Hornblower and the Hotspur

Chapter XXV

Hotspur lay in the Iroise, and the victualler was heaving-to close alongside, to begin again the toilsome labour of transferring stores. After sixty days of blockade duty there would be much to do, even though the pleasant sunshine of early summer would ease matters a little. The fend-offs were over the side and the first boat was on its way from the victualler bringing the officer charged with initiating the arrangements.

“Here’s the post, sir,” said the officer, handing Hornblower the small package of letters destined for the ship’s company. “But here’s a letter from the Commander-in-Chief, sir. They sent it across to me from the Hibernia as I passed through the Outer Squadron.”

“Thank you,” said Hornblower.

He passed the packet to Bush to sort out. There would be letters from Maria in it, but a letter from the Commander-in-Chief took precedence. There was the formal address:

The letter was sealed with an informal wafer, instantly broken.

Two seconds of bewilderment, and then a moment of horrid doubt which made Hornblower snatch the other letters back from Bush and hurriedly search through them for those from Maria.

‘Best communicated personally’—Hornblower had a sudden secret fear that something might have happened to Maria and that Cornwallis had assumed the responsibility for breaking the news to him. But here was a letter from Maria only eight days old, and all was well with her and with little Horatio and the child to be. Cornwallis could hardly have later news than that.

Hornblower was reduced to re-reading letter and weighing every word like a lover receiving his first love letter. The whole letter appeared cordial in tone, until Hornblower forced himself to admit that if it was summons to a reprimand it might be worded in exactly the same way. Except for the opening word ‘My’; that was a departure from official practice—yet it might be a mere slip. And the letter concerned itself with ‘news’ too. Hornblower took a turn up the deck and forced himself to laugh at himself. He really was behaving like a love-lorn youth. If after all these years of service he had not learned to wait patiently through a dull hour for an inevitable crisis the Navy had not taught him even his first lesson.

The stores came slowly on board; there were the receipts to sign, and of course there were the final hurried questions hurled at him by people afraid of accepting responsibility.

“Make up your own mind about that,” snapped Hornblower, and, “Mr. Bush’ll tell you what to do, and I hope he’ll put a flea in your ear.”

Then at last he was on a strange deck, watching with vast curiosity the handling of a different ship as the victualler filled away and headed out of the Iroise. The victualler’s captain offered him the comfort of his cabin and suggested sampling the new consignment of rum, but Hornblower could not make himself accept either offer. He could only just manage to make himself stand still, aft by the taffrail, as they gradually left the coast behind, and picked their way through the Inshore Squadron and set a course for the distant topsails of the main body of the Channel Fleet.

The huge bulk of the Hibernia loomed up before them, and Hornblower found himself going up the side and saluting the guard. Newton, the captain of the ship, and Collins, the Captain of the Fleet, both happened to be on deck and received him cordially enough; Hornblower hoped they did not notice his gulp of excitement as he returned their ‘Good afternoons’. Collins prepared to show him to the Admiral’s quarters.

“Please don’t trouble, sir. I can find my own way,” protested Hornblower.

“I’d better see you past all the Cerberuses that guard these nether regions,” said Collins.

Cornwallis was seated at one desk, and his flag-lieutenant at another, but they both rose at his entrance, and the flag-lieutenant slipped unobtrusively through a curtained door in the bulkhead while Cornwallis shook Hornblower’s hand—it could hardly be a reprimand that was coming, yet Hornblower found it difficult to sit on more than the edge of the chair that Cornwallis offered him. Cornwallis sat with more ease, yet bolt upright with his back quite flat as was his habit.

“Well?” said Cornwallis.

Hornblower realized that Cornwallis was trying to conceal his mood, yet there was—or was there not?—a twinkle in the china blue eyes; all these years as Commander-in-Chief still had not forged the Admiral into the complete diplomat. Or perhaps they had. Hornblower could only wait; he could think of nothing to say in reply to that monosyllable.

“I’ve had a communication about you from the Navy Board,” said Cornwallis at length, severely.

“Yes, sir?” Hornblower could find a reply to this speech; the Navy Board dealt with victualling and supplies and such like matters. It could be nothing vital.

“They’ve called my attention to the consumption of stores by the Hotspur. You appear to have been expensive, Hornblower. Gunpowder, shot, sails, cordage—you’ve been using up these things as if Hotspur were a ship of the line. Have you anything to say?”

“No, sir.” He need not offer the obvious defence, not to Cornwallis.

“Neither have I.” Cornwallis smiled suddenly, as he said that, his whole expression changing. “And that is what I shall tell the Navy Board. It’s a naval officer’s duty to shoot and be shot at.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’ve done all I need to do in transmitting this information.”

The smile died away from Cornwallis’s face, and was replaced by something bleak, something a little sad. He looked suddenly much older. Hornblower was making ready to rise from his chair; he could see that Cornwallis had sent for him so that this censure from the Navy Board should be deprived of all its sting. In the Service anticipated crises sometimes resolved themselves into anti-climaxes. But Cornwallis went on speaking; the sadness of his expression was echoed in the sadness of the tone of his voice.

“Now we can leave official business,” he said, “and proceed to more personal matters. I’m hauling down my flag, Hornblower.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” Those might be trite, mechanical words, but they were not. Hornblower was genuinely, sincerely sorry, and Cornwallis could hardly think otherwise.

“It comes to us all in time,” he went on. “Fifty-one years in the Navy.”

“Hard years, too, sir.”

“Yes. For two years and three months I haven’t set foot on shore.”

“But no one else could have done what you have done, sir.”

No one else could have maintained the Channel Fleet as a fighting body during those first years of hostilities, thwarting every attempt by Bonaparte to evade its crushing power.

“You flatter me,” replied Cornwallis. “Very kind of you, Hornblower. Gardner’s taking my place, and he’ll do just as well as me.”

Even in the sadness of the moment Hornblower’s ever observant mind took notice of the use of that name without the formal ‘Lord’ or ‘Admiral’; he was being admitted into unofficial intimacy with a Commander-in-Chief, albeit one on the point of retirement.

“I can’t tell you how much I regret it, all the same, sir,” he said.

“Let’s try to be more cheerful,” said Cornwallis. The blue eyes were looking straight through Hornblower, extraordinarily penetrating. Apparently what they observed was specially gratifying. Cornwallis’s expression softened. Something appeared there which might almost be affection.

“Doesn’t all this mean anything to you, Hornblower?” he asked.

“No, sir,” replied Hornblower, puzzled. “Only what I’ve said. It’s a great pity that you have to retire, sir.”

“Nothing else?”

“No, sir.”

“I didn’t know such disinterestedness was possible. Don’t you remember what is the last privilege granted a retiring Commander-in-Chief?”

“No, sir.” That was true when Hornblower spoke; realization came a second later. “Oh, of course—”

“Now it’s beginning to dawn on you. I’m allowed three promotions. Midshipman to Lieutenant. Lieutenant to Commander. Commander to Captain.”

“Yes, sir.” Hornblower could hardly speak those words; he had to swallow hard.

“It’s a good system,” went on Cornwallis. “At the end of his career a Commander-in-Chief can make those promotions without fear or favour. He has nothing more to expect in this world, and so he can lay up store for the next, by making his selection solely for the good of the service.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do I have to go on? I’m going to promote you to Captain.”

“Thank you, sir. I can’t—” Very true. He could not speak.

“As I said, I have the good of the service in mind. You’re the best choice I can make, Hornblower.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mark you, this is the last service I can do for you. A fortnight from now I’ll be nobody. You’ve told me you have no friends in high places?”

“Yes, sir. No, sir.”

“And commands still go by favour. I hope you find it, Hornblower. And I hope you have better luck in the matter of prize money. I did my best for you.”

“I’d rather be a captain and poor than anyone else and rich, sir.”

“Except perhaps an Admiral,” said Cornwallis; he was positively grinning.

“Yes, sir.”

Cornwallis rose from his chair. Now he was a Commander-in-Chief again, and Hornblower knew himself dismissed. Cornwallis raised his voice in the high-pitched carrying hail of the Navy.

“Pass the word for Captain Collins!”

“I must thank you, sir, most sincerely.”

“Don’t thank me any more. You’ve thanked me enough already. If ever you become an admiral with favours to give you’ll understand why.”

Collins had entered and was waiting at the door.

“Good-bye, Hornblower.”

“Good-bye, sir.”

Only a shake of the hand; no further word, and Hornblower followed Collins to the quarter-deck.

“I’ve a water-hoy standing by for you,” said Collins. “In a couple of tacks she’ll fetch Hotspur.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’ll be in the Gazette in three weeks’ time. Plenty of time to make your arrangements.”

“Yes, sir.”

Salutes, the squealing of pipes, and Hornblower went down the side and was rowed across to the troy. It was an effort to be polite to the captain. The tiny crew had hauled up the big lugsails before Hornblower realized that this was an interesting process which he would have done well to watch closely. With the lugsails trimmed flat and sharp the little hoy laid herself close to the wind and foamed forward towards France.

Those last words of Collins’ were still running through Hornblower’s mind. He would have to leave the Hotspur; he would have to say good-bye to Bush and all the others, and the prospect brought a sadness that quite took the edge off the elation that he felt. Of course he would have to leave her; Hotspur was too small to constitute a command for a Post Captain. He would have to wait for another command; as the junior captain on the list he would probably receive the smallest and least important sixth rate in the navy. But for all that he was a Captain. Maria would be delighted.