Hoare and the Ffrog Prince (captain bartholomew hoare)

by Wilder Perkins

  "Please," he said to Hoare with a flourish. He blew his nose.

  The cuddy was icy but snug. Its overhead was just high enough for them to crouch upon lockers set on either side of a table whose base extended the full length of the cuddy.

  "The enclosure of one of Mr. Gunter's patent sliding keels," Hornblower explained. "I installed it so I could explore shallow waters as well as work to windward moderately well."

  Hoare nodded. "I see."

  "Would you like to take her out?" Hornblower's eyes were all but pleading. He blew his nose.

  "If it would not trouble you."

  "Not at all," Hornblower said. "I have no duties to occupy my time."

  His voice carried a trace of bitterness, Hoare thought, and not without reason. It was bad enough that their Lordships of the Admiralty had seen fit to throw their seamen on the beach to starve; that they would do the same for their trained, loyal officers passed all belief.

  Between them the two had Thunderer's jib and loose-footed gaff mainsail set in minutes. They cast off smartly and let her run free through the light chop of the inner harbor. With the wind astern, the cold was less painful. Nevertheless, Hornblower chose to slip below and put on an oilcloth jacket. Above it his wet blue nose protruded.

  "You'll notice she gripes a bit," he observed. "I prefer that to a lee helm."

  "It's a matter of choice," Hoare said.

  By now they were out of the ruck of little oared harbor craft and running into the Solent. Hornblower blew his nose. "It was kind of you, Mr. Hoare, not to remark on my cold and the sound I must make in clearing my nose," he said. "Another man might well have remarked on the appropriateness of the noise and my name."

  Hoare gave his silent laugh, a sound that a bluestocking lady had once compared to the sound of one hand clapping. "Given the possibilities of unseemly plays on my own name and voice," he whispered over the breeze, "I would be mad to open that subject.

  "Do you often take her out single-handed?" he asked after they had dropped the peculiar sliding keel and put her close-hauled on the larboard tack.

  "Very seldom," Hornblower said. "As I found during my brief sojourn among the elect, solitude is the fate of every ship's master and commander. But even though Thunderer is quite small enough to handle alone, I like companionship. Like nuns and noblemen I do not go about alone."

  Hoare was about to respond with some light remark but halted, hang-jawed.

  "What. Did. You. Say?" he whispered. Perplexed, the other repeated his statement.

  "Why-like nuns and noblemen I do not go about alone."

  "My God," Hoare said. "Look here; d'ye know where Eole lies?"

  "Just off Spit Head itself." Hornblower pointed aft, over Thunderer's quarter. "You can see her there, between Hercules and Lively."

  "Will you do me the great favor of taking me out to her?"

  "Of course, Mr. Hoare. Anything for a fellow officer," Hornblower said as he eased the main sheet. "But why? Be so kind as to house the sliding keel, sir," he added. He let Thunderer fall off, laid her course directly for Eole, and blew his nose. "The lanyard there, by the hatch."

  When Hoare had obeyed, he felt the little yacht almost surge ahead. Sitting forward, his mouth to Hornblower's ear, he explained what had transpired these last days and what he expected to ask of the other officer. He also agreed to purchase the little vessel.

  As Hoare had seen the minute Thunderer rounded the frigate's stern, the port admiral's barge already bobbed at her starboard entry port and a rear-admiral's pendant snapped at the main. Sir George Hardcastle, Rear-Admiral of the Blue, had boarded the frigate with his party. One of the barge's crew handily caught the line Hoare tossed him, and the pair swarmed aboard.

  Eole, soon to be Vendee, had been a crack frigate when she exchanged broadsides with Staghound, but that had been nearly ten years ago. Today, laid up in ordinary, she was a slipshod nightmare. Her main yard was cockbilled, her standing rigging slack. To use the navy's expression, she looked as if she had been swinging at anchor long enough to ground on her own beef bones. When he uncovered to greet the new arrivals, the bypassed, threadbare lieutenant commanding her showed a scanty head of gray, shoulder-length hair. Hoare shuddered. There, he knew, stood tomorrow's Bartholomew Hoare.

  A fleet of dignitaries and their attendants were standing about the quarterdeck, formed into two clumps. One was composed of unfamiliar Frenchmen, one of whom was ablaze with ribbons and stars. Heading the other party was his own admiral. To this group Hoare prepared to introduce his companion.

  "Mr. Hornblower needs no introduction to me," Sir George said. "You have had uncommon ill luck, sir. I shall keep you in mind in the hope of finding an occasion to remedy it."

  "Thanky, sir," Hornblower answered. Hoare thought that, though sincere, his voice conveyed little hope.

  "Thank God you came aboard, Hoare," the admiral said. "You know the extent of my French-'Mercy bocoo.' 'Vooly-voo cooshy?' That's about it. Patterson here tries hard, but his tongue isn't as sharp as his pen. I need you to do the honors between us and the Fro… er, the French. The fancy one's the Duc d'Angouleme," he continued in a carrying quarterdeck whisper. "King Louie's brother."

  That made him the half-brother of the murdered Provins. Now that he had made the connection, Hoare saw that the duc bore a wide black band on his arm, half covering the bullion.

  He made his deepest leg to the duc, bending one knee and sweeping his cocked hat well to one side in the approved manner. In doing so he sighted a familiar figure standing well to the front of the duc's attendants: the Comte de Montrichard. The two exchanged stiff nods.

  "Sir," Hoare said to his admiral in his most urgent whisper, "a moment of your time if you would be so kind." He drew Sir George aside while the rest of the two parties waited, murmuring. At last Sir George nodded, looked about him, stepped to midships of the quarterdeck, withdrew a paper that fluttered in the wind.

  "Order the hands to assemble," he said in a flat voice. He waited while an ancient boatswain twittered his lonely pipe. Hoare knew that with the pipe he himself carried for various communications beyond the power of his own feeble voice he could have out-twittered the poor man any day. To either side of the waist the two crews drew up, the cluster of British seamen in their winter peajackets and a shivering gang of what must pass for Frenchmen. These were, if possible, even more of a mixed bag than the British, and they were clad in a grade of junk that would make the greediest purser in the navy sneer.

  At Sir George's quiet order, one of his scanty marine guard stood to the flag halyard leading to Vendee's spanker boom. A French seaman crouched at his side bearing a bundle of white in his arms, the white and gold fleur-de-lys ensign of Bourbon France. At the moment when his admiral declared the transfer of ownership, the lobster would lower the faded Union Jack forever while the Frenchman ran up the Bourbon banner. At the foot of the mainmast stood a second Frog, ready to hoist a French commission pennant to the main truck.

  "Off hats," said the old lieutenant, and the admiral began, his breath steaming in the chill wind as he read.

  " 'By the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland, et cetera, and of all His Majesty's plantations, et cetera: By virtue of the power and authority to us given, we do hereby transfer ownership and control of His Majesty's ship Eole into the possession of his Majesty's great ally and brother monarch of France, His Most Christian Majesty Louis, the eighteenth of that name. And we do charge all officers and men to recognize her at all times upon her ways going and coming upon the seas, subject to the customs of the service.' Sound off."

  Once again the feeble twitter; all hands on the quarterdeck stood to attention. Now blue with cold, the admiral doffed his own hat and bowed to the duc of Angouleme. The Union Jack came down, struggling all the way, passing the rising flag of France as it went. At last the white and gold whipped in the icy wind from off England's shore.

  Angouleme now began to read his a
cknowledgment. The legalistic French passed Hoare's understanding and evidently that of all the other listeners as well, for the two ranks of men began to cough and shuffle. But the unintelligible recitation ended at last. The duc wound down. He turned to De Montrichard, motioning him to step forward.

  "It is His Most Christian Majesty's will that command of his good ship Vendee be placed in the hands of the Comte de… "

  Hoare could not expect his whisper to be heard over the duc's drone, and he feared that his boatswain's call would be misunderstood. He resorted to the ultimate. Putting two fingers into his mouth, he produced an ear-shattering whistle. The affronted Angouleme fell silent.

  "Un moment, messieurs," Hoare croaked. "I accuse Monsieur the Comte de Montrichard of having murdered his master and admiral, the Duc de Provins."

  The Frenchmen on the quarterdeck fell into disarray. Upon seeing that their admiral retained his composure, the Englishmen naturally conformed.

  De Montrichard was the first of his countrymen to recover his aplomb. "I demand to know the meaning of this effrontery. It is outrageous. The man is not only mute; he is mad."

  Hoare filled his lungs. "I have never been to France," he began, "but I have spent time among French gentry when serving in Canada." Mindful of his dead bride and stolen daughter he lost breath, choked, gestured to Hornblower in silent appeal.

  "Mr. Hoare knew," Hornblower said on his behalf, "that a prince of the blood might lie, cheat, and steal at will. He might lie with the wife of his equerry and his best friend; he might cheat at cards; he might steal the honor of a decent maitre d'armes. But…"

  Hoare raised his hand and resumed the story on his own.

  "But there was one thing he would never do. He would never, never go into a public place like Portsmouth Common without an attendant. Failing any other, that attendant was Monsieur le Comte de Montrichard." He paused for breath. "Kindly empty your pockets, sir," Hoare rasped at the comte.

  Hippolyte de Montrichard wasted no time. He spun on his heel like a dancing master, dived over Vendee's taffrail, and began swimming strongly out to sea. "Fire on that man!" Admiral Hardcastle bellowed. His marine guard sprang to obey. A family of fountains sprang to life around the fugitive, but he kept on, using a powerful overhand stroke. Then he paused in the middle of the fairway as if wondering where to go next, thrust his body half out of the water, and made a graceful surface dive. His toes, pointed skyward, were the last to be seen of him.

  "Man overboard!" cried the superseded lieutenant.

  "Case proved, I think," whispered Bartholomew Hoare.

  "… Montrichard was desperate," Hoare gasped to his surrounding audience. The last of his whisper was giving out. Again he turned to Hornblower. "Echo me, if you will."

  "With his wife out of favor," Hornblower repeated for him, "Montrichard now had no hold over her lover, Provins. Now he could no longer expect him to sign the orders placing him in command of Vendee. He saw his opportunity for advancement to honor vanishing, and he could not bear it. "In that, of course, he utterly misread his master. De Barsac's anger at Provins was, in fact, due to the duc's explanation that, in all fairness to his equerry and confidant Montrichard, he could not deprive him of his standing as husband of a royal maitresse en titre without some compensation. While wholly unofficial, the role had given Montrichard a certain cachet, and he had done nothing to warrant losing it. So Provins would grant the command of Vendee to Montrichard instead of De Barsac.

  "But Montrichard could not credit Provins with being, like his ancestor Bayard, a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. He was desperate. He would become a nothing among nothings in a nothing French court. He could not face the shame of it. So he forged his master's signature on a blank commission form, sealed it with his master's seal, and presented the document at Admiralty House."

  There was a general murmur among the Frenchmen on Vendee's quarterdeck. Hoare was certain that a tear gleamed on Angouleme's powdered cheek. "But you have no proof, monsieur," said Angouleme coldly.

  Hoare's answering shrug was as expressive as any Frenchman's. "The comte, by his own action just now, would appear to have provided ample proof. Beyond that, perhaps even more will surface."

  "Hmph," said Admiral Sir George Hardcastle. "Well, gentlemen, are we to transfer this ship to the Marine Royale, or not? If so, who is to command her?"

  "Sir," Hoare whispered, and handed Sir George the document the Vicomtesse de Barsac had entrusted to him. Even though his port admiral read no French, he would recognize the person named in it.

  "Hmph," said Sir George, and passed the document to Angouleme.

  "Of course," said the duc; his English reached that far. "Let us go ashore, then," he added in his own language, "and inform the Vicomte de Barsac, in his lonely cell, of his good fortune."

  Left on the deck of Vendee, Hoare and Hornblower looked at each other and shrugged.

  "Will you light me ashore in your new command, sir?" Hornblower asked. His expression was that of the classic Spartan boy being gnawed by a fox.

  "With pleasure, Mr. Hornblower," said Bartholomew Hoare.

  "I do not understand this, Mr. 'Oare." The widowed Comtesse de Montrichard had summoned Hoare to the Three Suns. Tasteful in mourning, she extended a document to Hoare. "I had thought that my husband had deposited this commission with your nice admiral."

  "He did, madame. I saw it there myself."

  "Why, then, do I find it in the possessions of Guillaume, which your mayor's honest minions returned to me so kindly with those of my late husband?"

  Hoare inspected the document more closely. To the best of his more-than-adequate recollection, it had been prepared on the same printed form. Yes, here were the same typographical errors, made by a Portsmouth printer unfamiliar with the language he was setting. The handwritten entries named Vendee as the ship in question, De Montrichard as her master. The date was identical, as was the impression of the seal the mayor's men had found yesterday upon recovering the drowned nobleman's body. And the signature on this specimen was free, quite illegible, not the careful inscription Hoare remembered on the document Montrichard had deposited with Sir George's hands that the clerk Patterson had shown him.

  Raising his head from the paper, Hoare looked into the huge, warm, violet eyes.

  "This proves, madame, that as I believed, the duc had already given Vendee to his equerry when he was killed."

  "Then my husband's crime was without purpose," she said.

  "Precisely, madame," whispered Bartholomew Hoare.

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