November the sixth, 1805. This is the place, and the time, where I was when I learned of Nelson's death.'
'I fear we have both missed him again, Thoday,' Hoare now replied, and turned to ship's business. He must go ashore and make his number to the Port Officer in person.
That gentleman was occupied, as Port Officers tended to be at all times.
'He will not be long, sir,' said the clerk. 'Captain Hornblower is with him, and he will be wishing to speed the parting guest.
'The two gentlemen do not see eye to eye in the matter of the honors due Captain Hornblower's new midshipman, sir,' he went on in a confidential whisper, little louder than Hoare's own ghost of a voice. When Hoare did not prick up his ears at his breath of gossip, he subsided into sullen silence.
Hoare had met Hornblower almost exactly two years before, during the brief, uneasy peace of Amiens with the French. In fact, it had been Hornblower from whom he had acquired Nemesis. They had both been lieutenants then, but Hoare had at least been employed; he had then been, as he had remained until kind Fate brought him his present command, a general dogsbody to Sir George Hardcastle. Hornblower, on the other hand, had then been without a ship, and as long as the peace endured had hardly the slightest prospects of obtaining one. Moreover, due to a spitefully meticulous Navy Board, he had been penniless. It was that situation that had forced the pinnace's change of master. Their paths had not crossed since, though-the navy being a band of brothers after all, Hoare had been aware of the other's career. Now the one was a post captain, albeit a very junior one, while Hoare would never make post. Well, that was the way the world wagged; Hornblower was a gallant officer with, as Hoare had heard, an unfortunate doting wife and no money in the family. No one deserved post rank more than he. Save Hoare himself, of course.
At this instant, Captain Hornblower himself emerged from the Port Officer's office, and stood in the doorway just long enough to bid a courteous, cold farewell to the person within. When, turning, he caught sight of Hoare, his eyes lit up.
'Hoare, by God!' he grinned. 'Well met!'
'Recovered from your cold, I see, sir,' Hoare replied. The day the pinnace had changed hands-another wintry day, as it happened-the other officer's nose had been streaming.
'But not until recently, I see,' he added, since he saw that Hornblower's nostrils were still red.
'A new cold, Hoare, upon my honor.'
The two men drew to one side.
'I must pay my respects to the gentleman within, sir,' Hoare whispered, 'but would you tarry long enough to break bread with me? I should not be but a moment.'
'I am genuinely sorry, sir,' Hornblower replied, looking as though he meant it, 'but I have a prior duty to Mrs. Hornblower, who has just been brought to bed of a son.'
'My felicitations, most sincerely, sir.'
'But tell me, how do you and the pinnace suit? What did you name her?'
'She goes by Nemesis now. We suit very well. We have had some interesting cruises together. She lies astern of Royal Duke; in fact, if you peer out the window there, you may see her for yourself.'
Hornblower peered, approved her new, unorthodox rig, told Hoare that he and his family were to be found at the George in Deptford, where they would… when the loud clearing of an official throat at the door summoned Hoare back to the formal world and they parted.
Chapter IV
'Floater, Ennery,' bow oar said. ''Back water, will ye, an' I'll 'aul 'im aboard. Ukkh. Slimy, 'e is. Three days dead, is my guess.'
' 'Ole in 'is belly, too,' said Ennery. ' 'Ead shaved for a wig, 'eavylike. Might be the man the Redbreasts want.'
'Wot color eyes?' bow oar asked. 'Bow Street said they was blue, I fink.'
'You know better nor that, mate. You ain't no Johnny Raw. ' 'E ain't got no more eyes. Crabs got 'em. Come on; let's about an' take 'im 'ome to muwer. I don't care fer 'is cumpny no longer than needful.'
Immediately upon paying off the wherryman he had hired at Greenwich to carry him up to London Bridge, Hoare rediscovered the dizzying effect the city had on a stranger, or at least on him. There were so many people in the crowded streets, of so many colors and callings, and of no color or calling at all; such stinks of rotten vegetables, of stale beer, of heavy perfume from some passerby of better station, and-rolling out of every alley-such a fetor of mingled human wastes; such a din, of raised voices, protesting beasts, hawkers crying their wares; such a disorganized stew of buildings old and new, stately and graceless. Confused and disoriented, he hailed the first hackney he saw and ordered the driver to take him to the Admiralty in Whitehall.
His senses overloaded, Hoare was even more confused when the hackney drew up before the gate of the Admiralty in the gathering darkness. Like a fool, he paid the driver off, and the hackney had trundled off before he discovered that the gate was locked. The marine sentry told him with some satisfaction that, with winter drawing in, the Admiralty was closed to all outsiders at five. Since three bells of the first dogwatch had just struck, he could not be admitted today, let alone be allowed to leave his portmanteau at the gate.
' 'Oo knows, sir?' the sentry asked. 'Yer portmantoe could 'ave an infernal machine in it, like one of them machines the Frogs are usin' to blow up the Portsmouth fleet.' Hoare forbore to tell the sentry that those particular French atrocities would not recur.
Hoare was forced to violate naval etiquette for officers and lug his portmanteau with him around to the back of the darkened building as Sir George Hardcastle had instructed him, feeling his way as he went and stepping into sundry unsavory leavings. His knocks at the privy gate went unanswered. It was too late tonight, then, to make himself known to Admiral Sir Hugh Abercrombie. He returned to Whitehall.
What now? With his means of making his needs known to strangers so limited by his lack of a voice, how was he to make his way from here to the Golden Cross Inn? He felt like a booby, and he did not like the sensation at all. Keeping the portmanteau between his legs lest it disappear into the early gloaming, he drew the boatswain's call from his bosom and blew a short trill upon it. In response, what he had hoped for happened. An alert, nautical- looking oldster came up to him and knuckled his forehead.
'Evans, sir. Late captain's cox'n in Grampus he said. 'At your service, sir.'
Hoare beckoned the man closer, and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. Evans must have been expecting to hear some unspeakable request, for he looked nonplussed when Hoare merely whispered, 'Golden Cross Inn, my man,' and pointed to his portmanteau.
But he shrugged and said, 'Foller me, then, sir.' Shouldering the portmanteau, he led the way out the Admiralty gate and into the thronged street.
'Ye'll not have been in London for a bit, sir,' he volunteered over his shoulder. Then, not hearing Hoare's reply, he apparently realized this officer must have some speech impediment, for he slowed and took station to Hoare's left.
'No, I haven't,' said Hoare. 'Must be fifteen years.'
'The place has changed mightily since then, sir. There's lots more of us. Stretchin' out, too, and new buildin's goin' up all the time.'
'Why aren't you at sea, Evans?' Hoare asked.
'Captain Dawson, 'e bought me out of the service when 'e come into his estate, an' I went into service with him as his waterman, me 'avin' been his cox'n, like I said.
'I brought him and his lady into town downriver this mornin', an' he give me leaf to see what I could pick up in the way of a shillin'. Or two,' he added hopefully. 'So I heard yer bosun's call back there, and 'ere we are, sir.'
And here they were, indeed, Hoare saw, for just ahead, a hanging sign bearing a St. Andrew's cross, gilt on a red field, proclaimed their destination.
Gules, a saltire or, Hoare thought. An ancient and honorable coat of arms, indeed. Perhaps the inn, or at least the site, had once been the townhouse of some Plantagenet grandee.
