Cecil Forester - Lieutenant Hornblower

“I suppose you’re right,” said Bush; there was no need to particularize. But it was an unexpected remark, all the same. Hornblower grinned and relieved the tension.

“Well,” he said, “Boney can call himself Emperor if he likes. I have to earn my half guinea at the Long Rooms.”

Bush was about to take this opportunity to ask Hornblower how he was profiting there, but he was interrupted by a rumble outside the door and a knock.

“Here comes your bed,” said Hornblower, walking over to open the door.

Maria came trundling the thing in. She smiled at them.

“Over here or over there?” she asked.

Hornblower looked at Bush.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Bush.

“I’ll put it against the wall, then.”

“Let me help,” said Hornblower.

“Oh no, sir. Please, sir, I can do it.”

The attention fluttered her—and Bush could see that with her sturdy figure she was in no need of help. To cover he confusion she began to thump at the bedding, putting the pillows into the pillowslips.

“I trust you have already had the mumps, Maria?” said Hornblower.

“Oh yes, sir. I had them as a child, on both sides.”

The exercise and her agitation between them had brought the colour into her cheeks. With blunt but capable hands she spread the sheet. Then she paused as another implication of Hornblower’s inquiry occurred to her.

“You’ve no need to worry, sir. I shan’t give them to you if you haven’t had them.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” salt Hornblower.

“Oh, sir,” said Maria, twitching the sheet into mathematical smoothness. She spread the blankets before she looked up again. “Are you going out directly, sir?”

“Yes. I ought to have left already.”

“Let me take that coat of yours for a minute, sir. I can sponge it and freshen it up.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have you go to that trouble, Maria.”

“It wouldn’t be any trouble, sir. Of course not. Please let me, sir. It looks—”

“It looks the worse for wear,” said Hornblower, glancing down at it. “There’s no cure for old age that’s yet been discovered.”

“Please let me take it, sir. There’s some spirits of hartshorn downstairs. It will make quite a difference. Really it will.”

“But—”

“Oh, please, sir.”

Hornblower reluctantly put up his hand and undid a button.

“I’ll only be a minute with it,” said Maria, hastening to him. Her hands were extended to the other buttons, but a sweep of Hornblower’s quick nervous fingers had anticipated her. He pulled off his coat and she took it out of his hands.

“You’ve mended that shirt yourself,” she said, accusingly.

“Yes, I have.”

Hornblower was a little embarrassed at the revelation of the worn garment. Maria studied the patch.

“I would have done that for you if you’d asked me, sir.”

“And a good deal better, no doubt.”

“Oh, I wasn’t saying that, sir. But it isn’t fit that you should patch your own shirts.”

“Whose should I patch, then?”

Maria giggled.

“You’re too quick with your tongue for me,” she said. “Now, just wait here and talk to the lieutenant while I sponge this.”

She darted out of the room and they heard her footsteps hurrying down the stairs, while Hornblower looked half ruefully at Bush.

“There’s a strange pleasure,” he said, “in knowing that there’s a human being who cares whether I’m alive or dead. Why that should give pleasure is a question to be debated by the philosophic mind.”

“I suppose so,” said Bush.

He had sisters who devoted all their attention to him whenever it was possible, and he was used to it. At home he took their ministrations for granted. He heard the church clock strike the half hour, and it called his thoughts to the further business of the day.

“You’re going to the Long Rooms now?” he asked.

“Yes. And you, I suppose, want to go to the dockyard? The monthly visit to the Clerk of the Cheque?”

“Yes.”

“We can walk together as far as the Rooms, if you care to. As soon as our friend Maria returns my coat to me.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Bush.

It was not long before Maria came knocking at the door again.

“It’s done,” she said, holding out the coat. “It’s nice and fresh now.”

But something seemed to have gone out of her. She seemed a little frightened, a little apprehensive.

“What’s the matter, Maria?” asked Hornblower, quick to feel the change of attitude.

“Nothing. Of course there’s nothing the matter with me,” said Maria, defensively, and then she changed the subject. “Put your coat on now, or you’ll be late.”

Walking along Highbury Street Bush asked the question he had had in mind for some time, regarding whether Hornblower had experienced good fortune lately at the Rooms. Hornblower looked at him oddly.

“Not as good as it might be,” he said.

“Bad?”

“Bad enough. My opponents’ aces lie behind my kings, ready for instant regicide. And my opponents’ kings lie behind my aces, so that when they venture out from the security of the hand they survive all perils and take the trick. In the long run the chances right themselves mathematically. But the periods when they are unbalanced in the wrong direction can be distressing.”

“I see,” said Bush, although he was not too sure that he did; but one thing he did know, and that was that Hornblower had been losing. And he knew Hornblower well enough by now to know that when he talked in an airy fashion as he was doing now he was more anxious than he cared to admit.

They had reached the Long Rooms, and paused at the door.

“You’ll call in for me on your way back?” asked Hornblower. “There’s an eating house in Broad Street with a fourpenny ordinary. Sixpence with pudding. Would you care to try it?”

“Yes, indeed. Thank you. Good luck,” said Bush, and he paused before continuing. “Be careful.”

“I shall be careful,” said Hornblower, and went in through the door.

The weather was in marked contrast with what had prevailed during Bush’s last visit. Then there had been a black frost and an east wind; today there was a hint of spring in the air. As Bush walked along the Hard the harbour entrance revealed itself to him on his left, its muddy water sparkling in the clear light. A flushdecked sloop was coming out with the ebb, the gentle puffs of wind from the northwest just giving her steerage way. Despatches for Halifax, perhaps. Money to pay the Gibraltar garrison. Or maybe a reinforcement for the revenue cutters that were finding so much difficulty in dealing with the peacetime wave of smuggling. Whatever it was, there were fortunate officers on board, with an appointment, with three years’ employment ahead of them, with a deck under their feet and a wardroom in which to dine. Lucky devils. Bush acknowledged the salute of the porter at the gate and went into the yard.

He emerged into the late afternoon and made his way back to the Long Rooms. Hornblower was at a table near the corner and looked up to smile at him, the candlelight illuminating his face. Bush found himself the latest Naval Chronicle and settled himself to read it. Beside him a group of army and navy officers argued in low tones regarding the difficulties of living in the same world as Bonaparte. Malta and Genoa, Santo Domingo and Miquelet, came up in the conversation.

“Mark my words,” said one of them, thumping his hand with his fist, “we’ll be at war with him again soon enough.”

There was a murmur of agreement.

“It’ll be war to the knife,” supplemented another. “If once he drives us to extremity, we shall never rest until Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte is hanging to the nearest tree.”