Flying Colours

Chapter Seventeen

Something enormously painful was recalling Hornblower to life. He did not want to return. It was agony to wake up, it was torture to feel unconsciousness slipping away from him. He clung to it, tried to recapture it, unavailingly. Remorselessly it eluded him. Somebody was gently shaking his shoulder, and he came back to complete consciousness with a start, and wriggled over to see the Admiral’s secretary bending over him.

“The Admiral will dine within the hour, sir,” he said. “Captain Calendar thought you might prefer to have a little time in which to prepare.”

“Yes,” grunted Hornblower. He fingered instinctively the long stubble on his unshaven chin. “Yes.”

The secretary was standing very stiff and still, and Hornblower looked up at him curiously. There was an odd, set expression on the secretary’s face, and he held a newspaper imperfectly concealed behind his back.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Hornblower.

“It is bad news for you, sir,” said the secretary.

“What news?”

Hornblower’s spirits fell down into the depths of despair. Perhaps Gambier had changed his mind. Perhaps he was going to be kept under strict arrest, tried, condemned, and shot. Perhaps—

“I remembered having seen this paragraph in the Morning Chronicle of three months ago, sir,” said the secretary. “I showed it to his Lordship, and to Captain Calendar. They decided it ought to be shown to you as early as possible. His Lordship says—”

“What is the paragraph?” demanded Hornblower, holding out his hand for the paper.

“It is bad news, sir,” repeated the secretary, hesitatingly.

“Let me see it, damn you.”

The secretary handed over the newspaper, one finger indicating the paragraph.

“The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away,” he said. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

It was a very short paragraph.

Hornblower read it twice, and he began on it a third time. Maria was dead, Maria the tender, the loving.

“You can find consolation in prayer, sir—” said the secretary, but Hornblower paid no attention to what the secretary said.

He had lost Maria. She had died in childbed, and having regard to the circumstances in which the child had been engendered, he had as good as killed her. Maria was dead. There would be no one, no one at all, to welcome him now on his return to England. Maria would have stood by him during the court martial, and whatever the verdict, she would never have believed him to be at fault. Hornblower remembered the tears wetting her coarse red cheeks when she had last put her arms round him to say goodbye. He had been a little bored by the formality of an affectionate goodbye, then. He was free now—the realization came creeping over him like cold water in a warm bath. But it was not fair to Maria. He would not have bought his freedom at such a price. She had earned by her own devotion his attention, his kindness, and he would have given them to her uncomplainingly for the rest of his life. He was desperately sorry that she was dead.

“His Lordship instructed me, sir,” said the secretary, “to inform you of his sympathy in your bereavement. He told me to say that he would not take it amiss if you decided not to join him and his guests at dinner but sought instead the consolation of religion in your cabin.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

“Any help which I can give, sir—”

“None,” said Hornblower.

He continued to sit on the edge of the cot, his head bowed, and the secretary shuffled his feet.

“Get out of here,” said Hornblower, without looking up.

He sat there for some time, but there was no order in his thoughts; his mind was muddled. There was a continuous undercurrent of sadness, a hurt feeling indistinguishable from physical pain, but fatigue and excitement and lack of sleep deprived him of any ability to think clearly. Finally, with a desperate effort he pulled himself together. He felt as if he was stifling in the stuffy cabin; he hated his stubbly beard and the feelings of dried sweat.

“Pass the word for my servant,” he ordered the sentry at his door.

It was good to shave off the filthy beard, to wash his body in cold water, to put on clean linen. He went up on deck, the clean sea air rushing into his lungs as he breathed. It was good, too, to have a deck to pace, up and down, up and down, between the slides of the quarterdeck carronades and the line of ringbolts in the deck, with all the familiar sounds of shipboard life as a kind of lullaby to his tired mind. Up and down he walked, up and down, as he had walked so many hours before, in the Indefatigable, and the Lydia, and the Sutherland. They left him alone; the officers of the watch collected on the other side of the ship and only stared at him unobtrusively, politely concealing their curiosity about this man who had just heard of the death of his wife, who had escaped from a French prison, who was waiting his trial for surrendering his ship—the first captain to strike his colours in a British ship of the line since Captain Ferris in the Hannibal at Algecira. Up and down he walked, the goodly fatigue closing in upon him again until his mind was stupefied with it, until he found that he could hardly drag one foot past the other. Then he went below to the certainty of sleep and oblivion. But even in his sleep tumultuous dreams came to harass him—dreams of Maria, against which he struggled, sweating, knowing that Maria’s body was now only a liquid mass of corruption; nightmares of death and imprisonment; and, ever-recurring, dreams of Barbara smiling to him on the farther side of the horrors that encompassed him.

From one point of view the death of his wife was of benefit to Hornblower during those days of waiting. It provided him with a good excuse for being silent and unapproachable. Without being thought impolite he could find a strip of deck and walk by himself in the sunshine. Gambier could walk with the captain of the fleet or the flag captain, little groups of lieutenants and warrant officers could walk together, chatting lightly, but they all kept out of his way; and it was not taken amiss that he should sit silent at the Admiral’s dinner table and hold himself aloof at the Admiral’s prayer meetings.

Had it not been so he would have been forced to mingle in the busy social life of the flagship, talking to officers who would studiously avoid all reference to the fact that shortly they would be sitting as judges on him at his court martial. He did not have to join in the eternal technical discussions which went on round him, stoically pretending that the responsibility of having surrendered a British ship of the line sat lightly on his shoulders. Despite all the kindness with which he was treated, he felt a pariah. Calendar could voice open admiration for him, Gambier could treat him with distinction, the young lieutenants could regard him with wide-eyed hero-worship, but they had never hauled down their colours. More than once during his long wait Hornblower found himself wishing that a cannonball had killed him on the quarterdeck of the Sutherland. There was no one in the world who cared for him now—the little son in England, in the arms of some unknown foster-mother, might grow up ashamed of the name he bore.

Suspecting, morbidly, that the others would treat him like an outcast if they could, he anticipated them and made an outcast of himself, bitterly proud. He went through all that period of black reaction by himself, without companionship, during those last days of Gambier’s tenure of command, until Hood came out in the Britannia to take over the command, and, amid the thunder of salutes, the Victory sailed for Portsmouth. There were headwinds to delay her passage; she had to beat up the Channel for seven long days before at last she glided into Spithead and the cable roared out through the hawse-hole.

Hornblower sat in his cabin—he felt no interest in the green hills of the Isle of Wight nor in the busy prospect of Portsmouth. The tap which came at his cabin door heralded, he supposed, the arrival of the orders regarding his court martial.

“Come in!” he said, but it was Bush who entered, stumping along on his wooden leg, his face wreathed in smiles, his arms burdened with packages and parcels.

At the sight of that homely face Hornblower’s depression evaporated like mist. He found himself grinning as delightedly as Bush, he wrung his hand over and over again, sat him down in the only chair, offered to send for drinks for him, all trace of self-consciousness and reserve disappearing in the violence of his reaction.

“Oh, I’m well enough, sir, thank you,” said Bush, in reply to Hornblower’s questions. “And this is the first chance I’ve had of thanking you for my promotion.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Hornblower, a trace of bitterness creeping back into his voice. “You must thank his Lordship.”

“I know who I owe it to, all the same,” said Bush, sturdily. “They’re going to post me as captain this week. They won’t give me a ship—not with this leg of mine—but there’s the dockyard job at Sheerness waiting for me. I should never be captain if it weren’t for you, sir.”

“Rubbish,” said Hornblower. The pathetic gratitude in Bush’s voice and expression made him feel uncomfortable.

“And how is it with you, sir?” asked Bush, regarding him with anxious blue eyes.

Hornblower shrugged his shoulders.

“Fit and well,” he said.

“I was sorry to hear about Mrs Hornblower, sir,” said Bush.

That was all he needed to say on that subject. They knew each other too well to have to enlarge on it.

“I took the liberty, sir,” said Bush, hastily, “of bringing you out your letters—there was a good deal waiting for you.”

“Yes?” said Hornblower.

“This big package is a sword, I’m sure, sir,” said Bush. He was cunning enough to think of ways of capturing Hornblower’s interest.

“Let’s open it, then,” said Hornblower, indulgently.

A sword it was, sure enough, with a gold-mounted scabbard and a gold hilt, and when Hornblower drew it the blue steel blade bore an inscription in gold inlay. It was the sword ‘of one hundred guineas’ value’ which had been presented to him by the Patriotic Fund for his defeat of the Natividad in the Lydia, and which he had left in pawn with Duddingstone the ship’s chandler at Plymouth, as a pledge for payment for captain’s stores when he was commissioning the Sutherland.

“A sight too much writing on this for me,” Duddingstone had complained at the time.

“Let’s see what Duddingstone has to say,” said Hornblower, tearing open the note enclosed in the package.

“God bless my soul!” said Hornblower.

He let Bush read the note; Bush was a captain and his equal now, as well as his friend, and there was no disciplinary objection to allowing him to know to what shifts he had been put when commissioning the Sutherland. Hornblower laughed a little self-consciously when Bush looked up at him after reading the note.

“Our friend Duddingstone,” said Hornblower, “must have been very moved to allow a pledge for forty guineas to slip out of his fingers.” He spoke cynically to keep the pride out of his voice, but he was genuinely moved. His eyes would have grown moist if he had allowed them.

“I’m not surprised, sir,” said Bush, fumbling among the newspapers beside him. “Look at this, sir, and at this. Here’s the Morning Chronicle, and The Times. I saved them to show you, hoping you’d be interested.”

Hornblower glanced at the columns indicated; somehow the gist of them seemed to leap out at him without his having to read them. The British press had let itself go thoroughly. As even Bush had foreseen, the fancy of the British public had been caught by the news that a captain whom they had imagined to be foully done to death by the Corsican tyrant had succeeded in escaping, and not merely in escaping, but in carrying off a British ship of war which had been for months a prize to the Corsican. There were columns in praise of Hornblower’s daring and ability. A passage in The Times caught Hornblower’s attention and he read it more carefully.

“Here’s what the Anti-Gallican has to say, sir,” said Bush.

What the Anti-Gallican had to say was very like what the other newspapers had said; it was beginning to dawn upon Hornblower that he was famous. He laughed uncomfortably again. All this was a most curious experience and he was not at all sure that he liked it. Cold-bloodedly he could see the reason for it. Lately there had been no naval officer prominent in the affections of the public—Cochrane had wrecked himself by his intemperate wrath after the Basque Roads, while six years had passed since Hardy had kissed the dying Nelson; Collingwood was dead and Leighton too, for that matter—and the public always demanded an idol. Like the Israelites in the desert, they were not satisfied with an invisible object for their devotion. Chance had made him the public’s idol, and presumably Government were not sorry, seeing how much it would strengthen their position to have one of their own men suddenly popular. But somehow he did not like it; he was not used to fame, he distrusted it, and his ever-present personal modesty made him feel it was all a sham.

“I hope you’re pleased, sir,” said Bush, looking wonderingly at the struggle on Hornblower’s face.

“Yes. I suppose I am,” said Hornblower.

“The Navy bought the Witch of Endor yesterday at the Prize Court!” said Bush, searching wildly for news which might delight this odd captain of his. “Four thousand pounds was the price, sir. And the division of the prize money where the prize has been taken by an incomplete crew is governed by an old regulation – I didn’t know about it, sir, until they told me. It was made after that boat’s crew from Squirrel, after she foundered, captured the Spanish plate ship in ‘97. Two thirds to you, sir—that’s two thousand six hundred pounds. And a thousand to me and four hundred for Brown.”

“H’m,” said Hornblower.

Two thousand six hundred pounds was a substantial bit of money—a far more concrete reward than the acclamation of a capricious public.

“And there’s all these letters and packets, sir,” went on Bush, anxious to exploit the propitious moment.

The first dozen letters were all from people unknown to him, writing to congratulate him on his success and escape. Two at least were from madmen, apparently—but on the other hand two were from peers; even Hornblower was a little impressed by the signatures and the coroneted notepaper. Bush was more impressed still when they were passed over to him to read.

“That’s very good indeed, sir, isn’t it?” he said. “There are some more here.”

Hornblower’s hand shot out and picked one letter out of the mass offered him the moment he saw the handwriting, and then when he had taken it he stood for a second holding it in his hand, hesitating before opening. The anxious Bush saw the hardening of his mouth and the waning of the colour in his cheeks; watched him while he read, but Hornblower had regained his self-control and his expression altered no farther.

Hornblower nervously cleared his throat and re-read the letter. There was too much crowded in it for him to have any emotion left. Richard Arthur Horatio Hornblower, with two Wellesleys as godfathers, and growing in intelligence every day. There would be a great future ahead of him, perhaps. Up to that moment Hornblower had hardly thought about the child—his paternal instincts had hardly been touched by any consideration of a child he had never seen; and they further were warped by memories of the little Horatio who had died of smallpox in his arms so many years ago. But now he felt a great wave of affection for the unknown little brat in London who had managed to endear himself to Barbara.

And Barbara had taken him in charge; possibly because, widowed and childless, she had sought for a convenient orphan to adopt—and yet it might be because she still cherished memories of Captain Hornblower, whom at the time she had believed to be dead at Bonaparte’s hands.

He could not bear to think about it any more. He thrust the letter into his pocket—all the others he had dropped on the deck—and with immobile face he met Bush’s gaze again.

“There are all these other letters, sir,” said Bush, with masterly tact.

They were letters from great men and from madmen—one contained an ounce of snuff as a token of some eccentric squire’s esteem and regard—but there was only one which caught Hornblower’s attention. It was from some Chancery Lane lawyer—the name was unfamiliar—who wrote, it appeared, on hearing from Lady Barbara Leighton that the presumption of Captain Hornblower’s death was unfounded. Previously he had been acting under the instructions of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to settle Captain Hornblower’s estate, and working in conjunction with the Prize Agent at Port Mahon. With the consent of the Lord Chancellor, upon the death intestate of Mrs Maria Hornblower, he had been acting as trustee to the heir, Richard Arthur Horatio Hornblower, and had invested for the latter in the Funds the proceeds of the sale of Captain Hornblower’s prizes after the deduction of expenses. As Captain Hornblower would see from the enclosed account, there was the sum of three thousand two hundred and ninety-one pounds six and fourpence invested in the Consolidated Fund, which would naturally revert to him. The lawyer awaited his esteemed instructions.

The enclosed accounts, which Hornblower was about to thrust aside, had among the innumerable six and eightpences and three and fourpences one set of items which caught his eye—they dealt with the funeral expenses of the late Mrs Hornblower, and a grave in the cemetery of the church of St. Thomas à Beckett, and a headstone, and fees for grave-watchers; it was a ghoulish list which made Hornblower’s blood run a little colder. It was hateful. More than anything else it accentuated his loss of Maria—he would only have to go on deck to see the tower of the church where she lay.

He fought down the depression which threatened to overmaster him once more. It was at least a distraction to think about the news in that lawyer’s letter, to contemplate the fact that he owned three thousand odd pounds in the Funds. He had forgotten all about those prizes he had made in the Mediterranean before he came under Leighton’s command. Altogether that made his total fortune nearly six thousand pounds—not nearly as large as some captains had contrived to acquire, but handsome enough. Even on half-pay he would be able to live in comfort now, and educate Richard Arthur Horatio properly, and take his place in a modest way in society.

“The captain’s list has changed a lot since we saw it last, sir,” said Bush, and he was echoing Hornblower’s train of thought rather than breaking into it.

“Have you been studying it?” grinned Hornblower.

“Of course, sir.”

Upon the position of their names in that list depended the date of their promotion to flag rank—year by year they would climb it as death or promotion eliminated their seniors, until one day, if they lived long enough, they would find themselves admirals, with admirals’ pay and privileges.

“It’s the top half of the list which has changed most, sir,” said Bush. “Leighton was killed, and Ball died at Malta, and Troubridge was lost at sea—in Indian waters, sir—and there’s seven or eight others who’ve gone. You’re more than halfway up now.”

Hornblower had held his present rank eleven years, but with each coming year he would mount more slowly, in proportion to the decrease in number of his seniors, and it would be 1825 or so before he could fly his flag. Hornblower remembered the Count de Graçay’s prediction that the war would end in 1814—promotion would be slower in peace time. And Bush was ten years older than he, and only just beginning the climb. Probably he would never live to be an admiral, but then Bush was perfectly content with being a captain. Clearly his ambition had never soared higher than that; he was fortunate.

“We’re both of us very lucky men, Bush,” said Hornblower.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bush, and hesitated before going on. “I’m giving evidence at the court martial, sir, but of course you know what my evidence’ll be. They asked me about it at Whitehall, and they told me that what I was going to say agreed with everything they knew. You’ve nothing to fear from the court martial, sir.”