“Good luck in any case, sir,” said Bush, and there was no mere formality about those words.
They shook hands and parted; it says much for Bush’s feelings towards Hornblower that in the grey dawn next morning he rolled out of his cot and went up on deck to watch the Retribution, ghost-like under her topsails, and with the lead going in the chains, steal out round the point, wafted along by the land breeze. Bush watched her go; life in the service meant many partings. Meanwhile there was war to be waged against bedbugs.
Eleven weeks later the squadron was in the Mona Passage, beating against the trade winds. Lambert had brought them out here with the usual double objective of every admiral, to exercise his ships and to see an important convoy through the most dangerous part of its voyage. The hills of Santo Domingo were out of sight at the moment over the westerly horizon, but Mona was in sight ahead, table-topped and, from this point of view, an unrelieved oblong in outline; over the port bow lay Mona’s little sister Monita, exhibiting a strong family resemblance.
The lookout frigate ahead sent up a signal.
“You’re too slow, Mr Truscott,” bellowed Bush at the signal midshipman, as was right and proper.
“Sail in sight, bearing northeast,” read the signal midshipman, glass to eye.
That might be anything, from the advanced guard of a French squadron broken out from Brest to awandering trader.
The signal came down and was almost instantly replaced.
“Friendly sail in sight bearing northeast,” read Truscott.
A squall came down and blotted out the horizon. The Renown had to pay off momentarily before its impact. The rain rattled on the deck as the ship lay over, and then the wind abruptly moderated, the sun came out again, and the squall was past. Bush busied himself with the task of regaining station, of laying the Renown her exact two cables’ length astern of her next ahead. She was last in the line of three, and the flagship was the first. Now the strange sail was well over the horizon. She was a sloop of war as the telescope showed at once; Bush thought for a moment that she might be the Retribution, returned after a very quick double passage, but it only took a second glance to make sure she was not. Truscott read her number and referred to the list.
“Clara, sloop of war: Captain Ford,” he announced.
The Clara had sailed for England with despatches three weeks before the Retribution, Bush knew.
“Clara to Flag,” went on Truscott. “Have despatches.”
She was nearing fast. Up the flagship’s halliards soared a string of black balls which broke into flags at the top.
“All ships,” read Truscott, with excitement evident in his voice, for this meant that the Renown would have orders to obey. “Heave-to.”
“Main tops’l braces!” yelled Bush. “Mr Abbott! My respects to the captain and the squadron’s heaving-to.”
The squadron came to the wind and lay heaving easily over the rollers. Bush watched the Clara‘s boat dancing over the waves towards the flagship.
“Keep the hands at the braces, Mr Bush,” said Captain Cogshill. “I expect we’ll fill again as soon as the despatches are delivered.”
But Cogshill was wrong. Bush watched through his glass the officer from the Clara go up the flagship’s side, but the minutes passed and the flagship still lay hove-to, the squadron still pitched on the waves. Now a new string of black balls went up the flagship’s halliards.
“All ships,” read Truscott. “Captains repair on board the flagship.”
“Gig’s crew away!” roared Bush.
It must be important, or at least unusual, news for the admiral to wish to communicate it to the captains immediately and in person. Bush walked the quarterdeck with Buckland while they waited. The French fleet might be out; the Northern Alliance might be growing restive again. The King’s illness might have returned. It might be anything; they could be only certain that it was not nothing. The minutes passed and lengthened into half-hours; it could hardly be bad news — if it were, Lambert would not be wasting precious time like this, with the whole squadron going off slowly to leeward. Then at last the wind brought to their ears, over the blue water, the high-pitched sound of the pipes of the bosun’s mates in the flagship. Bush clapped his glass to his eye.
“First one’s coming off,” he said.
Gig after gig left the flagship’s side, and now they could see the Renown‘s gig with her captain in the sternsheets. Buckland went to meet him as he came up the side. Cogshill touched his hat; he was looking a little dazed.
“It’s peace,” he said.
The wind brought them the sound of cheering from the flagship — the announcement must have been made to the ship’s company on board, and it was the sound of that cheering that gave any reality at all to the news the captain brought.
“Peace, sir?” asked Buckland.
“Yes, peace. Preliminaries are signed. The ambassadors meet in France next month to settle the terms, but it’s peace. All hostilities are at an end — they are to cease in every part of the world on arrival of this news.”
“Peace!” said Bush.
For nine years the world had been convulsed with war; ships had burned and men had bled from Manila to Panama, west about and east about. It was hard to believe that he was living now in a world where men did not fire cannons at each other on sight. Cogshill’s next remark had a bearing on this last thought.
“National ships of the French, Batavian, and Italian Republics will be saluted with the honours due to foreign ships of war,” he said.
Buckland whistled at that, as well he might. It meant that England had recognised the existence of the red republics against which she had fought for so long. Yesterday it had been almost treason to speak the word ‘republic’. Now a captain could use it casually in an official statement.
“And what happens to us, sir?” asked Buckland.
“That’s what we must wait to hear,” said Cogshill. “But the navy is to be reduced to peacetime establishment. That means that nine ships out of ten will be paid off.”
“Holy Moses!” said Bush.
Now the next ship ahead was cheering, the sound coming shrilly through the air.
“Call the hands,” said Cogshill. “They must be told.”
The ship’s company of the Renown rejoiced to hear the news. They cheered as wildly as did the crews of the other ships. For them it meant the approaching end of savage discipline and incredible hardship. Freedom, liberty, a return to their homes. Bush looked down at the sea of ecstatic faces and wondered what the news implied for him. Freedom and liberty, possibly; but they meant life on a lieutenant’s half pay. That was something he had never experienced; in his earliest youth he had entered the navy as a midshipman — the peacetime navy which he could hardly remember — and during the nine years of the war he had only known two short intervals of leave. He was not too sure that he cared for the novel prospects that the future held out to him.
He glanced up at the flagship and turned to bellow at the signal midshipman.
“Mr Truscott! Don’t you see that signal? Attend to your duties, or it will be the worse for you, peace or no peace.”
The wretched Truscott put his glass to his eye.
“All ships,” he read. “Form line on the larboard tack.”
Bush glanced at the captain for permission to proceed.
“Hands to the braces, there!” yelled Bush. “Fill that main tops’l. Smarter than that, you lubbers! Full and by, quartermaster. Mr Cope, haven’t you eyes in your head? Take another pull at that weather-brace! God bless my soul! Easy there! Belay!”