Hornblower and the Atropos

Chapter X

Malta; Ricasoli Point on the one hand and Fort St. Elmo returning the salute on the other, and the Grand Harbour opening up between them; Valetta with its palaces on the promontory; gaily painted small craft everywhere; a fresh northeasterly wind blowing. That wind—the Gregale, the sailing directions called it—did not allow Hornblower any leisure at present for sightseeing. In confined waters a sailing ship before the wind always seemed pigheadedly determined to maintain her speed however much her canvas was reduced, even under bare poles. It called for accurate timing to roundto at the right moment, to take her way off her, to clue up, and drop anchor at the right moment.

Nor would there be any leisure for Hornblower, it appeared, during the few hours that he would be here. He could combine his official calls with his personal delivery of the despatches entrusted to him, which would save a good deal of time, but that saving was immediately eaten up—as the fat kine of Pharaoh’s dream were eaten up by the lean kine—by the demands on his attention, and, just as the lean kine were no fatter after their meal, so he was just as busy even when his planning had saved that much time. It would be quarterday, or as near to it as made no matter, by the time letters from Malta would reach England, so that now he could draw against his pay. Not to any great extent, of course—there were Maria and the children to be considered—but enough to provide himself with a few luxuries in this island where bread was dear and luxuries cheap. Oranges and olives and fresh vegetables—the bumboats were already awaiting permission to come alongside.

McCullum, with his salvage operations in mind, was anxious for an indent to be made for supplies he considered necessary. He wanted a mile of halfinch line and a quarter mile of slow match—a fantastic demand, to Hornblower’s mind, but McCullum knew more about his business than he did, presumably—and five hundred feet of leather “fusehose,” which was something Hornblower had hardly heard of. Hornblower signed the indent wondering vaguely whether the Navy Office would surcharge him with it, and turned away to face the inevitable fact that every officer in the ship wished to go ashore and was presenting irrefutable reasons to Jones in favour of his so doing. If Atropos had been on fire they could not be more passionately anxious to be out of her.

And here was another complication: a note from His Excellence the Governor. Would Captain Hornblower and one of his officers dine at the Palace this afternoon? It would be impossible to refuse, so no time need be wasted on debate regarding that point—His Excellency was just as anxious as any ordinary mortal to hear the gossip from England and to see a new face—while there was equally no debate regarding which officer he should take with him. His Excellency would never forgive him if he heard who had been on board Atropos and he had not been afforded the opportunity of seating royalty at his table.

“Pass the word for Mr. Prince,” said Hornblower, “and the doctor.”

It would be necessary to have the doctor to interpret to the Prince exactly what was going to happen; the boy had learned a good deal of English during his month on board, but the vocabulary of the gunroom was hardly inclusive enough to permit of discussions of viceregal etiquette. The Prince came in a little breathless, still twitching his uniform into some kind of order; Eisenbeiss was breathing hard too—he had to come the whole length of the ship and through a narrow hatchway.

“Please explain to His Serene Highness,” said Hornblower, “that he is coming ashore with me to dine with the Governor.”

Eisenbeiss spoke in German, and the boy gave his mechanical little bow. The use of German evoked the manners of royalty from under the new veneer of a British midshipman.

“His Serene Highness is to wear his court dress?” asked Eisenbeiss.

“No,” said Hornblower, “his uniform. And if ever I see him again with his shoes as badly brushed as those are I’ll take the cane to him.”

“Sir—” said Eisenbeiss, but words failed him. The thought of the cane being applied to his Prince struck him dumb; fortunately, perhaps.

“So that I am to wear this uniform too, sir?” asked Eisenbeiss.

“I fear you have not been invited, doctor,” said Hornblower.

“But I am First Chamberlain to His Serene Highness, sir,” exploded Eisenbeiss. “This will be a visit of ceremony, and it is a fundamental law of SeitzBunau that I make all presentations.”

Hornblower kept his temper.

“And I represent His Britannic Majesty,” he said.

“Surely His Britannic Majesty cannot wish that his ally should not be treated with the honours due to his royal position? As Secretary of State it is my duty to make an official protest.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower. He put out his hand and bent the Prince’s head forward. “You might be better employed seeing that His Serene Highness washes behind his ears.”

“Sir! Sir!” said Eisenbeiss.

“Be ready and properly dressed in half an hour, if you please, Mr. Prince.”

Dinner at the Palace ran the dreary course it might be expected to take. It was fortunate that, on being received by the Governor’s aide-decamp, Hornblower was able to shuffle on to his shoulders the burden of the difficult decision regarding the presentations—Hornblower could not guess whether His Serene Highness should be presented to His Excellency or vice versa, and he was a little amused to note Her Excellency’s hurried asides when she heard the quality of her second guest; the seating arrangements for dinner needed hasty revision. So Hornblower found himself between two dull women, one of them with red hands and the other with a chronic sniff. He struggled to make polite conversation, and he was careful with his wineglass, contriving merely to sip when the others drank deep.

The Governor drank to His Serene Highness the Prince of Seitz-Bunau, and the Prince, with the most perfect aplomb, drank to His Majesty the King of Great Britain; presumably those were the first words of English he had ever learned, long before he had learned to shout “Vast heaving” or “Come on, you nosailors, you.” When the ladies had withdrawn Hornblower listened to His Excellency’s comments about Bonaparte’s threatening invasion of Southern Italy, and about the chances of preserving Sicily from his clutches; and a decent interval after returning to the drawingroom he caught the Prince’s eye. The Prince smiled back at him and rose to his feet. It was odd to watch him receiving the bows of the men and the curtseys of the ladies with the assurance of ingrained habit. Tomorrow the boy would be in the gunroom mess again—Hornblower wondered whether he was able yet to stand up for his rights there and make sure he received no more than his fair share of gristle when the meat was served.

The gig whisked them across the Grand Harbour from the Governor’s steps to the ship’s side, and Hornblower came on to the quarterdeck with the bos’n’s mates’ pipes to welcome him. He was conscious even before he had taken his hand from his hat brim that there was something wrong. He looked round him at the ship illuminated by the wild sunset the Gregale had brought with it. There was no trouble with the hands, judging by their attitudes as they stood crowded forward. The three Ceylonese divers were there in their accustomed isolation by the knightheads. But the officers grouped aft wore an apprehensive look; Hornblower’s eyes moved from face to face, from Jones to Still, the two lieutenants, to Carslake, the purser, and to Silver, the master’s mate of the watch. It was Jones as senior officer who came forward to report.

“If you please, sir—”

“What is it, Mr. Jones?”

“If you please, sir, there has been a duel.”

No one could ever guess what would be the next burden to be laid on a captain’s shoulders. It might be an outbreak of plague, or the discovery of dry rot in the ship’s timbers. And Jones’s manner implied not merely that there had been a duel, but that someone had been hurt in it.

“Who fought?” demanded Hornblower.

“The doctor and Mr. McCullum, sir.”

Well, somewhere they could pick up another doctor, and if the worst came to the worst they could manage without one at all.

“What happened?”

“Mr. McCullum was shot through the lungs, sir.”

God! That was something entirely different, something of vital importance. A bullet through the lungs meant death almost for certain, and what was he to do with McCullum dead? McCullum had been sent for all the way from India. It would take a year and a half to get someone out from there to replace him. No ordinary men with salvage experience would do—it had to be someone who knew how to use the Ceylonese divers. Hornblower wondered with sick despair whether a man had ever been so plagued as he was. He had to swallow before he could speak again.

“Where is he now?”

“Mr. McCullum, sir? He’s in the hands of the garrison surgeon in the hospital ashore.”

“He’s still alive?”

Jones spread despairing hands.

“Yes, sir. He was alive half an hour ago.”

“Where’s the doctor?”

“Down below in his berth, sir.”

“I’ll see him. No, wait. I’ll send for him when I want him.”

He wanted to think; he needed time and leisure to decide what was to be done. It was his instinct to walk the deck; that was how he could work off the high internal pressure of his emotions. It was only incidentally that the rhythmic exercise brought his thoughts into orderly sequence. And this little deck was crowded with idle officers—his cabin down below was of course quite useless. That was the moment when Jones came forward with something else to bother him.

“Mr. Turner’s come aboard, sir.”

Mr. Turner? Turner? That was the sailing master with experience of Turkish waters whom Collingwood had detailed specially to service in Atropos. He came from behind Jones as the words were said, a wizened old man with a letter in his hand, presumably the orders which had brought him on board.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Turner,” said Hornblower, forcing himself into cordiality while wondering whether he would ever make use of Turner’s services.

“Your servant, sir,” said Turner with oldfashioned politeness.

“Mr. Jones, see that Mr. Turner’s comfortable.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

That was the only reply Jones could make, however hard of execution the order might be. But clearly Jones meditated some supplementary remark; it could be that was going to suggest putting Turner into McCullum’s quarters. Hornblower could not bear the thought of having to listen to anything of the sort while he had yet to reach a decision. It was the final irritation that roused him to the pitch of acting with the arbitrariness of a captain of the old school.

“Get below, all of you,” he snapped. “I want this deck clear.”

They looked at him as if they had not heard him aright, and he knew they had.

“Get below, if you please,” he said, and the “if you please” did nothing to soften the harshness of his request. “Master’s mate of the watch, see that this deck is kept clear, and keep out of my way yourself.”

They went below—this was an order from the captain who (according to the reports of his gig’s crew) had barely been diverted from hanging a dozen French prisoners for no other reason than a desire to see their death struggles. So he had the quarterdeck to himself, on which to stride up and down, from taffrail to mizzen mast and back again, in the fastfading twilight. He walked rapidly, turning with a jerk at each end, irritation and worry goading him on.

He had to reach a decision. The obvious thing to do was to report to Collingwood and await further orders. But how long would it be before any vessel left Malta with letters for Collingwood, and how long would it be before another returned? A month altogether, probably. No captain worth his salt would keep Atropos lying idle in Grand Harbour for a month. He could guess what Collingwood would think of a man who evaded responsibility like that. He could take Atropos and seek out Collingwood himself, but the same objections applied. And how would he appear in Collingwood’s eyes if he were to arrive off Toulon or Leghorn or wherever the chances of war might have summoned Collingwood, at the moment when he was supposed to be two thousand miles away? No. No. It would never do. At least he had reduced two apparent possibilities to impossibilities.

Then he must proceed with his orders as if nothing had happened to McCullum. That meant he must undertake the salvage operations himself, and he knew nothing about the subject. A wave of fury passed over him as his mind dwelt on the inconvenience and loss occasioned by the duel. The idiotic Eisenbeiss and the badtempered McCullum. They had no business incommoding England in her struggle with Bonaparte merely to satisfy their own ridiculous passions. He himself had borne with Eisenbeiss’s elephantine nonsense. Why could not McCullum have done the same? And in any event why could not McCullum have held his pistol straighter and killed the ridiculous doctor instead of getting killed himself? But that sort of rhetorical question did not get him any further with his own urgent problems; he must not think along those lines. Moreover, with a grinding feeling of guilt another consideration crept in. He should have been aware of bad blood between the people in his ship. He remembered the lighthearted way in which he had put on Jones’s shoulders the responsibility for accommodating McCullum in his crowded little ship. In the wardroom the doctor and McCullum had probably got on each other’s nerves; there could be no doubt about that—and presumably ashore, over wine in some tavern, the enmity had flared up and brought about the duel. He should have known about the possibility and nipped it in the bud. Hornblower scourged himself spiritually for his remissness. He experienced bitter selfcontempt at that moment. Perhaps he was unfit to be captain of one of His Majesty’s ships.

The thought brought about an even greater internal upheaval. He could not bear it. He must prove to himself that there was no truth in it, or he must break himself in the attempt. He must carry through that salvage operation by his own efforts if necessary. He must. He must.

So that was the decision. He had only to reach it for the emotion to die down within him, to leave him thinking feverishly but clearly. He must of course do everything possible to ensure success, omit nothing that could help. McCullum had indented for “leather fusehose;” that was some indication of how the salvage problem was to be approached. And McCullum was not yet dead, as far as he knew. He might—no, it was hardly possible. No one ever survived a bullet through the lungs. And yet—

“Mr. Nash!”

“Sir!” said the master’s mate of the watch, coming at the run.

“My gig. I’m going over to the hospital.”

There was still just a little light in the sky, but overside the water was black as ink, reflecting in long, irregular lines the lights that showed in Valetta. The oars ground rhythmically in the rowlocks. Hornblower restrained himself from urging the men to pull harder. They could never have rowed fast enough to satisfy the pressing need for instant action that seethed inside him.

The garrison officers were still at mess, sitting over their wine, and the mess sergeant, at Hornblower’s request, went in and fetched out the surgeon. He was a youngish man, and fortunately still sober. He stood with the candlelight on his face and listened attentively to Hornblower’s questions.

“The bullet hit him in the right armpit,” said the surgeon. “One would expect that, as he would be standing with his shoulder turned to his opponent and his arm raised. The actual wound was on the posterior margin of the armpit, towards the back, in other words, and on the level of the fifth rib.”

The heart was on the level of the fifth rib, as Hornblower knew, and the expression had an ominous sound.

“I suppose the bullet did not go right through?” he asked.

“No,” replied the surgeon. “It is very rare for a pistol bullet, if it touches bone, to go through the body, even at twelve paces. The powder charge is only one drachm. Naturally the bullet is still there, presumably within the chest cavity.”

“So he is unlikely to live?”

“Very unlikely, sir. It is a surprise he has lived so long. The haemoptysis—the spitting of blood, you understand, sir—has been extremely slight. Most chest wounds die of internal bleeding within an hour or two, but in this case the lung can hardly have been touched. There is considerable contusion under the right scapula—that is the shoulder blade—indicating that the bullet terminated its course there.”

“Close to the heart?”

“Close to the heart, sir. But it can have touched none of the great vessels there, most surprisingly, or he would have been dead within a few seconds.”

“Then why do you think he will not live?”

The doctor shook his head.

“Once an opening has been made in the chest cavity, sir, there is little chance, and with the bullet still inside the chance is negligible. It will certainly have carried fragments of clothing in with it. We may expect internal mortification, in general gathering of malignant humours, and eventual death within a few days.”

“You could not probe for the bullet?”

“Within the chest wall? My dear sir!”

“What action have you taken, then?”

“I have bound up the wound of entry to put an end to the bleeding there. I have strapped up the chest to ensure that the jagged ends of the broken ribs do no more damage to the lungs. I took two ounces of blood from the left basilar vein, and I administered an opiate.”

“An opiate? So he is not conscious now?”

“Certainly not.”

Hornblower felt hardly wiser than he had done when Jones first told him the news.

“You say he may live a few days? How many?”

“I know nothing about the patient’s constitution, sir. But he is a powerful man in the prime of life. It might be as much as a week. It might even be more. But on the other hand if events take a bad turn he might be dead tomorrow.”

“But if it is several days? Will he retain his senses during that time?”

“Likely enough. When he ceases to, it is a sign of the approaching end. Then we can expect fever, restlessness, delirium, and death.”

Several days of consciousness were possible, therefore. And the faintest, remotest chance that McCullum would live after all.

“Supposing I took him to sea with me? Would that help? Or hinder?”

“You would have to ensure his immobility on account of the fractured ribs. But at sea he might even live longer. There are the usual Mediterranean agues in this island. And in addition there is an endemic low fever. My hospital is full of such cases.”

Now this was a piece of information that really helped in coming to a decision.

“Thank your doctor,” said Hornblower, and he took his decision. Then it was only a matter of minutes to make the arrangements with the surgeon and to take his leave. The gig took him back through the darkness, over the black water, to where Atropos’ riding light showed faintly.

“Pass the word for the doctor to come to my cabin at once,” was Hornblower’s reply to the salute of the officer of the watch.

Eisenbeiss came slowly in. There was something of apprehension and something of bravado in his manner. He was prepared to defend himself against the storm he was curtain was about to descend on him. What he did not expect was the reception he actually experienced. He approached the table behind which Hornblower was seated and stood sullen, meeting Hornblower’s eyes with the guilty defiance of a man who has just taken another human’s life.

“Mr. McCullum,” began Hornblower, and the doctor’s thick lips showed a trace of a sneer, “is being sent on board here tonight. He is still alive.”

“On board here?” repeated the doctor, surprised into a change of attitude.

“You address me as ‘sir’. Yes, I am having him sent over from the hospital. My orders to you are to make every preparation for his reception.”

The doctor’s response was unintelligible German, but there could be no doubt it was an ejaculation of astonishment.

“Your answer to me is ‘aye aye, sir’,” snapped Hornblower, his pent-up emotion and strain almost making him tremble as he sat at the table. He could not prevent his fist from clenching, but he just managed to refrain from allowing it to pound the table. The intensity of his feelings must have had their effect telepathically.

“Aye aye, sir,” said the doctor grudgingly.

“Mr. McCullum’s life is extremely valuable, doctor. Much more valuable than yours.”

The doctor could only mumble in reply to that.

“It is your duty to keep him alive.”

Hornblower’s fist unclenched now, and he could make his points slowly, one by one, accentuating each with the slow tap of the tip of a lean forefinger on the table.

“You are to do all you can for him. If there is anything special that you require for the purpose you are to inform me and I shall endeavour to obtain it for you. His life is to be saved, or if not, it is to be prolonged as far as possible. I would recommend you to establish a hospital for him abaft No. 6 carronade on the starboard side, where the motion of the ship will be least felt, and where it will be possible to rig a shelter for him from the weather. You will apply to Mr. Jones for that. The ship’s pigs can be taken forward where they will not discommode him.”

Hornblower’s pause and glance called forth an “aye aye, sir” from the doctor’s lips like a cork from out of a bottle, so that Hornblower could proceed.

“We sail at dawn tomorrow,” he went on. “Mr. McCullum is to live until we reach our destination, and until long after, long enough for him to execute the duty which has brought him from India. That is quite clear to you?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the doctor, although his puzzled expression proved that there was something about the orders which he could not explain to himself.

“You had better keep him alive,” continued Hornblower. “You had certainly better. If he dies I can try you for murder under the ordinary laws of England. Don’t look at me like that. I am speaking the truth. The common law knows nothing about duels. I can hang you, doctor.”

The doctor was a shade paler, and his big hands tried to express what his paralyzed tongue would not.

“But simply hanging you would be too good for you, doctor,” said Hornblower. “I can do more than that, and I shall. You have a fat, fleshy back. The cat would sink deeply into it. You’ve seen men flogged—you saw two flogged last week. You heard them scream. You will scream at the gratings too, doctor. That I promise you.”

“No!” said the doctor—“you can’t—”

“You address me as ‘sir’, and you do not contradict me. You heard my promise? I shall carry it out. I can, and I shall.”

In a ship detached far from superior authority there was nothing a captain might not do, and the doctor knew it. And with Hornblower’s grim face before him and those remorseless eyes staring into his the doctor could not doubt the possibility. Hornblower was trying to keep his expression set hard, and to pay no attention to the internal calculations that persisted in maintaining themselves inside him. There might be terrible trouble if the Admiralty ever heard he had flogged a warranted doctor, but then the Admiralty might never hear of an incident in the distant Levant. And there was the other doubt—with McCullum once dead, so that nothing could bring him to life, Hornblower could not really believe he would torture a human being to no practical purpose. But as long as Eisenbeiss did not guess that, it did not matter.

“That is an quite clear to you now, doctor?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then my order is that you start making your arrangements now.”

It was a really great surprise to Hornblower when Eisenbeiss still hesitated. He was about to speak more sharply still, cutting into the feverish gestures of the big hands, when Eisenbeiss spoke again.

“Do you forget something, sir?”

“What do you think I have forgotten?” asked Hornblower, playing for time instead of flatly refusing to listen to any arguments—proof enough that he was a little shaken by Eisenbeiss’s persistence.

“Mr. McCullum and I—we are enemies,” said Eisenbeiss.

It was true that Hornblower had forgotten that. He was so engrossed with his chessboard manipulation of human pieces that he had overlooked a vital factor. But he must not admit it.

“And what of that?” he asked coldly, hoping his discomfiture was not too apparent.

“I shot him,” said Eisenbeiss. There was a vivid gesture by the big right hand that had held the pistol, which enabled Hornblower to visualize the whole duel. “What will he say if I attend him?”

“Whose was the challenge?” asked Hornblower, still playing for time.

“He challenged me,” said Eisenbeiss. “He said—he said I was no Baron, and I said he was no gentleman. ‘I will kill you for that,’ he said, and so we fought.”

Eisenbeiss had certainly said the thing that would best rouse McCullum’s fury.

“You are convinced you are a Baron?” asked Hornblower—curiosity urged him to ask the question as well as the need for time to reassemble his thoughts. The Baron drew himself up as far as the deckbeams over his head allowed.

“I know I am, sir. My patent of nobility is signed by His Serene Highness himself.”

“When did he do that?”

“As soon as—as soon as we were alone. Only His Serene Highness and I managed to cross the frontier when Bonaparte’s men entered SeitzBunau. The others all took service with the tyrant. It was not fit that His Serene Highness should be attended only by a bourgeois. Only a noble could attend him to bed or serve his food. He had to have a High Chamberlain to regulate his ceremonial, and a Secretary of State to manage his foreign affairs. So His Serene Highness ennobled me—that is why I bear the title of Baron and gave me the high offices of State.

“On your advice?”

“I was the only adviser he had left.”

This was very interesting and much as Hornblower had imagined it, but it was not the point. Hornblower was more ready now to face the real issue.

“In the duel,” he asked, “you exchanged shots?”

“His bullet went past my ear,” answered Eisenbeiss.

“Then honour is satisfied on both sides,” said Hornblower, more to himself than to the doctor.

Technically that was perfectly correct. An exchange of shots, and still more the shedding of blood, ended any affair of honour. The principals could meet again socially as if there had been no trouble between them. But to meet in the relative positions of doctor and patient might be something different. He would have to deal with that difficulty when it arose.

“You are quite right to remind me about this, doctor,” he said, with the last appearance of judicial calm that he could summon up. “I shall bear it in mind.”

Eisenbeiss looked at him a little blankly, and Hornblower put on his hard face again.

“But it makes no difference at all to my promise to you. Rest assured of that,” he continued. “My orders still stand. They—still—stand.”

It was several seconds before the reluctant answer came.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“On your way out would you please be good enough to pass the word for Mr. Turner, the new sailing master?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

That showed the subtle difference between an order and a request—but both of them had to be obeyed.

“Now, Mr. Turner,” said Hornblower when Turner arrived in the cabin, “our destination is Marmorice Bay, and we sail at dawn tomorrow. I want to know about the winds we can expect at this time of year. I want to lose no time at all in arriving there. Every hour—I may say every minute is of importance.”

Time was of importance, to make the most of a dying man’s last hours.