*The
Privateer*
Warning: Book Spoilers and some severe bashing of Admiral Lord Hornblower. This story takes place during the last novel in the book series, Hornblower in the West Indies, but you should be able to understand this if you haven’t read it. I couldn’t help thinking Admiral Hornblower was exactly the kind of officer Archie Kennedy would dislike.
The Shelley quotations are from ‘The Mask of Anarchy.’
*****************
“There are many good, or at least amiable midshipmen, there are fewer good lieutenants, still fewer good captains and almost no good admirals.”
Stephen Maturin in HMS Surprise
***********
It was not expected Rear-Admiral Lord Hornblower would attend. They said in Kingston that he was known for not liking social functions, which made perfect sense to me. I would not have gone if I had thought he would be there but in the end it was safe enough.
I rather enjoy such occasions myself, they make a pleasant change from the everlasting fighting. Kingston society was still regarding me as a minor novelty, the unpolished wanderer from South America. In fact I remember proper manners perfectly well, but I’d soon realised a rough diamond was what they expected so it seemed a shame to disappoint. I was not intending my stay in Kingston to be a very long one and for once my plans held good.
It was Lady Hornblower I was introduced to first. I knew about her, of course. Lady Barbara Wellesley, Wellington’s sister. A marriage such as that was one thing I could not have anticipated for him. She was a well-dressed woman, not beautiful although one might have called her handsome, and plainly aware of her own standing. I guessed she must have married for love, for the marriage had certainly been beneath her station. I wondered if she was happy but no lady would reveal such things at a public function.
She was curious, I think genuinely. I saw no purpose in telling her that amongst my circles the name of Wellesley is accompanied with a curse, although she cannot have thought her family popular with us. She was plainly not a stupid woman, but I can’t say I was favourably impressed by her questions. They were the kind of hushed voice askings I’d heard from many in Kingston, wanting to know were the stories about the Spanish in South America true? Wanting to be shocked and horrified.
“No,” I told her curtly. “They are not true. They are pale shadows of the truth, slight reflections of horrors no-one in your cosy lives would believe.” She had decency at least to look sombered. I was not about to trot out further details for Kingston’s titillation, not about to describe the torture and the rape and the mutilation that was no matter of soldiers run amuck but of deliberate and refined atrocity, meant to cause submission by pure terror. Once I had believed I knew Spanish cruelty, but I had barely touched the outer edge.
“Is that why you fight against them?”
“Part of the reason, although I didn’t know the full horrors myself when I began.” Truth here would do no harm. “You will no doubt have heard Bolivar’s hands aren’t clean, and you’ll have heard the truth. But as long as we have not sunk as low as them, I’ll stay.”
I’d provided a new topic. “What’s Bolivar like?”
“Half-mad. But sincere. He believes, and what he believes is worthwhile.”
“That does not tell me very much.”
Well, she was from a family of soldiers. So I told her about the crossing of the Andes. How men fell from the cliffs and froze in the nights and died in their hundreds. How he lost two-thirds of his force and routed the Spaniards with the scarecrows that survived. She listened.
“That was a great achievement.”
“It was not. It was insane obsession. Greatness would have been to achieve the goal without wasting life. Bolivar touches greatness sometimes, but not then.”
“That is a strange answer from one of his followers.”
“I have his letter of marque, that doesn’t mean I idolise him. I fight for the cause, not the man who leads. Though there is much to respect in him, it’s true. He really fights for those benighted wretches, even if he goes too far sometimes.”
“I thought you were a mercenary,” she said.
“There is nothing wrong with fighting for money. Most of those who die in your country’s name have an eye to pay and loot.”
“Your country also, surely?”
“I’ve been gone for a long time,” I said.
“Since before the war with the French ended then?”
“Oh yes, well before.”
“So you did not fight for your own country, yet you chose to be a privateer for Bolivar.”
“Not for Bolivar, I told you that. And my reasons are my own.” I could tell she’d hoped to provoke a sharper response but she had picked the wrong weapons.
I thought I had puzzled her, and was quite content with that.
*
Lady Hornblower I could deal with easily, a meeting with Lord Hornblower was not so easy. I found out afterwards he had come late and a little unexpectedly. The host of the gathering, a large landowner with heavy rings and a paunch, plainly thought it a nice ploy to introduce the admiral to the privateer.
He had put on weight, no longer thin as a rail. The hair was thinner and greying at the temples, he wore it cut short nowadays. It was the face I looked at most closely, noting the deep lines around brows and mouth. Looking closely I could recognise the features I had once known much better than my own, but I did not think I would have known him had I not been well aware of who he was. Not at once.
I knew that I looked different too. Hair prematurely pure silver, a tan fixed long enough to be ingrained, and the scar running down one side of the face, beginning near one slightly drawn-down eye-corner. Very different, surely, from the young lieutenant who had last set foot in Kingston, and yet he was peering as he looked at me. It was hard to remain still. I had no desire for recognition. What would Rear-Admiral Lord Hornblower want with an adventurer like me, a shady revenant from a distant past?
What would the revenant want with the likes of Rear-Admiral Lord Hornblower?
I had heard of him, from time to time across the years. Dry newspaper reports, the odd more detailed account from admittedly prejudiced men. With all allowance made what I had heard was not encouraging. Oh, he had shown all the brilliance expected from him, but there were other things I did not like. Of course, I too had had some prejudice and distant judgements are hardly reliable. But I’d not wished for this meeting.
The introductions were complete, my mouth spoke some meaningless pleasantry. The host was speaking, determinedly jovial, wanting to impress his leading guest. I saw the admiral turn slightly and direct the same peering gaze towards him, and understanding came.
Not half-felt recognition, but damaged sight, the sailor’s bane. He was not peering at me more than any other, he simply could not see the person that he spoke to properly.
The host moved on, to attend to some other guest, but I felt safe now. The voice was no threat, I was already using slightly roughened tones to fulfil Kingston’s expectations.
“I believe I had dealings with a colleague of yours not long past, one Mesquito.”
He was making formal conversation, but I caught the faint flicker of scorn for the stateless wanderer that he spoke to.
“Yes, it was Captain Mesquito who came to Kingston to purchase ships for us not long ago.” Given that some of the money had been mine, it was not surprising that he recognised the name I used these days.
“Was there a reason why it was Mesquito who came to Kingston, although you are the Britisher?” This was not idle talk, it was the government man probing for information.
“Because he is not British,” I said and let him puzzle that one out. Of course they had met, although Mesquito had needed no admiral’s permission for his purchases any efficient admiral would know what he was doing and make a point of meeting him. You are an alien, I had told Mesquito. He will pity you a little for not being British, but he will respect you, as he would not respect a British man who fights for others. To his type I would be a fool or a ruffian. It is better that you go. “I thought you would deal more easily with a foreigner.” Time to probe a little. “I remember he asked my advice before he came here, wanting to know if he should trust my countryman.”
“And what did you tell him?” he enquired politely.
Deliberately I repeated the exact words I had used to Mesquito. “He is an admiral of the British Navy.” Pause. “Of course you should not trust him.”
Looking close I saw the almost veiled reaction, and knew I had flipped him on the raw. “Naturally,” I went on, “Captain Mesquito knew already you are no friend to our cause.” A government man, and a Wellesley man, what else could be expected? The Wellesleys were our unbending opponents, after all.
“The policy of our Government is fixed. We have no enmity towards Spain’s colonies.”
“Of course not,” I said blandly, “You want to maintain your trading links.” There was more that I could say on that head, but not just yet. “From what I hear you seem to have had quite an eventful time in office, Admiral, much to preoccupy you. Some of it our doing, I am glad to say. Now, of course, there is that matter of a disobedient marine to settle, isn’t there?”
“That? That is hardly a case of much importance.” This time there was no flicker.
“A man’s life seems to me important enough.”
“A strange view from one who fights for Bolivar.”
“War should not lead to life being counted trivial.”
He gave a slight, impatient shrug. “I’m surprised you’ve even heard of such a matter.”
“A man who would rather die than play a note in a certain way? That is the sort of thing which gets talked about. As does the service that would kill him for such a reason.”
“Not for playing a wrong note.” Coldness seasoned with the tinge of scorn for the outsider’s lack of understanding. “For wilful disobedience to orders. That is the law of the Navy.”
“Oh, I know that.” I had to look away then, raw despite myself at the coldness in his face and voice. “That doesn’t mean I think it right.”
“It is hardly your concern.” The faint impatience of a man who finds a conversation pointless. Well, it was no more than I had expected. Truly my Horatio was dead.
“I find it all of a piece, shall we say. It is hardly surprising that those who think nothing of killing this man should be indifferent to the horrors which the Spanish work.”
“Are you intending to repeat those wild tales?”
“I doubt that they would move your ears. Still, I would welcome the chance for discussion at a more convenient time.” However hopeless I felt it to be I owed it to the men I fought with to make the attempt. Besides, this was too short a meeting. Now that I had seen him briefly I would not rest until I had had a chance for further speech. A chance to be quite sure of who he was now, however unpalatable the knowledge might be.
*
I walked to the meeting on a breezy morning, quite cool by West Indies standards. Kingston induced in me a suffocating feel which was nothing to do with the heat. It was a fevered place, where people came to make fortunes or occasionally washed up in escaping from a past life, and all the time there was the constant defence of slavery from the landowners who feared the Abolitionist swell. Agitation for the freeing of all slaves in Britain’s colonies continued, the slave trade itself having been abolished years before, at least in law. The rights of slavery was the most common subject of talk in any well-to-do household. Of course that was true all over the Caribbean and it was probably just my own memories that made Kingston seem especially stifling. I did not like Kingston. It would be a relief to be gone from it.
At the admiral’s house I was met by a man who had ‘secretary’ so clearly stamped upon him there was scarcely any need for introductions. He was mildly apologetic for Lord Hornblower’s delay and I reassured him that I did not mind an appointment made at such short notice being delayed. I made an attempt to question the man about his employer, but he blocked all enquiries with discreet expertise. Seeing no point in further persistence I turned the talk to other matters. We were speaking of the recent death of Bonaparte when Lord Hornblower came in.
Oddly enough the topic proved well chosen, and something close to animation flashed into the slightly ill-focused eyes which were not as dark as they had once been. “A blessing to the world,” he said. “All danger from the tyrant of our age is passed.”
Strange how Bonaparte inspires such strong feelings among Europeans. Hero or wicked tyrant, nothing in between. The South Americans tend to regard him as a liberator corrupted, an example to avoid. Since the matter seemed academic I contented myself by remarking, “The British government is rid of an expensive guest.”
“More than expensive. A dangerous serpent.” He sounded so vehement I wondered if any of the crackbrained schemes to put Bonaparte at the head of a South American army had come his way. They would never have come to anything, of course, for no more than a handful would have been willing to follow him, but his legend would have kept fear as well as hope swirling around his name in some minds at least. Briefly I considered pursuing the subject, but there seemed little point to that.
With the matter dropped, the admiral took a few moments to give instructions to the secretary before turning again to me. Watching carefully, I observed that although he spoke to the man pleasantly, perhaps even with liking, there was a distinct undertone of patronage in his voice, and I felt again a treacherous twinge of pain. The Horatio I knew was never patronising. With this man it seemed habitual.
Once the secretary had been politely dismissed I would have spent some time in further small talk, but Lord Hornblower would have none of it. The impatient desire to get to the heart of things was familiar, but the echo of my lost friend only served to increase the pain of memory. Well, if business was what he wanted then I would get down to it.
“You know well enough what we want from Britain.” I told him. “Recognition. Acknowledgement that the states of South America are legitimate countries.”
“And you know it is not in my power to give that.” The response was clearly prepared.
“I’m not suggesting you issue a single-handed declaration. But you have influence, without a doubt. You could exert that when you return home.”
“I am a naval man,” he said impatiently. “Not a politician.”
“Whilst I can quite understand wanting to steer clear of politics, a man in your position cannot do so entirely. And you have been closer than most to the heart of it all, far closer. You would be heeded.”
“I would not presume to trespass on a matter outside my remit.” The tone was forbiddingly flat, but I was no junior officer to accept his wish to end the topic.
“Then tyranny is not your concern? You were singing a different tune a few minutes ago.”
“The cases are not comparable. My business is to counter the enemies of England. Not to make new ones.”
I studied him in silence. Still a handsome man, but the swift mobility of his features was gone, leaving a taut and frozen look behind. He was less easy to read than he had once been, but I have found the study of men a useful skill, and I felt that I had seen enough of this man to tell when he was wearing a mask and when he was simply unfeeling.
Long ago I had advanced arguments of humanity with a young lieutenant, and though he attempted to brush aside my points I always knew when one struck home. Today I might as well make my arguments to a tombstone.
A change of tactics seemed in order. I abandoned attempts to prick his conscience and groped instead for issues of expedience. Unfortunately I am myself no politician, and though I attempted to marshal the advantages for Britain of weakening Spain’s power I could tell my arguments were not well made. His twin positions were that England did not wish to make an enemy of Spain, and that the judgement of foreign policy was a matter for Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh. Having never really expected to make headway I was not too disappointed, yet the faint scorn which underlay all his words was galling. But what else would an admiral show a privateer?
“My concern is the interest of England,” he repeated, “Our policy is clear.”
“Oh, yes, it is clear. Trimming and hedging without a spark of humanity. But what else should be expected from Britain’s current Foreign Secretary after all? ‘I met Murder on the way, he had a face like Castlereagh.’” Do you know Shelley?
“That revolutionary? I don’t think even my wife reads him.” He had told me a good deal in a few words. There was no mistaking the same patronage in his tone when he spoke of his wife that he had applied to his secretary. I wondered how a woman of her evident pride bore with it.
“A pity, he’s a good writer. I think he will be called a genius one day. ‘And many more Destructions played, in this ghastly masquerade…’. He simplifies, I suppose, but then he’s a poet.”
He was waiting politely for his troublesome visitor to run out of breath. I refused to sigh in front of him. “Since there seems no point in further conversation I will see myself out. I would wish you a good morning, Admiral, but that would be hypocrisy.”
*
Afterwards I had no regrets for the spurt of anger that had ended the meeting. There had been little enough point in further speech. I thought that one day I would be glad of having had this opportunity, for it had finally confirmed what I had long known must be the case. Perhaps, knowing for certain my Horatio was gone, I could confine him to the past where he belonged, and think of Lord Hornblower as the stranger that he was
I had expected nothing else. I had said my goodbye to Horatio the day I learned he had taken a command and sailed from Kingston. I knew then, all too clearly, what he must become. No point in seeking him out, he would forget his trouble-making ship-mate soon enough if left alone. I would not bind him to a fugitive felon by ties of obligation, nor did I wish to suffer the pain of watching all I cared for in him die. Better to make a clean break.
The same day the trial concluded he had taken the command. They hadn’t wasted much time. And he had accepted, with my blood still fresh. Colluded in the travesty of truth, accepted the corruption of the trial without a protest. But who am I to judge him? Adventurer. Mutineer. What did it matter if dishonour was attached to one insignificant dead lieutenant with a chequered past? Why should he care?
He would have cared once: if not for me then for the principle. He would have cared, that shining youth with his stubborn integrity which I once cursed for foolishness. He would have cared once, but on Renown I saw him fight to kill that part in him I thought the best. I saw him struggle to suppress the caring that he might be what the Navy sought to make him.
It was not base ambition. I know that. He looked up to them so, those men of power. He wished to be what they thought well of, and never would ask if their values were right. I can remember it still, the crushing pain when I knew the day would come when I must cease to trust him, lose the only anchor that I knew. Oh, I fought, with all my little might, but it was hopeless. Against that glitter of gold braid, what chance had such as I?
All that time is past. And it was little enough that I gave up, for what does it matter what the Navy thought of me? Their opinion is hardly worth fretting over. I am better as I am than as an aging lieutenant on the half-pay list, a man worn out in the service of rottenness. Horatio showed me how to live, all those years ago, he taught me the standards that I have tried to hold to since and for that I must be forever grateful. Even if his own forsaking of those standards ripped away my faith and hope. I should have let them go before.
Oh, but I was a fool! A naïve, young fool, dazzled by one more foolish still. I saw things clear once, but in Spain he seduced me into thinking that there was credit in conscience, that a man could serve and succeed and keep bright values untarnished. Not I perhaps, but men like him. Well, I’ve learned better now. I keep my standards and expect nothing for it but the knowledge of having done so. A cold thing to live with, but a harder thing to live without. I regret none of my acts, only my foolish caring.
Can I blame him for shrugging me off, forgetting the past? No. It’s no more than I wished for, for I had no desire to cause him pain. No, I did not wish that he should mourn and brood. And what was I to him, in the end? A comrade in battle, a companion who could tickle his humour. Nothing that mattered greatly. I must forgive him for forgetting, for it is what I willed. But forgive him for becoming a man like those who perpetrated that agony here in Kingston, for becoming a man who could speak of killing for a trivial matter and look me in the eye and feel nothing? A man to whom the tyrannies of Spain were meaningless? No, that I would not forgive.
*
Lady Hornblower came into the room with the easy arrogance of a woman whose title makes her welcome everywhere. That did not explain why she had come here at all. It was certainly surprising that a woman like her should visit the rented property which the privateer she had spoken to just once had taken for his days in Kingston.
“Forgive the intrusion, Captain, but I understand you mean to make sail soon.”
“My business here is done.”
“Was it public or private?” An oddly random question.
“Both. I came here to settle a small matter of business, executing a will in fact. But I have been canvassing for support whilst present – as I have no doubt your husband knows. Revolutions need money and there is much of it in Jamaica.”
“So you have lost a friend. I am sorry.” It struck me with surprise that she was avoiding the purpose of her visit in a manner I would take for nerves in anyone less assured.
“Not a friend,” I said, indulging her. “I barely knew the man, he must have been short on reliable associates to make me his executor. But he did take a risk to save my life once.” Strange that she should probe that matter. The past was suddenly close again. “The odd thing is, I never knew why. He didn’t even like me.”
It was almost a surprise to realise I’d spoken the last words aloud. In truth it still puzzled me. I never had understood Clive, but perhaps he too had had some standards. And I don’t really think he had meant to do more than let me die in peace. I probably took him quite aback by surviving after all. Why he quit the service and set up in private practice in Kingston is easier to understand, there was nothing for him to stay for. Contact between us had been sporadic and distant, but somehow I could not let go of my one link to the past.
“What is it that you want?” I finally asked when she seemed no more disposed to come to the point.
“I have a proposition for you. A business offer. I am prepared to pay, and well.”
I tipped my head back, regarding her. “What makes you think I want your money?”
“Because,” she said, “you are a mercenary.”
“I am not, as it happens. I don’t need prize money, far from it. Did you think that sloops come cheap?”
“You own your own?” She was plainly taken aback.
“It’s no secret. There are fortunes to be made in trade. I made one before I returned to war again.”
Yes, there are fortunes to be made out on the edge of what men call civilisation, especially for those willing to gamble. Well, I had had nothing left to lose, so I gambled over and over and though I lost sometimes I won more often. I am what men call rich and find it useful.
“I worked to make that fortune,” I told her, for this woman made me angry, not in herself but for the reminders her presence brought, and I felt the need to let a little of that anger out. “I didn’t want it for luxury, or to hoard like a miser, I wanted the strength that money brings. No-one thinks a rich man insignificant, no matter how they mock.” I bit back the old bitterness, the knowledge of my inability to impress by achievement or personality. The memory of my hated lack of all importance. For me it had to be money, there would never be another way. I had not the knack of making myself valued, or impressing others by character alone. Only one had ever thought twice of me before I was a rich man, and he had thought no more than that. In the end to him too I had been insignificant, a jester at best, no-one whose views would ever matter.
“And that matters to you?”
“Yes, it matters. I don’t expect you to understand that, my lady. I don’t expect you to know what it is to be forever dismissed, discounted, even when you know that you are in the right, to be eternally, to all who know you, unimportant.”
“Why wouldn’t I know?” she said sharply. “I am a woman. Most men, even the best, rate us no more than servants or dogs. Don’t you know that?”
“I am a sailor. I haven’t had much to do with women.” Even to me the answer sounded lame.
“You mean we are good for fun in port, but nothing more? Well, never mind that. I’m not here for myself, but for one of your insignificants, a man whose life will be casually snuffed out before too long has passed. The man Hudnutt. Have you heard of the matter?”
“The man who will die for playing a wrong note? Most of Kingston has heard.”
“For playing a right note, in his own view. But that is not a view significant in the eyes of the Navy. I do not think that man should die, and that is why I am here. I can get him out of prison, but he needs to be got out of Jamaica and that is where you come in.”
I was so astonished by the reason for her visit that I could hardly collect myself enough to say, “Because I am to sail soon? You want me to take this Hudnutt with me?”
“I will pay you, and handsomely.”
“I don’t want your money.” Seeing the freezing of her expression I made haste to explain. “I’ll take him, and gladly, but I don’t want money for it. It will be a pleasure.” And it would. A great pleasure to snatch a brand from the burning and put one across the Navy. How they still sicken me! Not the ordinary sailors, but the gold-laced men of power.
She looked at me now in some wonder. “Thank you, Captain.”
“No need for thanks – but I would like to ask one question. How does your husband fit in with this scheme?”
“He knows nothing of it,” she said instantly. “I would not deceive you into thinking that you can look to him for protection. To him the law of the Navy is sacrosanct, he will allow no criticism, still less defiance.”
“You may count on my discretion,” I told her. But she shook her head.
“Just get Hudnutt safe away. Once he is gone, I mean to tell the truth. Even at the cost of my marriage…. I will not live a lie with him.”
It was my turn again to stare. Oh, she must love indeed! And he? If she believed she had his love she would not expect this to put an end to however much they shared. I doubted that she feared divorce or separation, not with her family ties, but a marriage could exist to the world and yet be dead inside. There must be some life in it at present, then, but plainly she did not feel herself valued.
Had he ever loved, that admiral I had exchanged words with not so long before? Long ago I would have said for sure my friend would love from a full heart one day. Yet the man that governed in Kingston was not the one that I had known, and remembering that chill, pinched face I wondered if there was a heart left to him at all. It must be a cold and compromised thing if so.
She deserved better, I thought, haughty aristocrat though she was, this woman before me deserved a better man.
“I owe you an apology,” I said, “I should not have been so slighting.”
“Perhaps I owe you one as well.” She paused. “Why do you fight with Bolivar?”
“Because it is a cause worth supporting. Money is a good thing to have, but it’s not much to show for a life when all is said and done.”
It’s a cold thing, a cause, but it is better to have something to hold to than nothing at all. It is a thing to value, a reason to look forward. And for all the blood and brutality the fighting life is one that suits me. I appreciate the vigour of it, the fierceness and the rough bonds it forms. Camaraderie is good to have, even that fractured form that is the life of a sea-captain. I can still take pleasure in companionship, even if I doubt I will ever again hazard my heart in real closeness.
It’s a good life, on the whole. For the most part I am content, or as much so as restless humanity is likely to be. The Navy did me a favour without meaning to. It’s only the thought of him that still makes me bitter, and I did not think of him so often before I came back to Kingston.
“You are a strange privateer,” she said.
“Perhaps your idea of privateers is no more accurate than mine of women. Are you sure you can release this man? I will give any help I can.”
“Thank you, Captain, but I think it is better to keep things separate. But we must arrange a meeting place.”
“Why not here? No-one will connect him with me.”
“Very well, here it is.” She paused and I wondered if she were as baffled as I was as to how to end this most strange conversation.”
“I wish you good fortune, my lady.” There was no sarcasm in my voice this time, but she stiffened all the same. Perhaps I had intruded too far.
“Good sailing, Captain.”
*
It was good to feel the wind in my sails again, and look back to see the port of Kingston fall away. Forever, I hoped. It was good to see Hudnutt on deck, and the beam on his face and to know that one man had been saved from the brutal Articles. It was good to take up the familiar reins of command, and to know my freedom.
Strange, how life works out. I dreamed of my own command once, and then later I put the dream away reckoning lieutenant’s rank to be as high as I could hope for. To be captain and owner too, and with no Admiralty chain about my neck, that would have been beyond belief. But in those days I would have scoffed like other officers at the name of privateer.
Perhaps it is a mark of failure, but there is in truth no shame in admitting one had insufficient strength to win. To the stone-hearted Admiralty men I was so easily destroyed. But I had lived, and I was well away from them. I was master of my own soul, with freedom beneath my feet. And I regretted none of my deeds.
Saving him had been the right act, for it was the life that mattered. I had no right to weigh the value of it, or to feel aggrieved that what he had made of it was so far from what I would have wished. It was the principle that mattered, and the principle had been that I did not expect to live and there was no point wasting two lives where one would serve. In the end both of us had lived on, according to our different lights. I did the right thing however little I like the product of it.
And yet, and yet…. One cannot live another’s life, should I condemn his choices? Yet… how can I not judge if I am to keep my own values clear? It was not his fault I loved him. It was not his fault that I was damaged already, far too vulnerable to further hurt, or that I clung so hard to a ship-mate’s casual fondness. But still, I think back to how that young man was and I think on the man I saw in Kingston and how can I not judge?
He is no worse a man than other admirals, I am sure. But he has betrayed himself and that does hurt. To see him one of those cold-souled men who sacrificed humanity long since…. I had foreseen it, and yet it was still so very hard.
But Kingston was falling behind and the pain would lessen. In the end the Navy had taken nothing from me except a few illusions. My life was well, and Admiral Lord Hornblower was not my concern. Let him live with the standards he had chosen! He was welcome to his power and rank and fame. Not for anything on earth would I have stood in his place.
The young lieutenants who came to Kingston on Renown are long since gone. The admiral has the things he wanted, and the privateer is well pleased with the life he has. No doubt that is as near to a happy ending as this world allows.
**The End**