“Thank you, Mr Cobb,” said Hornblower at last. “I am glad to have had such a clear statement of the facts. That will be all for the present.”
“Thank you, My Lord,” answered Cobb, shooting his great bulk up out of the chair with an astonishing mixture of agility and military rigidity. His heels clashed as his hand swept up in the salute; he turned about with parade precision, and marched out of the room with resounding steps as precise as if timed by his own metronome.
Gerard and Spendlove came back into the room to find Hornblower staring at nothing, but Hornblower shook off his preoccupation instantly. It would never do for his subordinates to guess that he was moved by human feelings over a mere administrative matter.
“Draft an answer to Sir Thomas for my signature, if you please, Mr Spendlove. It can be a mere acknowledgement, but then add that there is no possibility of immediate action, because I cannot assemble the necessary number of captains at: present with so many ships detached.”
Except in emergency a court where sentence of death might be passed could not be convened unless there were seven captains and commanders at least available as judges. That gave him time to consider what action he should take.
“This man’s in the dockyard prison, I suppose,” went on Hornblower. “Remind me to take a look at him on my way through the dockyard today.”
“Aye aye, My Lord,” said Gerard, careful to betray no surprise at an Admiral allotting time to visit a mutinous marine.
Yet it was not far out of Hornblower’s way. When the time came he strolled slowly down through the beautiful garden of Admiralty House, and Evans, the disabled sailor who was head gardener, came in a jerky hurry to open the wicket gate in the fifteen-foot palisade that protected the dockyard from thieves, in this portion of its course dividing the Admiralty garden from the dockyard. Evans took off his hat and stood bobbing by the gate, his pigtail bobbing at his back, and his swarthy face split by a beaming smile.
“Thank you, Evans,” said Hornblower, passing through.
The prison stood isolated at the edge of the dockyard, a small cubical building of mahogany logs, set diagonally in a curious fashion, possibly — probably — more than one layer. It was roofed with palm thatch a yard or more thick, which might at least help to keep it cool under the glaring sun. Gerard had run on ahead from the gate — with Hornblower grinning at the thought of the healthful sweat the exercise would produce — to find the officer-in-charge and obtain the key to the prison, and Hornblower stood by while the padlock was unfastened and he could look into the darkness within. Hudnutt had risen to his feet at the sound of the key, and when he stepped forward into the light he was revealed as a painfully young man, his cheeks hardly showing a trace of his one-day’s beard. He was naked except for a waistcloth, and the officer-in-charge clucked with annoyance.
“Get some clothes on and be decent,” he growled, but Hornblower checked him.
“No matter. I’ve very little time. I want this man to tell me why he is under charges. You others keep out of earshot.”
Hudnutt had been taken by surprise by this sudden visit, but he was a bewildered person in any case, obviously. He blinked big blue eyes in the sunlight and wriggled his gangling form with embarrassment.
“What happened? Tell me,” said Hornblower.
“Well, sir —”
Hornblower had to coax the story out of him, but bit by bit it confirmed all that Cobb had said.
“I couldn’t play that music, sir, not for nothing.”
The blue eyes looked over Hornblower’s head at infinity; perhaps at some vision invisible to the rest of the world.
“You were a fool to disobey an order.”
“Yes, sir. Mebbe so, sir.”
The broad Yorkshire which Hudnutt spoke sounded odd in this tropical setting.
“How did you come to enlist?”
“For the music, sir.”
It called for more questions to extract the story. A boy in a Yorkshire village, not infrequently hungry. A cavalry regiment billeted there, in the last years of the war. The music of its band was like a miracle to this child, who had heard no music save that of wandering pipers in the ten years of his life. It made him conscious of — it did not create for it already existed — a frightful, overwhelming need. All the children of the village hung round the band (Hudnutt smiled disarmingly as he said this) but none so persistently as he. The trumpeters noticed him soon enough, laughed at his infantile comments about music, but laughed with sympathy as time went on; they let him try to blow their instruments, showed him how to cultivate a lip, and were impressed by the eventual results. The regiment returned after Waterloo, and for two more years the boy went on learning, even though those were the hungry years following the peace, when he should have been bird-scaring and stone-picking from dawn to dark.
And then the regiment was transferred and the hungry years went on, and the boy labourer began to handle the plough still yearning for music, while a trumpet cost more than a year’s full wages for a man. Then an interlude of pure bliss — the disarming smile again — when he joined a wandering theatrical troupe, as odd-job boy and musician; that was how he came to be able to read music although he could not read the printed word. His belly was empty as often as before; a stable yard meant a luxurious bed to him; those months were months of flea-bitten nights and foot-sore days, and they ended in his being left behind sick. That happened in Portsmouth, and then it was inevitable that, hungry and weak, he should be picked up by a marine recruiting-sergeant marching through the streets with a band. His enlistment coincided with the introduction of the cornet à pistons into military music, and the next thing that happened to him was that he was shipped off to the West Indies to take his place in the Commander-in-Chief’s band under the direction of Drum-Major Cobb.
“I see,” said Hornblower; and indeed he could dimly see.
Six months with a travelling theatrical troupe would be poor preparation for the discipline of the Royal Marines; that was obvious, but he could guess at the rest, at this sensitiveness about music which was the real cause of the trouble. He eyed the boy again, seeking for ideas regarding how to deal with this situation.
“My Lord! My Lord!” This was Gerard hastening up to him. “The packet’s signalled, My Lord. You can see the flag at the lookout station masthead!”
The packet? Barbara would be on board. It was three years since he had seen her last, and for three weeks now he had been awaiting her from minute to minute.
“Call away my barge. I’m coming,” he said.
A wave of excitement swept away his concern regarding the Hudnutt affair. He was about to hurry after Gerard, and then hesitated. What could he say in two seconds to a man awaiting trial for his life? What could he say when he himself was bubbling with happiness, to this man caged like an animal, like an ox helplessly awaiting the butcher?
“Goodbye, Hudnutt.” That was all he could say, leaving him standing dumbly there — he could hear the clash of keys and padlock as he hastened after Gerard.
Eight oars bit into the blue water, but no speed that they could give the dancing barge could be fast enough to satisfy him. There was the brig, her sails trimmed to catch the first hesitant puffs of the sea breeze. There was a white dot at her side, a white figure — Barbara waving her handkerchief. The barge surged alongside and Hornblower swung himself up into the main chains, and there was Barbara in his arms; there were her lips against his, and then her grey eyes smiling at him, and then her lips against his again, and the afternoon sun blazing down on them both. Then they could stand at arm’s length and look at each other, and Barbara could raise her hands and twitch his neckcloth straight, so that he could be sure they were really together, for Barbara’s first gesture was always to straighten his neckcloth.