“Get me a bath, Brown. Make it ready while I shave.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hornblower stripped off his clothes and proceeded to shave himself at the wash-hand-stand in the corner of the room. He kept his eyes from his naked body reflected in the mirror, from his skinny, hairy legs and slightly protuberant belly, as resolutely as he kept his mind from his fatigue and from his anxiety about Bush. Brown and a marine private came in carrying the bath and put it on the floor near him; Hornblower, shaving carefully round the corners of his lips, heard the hot water being poured into it from buckets. It took a little while to compound the mixture in the right proportion so as to get the temperature suitable; Hornblower stepped into it and sank down with a sigh of satisfaction — an immense amount of water poured over the sides, displaced by his body, but he did not care. He thought about soaping himself, but flinched from the effort and the physical contortions necessary, and instead he lay back and allowed himself to soak and relax. He closed his eyes.
“Sir!”
Howard’s voice caused him to reopen them.
“Two boats are in sight coming down the estuary, sir. Only two.”
Bush bad taken seven boats with him to Caudebec. Hornblower could only wait for Howard to finish his report.
“One of ’em’s Camilla’s launch, sir, I can recognise her through the glass. I don’t think the other is from Nonsuch, but I can’t be sure.”
“Very good, Captain. I’ll join you in a moment.”
Ruin and destruction; five boats lost out of seven — and Bush lost too, seemingly. The destruction of the French siege-train — if it were destroyed — would be well worth the loss of the whole flotilla, to someone who could coldly balance profit and loss. But Bush gone! Hornblower could not bear the thought of it. He sprang from his bath and looked round for a towel. He saw none, and with exasperation tore a sheet from the bed on which to dry himself. Only when he was dry and seeking his clean shirt did he find the towels by the dressing-table where they should have been. He dressed hurriedly, and at every moment his fears and his sorrow on account of Bush increased — the first shock had not been nearly as severe as this growing realisation of his bereavement. He came out into the ante-room.
“One boat’s coming into the quay, sir. I’ll have the officer reporting here in fifteen minutes,” said Howard.
Brown was across the room at the far door. Now, if ever, Hornblower had the opportunity — his unaccountable brain recognised it at this moment — to show himself a man of iron. All he had to do was to say ‘My breakfast, Brown’ and sit down and eat it. But he could not pose, faced as he was by the possibility of Bush’s death. It was all very well to do those things when it was merely a battle that lay before him, but this was the loss of his dearest friend. Brown must have read the expression on his face, for he withdrew without making any suggestion about breakfast. Hornblower stood undecided.
“I have the court-martial verdicts here for confirmation, sir,” said Howard, calling his attention to a mass of papers.
Hornblower sat down and picked one up, looked at it unseeing, and put it down again.
“I’ll deal with that later on,” he said.
“Cider’s begun coming into the city from the country in great quantity, sir, now that the farmers have found it’s a good market,” said Dobbs. “Drunkenness among the men’s increasing. Can we — ?”
“I’ll leave it to your judgment,” said Hornblower. “Now. What is it you want to do?”
“I would submit, sir, that —”
The discussion lasted a few minutes. It led naturally to the vexed question of an established rate of exchange for British and French currency. But it could not dull the gnawing anxiety about Bush.
“Where the hell’s that officer?” said Howard, petulantly pushing back his chair and going out of the room. He was back almost immediately.
“Mr. Livingstone, sir,” he said. “Third of Camilla.”