Cecil Forester - Lord Hornblower

“Make every shot tell, this time,” said Hornblower—the first words anyone had spoken for a long time.

Brown and the Count were lying in niches between rocks; Marie was crawling round so as to bring herself to face the flanking column. At a hundred yards the skirmishers grew more cautious, stealing forward trying to shelter themselves behind bushes and rocks, and obviously expecting the musket-shots that did not come. One or two of them fired their carbines, so wildly that Hornblower did not even hear the bullets; he could imagine the non-commissioned officers rating the men who were thus wasting ammunition. They were within possible range now of his own rifled pistols—Barbara’s gift to him. He lay with his right arm extended, his forearm supported on the rock that sheltered him, and took prolonged and careful aim at the easiest mark before him—a Hussar walking towards him in the open, his carbine across his body. He pressed the trigger, and through the smoke saw the Hussar whirl round and fall, to rise to a sitting position a moment later with his hand to his wounded arm. Hot with a new battle fury, Hornblower fired the other barrel, and the Hussar fell back, limp and motionless; Hornblower cursed himself for wasting a shot and for killing a wounded man who would have been out of the battle in any event. A fierce yell went up from the ring of skirmishers, while Hornblower reloaded his empty pistol, restraining himself as his fever tempted him to hurry. He poured the charges into the barrels, wrapped the bullets and rammed them home, and carefully placed the caps upon the nipples. The sight of their comrade’s fall had instilled extra caution into the skirmishers, despite their battle yell—no one wished to be the next inglorious victim. That was a sergeant, there, calling to his men to come on. Hornblower sighted again and fired, and the sergeant dropped. This was better. There was a savage satisfaction in killing when he was about to be killed. Carbines were firing from all round the ring; Hornblower could hear the bullets passing overhead.

At that moment a loud fanfare from the trumpet attracted the attention of everyone; it was repeated, and Hornblower looked round while the carbine-fire died away. The officer was walking his horse towards them, a white handkerchief waving from his hand, while the trumpeter rode close behind blowing for a parley in accordance with military etiquette.

“Shall I kill him, sir?” asked Brown.

“No,” said Hornblower. It would be pleasant to take the officer with him to hell, but it would give Bonaparte too good an opportunity to sully his name and thus discredit the Bourbon movement. He knelt up behind his rock and shouted, “Come no farther!”

The officer reined up.

“Why not surrender?” he shouted back. “You have nothing to gain by further resistance.”

“What terms do you offer?”

The officer with difficulty suppressed a shrug.

“A fair trial,” he shouted back. “You can appeal to the mercy of the Emperor.”

The irony of those sentences could not have been greater if it had been deliberate.

“To hell with you!” yelled Hornblower. “And to hell with the 10th Hussars! Run, or I fire!”

He raised his pistol, and the officer hastily wheeled his horse and trotted back without dignity. Why should it be that with death only half an hour away there should be any satisfaction in thus humiliating the man? He had only been doing his duty, trying to save the lives of his men; why this bitter personal animosity? This insane self-analysis coursed through Hornblower’s mind even while he dropped on his stomach again and wriggled into a firing position. He had time to think scorn of himself before a bullet passing close above his head drove him to think about nothing save the business in hand. If the Hussars would only rise to their feet and charge in they might lose half a dozen lives but it would be over quickly. Marie’s pistol cracked not far from his right hand, and he looked round at her.

At that moment it happened; Hornblower heard the impact of the bullet, saw the force of it half roll her over. He saw the puzzled look on her face, saw the puzzled look change to a grimace of agony, and without even knowing what he was doing he sprang to her and knelt beside her. A bullet had struck her on the thigh; Hornblower turned back the short skirt of her riding habit. One leg of her dark breeches was already soaked with blood, and while he was gathering himself to act he twice saw the blood pulsate redly—the great artery of the thigh was torn. A tourniquet—pressure—Hornblower’s mind hastily recalled all it had ever learned about emergency treatment of the wounded. He thrust his fingers into her groin, unavailingly, the folds of the breeches balking his attempt to apply pressure to the artery. Yet every moment was precious. He felt for his penknife to rip open her breeches, and at the same time a shattering blow on his shoulder flung him onto the ground beside her. He had beard nothing of the Hussars’ charge, nothing of the pistol-shots fired by Brown and the Count unavailingly to turn the charge back. Until the carbine-butt struck him down he had been ignorant of what was going on. Even as it was he struggled to his knees again with only the thought in his head of the urgent need to stop the artery. He vaguely heard a shout beside him as a sergeant stopped a trooper from striking him again, but he thought nothing of it. He opened his knife, but Marie’s body was limp and lifeless under his hands. He glanced at her grimy face; it was white under the dirt and sunburn, her mouth hung open, and her eyes stared up at the sky as only the eyes of the dead stare. Hornblower knelt, looking down on her, his open penknife still in his hand, completely numb. The penknife fell from his fingers, and he became aware of another face beside his own looking down on Marie.

“She is dead,” said a French voice. “A pity.”

The officer rose again to his feet, while Hornblower knelt over the body.

“Come, you,” said a harsher voice, and Hornblower was roughly shaken by a hand on his shoulder. He stood up, still dazed, and looked round him. There was the Count, on his feet, between two Hussars; there was Brown sitting on the ground with his hand to his head slowly recovering from the blow which had struck him senseless, while over him stood a trooper with his carbine cocked.

“Madame’s life would have been spared after trial,” said the officer, his voice coming from miles away. The bitterness of that remark helped to clear the fog from Hornblower’s brain. He made a wild movement, and two men sprang forward and seized his arms, sending a wave of agony through his shoulder where the carbine-butt had struck him. There was a momentary pause.

“I shall take these men to headquarters,” announced the officer. “Sergeant, take the bodies down to the farmhouse. I will send you orders later.”

A low moan came from the Count’s lips like the cry of a hurt child.

“Very well, sir,” said the sergeant.

“Bring the horses up” went on the officer. “Is that man well enough to ride? Yes.”

Brown was looking dazedly around him, one side of his face swollen and bruised. It was all like a dream, with Marie lying there glaring at the sky.

“Come along,” said someone, and they dragged at Hornblower’s arms to lead him out of the hollow. His legs were weak under him, his blistered feet resented the movement, and he would have fallen if they had not helped him up and dragged him forward.

“Courage, coward,” said one of his guards.

No one—save himself—had ever called him that before. He tried to shake himself free, but they only held him the harder, his shoulder paining him excruciatingly. A third man put his hands on his back and all three ran him up out of the hollow without dignity. Here were the horses, a hundred of them, moving about restlessly still under the influence of the recent excitement. They shoved him up into the saddle of a horse, and divided the reins, a trooper mounting on each side and taking half the reins each. It added to Hornblower’s feeling of helplessness to sit in a saddle with no reins to hold, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly sit upright. As the horse fidgeted under him he saw Brown and the Count made to mount as well, and then the cavalcade moved up to the road. There they broke into a rapid trot, which tossed him about in his saddle as he held onto the pommel. Once he came near to losing his balance, and the trooper beside him put an arm round him and hove him back into a vertical position.