Flying Colours

The enclosed accounts, which Hornblower was about to thrust aside, had among the i

He fought down the depression which threatened to overmaster him once more. It was at least a distraction to think about the news in that lawyer’s letter, to contemplate the fact that he owned three thousand odd pounds in the Funds. He had forgotten all about those prizes he had made in the Mediterranean before he came under Leighton’s command. Altogether that made his total fortune nearly six thousand pounds—not nearly as large as some captains had contrived to acquire, but handsome enough. Even on half-pay he would be able to live in comfort now, and educate Richard Arthur Horatio properly, and take his place in a modest way in society.

“The captain’s list has changed a lot since we saw it last, sir,” said Bush, and he was echoing Hornblower’s train of thought rather than breaking into it.

“Have you been studying it?” gri

“Of course, sir.”

Upon the position of their names in that list depended the date of their promotion to flag rank—year by year they would climb it as death or promotion eliminated their seniors, until one day, if they lived long enough, they would find themselves admirals, with admirals’ pay and privileges.

“It’s the top half of the list which has changed most, sir,” said Bush. “Leighton was killed, and Ball died at Malta, and Troubridge was lost at sea—in Indian waters, sir—and there’s seven or eight others who’ve gone. You’re more than halfway up now.”

Hornblower had held his present rank eleven years, but with each coming year he would mount more slowly, in proportion to the decrease in number of his seniors, and it would be 1825 or so before he could fly his flag. Hornblower remembered the Count de Graçay’s prediction that the war would end in 1814—promotion would be slower in peace time. And Bush was ten years older than he, and only just begi

“We’re both of us very lucky men, Bush,” said Hornblower.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bush, and hesitated before going on. “I’m giving evidence at the court martial, sir, but of course you know what my evidence’ll be. They asked me about it at Whitehall, and they told me that what I was going to say agreed with everything they knew. You’ve nothing to fear from the court martial, sir.”

Chapter Eighteen

Hornblower told himself often during the next twenty-four hours that he had nothing to fear from the court martial, and yet it was nervous work waiting for it—to hear the repeated twitter of pipes and stamping of marines’ boots overhead as the compliments were given to the captains and admirals who came on board to try him, to hear silence close down on the ship as the court assembled, and to hear the sullen boom of the court martial gun as the court opened, and the click of the cabin door latch as Calendar came to escort him before his judges.

Hornblower remembered little enough afterwards of the details of the trial—only a few impressions stood out clearly in his memory. He could always recall the flash and glitter of the gold lace on the coats of the semicircle of officers sitting round the table in the great cabin of the Victory, and the expression on Bush’s anxious, honest face as he declared that no captain could have handled a ship with more skill and determination than Hornblower had handled Sutherland at Rosas Bay. It was a neat point which Hornblower’s ‘friend’—the officer the Admiralty had sent to conduct his defence—made when his question brought out the fact that just before the surrender Bush had been completely incapacitated by the loss of his foot, so that he bore no responsibility whatever for the surrender and had no interest in presenting as good a case as possible. There was an officer who read, seemingly for an eternity, long extracts from depositions and official reports, in a spiritless mumble—the greatness of the occasion apparently made him nervous and affected his articulation, much to the a

During the adjournment there was an elegant civilian in buff and blue, with a neat silk cravat, who came into Hornblower with a good many questions. Frere, his name was, Hookham Frere—Hornblower had a vague acquaintance with the name. He was one of the wits who wrote in the Anti-Gallican, a friend of Ca

And it was worse when all the evidence had been given, and he was waiting with Calendar while the Court considered its decision. Hornblower knew real fear, then. It was hard to sit apparently unmoved, while the minutes dragged by, waiting for the summons to the great cabin, to hear what his fate would be. His heart was beating hard as he went in, and he knew himself to be pale. He jerked his head erect to meet his judges’ eyes, but the judges in their panoply of blue and gold were veiled in a mist which obscured the whole cabin, so that nothing was visible to Hornblower’s eyes save for one little space in the centre—the cleared area in the middle of the table before the President’s seat, where lay his sword, the hundred-guinea sword presented by the Patriotic Fund. That was all Hornblower could see—the sword seemed to hang there in space, unsupported. And the hilt was towards him; he was not guilty.

“Captain Hornblower,” said the President of the Court—that nasal tenor of his had a pleasant tone—“This Court is of the unanimous opinion that your gallant and unprecedented defence of His Majesty’s ship Sutherland, against a force so superior, is deserving of every praise the country and this Court can give. Your conduct, together with that of the officers and men under your command, reflects not only the highest honour on you, but on the country at large. You are therefore most honourably acquitted.”

There was a little confirmatory buzz from the other members of the Court, and a general bustle in the cabin. Somebody was buckling the hundred-guinea sword to his waist; someone else was patting his shoulder. Hookham Frere was there, too, speaking insistently.

“Congratulations, sir. And now, are you ready to accompany me to London? I have had a post chaise horsed and waiting this last six hours.”

The mists were only clearing slowly; everything was still vague about him as he allowed himself to be led away, to be escorted on deck, to be handed down into the barge alongside. Somebody was cheering. Hundreds of voices were cheering. The Victory’s crew had ma