Flying Colours

“Had enough, Brown?”

“Aye aye, sir. A right good supper.”

The soup tureen and the dish of stew were both empty; the bread had disappeared all save the heel of the loaf; there was only a morsel of cheese left. But one bottle of wine was still two-thirds full—Brown had contented himself with a half bottle at most, and the fact that he had drunk that much and no more was the dearest proof that he was safe as regards alcohol.

“Pull the bellrope, then.”

The distant jangling brought in time the rattling of keys to the door, and in came the sergeant and the two maids; the latter set about clearing the tables under the former’s eye.

“I must get something for you to sleep on, Brown,” said Hornblower.

“I can sleep on the floor, sir.”

“No, you can’t.”

Hornblower had decided opinions about that; there had been occasions as a young officer when he had slept on the bare planks of a ship’s deck, and he knew their unbending discomfort.

“I want a bed for my servant,” he said to the sergeant.

“He can sleep on the floor.”

“I will not allow anything of the kind. You must find a mattress for him.”

Hornblower was surprised to find how quickly he was acquiring the ability to talk French; the quickness of his mind enabled him to make the best use of his limited vocabulary and his retentive memory had stored up all sorts of words, once heard, and was ready to produce them from the subconscious part of his mind as soon as the stimulus of necessity was applied.

The sergeant had shrugged his shoulders and rudely turned his back.

“I shall report your insolence to Colonel Caillard to-morrow morning,” said Hornblower hotly. “Find a mattress immediately.”

It was not so much the threat that carried the day as long-ingrained habits of discipline. Even a sergeant of French gendarmerie was accustomed to yielding deference to gold lace and epaulettes and an authoritative ma

“Time to turn in,” said Hornblower, ignoring it, as the door was locked behind the sergeant. “Let’s make you comfortable, first, Bush.”

It was some obscure self-conscious motive which made Hornblower select from his valise the embroidered nightshirt over which Maria’s busy fingers had laboured lovingly—the nightshirt which he had brought with him from England for use should it happen that he should dine and sleep at a Governor’s or on board the flagship. All the years he had been a captain he had never shared a room with anyone save Maria, and it was a novel experience for him to prepare for bed in sight of Bush and Brown, and he was ridiculously self-conscious about it, regardless of the fact that Bush, white and exhausted, was already lying back on his pillow with drooping eyelids, while Brown modestly stripped off his trousers with downcast eyes, wrapped himself in the cloak which Hornblower insisted on his using, and curled himself up on his palliasse without a glance at his superior.

Hornblower got into bed.

“Ready?” he asked, and blew out the candle; the fire had died down to embers which gave only the faintest red glow in the room. It was the begi

To-day was Wednesday. Only sixteen days ago and Hornblower had been captain of a seventy-four, and absolute master of the happiness of five hundred seamen. His least word directed the operations of a gigantic engine of war; the blows it had dealt had caused an imperial throne to totter. He thought regretfully of night-time aboard his ship, the creaking of the timbers and the singing of the rigging, the impassive quartermaster at the wheel in the faint light of the bi

Now he was a nobody; where once he had minutely regulated five hundred men’s lives he was reduced to chaffering for a single mattress for the only seaman left to him; police sergeants could insult him with impunity; he had to come and to go at the bidding of someone he despised. Worse than that—Hornblower felt the hot blood ru

No, that was only a minor factor. Mostly it was instinctive fear of a sudden and drastic change to something completely unknown. He remembered the night he had spent as a child in the i

A moaning sigh from Bush, loud in the stillness of the room, distracted him from his analysis of his fear. They were going to shoot Bush, too. Presumably they would lash him to a stake to have a fair shot at him—curious how, while it was easy to order a party to shoot an upright figure, however helpless, every instinct revolted against shooting a helpless man prostrate on a stretcher. It would be a monstrous crime to shoot Bush, who, even supposing his captain were guilty, could have done nothing except obey orders. But Bonaparte would do it. The necessity of rallying Europe round him in his struggle against England was growing ever more pressing. The blockade was strangling the Empire of the French as Antaeus had been strangled by Hercules. Bonaparte’s unwilling allies—all Europe, that was to say, save Portugal and Sicily—were growing restive and thinking about defection; the French people themselves, Hornblower shrewdly guessed, were by now none too enamoured of this King Stork whom they had imposed on themselves. It would not be sufficient for Bonaparte merely to say that the British fleet was the criminal instrument of a perfidious tyra

But it was bad luck that the victims should be Bush and he. Bonaparte had had a dozen British naval captains in his hands during the last few years, and he could have trumped up charges against half of them. Presumably it was destiny which had selected Hornblower and Bush to suffer. Hornblower told himself that for twenty years he had been aware of a premonition of sudden death. It was certain and inevitable now. He hoped he would meet it bravely, go down with colours flying; but he mistrusted his own weak body. He feared that his cheeks would be pale and his teeth would chatter, or worse still, that his heart would weaken so that he would faint before the firing party had done their work. That would be a fine opportunity for a mordant couple of lines in the Momteur Universel–fine reading for Lady Barbara and Maria.