“I’ve had a communication about you from the Navy Board,” said Cornwallis at length, severely.
“Yes, sir?” Hornblower could find a reply to this speech; the Navy Board dealt with victualling and supplies and such like matters. It could be nothing vital.
“They’ve called my attention to the consumption of stores by the Hotspur. You appear to have been expensive, Hornblower. Gunpowder, shot, sails, cordage—you’ve been using up these things as if Hotspur were a ship of the line. Have you anything to say?”
“No, sir.” He need not offer the obvious defence, not to Cornwallis.
“Neither have I.” Cornwallis smiled suddenly, as he said that, his whole expression changing. “And that is what I shall tell the Navy Board. It’s a naval officer’s duty to shoot and be shot at.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’ve done all I need to do in transmitting this information.”
The smile died away from Cornwallis’s face, and was replaced by something bleak, something a little sad. He looked suddenly much older. Hornblower was making ready to rise from his chair; he could see that Cornwallis had sent for him so that this censure from the Navy Board should be deprived of all its sting. In the Service anticipated crises sometimes resolved themselves into anti-climaxes. But Cornwallis went on speaking; the sadness of his expression was echoed in the sadness of the tone of his voice.
“Now we can leave official business,” he said, “and proceed to more personal matters. I’m hauling down my flag, Hornblower.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” Those might be trite, mechanical words, but they were not. Hornblower was genuinely, sincerely sorry, and Cornwallis could hardly think otherwise.
“It comes to us all in time,” he went on. “Fifty-one years in the Navy.”
“Hard years, too, sir.”
“Yes. For two years and three months I haven’t set foot on shore.”
“But no one else could have done what you have done, sir.”
No one else could have maintained the Channel Fleet as a fighting body during those first years of hostilities, thwarting every attempt by Bonaparte to evade its crushing power.
“You flatter me,” replied Cornwallis. “Very kind of you, Hornblower. Gardner’s taking my place, and he’ll do just as well as me.”
Even in the sadness of the moment Hornblower’s ever observant mind took notice of the use of that name without the formal ‘Lord’ or ‘Admiral’; he was being admitted into unofficial intimacy with a Commander-in-Chief, albeit one on the point of retirement.
“I can’t tell you how much I regret it, all the same, sir,” he said.
“Let’s try to be more cheerful,” said Cornwallis. The blue eyes were looking straight through Hornblower, extraordinarily penetrating. Apparently what they observed was specially gratifying. Cornwallis’s expression softened. Something appeared there which might almost be affection.
“Doesn’t all this mean anything to you, Hornblower?” he asked.
“No, sir,” replied Hornblower, puzzled. “Only what I’ve said. It’s a great pity that you have to retire, sir.”
“Nothing else?”
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t know such disinterestedness was possible. Don’t you remember what is the last privilege granted a retiring Commander-in-Chief?”
“No, sir.” That was true when Hornblower spoke; realization came a second later. “Oh, of course—”
“Now it’s beginning to dawn on you. I’m allowed three promotions. Midshipman to Lieutenant. Lieutenant to Commander. Commander to Captain.”
“Yes, sir.” Hornblower could hardly speak those words; he had to swallow hard.
“It’s a good system,” went on Cornwallis. “At the end of his career a Commander-in-Chief can make those promotions without fear or favour. He has nothing more to expect in this world, and so he can lay up store for the next, by making his selection solely for the good of the service.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do I have to go on? I’m going to promote you to Captain.”
“Thank you, sir. I can’t—” Very true. He could not speak.
“As I said, I have the good of the service in mind. You’re the best choice I can make, Hornblower.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Mark you, this is the last service I can do for you. A fortnight from now I’ll be nobody. You’ve told me you have no friends in high places?”
“Yes, sir. No, sir.”
“And commands still go by favour. I hope you find it, Hornblower. And I hope you have better luck in the matter of prize money. I did my best for you.”
“I’d rather be a captain and poor than anyone else and rich, sir.”
“Except perhaps an Admiral,” said Cornwallis; he was positively grinning.
“Yes, sir.”
Cornwallis rose from his chair. Now he was a Commander-in-Chief again, and Hornblower knew himself dismissed. Cornwallis raised his voice in the high-pitched carrying hail of the Navy.
“Pass the word for Captain Collins!”
“I must thank you, sir, most sincerely.”
“Don’t thank me any more. You’ve thanked me enough already. If ever you become an admiral with favours to give you’ll understand why.”
Collins had entered and was waiting at the door.
“Good-bye, Hornblower.”
“Good-bye, sir.”
Only a shake of the hand; no further word, and Hornblower followed Collins to the quarter-deck.
“I’ve a water-hoy standing by for you,” said Collins. “In a couple of tacks she’ll fetch Hotspur.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’ll be in the Gazette in three weeks’ time. Plenty of time to make your arrangements.”
“Yes, sir.”
Salutes, the squealing of pipes, and Hornblower went down the side and was rowed across to the troy. It was an effort to be polite to the captain. The tiny crew had hauled up the big lugsails before Hornblower realized that this was an interesting process which he would have done well to watch closely. With the lugsails trimmed flat and sharp the little hoy laid herself close to the wind and foamed forward towards France.
Those last words of Collins’ were still running through Hornblower’s mind. He would have to leave the Hotspur; he would have to say good-bye to Bush and all the others, and the prospect brought a sadness that quite took the edge off the elation that he felt. Of course he would have to leave her; Hotspur was too small to constitute a command for a Post Captain. He would have to wait for another command; as the junior captain on the list he would probably receive the smallest and least important sixth rate in the navy. But for all that he was a Captain. Maria would be delighted.