The Commodore

Chapter Seven

His Britannic Majesty’s seventy-four-gun ship Nonsuch was out of sight of land in the Baltic. She was under easy sail, running before that persistent westerly wind, and astern of her, like a couple of ugly ducklings following their portly mother, came the two bomb-ketches. Far out to starboard, only just in sight, was the Lotus, and far out to port was the Raven. Beyond the Raven, unseen from the Nonsuch, was the Clam; the four ships made a visual chain which could sweep the narrow neck of the Baltic, from Sweden to Rügen, from side to side. There was still no news; in spring, with the melting of the ice, the whole traffic of the Baltic was outwards, towards England and Europe, and with this westerly wind so long prevailing little was astir. The air was fresh and keen, despite the sunshine, and the sea was silver-grey under the dappled sky.

Hornblower gasped and shuddered as he took his bath under the wash-deck pump. For fifteen years he had served in tropical and Mediterranean waters; he had had lukewarm sea-water pumped over him far more often than he could remember, and this Baltic water, chilled by the melting ice in the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and the snow-water of the Vistula and the Oder, was still a shock to him. There was something stimulating about it, all the same, and he pranced grotesquely under the heavy jet, forgetful—as he always was while having his bath—of the proper dignity of a Commodore. Half a dozen seamen, working in leisurely fashion under the direction of the ship’s carpenter at replacing a shattered gun-port, stole wondering glances at him. The two seamen at the pump, and Brown standing by with towel and dressing-gown, preserved a proper solemnity of aspect, close under his eye as they were.

Suddenly the jet ceased; a skinny little midshipman was standing saluting his naked Commodore. Despite the gravity of addressing so great a man the child was round-eyed with wonder at this fantastic behaviour on the part of an officer whose doings were a household word.

“What is it?” said Hornblower, water streaming off him. He could not return the salute.

“Mr. Montgomery sent me, sir. Lotus signals ‘Sail to leeward’, sir.”

“Very good.”

Hornblower snatched the towel from Brown, but the message was too important for time to be wasted drying himself, and he ran up the companion still wet and naked, with Brown following with his dressing-gown. The officer of the watch touched his hat as Hornblower appeared on the quarter-deck—it was like some old fairy story, the way everybody rigidly ignored the Commodore’s lack of clothes.

“New signal from Lotus, sir. ‘Chase has tacked. Chase is on the port tack, bearing east-by-north, half east’.”

Hornblower leaped to the compass; only the topsails of the Lotus were in sight from the deck as he took the bearing by eye. Whatever that sail was, he must intercept it and gather news. He looked up to see Bush hastening on deck, buttoning his coat.

“Captain Bush, I’ll trouble you to alter course two points to starboard.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Lotus signalling again, sir. ‘Chase is a ship. Probably British merchantman’.”

“Very good. Set all sail, Captain Bush, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The pipes shrilled through the ship, and 400 men went pouring up the ratlines to loose the royals and set studding-sails. Hornblower raised a professional eye to watch the operation, carried out under a storm of objurgation from the officer of the watch. The still clumsy crew was driven at top speed by the warrant officers through the evolution, and it was hardly completed before there was a yell from the mast-head.

“Sail on the starboard bow!”

“Must be the ship Lotus can see, sir,” said Bush. “Mast-head there! What can you see of the sail?”

“She’s a ship, sir, close-hauled an’ coming up fast. We’re headin’ to meet her.”

“Hoist the colours, Mr. Hurst. If she was beating up for the Sound, sir, she would have tacked whether she saw Lotus or not.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

A shriek came from the mast-head, where one of the midshipmen of the watch, an urchin who had not yet mastered his changing voice, had run up with a glass.

“British colours, sir!”

Hornblower remembered he was still wet and naked; at least, he was still wet in those parts of him which did not offer free play for the wind to dry him. He began to dab at these inner corners with the towel he still held, only to be interrupted again.

“There she is!” said Bush; the ship’s upper sails were over the horizon, in view from the deck.

“Lay a course to pass her within hail, if you please,” said Hornblower.

“Aye aye, sir. Starboard a point, Quartermaster. Get those stuns’ls in again, Mr. Hurst.”

The ship they were approaching held her course steadily; there was nothing suspicious about her, not even the fact that she had gone about immediately on sighting Lotus.

“Timber from the South Baltic, I expect, sir,” said Bush, training his glass. “You can see the deck cargo now.”

Like most ships bound out of the Baltic her decks were piled high with timber, like barricades along the bulwarks.

“Make the merchant ships’ private signal if you please, Captain,” said Hornblower.

He watched the reply run up the ship’s halliards.

“A—T—numeral—five—seven, sir,” read Hurst through his glass. “That’s the correct reply for last winter, and she won’t have received the new code yet.”

“Signal her to heave to,” said Hornblower.

With no more delay than was to be expected of a merchant ship, inept at reading signals, and with a small crew, the ship backed her main-topsail and lay-to. The Nonsuch came hurtling down upon her.

“That’s the yellow Q she’s hoisting now, sir,” said Hurst, suddenly. “The fever flag.”

“Very good. Heave to, Captain Bush, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir. I’ll keep to wind’ard of her, too, if you’ve no objection, sir.”

The Nonsuch laid her topsails to the mast and rounded-to, rocking in the gentle trough of the waves a pistol-shot to windward. Hornblower took his speaking-trumpet.

“What ship’s that?”

“Maggie Jones of London. Eleven days out from Memel!”

In addition to the man at the wheel there were only two figures visible on the poop-deck of the Maggie Jones; one of them, wearing white duck trousers and a blue coat, was obviously the captain. It was he who was answering by speaking-trumpet.

“What’s that yellow flag for?”

“Smallpox. Seven cases on board, and two dead. First case a week ago.”

“Smallpox, by God!” muttered Bush. A frightful mental picture came up before his mind’s eye, of what smallpox would do, let loose in his precious Nonsuch, with 900 men crammed into her restricted space.

“Why are you sailing without convoy?”

“None available at Memel. The rendezvous for the trade’s off Langeland on the twenty-fourth. We’re beating up for the Belt now.”

“What’s the news?” Hornblower had waited patiently during all these interminable sentences before asking that question.

“The Russian embargo still holds, but we’re sailing under licence.”

“Sweden?”

“God knows, sir. Some say they’ve tightened up their embargo there.”

A curious muffled howl came from below decks in the Maggie Jones at that moment, just audible in the Nonsuch.

“What’s that noise?” asked Hornblower.

“One of the smallpox cases, sir. Delirious. They say the Tsar’s meeting Bernadotte next week fur a conference somewhere in Finland.”

“Any sign of war between France and Russia?”

“None that I could see in Memel.”

That delirious patient must be very violent for his shrieks to reach Hornblower’s ears at this distance against the wind. Hornblower heard them again. Was it possible for one man to make all that noise? It sounded more like a muffled chorus to Hornblower. Hornblower felt a sudden wave of suspicion surging up within him. The white-trousered figure on the Maggie Jones’s poop was altogether too glib, too professional in his talk. A naval officer might possibly discuss the chances of war in the Baltic as coldly as this man was doing, but a merchant captain would put more feeling in his words. And more than one man was making that noise in her forecastle. The captain could easily have offered his information about the Tsar’s meeting with Bernadotte as a red herring to distract Hornblower’s attention from the cries below deck. Something was wrong.

“Captain Bush,” said Hornblower, “send a boat with a boarding-party over to that ship.”

“Sir!” protested Bush, wildly. “Sir—she has smallpox on board—sir! Aye aye, sir.”

Bush’s protests died an uneasy death at the look on Hornblower’s face. Bush told himself that Hornblower knew as well as he did the frightful possibilities of the introduction of smallpox into Nonsuch, Hornblower knew the chances he was taking. And one more look at Hornblower’s face told Bush that the decision had not been an easy one.

Hornblower put the trumpet to his lips again.

“I’m sending a boat to you,” he shouted. It was hard at twenty yards’ distance to detect any change in the manner of the man he was addressing, especially when hampered with a speaking-trumpet, but Hornblower thought he could see the captain start a little. Certainly there was a decided pause before he answered.

“As you wish, sir. I have warned you of smallpox. Could you send a surgeon and medicines?”

That was exactly what he should have said. But all the same, there was that suspicious pause before answering, as if the man had been taken by surprise and had searched round in his mind for the best reply to make. Bush was standing by, with misery in his face, hoping that Hornblower would countermand his order, but Hornblower made no sign. Under the orders of the boatswain the whaler rose to the pull of the tackles, was swayed outboard, and dropped into the sea. A midshipman and a boat’s crew dropped down into her, sulkily. They would have gone cheerfully to board an armed enemy, but the thought of a loathsome disease unmanned them.

“Push off,” ordered the officer of the watch, after a last glance at Hornblower. The whaler danced over the waves towards the Maggie Jones, and then Hornblower saw the captain dash his speaking-trumpet to the deck and look round wildly as though for some means of escape.

“Stay hove-to, or I’ll sink you,” roared Hornblower, and with a gesture of despair the captain stood still, drooping in defeat.

The whaler hooked on to the Maggie Jones’s main-chains and the midshipman led his party on to the decks with a rush. There was no sign of any opposition offered, but as the seamen ran aft there was the sudden pop of a pistol, and Hornblower saw the midshipman bending over the writhing, white-trousered body of the captain. He found himself taking an oath that he would break that midshipman, court martial him, ruin him, and have him begging his bread in the gutter if he had wantonly killed the captain. Hornblower’s hunger and thirst for news for facts, for information, was so intense that the thought of the captain escaping him by death roused him to ferocious bitterness.

“Why the devil didn’t I go myself?” he demanded of no one in particular. “Captain Bush, I’ll be obliged if you’ll have my barge called away.”

“But the smallpox, sir—”

“Smallpox be damned. And there’s none on board that ship.”

The midshipman’s voice came across the water to them.

“Nonsuch ahoy! She’s a prize. Taken yesterday by a French privateer.”

“Who’s that captain I was speaking to?” demanded Hornblower.

“A renegade Englishman, sir. He shot himself as we came on board.”

“Is he dead?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Mr. Hurst,” said Bush, “send the surgeon over. I’ll give him one minute to get his gear together. I want that renegade’s life saved so that we can see how he looks at a yard-arm.”

“Send him in my barge,” said Hornblower, and then, through the speaking-trumpet. “Send the prisoners and the ship’s officers over to me.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“And now I’ll get some clothes on, by God,” said Hornblower; he had only just realized that he had been standing naked on the quarter-deck for an hour or more—if he had obeyed his first impulse and gone over in his barge he would have boarded the Maggie Jones without a stitch on.

The captain and the two mates were ushered down into Hornblower’s cabin, where he and Bush questioned them eagerly, the chart of the Baltic spread out before him.

“We heard that renegade tell you the truth, sir,” said the captain. “We were ten days out from Memel, bound for the Belt, when he pounced on us yesterday—big ship-rigged privateer, ten guns a side, flush-decked. Name Blanchefleur, whatever way you say it. What the Frogs call a corvette. French colours. They put a prize crew on board under that renegade—Clarke’s his name, sir—an’ I think we were headed for Kiel when you caught us. They shut us up in the lazarette. God, how we yelled, hoping you’d hear us.”

“We heard you,” said Bush.

“How were things at Memel when you left?” demanded Hornblower.

The captain’s face wrinkled; if he had been French he would have shrugged his shoulders.

“The same as ever. Russian ports are still closed to us, but they’ll give anyone a licence to trade who asks for it. It’s the same with the Swedes on the other side.”

“What about war between Bonaparte and Russia?”

This time the tangle of doubt really made the captain shrug.

“Everyone’s talking about it, but nothing definite yet. Soldiers everywhere. If Boney really fights ‘em he’ll find ‘em as ready as Russians ever are.”

“Do you think he will?”

“I wish you’d tell me, sir. I don’t know. But it was true what Clarke told you, sir. The Tsar and Bernadotte are meeting soon. Perhaps you can guess what that means. It means nothing to a plain man like me, sir. There have been so many of these meetings and conferences and congresses.”

So there it was; Sweden and Russia were still in the equivocal position of being nominal enemies of England and nominal allies of Bonaparte, pretending to make war, pretending to be at peace, half belligerent, half neutral, in the strange manner which seemed to have become fashionable nowadays. It was still doubtful whether Bonaparte would take the tremendous step of waging war on Russia. No one could analyse Bonaparte’s motives. One might think that he would do better for himself by turning all his vast resources towards finishing off the war in Spain and endeavouring to strike down England before attempting the conquest of the East; but on the other hand a swift decisive blow at Russia might free him from the menace of a powerful and doubtfully friendly nation at his back. Bonaparte had conquered so often; he had struck down every nation in Europe—except England—and it hardly seemed likely that Russia could withstand the impact of his massed forces. With Russia beaten he would have no enemies left on the mainland at all. There would only be England left to oppose him, single-handed. It was comforting that England had not taken active measures in support of Finland when Russia attacked her, all the same. That made a working alliance with Russia far more practicable now.

“Now tell me more about this Blanchefleur,” said Hornblower bending over the chart.

“She nabbed us off Rügen, sir. Sassnitz bore so’west, eight miles. You see, sir—”

Hornblower listened to the explanations with attention. A twenty-gun corvette under a good French captain was a serious menace loose in the Baltic With the trade beginning to move on the melting of the ice it would be his first duty to capture her or drive her into port and blockade her. A ship of that force would be able to put up a good fight even against one of his sloops. He hoped he could entrap her, for she would be far too fast for Nonsuch to overhaul her in a stern chase. She was sending her prizes into Kiel, for there they could dispose of the prisoners, pick up a French crew, and start the hazardous voyage round Denmark to the west—Bonaparte needed naval stores, with ships of war building in every port from Hamburg to Trieste.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “I’ll not detain you longer. Captain Bush, we’ll talk to the prisoners next.”

But there was little to learn from the seamen of the captured prize crew, even though they were brought in separately for questioning. Four of them were Frenchmen; Hornblower conducted his own examination of them, with Bush looking on admiringly. Bush had already succeeded in forgetting all the little French he had so painfully learned during his enforced sojourn in France. Two were Danes, and two were Germans; Mr. Braun was called in to interpret while they were questioned. They were all experienced seamen, and as far as Hornblower could gather they had all been driven to take service in the Blanchefleur sooner than be conscripted into Bonaparte’s navy or army. Even though they were faced with what might well be a lifetime in an English prison the Frenchmen refused any offer to serve in the British Navy, but the others accepted immediately Braun put the suggestion to them. Bush rubbed his hands at acquiring four prime seamen in this fashion to help fill his chronically undermanned ships. They had picked up a little French in the Blanchefleur, and they would soon pick up enough English in the Nonsuch or the Lotus; certainly they would under the stimulus of a rope’s end handled by an experienced petty officer.

“Take ‘em away and read ‘em in, Mr. Hurst,” said Bush, rubbing his hands again. “Now, sir, shall we take a look at that damned renegade Englishman?”

Clarke was lying on the main-deck of the Nonsuch, to which he had been hoisted from the boat by a tackle at the yardarm, and the surgeon was still bending over him. He had tried to blow out his brains, but he had only succeeded in shattering his lower jaw. There was blood on his blue coat and on his white trousers, and his whole head was swathed in bandages, and he lay tossing in agony on the canvas sheet in which he had been hoisted. Hornblower peered down at him. The features he could see, chalk white so that the tan looked like a coat of dirt, were pinched and refined and weak, a thin nose and hollow cheeks, brown eyes like a woman’s, with scant sandy eyebrows above them. What little hair Hornblower could see was scanty and sandy too. Hornblower wondered what combination of circumstances could have led him into betraying his country and taking service with Bonaparte. Hatred of imprisonment, perhaps—Hornblower had known what it was to be a prisoner, in Ferrol and Rosas and in France. Yet that over-refined face did not seem to indicate the sort of personality that would fret itself to pieces in confinement. It might have been a woman, perhaps, who had driven him or led him to this, or he might be a deserter from the Navy who had fled to escape punishment—it would be interesting to see if his back was scarred with the cat-o’-nine-tails. He might perhaps be an Irishman, one of those fanatic who in their desire to hurt England refused to see that the worst England had ever done to Ireland would be nothing compared with what Bonaparte would do to her if she were once in his power.

Whatever might be the case, he was a man of ability and quick wit. As soon as he had seen that Lotus had cut him of from escape to the mainland he had resolutely taken the only course that gave him any chance of safety. He had steered the Maggie Jones as innocently as kiss-your-hand up to Nonsuch; that suggestion of smallpox had been an ingenious one, an his conversation by speaking-trumpet had been very nearly natural.

“Is he going to live?” asked Bush of the surgeon.

“No, sir. The mandible is extensively comminuted on both sides—I mean his jaw is shattered, sir. There is some splintering of the maxilla as well, and his tongue—the whole glosso-pharyngeal region, in fact—is in rags. The haemorrhage may prove fatal—in other words the man may bleed to death, although I do not think he will, now. But I do not think anything on earth can stop mortification—gangrene, in other words, sir—which in this area will prove immediately fatal. In any event the man will die of inanition, of hunger and thirst that is to say, even if we could keep him alive for a while by injections per rectum.”

It was ghoulish to smile at the surgeon’s pomposity, to make the inevitable light speech.

“It sounds as if nothing could save him, then.”

It was a human life they were discussing.

“We must hang him, sir, before he dies,” said Bush, turning to Hornblower. “We can convene a court martial—”

“He cannot defend himself,” replied Hornblower.

Bush spread his hands in a gesticulation which for him was vastly eloquent.

“What defence has he to offer, sir? We have all the evidence we need. The prisoners have supplied it apart from the obvious facts.”

“He might be able to rebut the evidence if he could speak,” said Hornblower. It was an absurd thing to say. There could be no possible doubt of Clarke’s guilt—his attempt at suicide proved it even if nothing else did; but Hornblower knew perfectly well that he was quite incapable of hanging a man who was physically unable to make any defence.

“He’ll slip through our fingers if we wait, sir.”

“Then let him.”

“But the example to the men, sir—”

“No, no, no,” flared Hornblower. “What sort of example would it be to the men to hang a dying man—a man who would not know what was being done to him, for that matter?”

It was horrible to see the faint play of expression in Bush’s face. Bush was a kindly man, a good brother to his sisters and a good son to his mother, and yet there was that hint of the lust of cruelty, the desire for a hanging. No, that was not quite fair. What Bush lusted for was revenge—revenge on a traitor who had borne arms against their common country.

“It would teach the men not to desert, sir,” said Bush, still feebly raising arguments. Hornblower knew—he had twenty years of experience—how every British captain was plagued by desertion, and spent half his waking hours wondering first how to find men and second how to retain them.

“It might,” said Hornblower, “but I doubt it very much.”

He could not imagine any good being done, and he certainly could picture the harm, if the men were forced to witness a helpless man, one who could not even stand on his feet, being noosed about the neck and swung up to the yard-arm.

Bush still hankered for blood. Even though he had no more to say, there was still a look in his face, there were still protests trembling on his lips.

“Thank you, Captain Bush,” said Hornblower. “My mind is made up.”

Bush did not know, and might never learn, that mere revenge, objectless, retaliatory, was always stale and unprofitable.