Cecil Forester - Lord Hornblower

They had chattered so light-heartedly once; had walked carefree and gay, hand in hand. It hardly seemed as if it were they two who had walked like that, in that breathing space of peace before Bonaparte returned from Elba. Hornblower was too fatigued to love now. The thunder muttered again; the heat was more oppressive. Inside his clothes Hornblower could feel the prickliness of his sweat. He was thirsty, too, but his thirst was not as severe as his physical weariness. In the forest it was growing dark, not with the approach of evening, which was still far off, but with the massing of storm-clouds overhead. Somebody close behind him groaned, and Hornblower made himself look round and grin.

“Who’s that lowing like a cow?” he asked. “Old Father Fermiac? Five years younger than me, and they call him Father Fermiac and he lows like a cow! Cheer up, Father. Maybe we’ll find a bull for you the other side of the Loire.”

That raised a cackle of laughter—some of it pure hysteria, some of it amusement at his not-quite-perfect French, some of it roused by the incongruity of a great English lord cracking jokes with French peasants. The thunder crashed almost overhead, and they could hear the rain beginning to patter on the trees. A few drops found their way down on their sweating faces.

“Here comes the rain,” said someone.

“I’ve had water underfoot for the past two days,” said Hornblower. “You ought to see my blisters. Even the good Jesus never walked on as much water as I have.”

The daring blasphemy raised another cackle, got the men along for another hundred yards. The heavens were opening overhead, and the rain was falling in cataracts. Hornblower dropped back to the pack-horses, to make sure that the leather covers were securely over the panniers. He had two thousand rounds of musket ammunition there which he did not want spoiled—it would be harder to replace than food or even shoe-leather. They plodded on, in the semi-darkness, their clothes growing heavier with the rain soaking into them. The earth beneath their feet grew spongy and soggy, while the storm showed no sign of diminishing. The thunder still roared and the lightning flashed, lighting up the dark spaces under the trees.

“How much farther?” asked Hornblower of Marie.

“Two leagues and a half, perhaps.”

Three hours more of marching; it would be almost dark, if not quite, by the time they arrived.

“This rain will deepen the ford,” said Marie, sounding the first note of a new anxiety.

“My God!” said Hornblower before he could check himself.

There were eighteen half-battalion columns scattered in pursuit of them, and he was threading his way through the midst of them. He was risking almost everything on being able to cross the river at this unexpected point, which would throw off pursuit for a time at least. Their danger would be extreme if they were unable to pass. This was a rocky country in general, with a shallow topsoil, among the headwaters of the great river, and rain would affect the level of the water after only a short interval. He turned on his weary legs to urge the men to lengthen their stride. That was something he had to do every few minutes during the rest of that dreadful march, as darkness closed in prematurely about them, as the rain roared down upon them incessantly, as the led horses stumbled and plunged and the two wounded men groaned in agony. The Count rode without a word, bowed forward in the saddle with the water streaming from him. He was in the last stages of exhaustion, Hornblower knew. Someone ahead challenged through the rain and dark; it was a man sent back from Brown’s advanced guard. Brown had reached the edge of the forest, and the river lay a short distance ahead across the rocky flood plain. They all halted together under the last of the trees while scouts moved cautiously forward to discover if this lonely stretch of river bank were patrolled—there could not be too many precautions taken, even though any self-respecting sentry would sneak away to find shelter on a night like this.

“The river sounds loud,” said Marie. They could hear it even through the noise of the rain where they lay in the wet mud, and Hornblower dared not think what that implied.

Brown’s messenger came back; he had explored the river bank and found no sign of the enemy, as was to be expected. Clausen’s division would be sufficiently dispersed guarding likely places, let alone the unlikely ones. They got to their feet, Hornblower feeling new agony as his weight came again on his blisters. He could hardly step at first, and his legs were stiff and weary as well and hardly obeyed his wishes. The Count was able to mount his horse, but the poor brute seemed as leg weary as Hornblower himself. It was a sorry party that limped and hobbled and stumbled forward in the gathering darkness. The thunder had long ceased, but the rain continued to fall steadily, with every promise of going on through the night.

The turbulent surface of the river gleamed in the half-light ahead of them.

“The ford begins down by those trees,” said Marie. “It is a ledge under the surface that runs diagonally upstream from there to the middle of the river. That is how you cross the deep part.”

“Come on, then,” said Hornblower. In his pain and weariness he felt as if he would like to cover that last half-mile on his hands and knees.

They came to the water’s edge; the rushing river boiled at their feet among the rocks.

“It is too deep already,” said Marie. She was only voicing the suspicion that had formed in every mind. There was no expression in her tone at all; her voice was flat and dead.

“I’ll take a horse and try it,” she went on, “Here, help Pierre down.”

“Let me try, madame,” said Brown, but Marie paid him no attention.

She climbed astride into the saddle, hitching up the skirts of her habit to permit her to do so. Then she urged the horse forward into the water. The animal balked, nearly lost his footing among unseen rocks, and went forward with the utmost reluctance under the urging of Marie’s heels. The water was almost up to its belly before—as Hornblower guessed—it had reached the end of the ledge of rock that Marie had spoken about. There was another battle of wills between Marie and the horse, and it plunged forward again. Three strides and it was out of its depth, struggling madly over the irregular bottom, almost vanishing from sight, and whirling downstream at frightening speed before it regained its footing. Marie, flung from the saddle, somehow hung on to the pommel, avoiding the lashing hoofs as the horse headed for the shore, and found her footing as it came out from the shallows snorting in fear. Marie struggled onto the bank weighed down by her dripping clothing. No one had uttered a sound while the trial was being made, not even in the moment of Marie’s greatest peril. It was plain now to everybody that the ford was impassable.

“We must all walk on water now besides milord,” said a voice. It might have been a joke, but anyone who heard it knew that it was not.

Hornblower made himself come out of his daze. He had to think and plan and lead.

“No,” he said. “I’m the only one who can do that. And none of us care to swim. Do we? Then let us keep along the river bank until we find a boat. I’ll exchange ten miracles for one boat.”

The suggestion was received in depressed silence. Hornblower wondered if the men were one-half as tired as he was. He forced himself to his feet, by a fierce effort of will ignoring the pain of the blisters.

“Come on,” he said. “At least we cannot stay here.”

No guerrilla leader in his senses would camp for the night beside an unfordable river against which he could be hemmed in, and with the rain continuing it would be at least twenty-four hours before it would be passable again.