Rare bad you looked for a minute, sir. You must be hungry, I expect, sir, not having eaten nothing since breakfast, like.
It was tactful of Brown to attribute this faintness to hunger, to which all flesh might be subject without shame, and not merely to weakness in face of wounds and suffering.
That sounds like supper coming now, croaked Bush from the stretcher, as though one of a conspiracy to ignore their captains feebleness.
The sergeant of gendarmerie came clanking in, two women behind him bearing trays. The women set the table deftly and quickly, their eyes downcast, and withdrew without looking up, although one of them smiled at the corner of her mouth in response to a meaning cough from Brown which drew a gesture of irritation from the sergeant. The latter cast one searching glance round the room before shutting and locking the door with a clashing of keys.
Soup, said Hornblower, peering into the tureen which steamed deliciously. And I fancy this is stewed veal.
The discovery confirmed him in his notion that Frenchmen lived exclusively on soup and stewed vealhe put no faith in the more vulgar notions regarding frogs and snails.
You will have some of this broth, I suppose, Bush? he continued. He was talking desperately hard now to conceal the feeling of depression and unhappiness which was overwhelming him. And a glass of this wine? It has no labellets hope for the best.
Some of their rotgut claret, I suppose, grunted Bush. Eighteen years of war with France had given most Englishmen the notion that the only wines fit for men to drink were port and sherry and Madeira, and that Frenchmen only drank thin claret which gave the unaccustomed drinker the bellyache.
Well see, said Hornblower as cheerfully as he could. Lets get you propped up first.
With his hand behind Bushs shoulders he heaved him up a little; as he looked round helplessly, Brown came to his rescue with pillows taken from the bed, and between them they settled Bush with his head raised and his arms free and a napkin under his chin. Hornblower brought him a plate of soup and a piece of bread.
Mm, said Bush, tasting. Might be worse. Please, sir, dont let yours get cold.
Brown brought a chair for his captain to sit at the table, and stood in an attitude of attention beside it; there was another place laid, but his action proclaimed as loudly as words how far it was from his mind to sit with his captain. Hornblower ate, at first with a distaste and then with increasing appetite.
Some more of that soup, Brown, said Bush. And my glass of wine, if you please.
The stewed veal was extraordinarily good, even to a man who was accustomed to meat he could set his teeth in.
Dash my wig, said Bush from the bed. Do you think I could have some of that stewed veal, sir? This travelling has given me an appetite.
Hornblower had to think about that. A man in a fever should be kept on a low diet, but Bush could not be said to be in a fever now, and he had lost a great deal of blood which he had to make up. The yearning look on Bushs face decided him.
A little will do you no harm, he said. Take this plate to Mr. Bush, Brown.
Good food and good winethe fare in the Sutherland had been repulsive, and at Rosas scantytended to loosen their tongues and make them more cheerful. Yet it was hard to unbend beyond a certain unstated limit. The awful majesty surrounding a captain of a ship of the line lingered even after the ship had been destroyed; more than that, the memory of the very strict reserve which Hornblower had maintained during his command acted as a constraint. And to Brown a first lieutenant was in a position nearly as astronomically lofty as a captain; it was awesome to be in the same room as the
two of them, even with the help of making-believe to be their old servant. Hornblower had finished his cheese by now, and the moment which Brown had been dreading had arrived.
Here, Brown, he said rising, sit down and eat your supper while its still hot.
Brown now at the age of twenty-eight, had served His Majesty in His Majestys ships from the age of eleven, and during that time he had never made use at table of other instruments than his sheath knife and his fingers; he had never eaten off china, nor had he drunk from a wineglass. He experienced a nightmare sensation as if his officers were watching him with four eyes as large as footballs the while he nervously picked up a spoon and addressed himself to this unaccustomed task. Hornblower realized his embarrassment in a clairvoyant flash. Brown had thews and sinews which Hornblower had often envied; he had a stolid courage in action which Hornblower could never hope to rival. He could knot and splice, hand, reef, and steer, cast the lead or pull an oar, all of them far better than his captain. He could go aloft on a black night in a howling storm without thinking twice about it, but the sight of a knife and fork made his hands tremble. Hornblower thought about how Gibbon would have pointed the moral epigrammatically in two vivid antithetical sentences.