“I expect so,” said Hornblower.
“Don’t know whether you’ll be fighting for the Russians or against them,” mused Louis. “Same with the Swedes. God knows what’s building up, up there. But His Nibs’ll tell you all about that.”
Hornblower looked a question.
“Your revered brother-in-law, the most noble the Marquis Wellesley, K.P., His Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. We call him His Nibs for short. We’ll walk across and see him in a minute. But there’s something else important to settle. Who d’you want for captain in Nonsuch?”
Hornblower gasped at that. This was patronage on a grand scale. He had sometimes appointed midshipmen and surgeon’s mates; a parson of shady record had once hungrily solicited him for nomination as chaplain in his ship, but to have a say in the appointment of a captain of a ship of the line was something infinitely more important than any of these. There were 120 captains junior to Hornblower, men of most distinguished record, whose achievements were talked of with bated breath in the four quarters of the world, and who had won their way to that rank at the cost of their blood and by the performance of feats of skill and daring unparalleled in history. Certainly half of these, perhaps more, would jump at the suggestion of the command of a seventy-four. Hornblower remembered his own joy at his appointment to Sutherland two years ago. Captains on half-pay, captains with shore appointments eating out their hearts with wailing for a sea command, it was in his power to change the whole life and career of one of these. Yet there was no hesitation about his decision. There might be more brilliant captains available, captains with more brains, but there was only one man that he wanted.
“I’ll have Bush,” he said, “if he’s available.”
“You can have him,” said Louis, with a nod. “I was expecting you to ask for him. That wooden leg of his won’t be too serious a handicap, you think.”
“I don’t think so,” said Hornblower. It would have been irksome in the extreme to go to sea with any other captain than Bush.
“Very well, then,” said Louis, looking round at the clock on the wall. “Let’s walk across and see His Nibs, if you’ve no objection.”
CHAPTER THREE
Hornblower sat in his private sitting-room in the Golden Cross inn. There was a fire burning, and on the table at which he sat there were no fewer than four wax candles lighted. All this luxury — the private sitting-room, the fire, the wax candles — gave Hornblower uneasy delight. He had been poor for so long, he had had to scrape and economize so carefully all his life, that recklessness with money gave him this queer dubious pleasure, this guilty joy. His bill to-morrow would contain an item of at least half a crown for light, and if he had been content with rush dips the charge would not have been more than twopence. The fire would be a shilling, too. And you could trust an innkeeper to make the maximum charges to a guest who obviously could afford them, a Knight of the Bath, with a servant, and a two-horse chariot. To-morrow’s bill would be nearer two guineas than one, Hornblower touched his breast pocket to reassure himself that his thick wad of one-pound notes was still there. He could afford to spend two guineas a day.
Reassured, he bent again to the notes which he had made during his interview with the Foreign Secretary. They were in irregular order, jotted down as first one thing and then another had come into Wellesley’s mind. It was quite clear that not even the Cabinet knew for certain whether the Russians were going to fight Bonaparte or not. No, that was the wrong way to put it. Nobody knew whether Bonaparte was going to fight the Russians or not. However much ill will the Tsar bore towards the French — and obviously it was great — he would not fight unless he had to, unless Bonaparte deliberately attacked him. Certainly the Tsar would make every possible concession rather than fight, at least at present while he was still trying to build up and reorganize his army.