The Young Hornblower Omnibus Read online

It was when they pulled themselves together for the third baling that in the middle of his nightmare of cold and exhaustion Hornblower was conscious that the body across which his arm lay was unnaturally stiff; the man the captain had been trying to revive had died as he lay there between the captain and Hornblower. The captain dragged the body away into the sternsheets in the darkness, and the night went on, cold wind and cold spray, jerk, pitch, and roll, sit up and bale and cower down and shudder. It was hideous torment; Hornblower could not trust himself to believe his eyes when he saw the first signs that the darkness was lessening. And then the grey dawn came gradually over the grey sea, and they were free to wonder what to do next. But as the light increased the problem was solved for them, for one of the fishermen, raising himself up in the boat, gave a hoarse cry, and pointed to the northern horizon, and there, almost hull-up, was a ship, hove-to under storm canvas. The captain took one glance at her—his eyesight must have been marvellous—and identified her.

  “The English frigate,” he said.

  She must have made nearly the same amount of leeway hove-to as the boat did riding to her sea anchor.

  “Signal to her,” said Hornblower, and no one raised any objections.

  The only white object available was Hornblower’s shirt, and he took it off, shuddering in the cold, and they tied it to an oar and raised the oar in the maststep. The captain saw Hornblower putting on his dripping coat over his bare ribs and in a single movement peeled off his thick blue jersey and offered it to him.

  “Thank you, no,” protested Hornblower, but the captain insisted; with a wide grin he pointed to the stiffened corpse lying in the sternsheets and announced he would replace the jersey with the dead man’s clothing.

  The argument was interrupted by a further cry from one of the fishermen. The frigate was coming to the wind; with treble-reefed fore and maintopsails she was heading for them under the impulse of the lessening gale. Hornblower saw her running down on them; a glance in the other direction showed him the Galician mountains, faint on the southern horizon—warmth, freedom and friendship on the one hand; solitude and captivity on the other. Under the lee of the frigate the boat bobbed and heaved fantastically; many inquisitive faces looked down on them. They were cold and cramped; the frigate dropped a boat and a couple of nimble seamen scrambled on board. A line was flung from the frigate, a whip lowered a breeches ring into the boat, and the English seamen helped the Spaniards one by one into the breeches and held them steady as they were swung up to the frigate’s deck.

  “I go last,” said Hornblower when they turned to him. “I am a King’s officer.”

  “Good Lor’ lumme,” said the seamen.

  “Send the body up, too,” said Hornblower. “It can be given decent burial.”

  The stiff corpse was grotesque as it swayed through the air. The Galician captain tried to dispute with Hornblower the honour of going last, but Hornblower would not be argued with. Then finally the seamen helped him put his legs into the breeches, and secured him with a line round his waist. Up he soared, swaying dizzily with the roll of the ship; then they drew him in to the deck, lowering and shortening, until half a dozen strong arms took his weight and laid him gently on the deck.

  “There you are, my hearty, safe and sound,” said a bearded seaman.

  “I am a King’s officer,” said Hornblower. “Where’s the officer of the watch?”

  Wearing marvellous dry clothing, Hornblower found himself soon drinking hot rum-and-water in the cabin of Captain George Crome, of His Majesty’s frigate Syrtis. Crome was a thin pale man with a depressed expression, but Hornblower knew of him as a first-rate officer.

  “These Galicians make good seamen,” said Crome. “I can’t press them. But perhaps a few will volunteer sooner than go to a prison hulk.”

  “Sir,” said Hornblower, and hesitated. It is ill for a junior lieutenant to argue with a post captain.

  “Well?”

  “Those men came to sea to save life. They are not liable to capture.”

  Crome’s cold grey eyes became actively frosty—Hornblower was right about it being ill for a junior lieutenant to argue with a post captain.

  “Are you telling me my duty, sir?” he asked.

  “Good heavens no, sir,” said Hornblower hastily. “It’s a long time since I read the Admiralty Instructions and I expect my memory’s at fault.”

  “Admiralty Instructions, eh?” said Crome, in a slightly different tone of voice.

  “I expect I’m wrong, sir,” said Hornblower, “but I seem to remember the same instruction applied to the other two—the survivors.”

  Even a post captain could only contravene Admiralty Instructions at his peril.

  “I’ll consider it,” said Crome.

  “I had the dead man sent on board, sir,” went on Hornblower, “in the hope that perhaps you might give him proper burial. Those Galicians risked their lives to save him, sir, and I expect they’d be gratified.”

  “A Popish burial? I’ll give orders to give ’em a free hand.”

  “Thank you sir” said Hornblower.

  “And now as regards yourself. You say you hold a commission as lieutenant. You can do duty in this ship until we meet the admiral again. Then he can decide. I haven’t heard of the Indefatigable paying off, and legally you may still be borne on her books.”

  And that was when the devil came to tempt Hornblower, as he took another sip of hot rum-and-water. The joy of being in a King’s ship again was so keen as to be almost painful. To taste salt beef and biscuit again, and never again to taste beans and garbanzos. To have a ship’s deck under his feet, to talk English. To be free—to be free! There was precious little chance of ever falling again into Spanish hands. Hornblower remembered with agonising clarity the flat depression of captivity. All he had to do was not to say a word. He had only to keep silence for a day or two. But the devil did not tempt him long, only until he had taken his next sip of rum-and-water. Then he thrust the devil behind him and met Crome’s eyes again.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “I am here on parole. I gave my word before I left the beach.”

  “You did? That alters the case. You were within your rights, of course.”

  The giving of parole by captive British officers was so usual as to excite no comment.

  “It was in the usual form, I suppose?” went on Crome. “That you would make no attempt to escape?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then what do you decide as a result?”

  Of course Crome could not attempt to influence a gentleman’s decision on a matter as personal as a parole.

  “I must go back, sir,” said Hornblower, “at the first opportunity.”

  He felt the sway of the ship, he looked round the homely cabin, and his heart was breaking.

  “You can at least dine and sleep on board tonight,” said Crome. “I’ll not venture inshore again until the wind moderates. I’ll send you to Corunna under a flag of truce when I can. And I’ll see what the Instructions say about those prisoners.”

  It was a sunny morning when the sentry at Fort San Anton, in the harbour of Corunna, called his officer’s attention to the fact that the British cruiser off the headland had hove-to out of gunshot and was lowering a boat. The sentry’s responsibility ended there, and he could watch idly as his officer observed that the cutter, running smartly in under sail, was flying a white flag. She hove-to within musket shot, and it was a mild surprise to the sentry when in reply to the officer’s hail someone rose up in the boat and replied in unmistakable Gallego dialect. Summoned alongside the landing slip, the cutter put ashore ten men and then headed out again to the frigate. Nine men were laughing and shouting; the tenth, the youngest, walked with a fixed expression on his face with never a sign of emotion—his expression did not change even when the others, with obvious affection, put their arms round his shoulders. No one ever troubled to explain to the sentry who the imperturbable young
man was, and he was not very interested. After he had seen the group shipped off across Corunna Bay towards Ferrol he quite forgot the incident.

  It was almost spring when a Spanish militia officer came into the barracks which served as a prison for officers in Ferrol.

  “Señor Hornblower?” he asked—at least Hornblower, in the corner, knew that was what he was trying to say. He was used to the way Spaniards mutilated his name.

  “Yes?” he said, rising.

  “Would you please come with me? The commandant has sent me for you, sir.”

  The commandant was all smiles. He held a despatch in his hands.

  “This, sir,” he said, waving it at Hornblower, “is a personal order. It is countersigned by the Duke of Fuentesauco, Minister of Marine, but it is signed by the First Minister, Prince of the Peace and Duke of Alcudia.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hornblower.

  He should have begun to hope at that moment, but there comes a time in a prisoner’s life when he ceases to hope. He was more interested, even, in that strange title of Prince of the Peace which was now beginning to be heard in Spain.

  “It says: ‘We, Carlos Leonardo Luis Manuel de Godoy y Boegas, First Minister of His Most Catholic Majesty, Prince of the Peace, Duke of Alcudia and Grandee of the First Class, Count of Alcudia, Knight of the Most Sacred Order of the Golden Fleece, Knight of the Holy Order of Santiago, Knight of the Most Distinguished Order of Calatrava, Captain General of His Most Catholic Majesty’s forces by Land and Sea, Colonel General of the Guardia de Corps, Admiral of the Two Oceans, General of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the artillery”—in any event, sir, it is an order to me to take immediate steps to set you at liberty. I am to restore you under flag of truce to your fellow countrymen, in recognition of ‘your courage and self-sacrifice in saving life at the peril of your own’.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower.

  Lieutenant Hornblower

  I

  Lieutenant William Bush came on board H.M.S. Renown as she lay at anchor in the Hamoaze and reported himself to the officer of the watch, who was a tall and rather gangling individual with hollow cheeks and a melancholy cast of countenance, whose uniform looked as if it had been put on in the dark and not readjusted since.

  “Glad to have you aboard, sir,” said the officer of the watch. “My name’s Hornblower. The captain’s ashore. First lieutenant went for’ard with the bosun ten minutes ago.”

  “Thank you,” said Bush.

  He looked keenly round him at the infinity of activities which were making the ship ready for a long period of service in distant waters.

  “Hey there! You at the stay tackles! Handsomely! Handsomely! Belay!” Hornblower was bellowing this over Bush’s shoulder. “Mr. Hobbs! Keep an eye on what your men are doing there!”

  “Aye aye, sir,” came a sulky reply.

  “Mr. Hobbs! Lay aft here!”

  A paunchy individual with a thick grey pigtail came rolling aft to where Hornblower stood with Bush at the gangway. He blinked up at Hornblower with the sun in his eyes; the sunlight lit up the sprouting grey beard on his tiers of chins.

  “Mr. Hobbs!” said Hornblower. He spoke quietly, but there was an intensity of spirit underlying his words that surprised Bush. “That powder’s got to come aboard before nightfall and you know it. So don’t use that tone of voice when replying to an order. Answer cheerfully another time. How are you going to get the men to work if you sulk? Get for’ard and see to it.”

  Hornblower was leaning a little forward as he spoke; the hands which he clasped behind him served apparently to balance the jutting chin, but his attitude was negligent compared with the fierce intensity with which he spoke, even though he was speaking in an undertone inaudible to all except the three of them.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Hobbs, turning to go forward again.

  Bush was making a mental note that this Hornblower was a firebrand when he met his glance and saw to his surprise a ghost of a twinkle in its melancholy depths. In a flash of insight he realized that this fierce young lieutenant was not fierce at all, and that the intensity with which he spoke was entirely assumed—it was almost as if Hornblower had been exercising himself in a foreign language.

  “If they once start sulking you can’t do anything with ’em,” explained Hornblower, “and Hobbs is the worst of ’em—acting-gunner, and no good. Lazy as they make ’em.”

  “I see,” said Bush.

  The duplicity—play acting—of the young lieutenant aroused a momentary suspicion in Bush’s mind. A man who could assume an appearance of wrath and abandon it again with so much facility was not to be trusted. Then, with an inevitable reaction, the twinkle in the brown eyes called up a responsive twinkle in Bush’s frank blue eyes, and he felt a friendly impulse towards Hornblower, but Bush was innately cautious and checked the impulse at once, for there was a long voyage ahead of them and plenty of time for a more considered judgment. Meanwhile he was conscious of a keen scrutiny, and he could see that a question was imminent—and even Bush could guess what it would be. The next moment proved him right.

  “What’s the date of your commission?” asked Hornblower.

  “July ’96,” said Bush.

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower in a flat tone that conveyed so little information that Bush had to ask the question in his turn.

  “What’s the date of yours?”

  “August ’97,” said Hornblower. “You’re senior to me. You’re senior to Smith, too—January ’97.”

  “Are you the junior lieutenant, then?”

  “Yes,” said Hornblower.

  His tone did not reveal any disappointment that the newcomer had proved to be senior to him, but Bush could guess at it. Bush knew by very recent experience what it was to be the junior lieutenant in a ship of the line.

  “You’ll be third,” went on Hornblower. “Smith fourth, and I’m fifth.”

  “I’ll be third?” mused Bush, more to himself than to anyone else.

  Every lieutenant could at least dream, even lieutenants like Bush with no imagination at all. Promotion was at least theoretically possible; from the caterpillar stage of lieutenant one might progress to the butterfly stage of captain, sometimes even without a chrysalis period as commander. Lieutenants undoubtedly were promoted on occasions; most of them, as was to be expected, being men who had friends at Court, or in Parliament, or who had been fortunate enough to attract the attention of an admiral and then lucky enough to be under that admiral’s command at the moment when a vacancy occurred. Most of the captains on the list owed their promotion to one or other of such causes. But sometimes a lieutenant won his promotion through merit—through a combination of merit and good fortune, at least—and sometimes sheer blind chance brought it about. If a ship distinguished herself superlatively in some historic action the first lieutenant might be promoted (oddly enough, that promotion was considered a compliment to her captain) or if the captain should be killed in the action even a moderate success might result in a step for the senior surviving lieutenant who took his place. On the other hand some brilliant boat-action, some dashing exploit on shore, might win promotion for the lieutenant in command—the senior, of course. The chances were few enough in all conscience, but there were at least chances.

  But of those few chances the great majority went to the senior lieutenant, to the first lieutenant; the chances of the junior lieutenant were doubly few. So that whenever a lieutenant dreamed of attaining the rank of captain, with its dignity and security and prize money, he soon found himself harking back to the consideration of his seniority as lieutenant. If this next commission of the Renown’s took her away to some place where other lieutenants could not be sent on board by an admiral with favourites, there were only two lives between Bush and the position of first lieutenant with all its added chances of promotion. Naturally he thought about that; equally naturally he did not spare a thought for the fact that the man with whom he was conversing was divided by four lives
from that same position.

  “But still, it’s the West Indies for us, anyway,” said Hornblower philosophically. “Yellow fever. Ague. Hurricanes. Poisonous serpents. Bad water. Tropical heat. Putrid fever. And ten times more chances of action than with the Channel fleet.”

  “That’s so,” agreed Bush, appreciatively.

  With only three and four years’ seniority as lieutenants, respectively, the two young men (and with young men’s confidence in their own immortality) could face the dangers of West Indian service with some complacence.

  “Captain’s coming off, sir,” reported the midshipman of the watch hurriedly.

  Hornblower whipped his telescope to eye and trained it on the approaching shore boat.

  “Quite right,” he said. “Run for’ard and tell Mr. Buckland. Bosun’s mates! Sideboys! Lively, now!”

  Captain Sawyer came up through the entry port, touched his hat to the quarterdeck, and looked suspiciously around him. The ship was in the condition of confusion to be expected when she was completing for foreign service, but that hardly justified the sidelong, shifty glances which Sawyer darted about him. He had a big face and a prominent hawk nose which he turned this way and that as he stood on the quarterdeck. He caught sight of Bush, who came forward and reported himself.

  “You came aboard in my absence, did you?” asked Sawyer.

  “Yes, sir,” said Bush, a little surprised.

  “Who told you I was on shore?”

  “No one, sir.”

  “How did you guess it, then?”

  “I didn’t guess it, sir. I didn’t know you were on shore until Mr. Hornblower told me.”

  “Mr. Hornblower? So you know each other already?”

  “No, sir. I reported to him when I came on board.”

  “So that you could have a few private words without my knowledge?”

  “No, sir.”

  Bush bit off the “of course not” which he was about to add. Brought up in a hard school, Bush had learned to utter no unnecessary words when dealing with a superior officer indulging in the touchiness superior officers might be expected to indulge in. Yet this particular touchiness seemed more unwarranted even than usual.