But he would have to act. He thought of the court martial. He would be the sole witness, but the court would know he was speaking the truth. His word would decide Grimes’ fate, and then — the hangman’s noose, or at the very least five hundred lashes, with Grimes screaming in pain until he should fall unconscious, to be nursed round for another day of torture, and another after that, until he was a gibbering idiot with neither mind nor strength left.
Hornblower hated the thought. But he remembered that the crew must have already guessed. Grimes must have already started his punishment, and yet the discipline of the Hotspur must be preserved. Hornblower would have to do his duty; he must pay one of the penalties for being a naval officer, just as he suffered sea-sickness — just as he risked his life. He would have Grimes put under arrest at once, and while Grimes was spending twenty-four hours in irons he could make up his mind to the final decision. He strode aft to his cabin, with all relief gone from the thought of relaxation.
Then he opened the door, and there was no problem left; only horror, further horror. Grimes hung there, from a rope threaded through the hook that supported the lamp. He was swaying with the gentle motion of the ship, his feet dragging on the deck so that even his knees were almost on the deck too. There was a blackened face and protruding tongue — actually there was no likeness to Grimes at all in the horrible thing hanging there. Grimes had not the courage to face the landing operation, but when the realization had come to him, when the crew had displayed their feelings, he had yet had the determination to do this thing, to submit himself to this slow strangulation, falling with a small preliminary jerk from a cramped position crouching on the cot.
In all the crew of the Hotspur Grimes had been the one man who as captain’s steward could find the necessary privacy to do this thing. He had foreseen the flogging or the hanging, he had suffered the scorn of his shipmates; there was bitter irony in the thought that the semaphore station which he had feared to attack had turned out to be defended by a helpless civilian and his wife.
Hotspur rolled gently on the swell, and as she rolled the lolling head and the dangling arms swayed in unison, and the feet scraped over the deck. Hornblower shook off the horror that had seized him, drove himself to be clear-headed once more despite his fatigue and his disgust. He went to the door of the cabin; it was excusable that no sentry had yet been reposted there, seeing that the Hotspur‘s marines had only just come on board.
“Pass the word for Mr Bush,” he said.
Within a minute Bush hurried in, to pull up short as soon as he saw the thing.
“I’ll have that removed at once, if you please, Mr Bush. Put it over the side. Give it a burial, Christian burial, if you like.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Bush shut his mouth after his formal statement of compliance. He could see that Hornblower was in even less a conversational mood in this cabin than he had been when on deck. Hornblower passed into the chart-room and squeezed himself into the chair, and sat still, his hands motionless on the table. Almost immediately he heard the arrival of the working party Bush had sent. He heard loud amazed voices, and something like a laugh, all instantly repressed when they realized that he was next door. The voices died to hoarse whispers. There was a clump or two, and then a dragging noise and he knew the thing was gone.
Then he got to his feet to carry out the resolution formed during his recent clarity of mind. He walked firmly into the cabin, a little like someone unwillingly going into a duel. He did not want to; he hated this place, but in a tiny ship like Hotspur he had nowhere else to go. He would have to grow used to it. He put aside the weak thought that he could move himself into one of the screened-off cabins in the ‘tween decks, and send, for instance, the warrant officers up here. That would occasion endless inconvenience, and — even more important — endless comment as well. He had to use this place and the longer he contemplated the prospect the less inviting it would be. And he was so tired he could hardly stand. He approached the cot; a mental picture developed in his mind’s eye of Grimes kneeling on it, rope round his neck, to pitch himself off. He forced himself coldly to accept that picture, as something in the past. This was the present, and he dropped on to the cot, shoes on his feet, cutlass-sheath at his side, sandbag in his pocket. Grimes was not present to help him with those.
Chapter 11
Hornblower had written the address, the date, and the word ‘Sir’ before he realized that the report would not be so easy to write. He was quite sure that this letter would appear in the Gazette, but he had been sure of that from the moment he had faced the writing of it. It would be a ‘Gazette Letter’, one of the few, out of the many hundreds of reports coming into the Admiralty, selected for publication, and it would be his first appearance in print. He had told himself that he would simply write a standard straightforward report along the time-honoured lines, yet now he had to stop and think, although stage fright had nothing to do with it. The publication of this letter meant that it would be read by the whole world. It would be read by the whole Navy, which meant that his subordinates would read it, and he knew, only too well, how every careless word would be scanned and weighed by touchy individuals.
Much more important still; it would be read by all England, and that meant that Maria would read it. It would open a peephole into his life that so far she had never been able to look through. From the point of view of his standing with the Navy it might be desirable to let the dangers he had undergone he apparent, in a modest sort of way, but that would be in direct contradiction of the breezy lighthearted letter he intended to write to Maria. Maria was a shrewd little person, and he could not deceive her; to read the Gazette letter after his letter would excite her mistrust and apprehension at a moment when she was carrying what might well be the heir to the Hornblower name, with possibly the worst effects both on Maria and on the child.
He faced the choice, and it had to be in favour of Maria. He would make light of his difficulties and dangers, and even then he could still hope that the Navy would read between the lines that which Maria in her ignorance would not guess at. He re-dipped his pen, and bit the end in a momentary mental debate as to whether all the Gazette Letters he had read had been written in the face of similar difficulties, and decided that was probably true of the majority. Well, it had to be written. There was no avoiding it — for that matter there was no postponing it. The necessary preliminary words, ‘In accordance with your orders’ set him off, started the flow. He had to remember all that he had to put in. ‘Mr William Bush, my first lieutenant, very handsomely volunteered his services, but I directed him to remain in command of the ship.’ Later on it was no effort to write ‘Lieut. Charles Côtard, of HMS Marlborough, who had volunteered for the expedition, gave invaluable assistance as a result of his knowledge of the French language. I regret very much to have to inform you that he received a wound which necessitated amputation, and his life is still in danger.’ Then there was something else he had to put in. ‘Mr’ — what was his first name? — ‘Mr Alexander Cargill, Master’s Mate, was allotted by me the duty of superintending the re-embarkation, which he carried out very much to my satisfaction.’ The next passage would satisfy Maria. ‘The Telegraph Station was seized by the party under my personal command without the slightest opposition, and was set on fire and completely destroyed after the confidential papers had been secured.’ Intelligent naval officers would have a higher opinion of an operation carried through without loss of life than of one which cost a monstrous butcher’s bill. Now for the battery; he had to be careful about this. ‘Captain Jones of the Royal Marines, having gallantly secured the battery, was unfortunately involved in the explosion of the magazine, and I much regret to have to report his death, while several other Royal Marines of his party are dead or missing.’ One of them had been as useful dead as alive. Hornblower checked himself. He still could not bear to remember those minutes by the magazine door. He went on with his letter. ‘Lieutenant Reid of the Royal Marines guarded the flank and covered the retreat with small loss. His conduct calls for my unreserved approbation.’