He studied St Vincent’s expression again attentively; St Vincent was no fool and there was a thinking brain behind that craggy brow – he was fighting against his prejudices, preparing to dispense with them in the course of his duty.
‘Very well then, Hornblower,’ said the First Lord at length. ‘I’ll give you full powers. I’ll have your orders drawn up to that effect. You will hold your appointment as Commodore, of course.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Hornblower.
‘Here’s a list of the ship’s company,’ went on St. Vincent. ‘We have nothing here against any of them. Nathaniel Sweet, bos’un’s mate – here’s his signature – was first mate of a Newcastle collier brig once – dismissed for drinking. Maybe he’s the ringleader. But it may be any of ’em.’
‘Is the news of the mutiny public?’
‘No. And please God it won’t be until the court-martial flag is hoisted. Holden at Bembridge had the sense to keep his mouth shut. He put the master’s mate and the hands under lock and key the moment he heard their news. Dart’s sailing for Calcutta next week – I’ll ship ’em out in her. It’ll be months before the story leaks out.’
Mutiny was an infection, carried by words. The plague spot must be isolated until it could be cauterised.
St Vincent drew a sheaf of papers to himself and took up his pen – a handsome turkey-feather with one of the new-fangled gold nibs.
‘What force do you require?’
‘Something handy and small,’ said Hornblower.
He had not the remotest idea how he was going to deal with this problem of recovering a vessel which had only to drop two miles to leeward to be irrecoverable, but his pride made him assume an appearance of self-confidence. He caught himself wondering if all men were like himself, putting on a brave show of moral courage when actually they felt weak and helpless – he remembered Suetonius’ remark about Nero, who believed all men to be privately as polluted as himself although they did not admit it publicly.
‘There’s Porta Coeli,’ said St Vincent, raising his white eyebrows. ‘Eighteen-gun brig – sister to Flame, in fact. She’s at Spithead, ready to sail. Freeman’s in command – he had the cutter Clam under your command in the Baltic. He brought you home, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Would she serve?’
‘I think so, my lord.’
‘Pellew’s commanding the mid-Channel squadron. I’ll send him orders to let you have any help you may request.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Here he was, committing himself to a difficult – maybe an impossible – enterprise without any attempt to leave himself an avenue of retreat, neglecting utterly to sow any seed of future excuses which might be reaped to advantage in case of failure. It was utterly reckless of him, but that ridiculous pride of his, he knew, was preventing him. He could not use ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ to men like St Vincent or to any man at all, for that matter. He wondered if it was because the First Lord’s recent compliments had gone to his head, or maybe it was because of the casual remark that he could ‘request’ help of Pellew, a Commander-in-Chief, who had been his captain twenty years ago when he was a midshipman. He decided it was not either of these reasons. Just his nonsensical pride.
‘Wind’s nor’westerly and steady,’ said St Vincent, glaring up at the dial which repeated the indications of the weather-vane on the Admiralty roof. ‘Glass is dropping, though. The sooner you’re off the better. I’ll send your orders after you to your lodgings – take this chance to say goodbye to your wife. Where’s your kit?’
‘At Smallbridge, my lord. Almost on the road to Portsmouth.’
‘Good. Noon now. If you leave at three; po’chaise to Portsmouth – you can’t ride post with your sea-chest. Eight hours – seven hours, the roads aren’t poached yet at this time o’ year – you can be under way at midnight. I’ll send Freeman his orders by post this minute. I wish you luck, Hornblower.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Hornblower gathered his cloak round him, hitched up his sword, and took his leave. Before he had quitted the room a clerk had entered at the summons of St Vincent’s jangling bell to take dictation of his order. Outside the northwesterly wind of which St Vincent had spoken blew freshly, and he felt chilled and forlorn in his gay crimson and white silk. But the carriage was there waiting for him, as Barbara had promised.
II
She was waiting for him when he arrived at Bond Street, steady of eye and composed of feature, as was to be expected of one of a fighting race. But she could only trust herself to say a single word.
‘Orders?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ answered Hornblower, and then gave vent to some of the powerful mixed emotions within him. ‘Yes, dear.’
‘When?’
‘I sail tonight from Spithead. They’re writing my orders now – I must leave as soon as they reach me here.’
‘I thought it would be like that, from the look on St Vincent’s face. So I sent off Brown to Smallbridge to pack your kit. It’ll be ready for you when we get there.’
Capable, farsighted, level-headed Barbara! Yet ‘Thank you, dear,’ was all he could say. There were often these difficult moments even now, after all this time with Barbara; moments when he was overflowing with emotion (maybe that was the reason) and yet could not find words.
‘May I ask where you are going, dear?’
‘I cannot tell you if you do,’ said Hornblower, forcing a smile. ‘I’m sorry, dear.’
Barbara would say no word to anyone, nor convey by any hint or sign upon what kind of mission he was setting out, but, all the same, he could tell her nothing. Then if news of the mutiny leaked out Barbara could not be held responsible; but that was not the real reason. It was his duty to keep silent, and duty allowed of no exceptions. Barbara smiled back at him with the brightness that duty demanded. She turned her attention to his silken cloak, and draped it more gracefully over his shoulders.
‘A pity,’ she said, ‘that in these modern days there are so few opportunities for men to dress beautifully. Crimson and white sets off your good looks, dear. You are a very handsome man – did you know that?’
Then the brittle artificial barrier between them broke and vanished as utterly as a punctured soap bubble. His was a temperament that longed for affection, for the proofs of love; but a lifetime of self-discipline in an unrelenting world had made it difficult, almost impossible, for him to let the fact appear. Within him there was always the lurking fear of a rebuff, something too horrible to risk. He always was guarded with himself, guarded with the world. And she; she knew those moods of his, knew them even while her pride resented them. Her stoic English upbringing had schooled her into distrusting emotion and into contempt for any exhibition of emotion. She was as proud as he was; she could resent being dependent on him for her life’s fulfilment just as he could resent feeling incomplete without her love. They were two proud people who had made, for one reason or another, self-centred self-sufficiency a standard of perfection to abandon which called for more sacrifice than they were often prepared to make.
But in these moments, with the shadow of separation looming over them, pride and resentment vanished, and they could be blessedly natural, each stripped of the numbing armour the years had built about them. She was in his arms, and her hands under his cloak could feel the warmth of his body through the thin silk of his doublet. She pressed herself against him as avidly as he grasped at her. In that uncorseted age she was wearing only the slightest whalebone stiffening at the waist of her gown; in his arms he could feel her beautiful body limp and yielding despite the fine muscles (the product of hard riding and long walking) which he had at last educated himself to accept as desirable in woman, whom he had once thought should be soft and feeble. Warm lips were against warm lips, and then eyes smiled into eyes.
‘My darling! My sweet!’ she said, and then lip to lip again she murmured the endearment of the childless woman to her lover, ‘My baby.
My dear baby!’
The dearest thing she could say to him. When he yielded to her, when he put off his protective armour, he wanted to be her child as well as her husband; unconsciously he wanted the reassurance that, exposed and naked as he was, she would be true and loyal to him like a mother to her child, taking no advantage of his defenceless condition. The last reserve melted; they blended one into the other in that extremity of passion which they could seldom attain. Nothing could mar it now. Hornblower’s powerful fingers tore loose the silken cord that clasped his cloak; the unfamiliar fastenings of his doublet, the ridiculous strings of his trunk hose – it did not break into his mood to have to deal with them. Some time Barbara found herself kissing his hands, the long beautiful fingers whose memory sometimes haunted her nights when they were separated, and it was a gesture of the purest passion without symbolism. They were free for each other, untrammelled, unhindered, in love. They were marvellously one, and one even when it was all over; they were complete and yet not sated. They were one even when he left her lying there, when he glanced into the mirror and saw his scanty hair madly tousled.
His uniform hung on the dressing-room door; Barbara had thought of everything during the time he had been with St Vincent. He washed himself in the hand-basin, sponging his heated body, and there was no thought of washing away impurity – the act was one of simple pleasure. When the butler knocked at the door he put his dressing-gown over his shirt and trousers and came out. It was his orders; he signed the receipt for them, broke the seal, and sat down to read them through to make sure there were no misunderstanding which ought to be cleared up before he left London. The old, old formulas – ‘You are hereby requested and required’; ‘You are therefore strictly charged’ – the same ones under whose authority Nelson had gone into action at Trafalgar and Blake at Tenerife. The purport of the orders was plain, and the delegation of power unequivocating. If read aloud to a ship’s company – or to a court martial – they would be readily understood. Would he ever have to read them aloud? That would mean he had opened negotiations with mutineers. He was entitled to do so, but it would be a sign of weakness, something that would mean lifted eyebrows throughout the Navy, and which would cast a shadow of disappointment over St Vincent’s craggy face. Somehow or other he had to fool and trick a hundred English seamen into his power, so that they could be hanged and flogged for doing something he knew very well he would have done himself in the same circumstances. He had a duty to do; sometimes it was his duty to kill Frenchmen, and sometimes it might be another duty. He would prefer to have to kill Frenchmen if someone had to be killed. And how in Heaven’s name was he to set about this present task?
The door to the bedroom opened and Barbara came in, radiant and smiling. Their spirits rushed together as their eyes met; the imminence of physical separation, and Hornblower’s contemplation of his new distasteful duty, were not sufficient to disrupt the mental accord between them. They were more united than they had ever been before, and they knew it, the fortunate pair. Hornblower rose to his feet.
‘I shall be ready to leave in ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Will you come with me as far as Smallbridge?’
‘I was hoping you would ask me to do so,’ said Barbara.
III
It was the blackest imaginable night, and the wind, backing westerly, was blowing half a gale and promised to blow harder. It blew round Hornblower, flapping his trouser-legs about his knees above his sea-boots and tugging at his coat, while all round and above him in the blackness the rigging shrieked in an insane chorus, as though protesting at the madness of mankind in exposing frail man-made equipment to the violence of the world’s forces. Even here, in the lee of the Isle of Wight, the little brig was moving in lively fashion under Hornblower’s feet as he stood on the tiny quarterdeck. Somewhere to windward of Hornblower someone – a petty officer, presumably – was cursing a seaman for some unknown error; the filthy words reached Hornblower’s ears in gusts.
A lunatic, thought Hornblower, must know these mad contrasts, these sudden changes of mood, these violent alterations in the world about him; in the one case it was the lunatic who changed, but in his own case it was his surroundings. This morning, hardly more than twelve hours ago, he had been sitting in Westminster Abbey with the Knights of the Bath, all dressed in crimson and white silk; he had dined with the Prime Minister the night before. He had been in Barbara’s arms; he had been living in Bond Street luxury, with every whim that might arise ready to be satisfied at the mere pulling of a bell-cord. It was a life of self-indulgent ease; a score of servants would be genuinely shocked and upset if the slightest thing occurred to disturb the even way of the life of Sir Horatio – they ran those two words together, of course, making a curious bastard word like Surroratio out of them. Barbara had watched over him all through the summer, to make sure that the last seeds of the Russian typhus which had brought him home sick were eradicated. He had wandered in the sunshine through the gardens at Smallbridge hand in hand with little Richard, with the gardeners backing respectfully away and pulling at their hats. There had been that golden afternoon when he and Richard had lain side by side on their bellies beside the fishpond, trying to catch golden carp with their hands; returning to the house with the sunset glowing all about them, muddy and wet and gloriously happy, he and his little child, as close together as he had been with Barbara that morning. A happy life; too happy.
At Smallbridge this afternoon, while Brown and the post-boy were carrying out his sea-chest to the chaise, he had said goodbye to Richard, taking hold of his hand to shake it as man to man.
‘Are you going back to fight, Father?’ Richard asked.
He said one more goodbye to Barbara; it was not easy. If he had good fortune, he might be home again in a week, but he could not tell her that, for it might reveal too much about the nature of his mission. That little bit of deception helped to shatter the mood of unity and union; it made him a little cold and formal again. Hornblower had had a strange feeling as he turned away from her of something lost for ever. Then he had climbed into the chaise with Brown beside him and rolled away, skirting the autumnal Downs to Guildford in the gathering evening, and then down the Portsmouth Road – the road along which he had driven on so many momentous occasions – through the night. The transition was brief from luxury to hardship. At midnight he set foot in the Porta Coeli, welcomed by Freeman, square, stocky, and swarthy as ever, with black hair hanging to his cheeks, gipsy-fashion; one noted almost with surprise that there were no rings in his ears. Not more than ten minutes was necessary to tell Freeman, under seal of secrecy, the mission upon with the Porta Coeli was to be dispatched; in obedience to his orders received four hours earlier Freeman already had the brig ready for sea, and at the end of that ten minutes the hands were at the capstan getting in the anchor.
‘It’s going to be a dirty night, sir,’ said Freeman out of the darkness beside him. ‘Glass is still dropping.’
‘I expect it will be, Mr Freeman.’
Freeman suddenly raised his voice to one of the loudest bellows that Hornblower had ever heard – that barrel-shaped chest could produce a surprising volume of sound.
‘Mr Carlow! Have all hands shorten sail. Get that maintopmast stays’l in! Another reef in the tops’ls! S’uth-east by south, quartermaster.’
‘South-east by south, sir.’
The deck under Hornblower’s feet vibrated a little with the rush of the hands over the planking; otherwise there was nothing to show him in the darkness that Freeman’s orders were being obeyed; the squeal of the sheave-pulleys in the blocks was swept away in the wind or drowned in the howling of the cordage, and he could see nothing of the rush of the men up the rigging to reef the topsails. He was cold and tired after a day which had begun – unbelievably, it seemed now – with the arrival of the tailor to dress him in the ceremonial costume of a Knight of the Bath.
‘I’m going below, Mr Freeman,’ he said. ‘Call me if necessary.’
‘Aye aye,
sir.’
Freeman slid back the sliding hatch that covered the companion-way – Porta Coeli was flush-decked – and a faint light emerged, revealing the stair; a faint light, but Hailing after the intense blackness of the night. Hornblower descended, bowing almost double under the deck-beams. The door to his right opened into his cabin, six feet square and four feet ten high; Hornblower had to crouch down on his haunches to survey it by the wavering light of the lantern swinging from the deck above. The crampedness of these, the finest quarters in the brig, was nothing compared with the conditions in which the other officers lived, he knew, and twenty times nothing compared with the conditions in which the hands lived. Forward the height between decks was just the same as this – four feet ten – and there the men slept in two banks of hammocks, one suspended above the other, with the noses of the men of the upper tier scraping the deck above and the tails of the men in the lower tier bumping the deck below, and noses meeting tails in the middle. The Porta Coeli was the best fighting machine of her tonnage that could sail the seas; she carried guns that could smash any opponent of her own size; she had magazines that could supply those guns during hours or days of fighting; she carried provisions enough to enable her to keep the sea for months without touching land; she was staunch and stout enough to face any weather that blew; the only thing that was wrong with her was that to achieve these results in 190 tons the human beings who lived in her had to be content with living conditions to which no careful farmer would ever subject his livestock. It was at the cost of human flesh and blood that England maintained the countless small vessels which kept the seas safe for her under the protecting shield of the ponderous ships of the line.