Hornblower in the West Indies

“Put your backs into it,” said Hornblower to the boat’s crew as they shoved off. The oarblades dipped in the blue, blue water, shining gold against the blue. The boat rounded Crab’s stern, with anxious eyes looking down on them; Hornblower brought the tiller over and pointed straight for Daring. They soared up a gentle swell, and down again, up again and down again; with each rise and fall Crab was perceptibly smaller and Daring perceptibly larger, lovely in the afternoon light, during what Hornblower told himself were the last hours of his professional life. They drew nearer and nearer to Daring, until at last a hail came borne by the heated air.

“Boat ahoy!”

“Coming aboard!” hailed Hornblower back again. He stood up in the stern-sheets so that his gold-laced Admiral’s uniform was in plain sight.

“Keep off!” hailed the voice, but Hornblower held his course.

There could be no international incident made out of this, an unarmed boat’s crew taking an Admiral alone on board a becalmed ship. He directed the boat towards the mizzen chains.

“Keep off!” hailed the voice, an American voice.

Hornblower swung the boat in.

“In oars!” he ordered.

With the way she carried the boat surged towards the ship; Hornblower timed his movements to the best of his ability, knowing his own clumsiness. He leaped for the chains, got one shoe full of water, but held on and dragged himself up.

“Lie off and wait for me!” he ordered the boat’s crew, and then turned to swing himself over on to the deck of the ship.

The tall, thin man with a cigar in his mouth must be the American captain; the burly fellow beside him one of the mates. The guns were cast off, although not run out, and the American seamen were standing round them ready to open fire.

“Did you hear me say keep off, mister?” asked the captain.

“I must apologise for this intrusion, sir,” said Hornblower. “I am Rear Admiral Lord Hornblower of His Britannic Majesty’s service, and I have the most urgent business with Count Cambronne.”

For a moment on the sunlit deck they stood and looked at each other, and then Hornblower saw Cambronne approaching.

“Ah, Count,” said Hornblower, and then made himself speak French. “It is a pleasure to meet Monsieur le Comte again.”

He took off his cocked hat and held it over his breast and doubled himself in a bow which he knew to be ungainly.

“And to what do I owe this pleasure, milord?” asked Cambronne. He was standing very stiff and straight, his cat’s-whisker moustache bristling out on either side.

“I have come to bring you the very worst of news, I regret to say,” said Hornblower. Through many sleepless nights he had rehearsed these speeches to himself. Now he was forcing himself to make them naturally. “And I have come also to do you a service, Count.”

“What do you wish to say, milord?”

“Bad news.”

“Well?”

“It is with the deepest regret, Count, that I have to inform you of the death of your Emperor.”

“No!”

“The Emperor Napoleon died at St. Helena last month. I offer you my sympathy, Count.”

Hornblower told the lie with every effort to appear like a man speaking the truth.

“It cannot be true!”

“I assure you that it is, Count.”

A muscle in the Count’s cheek twitched restlessly beside the purple scar. His hard, slightly protruding eyes bored into Hornblower’s like gimlets.

“I received the news two days back in Port of Spain,” said Hornblower. “In consequence I cancelled the arrangements I had made for the arrest of this ship.”

Cambronne could not guess that Crab had not made as quick a passage as he indicated.

“I do not believe you,” said Cambronne, nevertheless. It was just the sort of tale that might be told to halt Daring in her passage.

“Sir!” said Hornblower, haughtily. He drew himself up even stiffer, acting as well as he could the part of the man of honour whose word was being impugned. The pose was almost successful.

“You must understand the importance of what you are saying, milord,” said Cambronne, with the faintest hint of apology in his voice. But then he said the fatal dreaded words that Hornblower had been expecting. “Milord, do you give me your word of honour as a gentleman that what you say is true?”

“My word of honour as a gentleman,” said Hornblower.

He had anticipated this moment in misery for days and days. He was ready for it. He compelled himself to make his answer in the manner of a man of honour. He made himself say it steadily and sincerely, as if it did not break his heart to say it. He had been sure that Cambronne would ask him for his word of honour.

It was the last sacrifice he could make. In twenty years of war he had freely risked his life for his country. He had endured danger, anxiety, hardship. He had never until now been asked to give his honour. This was the further price he had to pay. It was through his own fault that the peace of the world was in peril. It was fitting that he should pay the price. And the honour of one man was a small price to pay for the peace of the world, to save his country from the renewal of the deadly perils she had so narrowly survived for twenty years. In those happy years of the past, returning to his country after an arduous campaign, he had looked about him and he had breathed English air and he had told himself with fatuous patriotism that England was worth fighting for, was worth dying for. England was worth a man’s honour, too. Oh, it was true. But it was heartrending, it was far, far worse than death that it should be his honour that had to be sacrificed.

A little group of officers had appeared on deck and were standing grouped on either side of Cambronne listening to every word; to one side stood the American captain and his mate. Facing them, alone, his gaudy uniform flashing in the sun, stood Hornblower, waiting. The officer on Cambronne’s right spoke next. He was some kind of adjutant or staff officer, clearly, of the breed that Hornblower hated. Of course, he had to repeat the question, to turn the iron in the wound.

“Your word of honour, milord?”

“My word of honour,” repeated Hornblower, still steadily, still like a man of honour.

No one could disbelieve the word of honour of a British Admiral, of a man who had held His Majesty’s commission for more than twenty years. He went on now with the arguments he had rehearsed.

“This exploit of yours can be forgotten now, Count,” he said. “With the Emperor’s death all hope of reconstituting the Empire is at an end. No one need know of what you had intended. You, and these gentlemen, and the Imperial Guard below decks, can remain uncompromised with the regime that rules France. You can carry them all home as you had said you would do, and on the way you can drop your warlike stores quietly overboard. It is for this reason that I have visited you like this, alone. My country, your country, do not desire any new incident to imperil the amity of the world. No one need know; this incident can remain a secret between us.”

Cambronne heard what he said, and listened to it, but the first news he had heard was of such moving importance that he could speak of nothing else.

“The Emperor is dead!” he said.

“I have already assured you of my sympathy, Count,” said Hornblower. “I offer it to these gentlemen as well. My very deepest sympathy.”

The American captain broke into the murmurs of Cambronne’s staff.

“There’s a cat’s-paw of wind coming towards us,” he said. “We’ll be under way again in five minutes. Are you coming with us, mister, or are you going over the side?”

“Wait,” said Cambronne; he seemingly had some English. He turned to his staff, and they plunged into debate. When they all spoke at once Hornblower’s French was inadequate to follow the conversation in detail. But he could see they were all convinced. He might have been pleased, if there had been any pleasure left in the world