The door opened and a group of men came in.
“It’s high time for customers to arrive,” said Hornblower, with a grin at Bush. “Stay and meet my friends.”
The red coats of the army, the blue coats of the navy, the bottle‑green and snuff‑coloured coats of civilians; Bush and Hornblower made room for them before the fire after the introductions were made, and the coat‑tails were parted as their wearers lined up before the flames. But the exclamations about the cold, and the polite conversation, died away rapidly.
“Whist?” asked one of the newcomers tentatively.
“Not for me. Not for us,” said another, the leader of the red‑coats. “The Twenty‑Ninth Foot has other fish to fry. We’ve a permanent engagement with our friend the Marquis in the next room. Come on, Major, let’s see if we can call a main right this time.”
“Then will you make a four, Mr Hornblower? How about your friend Mr Bush?”
“I don’t play,” said Bush.
“With pleasure,” said Hornblower. “You will excuse me, Mr Bush, I know. There is the new number of the Naval Chronicle on the table there. There’s a Gazette letter on the last page which might perhaps hold your interest for a while. And there is another item you might think important, too.”
Bush could guess what the letter was even before he picked the periodical up, but when he found the place there was the same feeling of pleased shock to see his name in print there as keen as the first time he saw it: ‘I have the honour to be, etc., WM. BUSH.
The Naval Chronicle in these days of peace found it hard, apparently, to obtain sufficient matter to fill its pages, and gave much space to the reprinting of these despatches. ‘Copy of a letter from Vice‑Admiral Sir Richard Lambert to Evan Nepean, Esq., Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.’ That was only Lambert’s covering letter enclosing the reports. Here was the first one — it was with a strange internal sensation that he remembered helping Buckland with the writing of it, as the Renown ran westerly along the coast of Santo Domingo the day before the prisoners broke out. It was Buckland’s report on the fighting at Samaná. To Bush the most important line was ‘in the handsomest manner — under the direction of Lieutenant William Bush, the senior officer, whose report I enclose’. And here was his very own literary work, as enclosed by Buckland.
HMS Renown, off the Santo Domingo. January 9th, 1802
SIR,
I have the honour to inform you . . .
Bush relived those days of a year ago as he reread his own words: those words which he had composed with so much labour even though he had referred, during the writing of them to other reports written by other men so as to get the phrasing right.
. . . I cannot end this report without a reference to the gallant conduct and most helpful suggestions of Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower, who was my second in command on this occasion, and to whom in great part the success of the expedition is due.
There was Hornblower now, playing cards with a post captain and two contractors.
Bush turned back through the pages of the Naval Chronicle. Here was the Plymouth letter, a daily account of the doings in the port during the last month.
‘Orders came down this day for the following ships to be paid off….’ ‘Came in from Gibraltar La Diana, 44, and the Tamar, 38, to be paid off as soon as they go up the harbour and to be laid up.’ ‘Sailed the Caesar, 80, for Portsmouth, to be paid off.’ And here was an item just as significant, or even more so: ‘Yesterday there was a large sale of serviceable stores landed from different men of war.’ The navy was growing smaller every day and with every ship that was paid off another batch of lieutenants would be looking for billets. And here was an item — ‘This afternoon a fishing boat turning out of atwater jibed and overset, by which accident two industrious fishermen with large families were drowned.’ This was the Naval Chronicle, whose pages had once bulged with the news of the Nile and of Camperdown; now it told of accidents to industrious fishermen. Bush was too interested in his own concerns to feel any sympathy towards their large families.