The Commodore. C. S. Forester

“Bring me some coffee,” he said when Brown came in.

“Aye aye, sir.”

Hornblower continued to sit on the edge of his cot. Overhead he heard the raucous voice of Hurst blaring through the skylight, apparently addressing a delinquent midshipman.

“A fine young flibberty-gibbet you are,” said Hurst “Look at that brasswork! D’you call that bright? Where d’you keep your eyes? What’s your division been doing this last hour? God, what’s the Navy coming to, when warrants are given to young jackanapes who couldn’t keep their noses clear with a marline-spike! You call yourself a King’s officer? You’re more like a winter’s day, short, dark, and dirty!”

Hornblower took the coffee Brown brought in.

“My compliments to Mr Hurst,” he croaked, “and ask him kindly not to make so much noise over my skylight.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The first satisfaction that day was to hear Hurst cut his tirade abruptly short. Hornblower sipped at the scalding coffee with some degree of pleasure. It was not surprising that Hurst should be in a bad temper to-day. He had been through a harassing evening the night before; Hornblower remembered Hurst and Mound carrying Braun, unconscious and reeking with spirits, into the carriage at the palace door. Hurst had been strictly sober, but apparently the mental strain of keeping guard over a secret assassin in the Tsar’s palace had been too much for his nerves. Hornblower handed his cup back to Brown to be refilled when Brown reappeared, and pulled his nightshirt over his head as he waited. Something caught his eye as he laid his nightshirt on his cot; it was a flea, leaping high out of the sleeve. In a wave of disgust he looked down at himself; his smooth round belly was pockmarked with flea-bites. That was a striking commentary on the difference between an Imperial palace and one of His Britannic Majesty’s ships of the line. When Brown returned with his second cup of coffee Hornblower was still cursing fiercely both at Imperial uncleanness and at the dreary prospect of the nuisance of having to rid himself of vermin to which he was peculiarly susceptible.

“Take that grin off your face,” snapped Hornblower, “or I’ll send you to the grating to see if you grin there!”

Brown was not grinning; all that could be said about his expression was that he was too obviously not grinning. What irritated Hornblower was the knowledge that Brown was enjoying the superior and paternal state of mind of one who has not a headache while the man who is with him has.

His shower-bath restored some of Hornblower’s peace of mind, and he put on clean linen, gave Brown orders for the disinfection of his clothes, and went up on deck, where the first person on whom he laid eyes was Wychwood, bleary-eyed and obviously with a far worse headache than he had himself. Yet the keen air of the Russian morning was invigorating and refreshing. The normal early-morning ship’s routine, the sight of the rows of men holystoning the decks, the pleasant swish of the water over the planking, were comforting and restorative as well.

“Boat coming off to us, sir,” reported a midshipman to the officer of the watch.

It was the same pinnace as had taken them ashore yesterday, and it brought a naval officer with a letter in French –

His Excellency the Minister of the Imperial Marine presents his compliments to Commodore Sir Hornblower. His Excellency has given orders for a water-boat to be alongside the Nonsuch at eleven o’clock this morning.

A distinguished nobleman, M. le Comte du Nord, having expressed a desire to see one of His Britannic Majesty’s Ships, His Excellency proposes to trespass upon Sir Hornblower’s hospitality by visiting the Nonsuch at ten o’clock in company with the Comte du Nord.

Hornblower showed the letter to Wychwood, who confirmed his suspicions.

“That’s Alexander,” he said. “He used the title of Comte du Nord when he was travelling on the continent as Tsarevitch, He’ll be corning incognito, so that there’ll be no need for royal honours.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower dryly, a little nettled at this soldier giving him advice beyond what he was asked for. “But an Imperial Minister of Marine must rank with a First Lord of the Admiralty. That’ll mean nineteen guns and all the other honours. Midshipman of the watch! My compliments to the captain, and I shall be very obliged if he will be good enough to come on deck.”

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