Lord Hornblower

“She is dead,” said a French voice. “A pity.”

The officer rose again to his feet, while Hornblower knelt over the body.

“Come, you,” said a harsher voice, and Hornblower was roughly shaken by a hand on his shoulder. He stood up, still dazed, and looked round him. There was the Count, on his feet, between two Hussars; there was Brown sitting on the ground with his hand to his head slowly recovering from the blow which had struck him senseless, while over him stood a trooper with his carbine cocked.

“Madame’s life would have been spared after trial,” said the officer, his voice coming from miles away. The bitterness of that remark helped to clear the fog from Hornblower’s brain. He made a wild movement, and two men sprang forward and seized his arms, sending a wave of agony through his shoulder where the carbine-butt had struck him. There was a momentary pause.

“I shall take these men to headquarters,” a

A low moan came from the Count’s lips like the cry of a hurt child.

“Very well, sir,” said the sergeant.

“Bring the horses up” went on the officer. “Is that man well enough to ride? Yes.”

Brown was looking dazedly around him, one side of his face swollen and bruised. It was all like a dream, with Marie lying there glaring at the sky.

“Come along,” said someone, and they dragged at Hornblower’s arms to lead him out of the hollow. His legs were weak under him, his blistered feet resented the movement, and he would have fallen if they had not helped him up and dragged him forward.

“Courage, coward,” said one of his guards.

No one—save himself—had ever called him that before. He tried to shake himself free, but they only held him the harder, his shoulder paining him excruciatingly. A third man put his hands on his back and all three ran him up out of the hollow without dignity. Here were the horses, a hundred of them, moving about restlessly still under the influence of the recent excitement. They shoved him up into the saddle of a horse, and divided the reins, a trooper mounting on each side and taking half the reins each. It added to Hornblower’s feeling of helplessness to sit in a saddle with no reins to hold, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly sit upright. As the horse fidgeted under him he saw Brown and the Count made to mount as well, and then the cavalcade moved up to the road. There they broke into a rapid trot, which tossed him about in his saddle as he held onto the pommel. Once he came near to losing his balance, and the trooper beside him put an arm round him and hove him back into a vertical position.

“If you fell in a column like this,” said the trooper, not unkindly, “that would be the end of your troubles.”

His troubles! Marie was dead back there, and it might just as well have been his own hand that killed her. She was dead—dead—dead. He had been mad to try to start this rebellion, madder still, infinitely madder, to allow Marie to take part in it. Why had he done it? And a man more skilful with his hands, more ready of resource, would have been able to compress that spouting artery. Hankey, the surgeon of the Lydia, had said once (as though licking his lips) that thirty seconds was as long as anyone ever lived after the femoral artery was cut. No matter. He had allowed Marie to die under his hands. He had had thirty seconds, and he had failed. Failed everywhere, failed in war, failed in love, failed with Barbara—God, why did he think of Barbara?

The pain in his shoulder may have saved him from madness, for the jolting of the horse was causing him agony of which he could no longer remain ignorant. He slipped his dangling hand between the buttons of his coat as a makeshift sling, which brought him a little relief, and a short while later he received further relief when a shouted order from the officer at the head of the column reduced the horses’ pace to a walk. Exhaustion was overcoming him, too; although thoughts were whirling through his brain they were ceasing to be well-defined and logical thoughts—rather were they nightmare images, terrifying but blurred. He had sunk into a delirious stupor when a new order which sent the horses into a trot again roused him from it. Walk and trot, walk and trot; the cavalry was pushing along the road as fast as the horses could go, hurrying him to his doom.

The château guarded by half a battalion of soldiers was General Clausen’s headquarters; the prisoners and their escorts rode into the courtyard and dismounted there. The Count was almost unrecognisable by reason of the grey stubble thick over his face; Brown, as well as being bearded, had one eye and cheek swollen purple with a bruise. There was no time to exchange more than a look, no time for a word, when a dapper dismounted officer came out to them.

“The General is waiting for you,” he said.

“Come along,” said the Hussar officer. Two soldiers put their hands under Hornblower’s arms to urge him forward, and once again his legs refused to function. There was not a voluntary contraction left in his muscles, and his blistered feet flinched from any contact with the earth. He tried to take a step, and his knees gave way under him. The Hussars held him up, and he tried again, but it was unavailing—his legs floundered like those of a leg-weary horse, and, indeed, for the same reason.

“Hurry up!” snapped the officer.

The Hussars supported him, and with his legs half trailing, half walking, they dragged him along, up a brief marble stair under a portico, and into a panelled room where behind a table sat General Clausen—a big Alsatian with bulging blue eyes and red cheeks and a bristling red moustache.

The blue eyes bulged a little wider still at the sight of the three wrecks of men dragged in before him. He looked from one to another with uncontrolled surprise; the dapper aide-de-camp who had slipped into a seat beside him, with paper and pens before him, made more effort to conceal his astonishment.

“Who are you?” asked the General.

After a moment the Count spoke first.

“Louis-Antoine-Hector-Savinien de Ladon, Comte de Graçay,” he said, with a lift of his chin.

The round blue eyes turned towards Brown.

“And you?”

“My name is Brown.”

“Ah, the servant who was one of the ringleaders. And you?”

“Horatio, Lord Hornblower.” Hornblower’s voice cracked as he spoke; his throat was parched.

“Lord ‘Ornblower. The Comte de Graçay,” said the General, looking from one to the other. He made no spoken comment—his mere glance was a commentary. The head of the oldest family in France, the most distinguished of the younger officers of the British Navy—these two exhausted tatterdemalions.

“The court martial which will try you will assemble this evening,” said the General. “You have today in which to prepare your defence.”

He did not add ‘if any’.

A thought came into Hornblower’s mind. He made himself speak.

“This man Brown, monsieur. He is a prisoner of war.”

The arched sandy eyebrows arched higher yet.

“He is a sailor of His Brita

“He fought with rebels.”

“That does not affect the case, sir. He is a member of the armed forces of the British Crown, with the grade of—of—”

For the life of him Hornblower could not remember the French equivalent of ‘coxswain’, and for lack of anything better he used the English word. The blue eyes suddenly narrowed.

“This is the same defence as you will be putting forward at your court martial,” said Clausen. “It will not avail you.”

“I had not thought about my defence,” said Hornblower, so genuinely that his tone could not but carry conviction. “I was only thinking about Brown. There is nothing of which you can accuse him. You are a soldier yourself, and must understand that.”