Hornblower read through the turgid lines and puzzled over their obscure imagery. But he wondered if he would be able to write a single line that would make sense if he knew he was going to die in a few hours.
“The superscription is on the other side,” said McCool, and Hornblower turned the sheet over. The letter was addressed to the Widow McCool, in some street in Dublin. “Will you accept my word now?” asked McCool.
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
The horrible thing was done in the grey hours of the morning.
“Hands to witness punishment.”
The pipes twittered and the hands assembled in the waist, facing forward. The marines stood in lines across the deck. There were masses and masses of white faces, which Hornblower saw when he brought McCool up from below. There was a murmur when McCool appeared. Around the ship lay boats from all the rest of the fleet, filled with men — men sent to witness the punishment, but ready also to storm the ship should the crew stir. The chalk ring on the gangway, and McCool standing in it. The signal gun; the rush of feet as the ten hands heaved away on the line. And McCool died, as he had promised, without saying a word.
The body hung at the yardarm, and as the ship rolled in the swell that came round Berry Head, so the body swung and dangled, doomed to hang there until nightfall, while Hornblower, sick and pale, began to seek out a coaster which planned to call at Dublin from Brixham, so that he could fulfill his half of the bargain. But he could not fulfil it immediately; nor did the dead body hang there for its allotted time. The wind was backing northerly and was showing signs of moderating. A westerly gale would keep the French fleet shut up in Brest; a northerly one might well bring them out, and the Channel fleet must hurry to its post again. Signals flew from the flagships.
“Hands to the capstan!” bellowed the bosun’s mates in twentyfour ships. “Hands make sail!”
With doublereefed topsails set, the ships of the Channel fleet formed up and began their long slant downChannel. In the Renown it had been, “Mr. Hornblower, see that that is disposed of.” While the hands laboured at the capstan the corpse was lowered from the yardarm and sewn into a weighted bit of sailcloth. Clear of Berry Head it was cast overside without ceremony or prayer. McCool had died a felon’s death and must be given a felon’s burial. And, closehauled, the big ships clawed their way back to their posts amid the rocks and currents of the Brittany coast. And on board the Renown there was one unhappy lieutenant, at least, plagued by dreadful memories.
In the tiny cabin which he shared with Smith there was something that kept Hornblower continually reminded of that morning: the mahogany chest with the name ‘B. I. McCool’ in high relief on the lid. And in Hornblower’s letter case lay that last letter and the rambling, delirious poem. Hornblower could send neither on to the widow until the Renown should return again to an English harbour, and he was irked that he had not yet fulfilled his half of the bargain. The sight of the chest under his cot jarred on his nerves; its presence in their little cabin irritated Smith.
Hornblower could not rid his memory of McCool; nor, beating about in a ship of the line on the dreary work of blockade, was there anything to distract him from his obsession. Spring was approaching and the weather was moderating. So that when he opened his leather case and found that letter staring at him again, he felt undiminished that revulsion of spirit. He turned the sheet over; in the half dark of the little cabin he could hardly read the gentle words of farewell. He knew that strange poem almost by heart, and he peered at it again, sacrilege though it seemed to try to analyse the thoughts of the brave and frightened man who had written it during his final agony of spirit. ‘The bee ascends before my rolling eye.’ What could possibly be the feeling that inspired that strange imagery? ‘Turn full circle. Turn again.’ Why should the heavenly powers do that?
A startling thought suddenly began to wake to life in Hornblower’s mind. The letter, with its tender phrasing, had been written without correction or erasure. But this poem; Hornblower remembered the discarded sheets covered with scribbling. It had been written with care and attention. A madman, a man distraught with trouble, might produce a meaningless poem with such prolonged effort, but then he would not have written that letter. Perhaps—
Hornblower sat up straight instead of lounging back on his cot. ‘So strike ‘em down.’ There was no apparent reason why McCool should have written ‘’em’ instead of ‘them’. Hornblower mouthed the words. To say ‘them’ did not mar either euphony or rhythm. There might be a code. But then why the chest? Why had McCool asked for the chest to be forwarded with its uninteresting contents of clothing? There were two portraits of children; they could easily have been made into a package. The chest with its solid slabs of mahogany and its raised name was a handsome piece of furniture, but it was all very puzzling.
With the letter still in his hand, he got down from the cot and dragged out the chest. B. I. McCool. Barry Ignatius McCool. Payne had gone carefully through the contents of the chest. Hornblower unlocked it and glanced inside again; he could see nothing meriting particular attention, and he closed the lid again and turned the key. B. I. McCool. A secret compartment! In a fever, Hornblower opened the chest again, flung out the contents and examined sides and bottom. It called for only the briefest examination to assure him that there was no room there for anything other than a microscopic secret compartment. The lid was thick and heavy, but he could see nothing suspicious about it. He closed it again and fiddled with the raised letters, without result.
He had actually decided to replace the contents when a fresh thought occurred to him. ‘The bee ascends!’ Feverishly Hornblower took hold of the ‘B’ on the lid. He pushed it, tried to turn it. ‘The bee ascends!’ He put thumb and finger into the two hollows in the loops of the ‘B’, took a firm grip and pulled upward. He was about to give up when the letter yielded a little, rising up out of the lid half an inch. Hornblower opened the box again, and could see nothing different. Fool that he was! ‘Before my rolling eye.’ Thumb and forefinger on the ‘I’. First this way, then that way — and it turned!
Still no apparent further result. Hornblower looked at the poem again. ‘Life still goes on within the heartless town.’ He could make nothing of that. ‘Dark forces claim my soul.’ No. Of course! ‘Strike ‘em down.’ That ‘’em’. Hornblower put his hand on the ‘M’ of ‘McCool’ and pressed vigorously. It sank down into the lid. ‘The sea will rise, the sea will fall.’ Under firm pressure the first ‘C’ slid upward, the second ‘ C’ slid downward. ‘Turn full circle. Turn again.’ Round went one ‘O’, and then round went the other in the opposite direction. There was only the ‘L’ now. Hornblower glanced at the poem. ‘Hell will lift its head.’ He guessed it at once; he took hold of the top of the ‘L’ and pulled; the letter rose out of the lid as though hinged along the bottom, and at the same moment there was a loud decisive click inside the lid. Nothing else was apparent, and Hornblower gingerly took hold of the lid and lifted it. Only half of it came up; the lower half stayed where it was, and in the oblong hollow between there lay a mass of papers, neatly packaged.