the newspapers in that form. First Lords might come and First Lords might go — as Lord Barham had just come and Lord Melville had just gone — and so might Sea Lords, and so might Admirals, but Mr Marsden remained the Secretary. It was he who handled all the executive work of the greatest navy the world had ever seen. Of course he had a large staff, no fewer than forty clerks, so Hornblower had heard, and he had an assistant secretary, Mr Barrow, who was almost as well known as he was, but even so out of everybody in the world Mr Marsden could most nearly be described as the one who was fighting single-handed the war to the death against the French Empire and Bonaparte.

  It was a lovely elegant room looking out on to the Horse Guards Parade, a room that exactly suited Mr Marsden, who was seated at an oval table. At his shoulder stood an elderly clerk, gray-haired and lean, of an obviously junior grade, to judge by his threadbare coat and frayed linen.

  Only the briefest salutations were exchanged while Hornblower put his bundle down on the table.

  “See what there is here, Dorsey,” said Marsden over his shoulder to the clerk, and then, to Hornblower, “How did these come into your possession?”

  Hornblower told of the momentary capture of the Guèpe; Mr Marsden kept his grey eyes steadily on Hornblower’s face during the brief narrative.