Hornblower and the Atropos h-6 Read online

  “Horatio, you must come and have your dinner,” said Maria. “And you have left me alone all day.”

  “Not long before we reach Oxford now, dear,” said Hornblower—he was just able to conceal the fact that he had temporarily, until then, forgotten the existence of his wife and child.

  “Horatio—”

  “In a little while, dear,” said Hornblower.

  The winter evening was closing round them, the light mellowing while it faded over ploughland and meadow, over the Pollard willows knee-deep in the stream, over the farmhouses and cottages. It was all very lovely; Hornblower had the feeling that he did not want this moment ever to end. This was happiness, as his earlier feelings of wellbeing changed to something more peaceful, just as the surface of the river had changed below the eddy. Soon he would be back in another life again, plunged once more into a world of cruelty and war—the world he had left behind in the tidewater of the Severn and would meet again in the tidewater of the Thames. It was symbolic that it should be here in the centre of England, at the midpoint of his journey, that he should reach this momentary summit of happiness. The cattle in the fields, the rooks in the trees—were they part of this happiness? Possibly, but not certainly. The happiness came from within him, and depended on even more transitory factors than those. Hornblower breathed the evening air as though it were divine poetry, and then he noticed Jenkins waving to him from his saddle and pointing with his whip, and the moment was over, lost for ever.

  That was the next staunch at which Jenkins was pointing. Hornblower steered boldly for it, without a moment of nervousness; he steadied the boat on her course above it, felt the heave and sudden acceleration as she topped the slope, and grinned with delight as she shot down it, hit the eddy below, and emerged as before after a brief period of indecision. Onward, down the river, through the gathering night. Bridges; another staunch—Hornblower was glad it was the last; there had been much point to what Jenkins had said about needing daylight in which to run them—villages, churches. Now it was quite dark, and he was cold and weary. The next time Maria came aft to him he could address her sympathetically, and even share her indignation that Oxford was so far away. Jenkins had lighted candlelanterns; one hung on the collar of the lead horse and the other from the cantle of the saddle of the horse he rode. Hornblower, in the stern sheets of the Queen Charlotte, saw the specks of light dancing on the towpath—they gave him an indication of the turns the river was making, and just enabled him to steer a safe course, although twice his heart was in his mouth as the side of the boat brushed against the reeds at the river bank. It was quite dark when Hornblower felt the boat slow up suddenly with the easing of the towlines, and in response to Jenkins’ quiet hail he steered the boat towards a lanternlit landingstage; ready hands took the lines and moored the boat, and the passengers began to swarm out.

  “Captain—sir?” said Jenkins.

  That was not the way he had used the word “captain” at their first acquaintance. Then it had been with an equalitarian gibe; now he was using the formula and the intonation that would be used by any member of a ship’s company addressing his captain.

  “Yes?” said Hornblower.

  “This is Oxford, sir, and the relief is here.”

  In the wavering lantern light Hornblower could see the two men indicated.

  “So now I can have my dinner?” he asked, with gentle irony.

  “That you can, sir, an’ it’s sorry I am that you have had to wait for it. Sir, I’m your debtor. Sir—”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Jenkins,” said Hornblower testily. “I had my own reasons for wishing to get to London.”

  “Thank’ee sir, and—”

  “How far to London now?”

  “A hundred miles to Brentford, sir, by the river. You’ll be there at the first light. How’ll the tide be then, Jem?”

  “Just at the flood,” said the member of the relief crew holding the whip. “You can take water there, sir, an’ be at Whitehall Steps in an hour.”

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower. “I’ll say goodbye to you, then, Jenkins.”

  “Goodbye, sir and thank’ee agen for a true gennelman.”

  Maria was standing by the bows of the boat, and even in the dim light Hornblower thought he could detect reproach in her attitude. But it was not immediately apparent in her words.

  “I’ve found you a hot supper, Horatio,” was what she said.

  “By Jingo!” said Hornblower.

  Standing on the quay were a few boys and young women come to sell food to the river travellers. The one who caught Hornblower’s eye was a sturdy lad with a keg, clearly containing beer, on a barrow, and Hornblower realized that he was consumed with thirst even more acutely than with hunger.

  “That’s what I want,” he said. “Give me a quart.”

  “On’y pints, sir,” said the boy.

  “Two pints then, you lubber.”

  He emptied the first wooden piggin without an effort without even taking breath, and started on the second, before he remembered his manners. He had honestly been so consumed with thirst that he had forgotten them completely.

  “How about you, dear?” he asked Maria.

  “I think I’d like half a pint,” said Maria—Hornblower could have guessed at her reply beforehand; Maria would think it was a sign of a lady to drink beer only by the half pint.

  “Only pints, sir,” said the boy again.

  “Well, give the lady a pint and I’ll finish it,” said Hornblower, his second piggin twothirds empty.

  “All aboard!” called the new steersman. “All aboard!”

  “That’ll be a shilling, sir,” said the boy.

  “Fourpence a pint for this beer!” marvelled Maria.

  “Cheap at the price,” said Hornblower. “Here, boy.”

  Out of sheer lightness of heart he gave the boy a florin, and the boy spun it in the air delightedly before putting it in his pocket. Hornblower took the piggin from Maria’s hand and drained it and tossed it to the boy.

  “All aboard!”

  Hornblower stepped down into the boat and elaborately handed Maria down too. He was taken a little aback to find that the Queen Charlotte had acquired some more first class passengers either here or farther back along their route. There were two or three men and a half dozen women sitting in the cabin lit by the light of a lamp; little Horatio was asleep in one corner. Maria was fluttered; she wanted to speak about domestic subjects, but was selfconscious about it in the presence of strangers. She whispered what she had to say, while her hands now and then gesticulated towards the stonyfaced strangers to indicate how much more she would have said if there were no fellow passengers.

  “That was two shillings you gave the boy, dear,” she said. “Why did you do it?”

  “Just lunacy, my dear, lunacy,” said Hornblower, speaking lightheartedly but not so far from the truth.

  Maria sighed as she looked at this unpredictable husband of hers who could throw away a shilling, and talk about lunacy in the bearing of strangers without dropping his voice.

  “And here’s the supper I bought,” said Maria, “while you were talking to the men. I hope it’s still hot. You’ve not had a bite all day, and by now the bread and meat I brought for dinner will be stale.”

  “I’ll eat whatever there is, and more,” said Hornblower, with more than a quart of beer inside his otherwise empty stomach.

  Maria indicated the two wooden platters awaiting them on the bench beside little Horatio.

  “I got out our spoons and forks,” explained Maria. “We leave the platters on board here.”

  “Excellent,” said Hornblower.

  There were two sausages on each platter, embedded in masses of pease pudding still steaming. Hornblower sat down with his platter on his lap and began to eat. Those were beef sausages, naturally, if they were not mutton or possibly goat or horse, and they apparently were made from the purest gristle. The skins were as tough as their contents. Hornblower stole a si
deways glance at Maria, eating with apparent contentment. He had hurt her feelings several times today and he could not bear to do it again; otherwise he would have pitched those sausages over the side into the river where possibly the fish could deal with them. But as it was he made a valiant effort to eat them. By the time he bad started the second he decided it was beyond him. He made his handkerchief ready in his left hand.

  “We’ll be at the first lock any moment,” he said to Maria, with a gesture of his right hand calling her attention to the dark window. Maria tried to peer out, and Hornblower flipped the second sausage into his handkerchief and stuffed it into his side pocket. He caught the eye of the elderly man sitting nearly opposite him across the narrow cabin. This individual had been sitting muffled up in great coat and scarf, his hat pressed down low on his forehead, grouchily keeping watch from under his eyebrows at every movement the Hornblowers had made. Hornblower gave him an elaborate wink in reply to the astonishment which replaced the grouchy old gentleman’s badtempered curiosity. It was not a conspiratorial wink, nor did Hornblower attempt the hopeless task of trying to pretend that he stuffed hot greasy sausages into his pocket every day of his life; the wink simply dared the old gentleman to comment on or even think about the remarkable act. He applied himself to finishing off the pease pudding.

  “You eat so fast, dear,” said Maria. “It cannot be good for your stomach.”

  She herself was struggling desperately with her own sausages.

  “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse,” said Hornblower. “Now I’ll start on our dinner, stale or not.”

  “I am delighted,” said Maria. “Let me—”

  “No, dear. Sit still. I’ll look after myself.”

  Hornblower took the food parcel and opened it.

  “Quite excellent,” he said, with his mouth full of bread and meat.

  At every moment he was making amends to Maria for his cavalier treatment of her during the day. The larger the meals he ate, the more appetite he evinced, the better Maria was pleased. A little gesture like helping himself to his own dinner gratified her absurdly. He could give her so much happiness; he could hurt her so easily.

  “I regret having seen so little of you during the day, dear,” he said. “It was my loss. But if I had not helped with the working of the boat we should skill be at Sapperton Tunnel.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Maria.

  “I would have liked to point out the scenery to you as we passed it,” went on Hornblower, battling with the selfcontempt that his hypocrisy was arousing. “I trust you enjoyed it even so?”

  “Not nearly as much as if you had been with me, dear,” said Maria, but gratified beyond all measure. She darted glances at the other women in the cabin to detect the envy they must feel on account of her having such a wonderful husband.

  “The boy was good?” asked Hornblower. “He ate his pap?”

  “Every bit of it,” answered Maria proudly, looking down at the sleeping child. “He was inclined to whimper at times, but now he is sleeping happily.”

  “If it had been two years from now that we made this journey,” said Hornblower, “how interested he would have been! He would have helped with the lines, and I could have taught him to hold the tiller.”

  Now he was not being hypocritical at all.

  “He showed a lively interest even now,” said Maria.

  “And what about his little sister?” asked Hornblower. “Did she behave well?”

  “Horatio!” said Maria, a little scandalized.

  “I hope not badly, dear,” said Hornblower, smiling away her embarrassment.

  “No, excellently,” admitted Maria.

  They were gliding into a lock; Hornblower heard the rattle of the paddles being let down behind them.

  “You made very little progress with your sausages, dear,” he said. “Let me dispose of them while you tackle some of this bread and meat, which is really delicious.”

  “But, dear—”

  “I insist.”

  He took Maria’s platter and his own, and stepped out into the bows of the boat in the darkness. It was the work of a moment to give the platters a quick rinse overside; the work of another moment to drop overside the sausage from his pocket, and he returned with the dripping platters to a Maria both scandalized and delighted at the condescension of her husband in thus doing menial work.

  “Too dark to enjoy any scenery,” he said—already the boat was moving out of the lock—“Maria, my dear, when you have completed your supper I will endeavour to make you as comfortable as is possible for the night.”

  He bent over the sleeping child while Maria repacked the remains of the supper.

  “Now, my dear.”

  “Horatio, really you should not. Horatio, please, I beg of you—”

  “No need for a hat at this time of night. Let’s have it off. Now there’s plenty of room for you on the bench. Put your feet up here. No need for shoes either. Not a word, now. Now a pillow for your head. The bag will make a good foundation. Comfortable like that? Now, the coat over you to keep you warm. There, now sleep well, my dear.”

  Maria was carried away by his masterful attentions so that she could not protest. She had lain still for a full two minutes before she opened her eyes again to ask what he was doing for his own comfort.

  “I shall be supremely comfortable, my dear. I’m an old campaigner. Now close those eyes again, and sleep in peace, my dear.”

  Hornblower was by no means supremely comfortable, although he had often spent worse nights, in open boats, for instance. With Maria and the child lying on the thinlycushioned bench he had necessarily to sit upright, as the other passengers were doing. What with the lamp and the breathing of all those people in the cramped little cabin the air was stuffy; his legs were cramped, the small of his back ached, and the part on which he sat protested against bearing his weight unrelieved. But it was only one night to live through, after all. He crammed his hands into his pockets and settled himself again, while the boat went on down the river through the dark, stopping at intervals at the locks, bumping gently against the walls, gliding forward again. He knew nothing, naturally, of the river between Oxford and London, so he could not guess where they were at any time. But they were heading downstream and towards his new command.

  Luckily he was to have a command, he told himself. Not a frigate, but a sloop so big—twentytwo guns—as to justify having a captain and not a commander. It was the best that could be hoped for, for the man who a month ago was the six hundred and first captain out of the six hundred and two on the list. Apparently Caldecott, the previous captain of the Atropos, had broken down in health while fitting her out at Deptford, which accounted for his unexpected summons thither to replace him. And the orders had no sooner reached him than the news of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar had arrived in England. Since that time no one had had a thought save for Nelson and Trafalgar. The country was wild with delight at the destruction of Villeneuve’s fleet, and in the depths of sorrow at Nelson’s death. Nelson—Trafalgar—Nelson—Trafalgar—no column in a newspaper, no momentary gossip with a stranger, but contained those names. The country had been lavish with its rewards. A state funeral was promised for Nelson; for the Navy there were peerages and knighthoods and promotions. With the re-creation of the rank of Admiral of the Red twenty new admirals had been promoted from the top of the captains’ list; two captains had fallen at Trafalgar, and two more had died; so that Hornblower was now the five hundred and seventyseventh captain in seniority. But at the same time promotion had been lavish among the commanders and lieutenants. There were fortyone new captains on the list—there was something gratifying in the thought that now he was senior to fortytwo captains. But it meant that now there were six hundred and nineteen captains seeking employment, and even in the vast Royal Navy there were not enough vacancies for all those. A hundred at least—more likely a hundred and fifty would be on halfpay awaiting employment. That was as it should be, one might think. That proport
ion not only made allowance for sickness and old age among the captains, but also made it unnecessary to employ chose who had been proved to be inefficient.

  Unless the inefficient had friends in high places; then it would be the friendless and the unfortunate who languished on halfpay. Hornblower knew himself to be friendless, and even though he had just been congratulating himself on his good fortune he always thought himself ultimately doomed to misfortune. He was on his way to take over a ship that someone else had fitted out with officers and men he knew nothing of; those facts were sufficient basis on which his gloomy pessimism could build itself.

  Maria sighed and turned herself on the bench; Hornblower crept down to her to rearrange the heavy coat over her body.