Lieutenant Hornblower

Chapter XVIII

It was a cold winter’s day in Portsmouth; a black frost, and there was a penetrating east wind blowing down the street as Bush came out of the dockyard gates. He turned up the collar of his peajacket over his muffler and crammed his hands into his pockets, and he bowed his head into the wind as he strode forward into it, his eyes watering, his nose running, while that east wind seemed to find its way between his ribs, making the scars that covered them ache anew. He would not allow himself to look up at the Keppel’s Head as he went past it. In there, he knew, there would be warmth and good company. The fortunate officers with prize money to spend; the incredibly fortunate officers who had found themselves appointments in the peacetime navy—they would be in there yarning and taking wine with each other. He could not afford wine. He thought longingly for a moment about a tankard of beer, but he rejected the idea immediately, although the temptation was strong. He had a month’s half pay in his pocket—he was on his way back from the Clerk of the Cheque from whom he had drawn it—but that had to last four and a half weeks and he knew he could not afford it.

He had tried of course for a billet in the merchant service, as mate, but that was as hopeless a prospect at present as obtaining an appointment as lieutenant. Having started life as a midshipman and spent all his adult life in the fighting service he did not know enough about bills of lading or cargo stowage. The merchant service looked on the navy with genial contempt, and said the latter always had a hundred men available to do a job the merchantman had to do with six. And with every ship that was paid off a fresh batch of master’s mates, trained for the merchant service and pressed from it, sought jobs in their old profession, heightening the competition every month.

Someone came out from a side street just in front of him and turned into the wind ahead of him—a naval officer. The gangling walk; those shoulders bent into the wind; he could not help but recognise Hornblower.

“Sir! Sir!” he called, and Hornblower turned.

There was a momentary irritation in his expression but it vanished the moment he recognised Bush.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, his hand held out.

“Good to see you, sir,” said Bush.

“Don’t call me ‘sir’,” said Hornblower.

“No, sir? What—why—?”

Hornblower had no greatcoat on; and his left shoulder was bare of the epaulette he should have worn as a commander. Bush’s eyes went to it automatically. He could see the old pinholes in the material which showed where the epaulette had once been fastened.

“I’m not a commander,” said Hornblower. “They didn’t confirm my appointment.”

“Good God!”

Hornblower’s face was unnaturally white—Bush was accustomed to seeing it deeply tanned—and his cheeks were hollow, but his expression was set in the old unrevealing cast that Bush remembered so well.

“Preliminaries of peace were signed the day I took Retribution into Plymouth,” said Hornblower.

“What infernal luck!” said Bush.

Lieutenants waited all their lives for the fortunate combination of circumstances that might bring them promotion, and most of them waited in vain. It was more than likely now Hornblower would wait in vain for the rest of his life.

“Have you applied for an appointment as lieutenant?” asked Bush.

“Yes. And I suppose you have?” replied Hornblower.

“Yes.”

There was no need to say more than that on that subject. The peacetime navy employed onetenth of the lieutenants who were employed in wartime; to receive an appointment one had to be of vast seniority or else have powerful friends.

“I spent a month in London,” said Hornblower. “There was always a crowd round the Admiralty and the Navy Office.”

“I expect so,” said Bush.

The wind came shrieking round the corner.

“God, but it’s cold!” said Bush.

His mind toyed with the thought of various ways to continue the conversation in shelter. If they went to the Keppel’s Head now it would mean paying for two pints of beer, and Hornblower would have to pay for the same.

“I’m going into the Long Rooms just here,” said Hornblower. “Come in with me—or are you busy?”

“No. I’m not busy,” said Bush, doubtfully, “but—”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Hornblower. “Come on.”

There was reassurance in the confident way in which Hornblower spoke about the Long Rooms. Bush only knew of them by reputation. They were frequented by officers of the navy and the army with money to spare. Bush had heard much about the high stakes that were indulged in at play there, and about the elegance of the refreshments offered by the proprietor. If Hornblower could speak thus casually about the Long Rooms he could not be as desperately hard up as he seemed to be. They crossed the street and Hornblower held open the door and ushered him through. It was a long oakpanelled room; the gloom of the outer day was made cheerful here by the light of candles, and a magnificent fire flamed on the hearth. In the centre several card tables with chairs round them stood ready for play; the ends of the room were furnished as comfortable lounges. A servant in a green baize apron was making the room tidy, and came to take their hats and Bush’s coat as they entered.

“Good morning, sir,” he said.

“Good morning, Jenkins,” said Hornblower.

He walked with unconcealed haste over to the fire and stood before it warming himself Bush saw that his teeth were chattering.

“A bad day to be out without your peajacket,” he said.

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

He clipped that affirmative a little short, so that in a minute degree it failed to be an indifferent, flat agreement. It was that which caused Bush to realise that it was not eccentricity or absentmindedness that had brought Hornblower out into a black frost without his greatcoat. Bush looked at Hornblower sharply, and he might even have asked a tactless question if he had not been forestalled by the opening of an inner door beside them. A short, plump, but exceedingly elegant gentleman came in; he was dressed in the height of fashion, save that he wore his hair long, tied back and with powder in the style of the last generation. This made his age hard to guess. He looked at the pair of them with keen dark eyes.

“Good morning, Marquis,” said Hornblower. “It is a pleasure to present—M. le Marquis de SainteCroix—Lieutenant Bush.”

The Marquis bowed gracefully, and Bush endeavoured to imitate him. But for all that graceful bow, Bush was quite aware of the considering eyes running over him. A lieutenant looking over a likely hand, or a farmer looking at a pig at a fair, might have worn the same expression. Bush guessed that the Marquis was making a mental estimate as to how much Bush might be good for at the card tables, and suddenly became acutely conscious of his shabby uniform. Apparently the Marquis reached the same conclusion as Bush did, but he began a conversation nevertheless.

“A bitter wind,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bush.

“It will be rough in the Channel,” went on the Marquis, politely raising a professional topic.

“Indeed it will,” agreed Bush.

“And no ships will come in from the westward.”

“You can be sure of that.”

The Marquis spoke excellent English. He turned to Hornblower.

“Have you seen Mr. Truelove lately?” he asked.

“No,” said Hornblower. “But I met Mr. Wilson.”

Truelove and Wilson were names familiar to Bush; they were the most famous prize agents in England—a quarter of the navy at least employed that firm to dispose of their captures for them. The Marquis turned back to Bush.

“I hope you have been fortunate in the matter of prize money, Mr. Bush?” he said.

“No such luck,” said Bush. His hundred pounds had gone in a two days’ debauch at Kingston.

“The sums they handle are fabulous, nothing less than fabulous. I understand the ship’s company of the Caradoc will share seventy thousand pounds when they come in.”

“Very likely,” said Bush. He had heard of the captures the Caradoc had made in the Bay of Biscay.

“But while this wind persists they must wait before enjoying their good fortune, poor fellows. They were not paid off on the conclusion of peace, but were ordered to Malta to assist in relieving the garrison. Now they are expected back daily.”

For an immigrant civilian the Marquis displayed a laudable interest in the affairs of the service. And he was consistently polite, as his next speech showed.

“I trust you will consider yourself at home here, Mr. Bush,” he said. “Now I hope you will pardon me, as I have much business to attend to.”

He withdrew through the curtained door, leaving Bush and Hornblower looking at each other.

“A queer customer,” said Bush.

“Not so queer when you come to know him,” said Hornblower.

The fire had warmed him by now, and there was a little colour in his cheeks.

“What do you do here?” asked Bush, curiosity finally overcoming his politeness.

“I play whist,” said Hornblower.

“Whist?”

All that Bush knew about whist was that it was a slow game favoured by intellectuals. When Bush gambled he preferred something with a greater element of chance and which did not make any demand on his thoughts.

“A good many men from the services drop in here for whist,” said Hornblower. “I’m always glad to make a fourth.”

“But I’d heard—”

Bush had heard of all sorts of other games being played in the Long Rooms: hazard, vingtetun, even roulette.

“The games for high stakes are played in there,” said Hornblower, pointing to the curtained door. “I stay here.”

“Wise man,” said Bush. But he was quite sure there was some further information that was being withheld from him. And he was not actuated by simple curiosity. The affection and the interest that he felt towards Hornblower drove him into further questioning.

“Do you win?” he asked.

“Frequently,” said Hornblower. “Enough to live.”

“But you have your half pay?” went on Bush.

Hornblower yielded in face of this persistence.

“No,” he said. “I’m not entitled.”

“Not entitled?” Bush’s voice rose a semitone. “But you’re a permanent lieutenant.”

“Yes. But I was a temporary commander. I drew three months’ full pay for that rank before the Admiralty refused to confirm.”

“And then they put you under stoppages?”

“Yes. Until I’ve repaid the excess.” Hornblower smiled; a nearly natural smile. “I’ve lived through two months of it. Only five more and I’ll be back on half pay.”

“Holy Peter!” said Bush.

Half pay was bad enough; it meant a life of constant care and economy, but one could live. Hornblower had nothing at all. Bush knew now why Hornblower had no greatcoat. He felt a sudden wave of anger. A recollection rose in his mind, as clear to his inward eye as this pleasant room was to his outward one. He remembered Hornblower swinging himself down, sword in hand, on to the deck of the Renown, plunging into a battle against odds which could only result in either death or victory. Hornblower, who had planned and worked endlessly to ensure success—and then had flung his life upon the board as a final stake; and today Hornblower was standing with chattering teeth trying to warm himself beside a fire by the charity of a frogeating gamblinghall keeper with the look of a dancing master.

“It’s a hellish outrage,” said Bush, and then he made his offer. He offered his money, even though he knew as he offered it that it meant most certainly that he would go hungry, and that his sisters, if not exactly hungry, would hardly have enough to eat. But Hornblower shook his head.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll never forget that. But I can’t accept it. You know that I couldn’t. But I’ll never cease to be grateful to you. I’m grateful in another way, too. You’ve brightened the world for me by saying that.”

Even in the face of Hornblower’s refusal Bush repeated his offer, and tried to press it, but Hornblower was firm in his refusal. Perhaps it was because Bush looked so downcast that Hornblower gave him some further information in the hope of cheering him up.

“Things aren’t as bad as they seem,” he said. “You don’t understand that I’m in receipt of regular pay—a permanent salarium from our friend the Marquis.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Bush.

“Half a guinea a week,” explained Hornblower. “Ten shilling and sixpence every Saturday morning, rain or shine.”

“And what do you have to do for it?” Bush’s half pay was more than twice that sum.

“I only have to play whist,” explained Hornblower. “Only that. From twelve midday until two in the morning I’m here to play whist with any three that need a fourth.”

“I see,” said Bush.

“The Marquis in his generosity also makes me free of these rooms I have no subscription to pay. No table money. And I can keep my winnings.”

“And pay your losses?”

Hornblower shrugged.

“Naturally. But the losses do not come as often as one might think. The reason’s simple enough. The whist players who find it hard to obtain partners and who are cold-shouldered by the others, are naturally the bad players. Strangely anxious to play, even so. And when the Marquis happens to be in here and Major Jones and Admiral Smith and Mr. Robinson are seeking a fourth while everyone seems strangely preoccupied he catches my eye—the sort of reproving look a wife might throw at a husband talking too loud at a dinner party—and I rise to my feet and offer to be the fourth. It is odd they are flattered to play with Hornblower, as often it costs them money.”

“I see,” said Bush again, and he remembered Hornblower standing by the furnace in Fort Samaná organizing the firing of redhot shot at the Spanish privateers.

“The life is not entirely one of beer and skittles, naturally,” went on Hornblower; with the dam once broken he could not restrain his loquacity. “After the fourth hour or so it becomes irksome to play with bad players. When I go to Hell I don’t doubt that my punishment will be always to partner players who pay no attention to my discards. But then on the other hand I frequently play a rubber or two with the good players. There are moments when I would rather lose to a good player than win from a bad one.”

“That’s just the point,” said Bush, harking back to an old theme. “How about the losses?”

Bush’s experiences of gambling had mostly been of losses, and in this hardheaded moment he could remember the times when he had been weak.

“I can deal with them,” said Hornblower. He touched his breast pocket. “I keep ten pounds here. My corps de réserve, you understand. I can always endure a run of losses in consequence. Should that reserve be depleted, then sacrifices have to be made to build it up again.”

The sacrifices being skipped meals, thought Bush grimly. He looked so woebegone that Hornblower offered further comfort.

“But five more months,” he said, “and I’ll be on half pay again. And before that—who knows? Some captain may take me off the beach.”

“That’s true,” said Bush.

It was true insofar as the possibility existed. Sometimes ships were recommissioned. A captain might be in need of a lieutenant; a captain might invite Hornblower to fill the vacancy. But every captain was besieged by friends seeking appointments, and in any event the Admiralty was also besieged by lieutenants of great seniority—or lieutenants with powerful friends—and captains were most likely to listen to recommendations of high authority.

The door opened and a group of men came in.

“It’s high time for customers to arrive,” said Hornblower, with a grin at Bush. “Stay and meet my friends.”

The red coats of the army, the blue coats of the navy, the bottlegreen and snuffcoloured coats of civilians; Bush and Hornblower made room for them before the fire after the introductions were made, and the coattails were parted as their wearers lined up before the flames. But the exclamations about the cold, and the polite conversation, died away rapidly.

“Whist?” asked one of the newcomers tentatively.

“Not for me. Not for us,” said another, the leader of the redcoats. “The TwentyNinth Foot has other fish to fry. We’ve a permanent engagement with our friend the Marquis in the next room. Come on, Major, let’s see if we can call a main right this time.”

“Then will you make a four, Mr. Hornblower? How about your friend Mr. Bush?”

“I don’t play,” said Bush.

“With pleasure,” said Hornblower. “You will excuse me, Mr. Bush, I know. There is the new number of the Naval Chronicle on the table there. There’s a Gazette letter on the last page which might perhaps hold your interest for a while. And there is another item you might think important, too.”

Bush could guess what the letter was even before he picked the periodical up, but when he found the place there was the same feeling of pleased shock to see his name in print there as keen as the first time he saw it: ‘I have the honour to be, etc., WM. BUSH.

The Naval Chronicle in these days of peace found it hard, apparently, to obtain sufficient matter to fill its pages, and gave much space to the reprinting of these despatches. ‘Copy of a letter from ViceAdmiral Sir Richard Lambert to Evan Nepean, Esq., Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.’ That was only Lambert’s covering letter enclosing the reports. Here was the first one—it was with a strange internal sensation that he remembered helping Buckland with the writing of it, as the Renown ran westerly along the coast of Santo Domingo the day before the prisoners broke out. It was Buckland’s report on the fighting at Samaná. To Bush the most important line was ‘in the handsomest manner—under the direction of Lieutenant William Bush, the senior officer, whose report I enclose’. And here was his very own literary work, as enclosed by Buckland.

Bush relived those days of a year ago as he reread his own words: those words which he had composed with so much labour even though he had referred, during the writing of them to other reports written by other men so as to get the phrasing right.

There was Hornblower now, playing cards with a post captain and two contractors.

Bush turned back through the pages of the Naval Chronicle. Here was the Plymouth letter, a daily account of the doings in the port during the last month.

’Orders came down this day for the following ships to be paid off....’ ‘Came in from Gibraltar La Diana, 44, and the Tamar, 38, to be paid off as soon as they go up the harbour and to be laid up.’ ‘Sailed the Caesar, 80, for Portsmouth, to be paid off.’ And here was an item just as significant, or even more so: ‘Yesterday there was a large sale of serviceable stores landed from different men of war.’ The navy was growing smaller every day and with every ship that was paid off another batch of lieutenants would be looking for billets. And here was an item—‘This afternoon a fishing boat turning out of atwater jibed and overset, by which accident two industrious fishermen with large families were drowned.’ This was the Naval Chronicle, whose pages had once bulged with the news of the Nile and of Camperdown; now it told of accidents to industrious fishermen. Bush was too interested in his own concerns to feel any sympathy towards their large families.

There was another drowning as a final item; a name—a combination of names—caught Bush’s attention so that he read the paragraph with a quickened pulse.

Last night the jolly boat of His Majesty’s cutter Rapid, in the Revenue service, while returning in the fog from delivering a message on shore, was swept by the ebb tide athwart the hawse of a merchantman anchored off Fisher’s Nose, and capsized. Two seamen and Mr. Henry Wellard, Midshipman, were drowned. Mr. Wellard was a most promising young man recently appointed to the Rapid, having served as a volunteer in His Majesty’s ship Renown.

Bush read the passage and pondered over it. He thought it important to the extent that he read the remainder of the Naval Chronicle without taking in any of it; and it was with surprise that he realised he would have to leave quickly in order to catch the carrier’s waggon back to Chichester.

A good many people were coming into the Rooms now; the door was continually opening to admit them. Some of them were naval officers with whom he had a nodding acquaintance. All of them made straight for the fire for warmth before beginning to play. And Hornblower was on his feet now; apparently the rubber was finished, and Bush took the opportunity to catch his eye and give an indication that he wished to leave. Hornblower came over to him. It was with regret that they shook hands.

“When do we meet again?” asked Hornblower.

“I come in each month to draw my half pay,” said Bush. “I usually spend the night because of the carrier’s waggon. Perhaps we could dine—?”

“You can always find me here,” said Hornblower. “But—do you have a regular place to stay?”

“I stay where it’s convenient,” replied Bush.

They both of them knew that meant that he stayed where it was cheap.

“I lodge in Highbury Street. I’ll write the address down.” Hornblower turned to a desk in the corner and wrote on a sheet of paper which he handed to Bush “Would you care to share my room when next you come? My landlady is a sharp one. No doubt she will make a charge for a cot for you, but even so—”

“It’ll save money,” said Bush, putting the paper in his pocket; his grin as he spoke masked the sentiment in his next words. “And I’ll see more of you.”

“By George, yes,” said Hornblower. Words were not adequate.

Jenkins had come sidling up and was holding Bush’s greatcoat for him to put on. There was that in Jenkins’ manner which told Bush that gentlemen when helped into their coats at the Long Rooms presented Jenkins with a shilling. Bush decided at first that he would be eternally damned before he parted with a shilling, and then he changed his mind. Maybe Hornblower would give Jenkins a shilling if he did not. He felt in his pocket and handed the coin over.

“Thank you, sir,” said Jenkins.

With Jenkins out of earshot again Bush lingered, wondering how to frame his question.

“That was hard luck on young Wellard,” he said, tentatively.

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

“D’you think,” went on Bush, plunging desperately, “he had anything to do with the captain’s falling down the hatchway?”

“I couldn’t give an opinion,” answered Hornblower. “I’ didn’t know enough about it.”

“But—” began Bush, and checked himself again; he knew by the look on Hornblower’s face that it was no use asking further questions.

The Marquis had come into the room and was looking round in unobtrusive inspection. Bush saw him take note of the several men who were not playing, and of Hornblower standing in idle gossip by the door. Bush saw the meaning glance which he directed at Hornblower, and fell into sudden panic.

“Goodbye,” he said, hastily.

The black northeast wind that greeted him in the street was no more cruel than the rest of the world.