Chapter XIII
The fact that he had not taken off his clothes told Brown and Dobbs and Howard at dawn that Hornblower had not been as composed and self-confident as he had tried to appear, but not one of them was foolish enough to comment on the fact. Brown merely opened the curtain and made his report.
“Day just breaking, sir. Cold morning with a bit o’ fog. The last o’ the ebb, sir, and no news as yet of Captain Bush an’ the flotilla.”
“Right,” said Hornblower, getting stiffly to his feet. He yawned and felt his bristling cheeks. He wished he knew how Bush had succeeded. He wished he did not feel so unwashed and unclean. He wanted his breakfast, but he wanted news of Bush even more. He was still deadly tired despite his hours of unbroken sleep. Then he fought down his weariness in a direct personal struggle like that of Christian with Apollyon.
“Get me a bath, Brown. Make it ready while I shave.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hornblower stripped off his clothes and proceeded to shave himself at the wash-hand-stand in the corner of the room. He kept his eyes from his naked body reflected in the mirror, from his skinny, hairy legs and slightly protuberant belly, as resolutely as he kept his mind from his fatigue and from his anxiety about Bush. Brown and a marine private came in carrying the bath and put it on the floor near him; Hornblower, shaving carefully round the corners of his lips, heard the hot water being poured into it from buckets. It took a little while to compound the mixture in the right proportion so as to get the temperature suitable; Hornblower stepped into it and sank down with a sigh of satisfaction—an immense amount of water poured over the sides, displaced by his body, but he did not care. He thought about soaping himself, but flinched from the effort and the physical contortions necessary, and instead he lay back and allowed himself to soak and relax. He closed his eyes.
“Sir!”
Howard’s voice caused him to reopen them.
“Two boats are in sight coming down the estuary, sir. Only two.”
Bush bad taken seven boats with him to Caudebec. Hornblower could only wait for Howard to finish his report.
“One of ‘em’s Camilla’s launch, sir, I can recognise her through the glass. I don’t think the other is from Nonsuch, but I can’t be sure.”
“Very good, Captain. I’ll join you in a moment.”
Ruin and destruction; five boats lost out of seven—and Bush lost too, seemingly. The destruction of the French siege-train—if it were destroyed—would be well worth the loss of the whole flotilla, to someone who could coldly balance profit and loss. But Bush gone! Hornblower could not bear the thought of it. He sprang from his bath and looked round for a towel. He saw none, and with exasperation tore a sheet from the bed on which to dry himself. Only when he was dry and seeking his clean shirt did he find the towels by the dressing-table where they should have been. He dressed hurriedly, and at every moment his fears and his sorrow on account of Bush increased—the first shock had not been nearly as severe as this growing realisation of his bereavement. He came out into the ante-room.
“One boat’s coming into the quay, sir. I’ll have the officer reporting here in fifteen minutes,” said Howard.
Brown was across the room at the far door. Now, if ever, Hornblower had the opportunity—his unaccountable brain recognised it at this moment—to show himself a man of iron. All he had to do was to say ‘My breakfast, Brown’ and sit down and eat it. But he could not pose, faced as he was by the possibility of Bush’s death. It was all very well to do those things when it was merely a battle that lay before him, but this was the loss of his dearest friend. Brown must have read the expression on his face, for he withdrew without making any suggestion about breakfast. Hornblower stood undecided.
“I have the court-martial verdicts here for confirmation, sir,” said Howard, calling his attention to a mass of papers.
Hornblower sat down and picked one up, looked at it unseeing, and put it down again.
“I’ll deal with that later on,” he said.
“Cider’s begun coming into the city from the country in great quantity, sir, now that the farmers have found it’s a good market,” said Dobbs. “Drunkenness among the men’s increasing. Can we—?”
“I’ll leave it to your judgment,” said Hornblower. “Now. What is it you want to do?”
“I would submit, sir, that—”
The discussion lasted a few minutes. It led naturally to the vexed question of an established rate of exchange for British and French currency. But it could not dull the gnawing anxiety about Bush.
“Where the hell’s that officer?” said Howard, petulantly pushing back his chair and going out of the room. He was back almost immediately.
“Mr. Livingstone, sir,” he said. “Third of Camilla.”
A middle-aged lieutenant, steady and reliable enough to outward appearance; Hornblower looked him over carefully as he came into the room.
“Make your report, please.”
“We went up the river without incident, sir. Flame’s boat went aground but was refloated directly. We could see the lights of Caudebec before we were challenged from the bank—we were just rounding the bend, then. Cap’n Bush’s longboat was leading, sir.”
“Where was your boat?”
“Last in the line, sir. We went on without replying, as our orders said. I could see two barges anchored in midstream, an’ clusters of others against the bank. I put the tiller over and ran beside the one farthest downstream, as my orders said, sir. There was a lot of musketry fire higher up, but only a few Frenchies where we were, an’ we chased ‘em away. On the bank where we were there were two twenty-four-pounders on travelling carriages. I had ‘em spiked, and then we levered them off the bank into the river. One fell onto the barge underneath an’ went through it, sir. It sank alongside my launch, deck just level with the water; just before the turn of the tide, that was. Don’t know what she carried, sir, but I think she was light, judging by the height she rode out of the water when I boarded her. Her hatches were open.”
“Yes?”
“Then I led my party along the bank as ordered, sir. There was a lot of shot there, just landed from the next barge. The barge was only half unloaded. So I left a party to scuttle the barge and roll the shot into the river, an’ went on myself with about fifteen men, sir. Flame’s boat’s crew was there, an’ the party they were fighting against ran away when we came on their flank. There were guns on shore and guns still in the barges, sir. We spiked ‘em all, threw the ones that had been landed into the river, and scuttled the barges. There was no powder, sir. My orders were to blow the trunnions off the guns if I could, but I couldn’t.”
“I understand.”
Guns spiked and pitched into the slime at the bottom of a rapid tidal river would be out of action for some time, even though it would have been better to blow off their trunnions and disable them permanently. And the shot at the bottom of the river would be difficult to recover. Horablower could picture so well in his mind the fierce and bloody little struggle in the dark on the river bank.
“Just then we heard drums beating, sir, and a whole lot of soldiers came bearing down on us. A battalion of infantry, I should think it was—I think we had only been engaged up to then with the gunners an’ sappers. My orders were to withdraw if opposed in force, so we ran back to the boats. We’d just shoved off and the soldiers were firing at us from the banks when the explosion came.”