Further trouble, I suppose, dear? said Barbara.
I suppose so, mumbled Hornblower.
Beyond the door St. Vincent was awaiting them, the little wind tossing the ostrich feathers of his hat and ruffling the crimson cloak of silk. His massive legs bulged the white silk trunk hose; and he was pacing up and down on huge, gouty, deformed feet that distorted the white silk shoes. But the fantastic costume in no way detracted from the grim dignity of the man. Barbara slipped her arm out of Hornblowers and discreetly dropped back to allow the two men to converse in private.
Sir? said Hornblower, and then, rememberinghe was not used yet to dealings with the peerageMy lord?
Youre ready for active service now, Hornblower?
Yes, my lord.
Youll have to start tonight.
Aye aye, sirmy lord.
When they bring my damned coach up Ill take you to the Admiralty and give you your orders. St. Vincent lifted his voice in a bellow that had hailed the maintop in West Indian hurricanes. Havent they got those damned horses in yet, Johnson?
St. Vincent caught sight of Barbara over Hornblowers shoulder,
Your servant, maam he said; he took off the plumed hat and held it across his breast as he bowed; age and gout and a lifetime at sea had not deprived him of the courtly graces, but the business of the country still had first call upon his attention, and he turned back immediately to Hornblower.
What is the service, my lord? asked the latter.
Suppression of mutiny, said St. Vincent grimly. Damned bloody mutiny. It might be 94 over again. Did you ever know ChadwickLieutenant Augustine Chadwick?
Midshipman with me under Pellew, my lord.
Well, hesah, heres my damned coach at last. What about Lady Barbara?
Ill take my own carriage back to Bond Street, said Barbara, and Ill send it back for Horatio at the Admiralty. Here it comes now.
The carriage, with Brown and the coachman on the box, drew up behind St. Vincents coach, and Brown sprang down.
Very good, then. Come on, Hornblower. Your servant, maam, again.
St. Vincent climbed in heavily, with Hornblower beside him, and the horses hoofs clashed on the cobbles as the heavy vehicle crawled forward. The pale sunlight flickered through the windows on St. Vincents craggy face as he sat stoop-shouldered on the leather seat; some urchins in the street caught sight of the gaily attired individuals in the coach and yelled Hooray, waving their tattered caps.
Chadwick had Flame, eighteen-gun brig, said St. Vincent. The crews mutinied in the Bay of the Seine and are holding him and the other officers hostage. They turned a masters mate and four loyal hands adrift in the gig with an ultimatum addressed to the Admiralty. The gig made Bembridge last night, and the papers have just
reached mehere they are.
St. Vincent shook in his gnarled hand the despatch and the enclosures which he had clasped since he received them in Westminster Abbey.
Whats the ultimatum, my lord?
Amnestyoblivion. And hang Chadwick. Otherwise they turn the brig over to the French.
The crazy fools! said Hornblower.
He could remember Chadwick in the Indefatigable ; old for a midshipman then, twenty years ago. He must be in his fifties now, and only a lieutenant. He had been a vile-tempered midshipman; after being passed over continually for promotion he must be a worse-tempered lieutenant. He could make a little vessel like the Flame, in which probably he was the only commissioned officer, a perfect hell if he wanted to. That might be the basis of the mutiny. After the terrible lessons of Spithead and the Nore, after Pigott had been murdered in the Hermione, some of the worst characteristics of the naval service had been eliminated. It was still a hard, cruel life, but not one to drive men into the suicidal madness of mutiny unless there were some special circumstances involved. A captain both cruel and unjust, a determined and intelligent leader among the menthat combination might make a mutiny. But whatever the cause, mutiny must be suppressed instantly, visited with extreme punishment. Smallpox or the plague were no more infectious and no more fatal than mutiny in a fighting service. Allow one mutineer to escape punishment, and he would be remembered by every next man with a grievance, and his example followed.
And England was at the very climax of her struggle with the French despotism. Five hundred ships of war at seatwo hundred of them ships of the linewere striving to keep the seas clear of enemies. A hundred thousand men under Wellington were bursting over the Pyrenees into southern France. And all the motley armies of eastern Europe, Russians and Prussians, Austrians and Swedes, Croats and Hungarians and Dutch, were being clothed and fed and armed by Englands exertions. It seemed as if England could not put forth one single further effort in the struggle; even as if she must falter and break down under the dreadful strain. Bonaparte was fighting for his life, with all the cunning and ferocity one might expect of him. A few more months of constancy, a few more months of fierce exertion, might bring him crashing down and restore peace to a mad world; a moments wavering, a breath of doubt, and tyranny might be clamped upon mankind for another generation, for uncounted generations to come.