Fandom: Hornblower

Kingston, 1802

What you must understand, is that in this service, and in this war, when we part, or wish a friend a good day in passing, we say farewell forever.  The uncertainty of the profession, of postings, of the very sea itself, make this a necessity.

Unlike the farmer, who raises his hat to his neighbour at his gate in cheery greeting, or the loving husband who busses his good wife before he turns his path to town, a seaman must not look to see even his dearest companion again after the shortest of partings.  I have seen a man, a friend, a messmate of two years past, stand in the bows of the launch and wave to his shipmates, as he brings the mail bag to the ship at anchor, and in that very same instant be obscured by a squall, and lost to human sight and knowledge for all time.

Our greetings are effusive and heartfelt. Our partings are perforce, brief, cold and to the point.  We say goodbye, and mean it, because we know we may bid farewell forever.

So you will understand why I should consider myself fortunate to have enjoyed my friend's companionship for eight years, separated though we may have been for some short stretch.  That is more than any seaman could, or would, hope for.

As I watch him leave this room, to enjoy the fruits of his new station in life, not least the money which burns in his pocket, I know that one night he may shake the hand of a confident, a man dear to him, as he descends to the boat on some commission, and learn hours, days, months later that he is dead, gone beyond recall, and his heart will break.

I also know now that man will not be me, and the realisation is bitter on my tongue and not all the punch in the world will sweeten my mouth today.

He paused as he stood, eager to be away, to take up the invitation to look for sport in the town. He had the grace to blush, when he asked me if I wouldn't join them, to drink, to play, to mingle sweat in some hired bed, where the whore becomes no more than the euphemism between them. That guilty blush cuts me more than the tremor of anticipation which I see in his hand, the same hand that, oh so briefly, touches the small of William's back as they pass through the narrow door together into sunlight.  That blush, and the badly disguised relief that floods his face when I decline.

They are gone.  I should have said goodbye and meant it years ago.  I have wasted time enough waiting to meet his eyes and see there some longing, anticipation, honest lust.  Our couplings have been as sterile and pointless as the writhing of mermaids.  And now he will not meet my eye at all, across this table.

This table is sticky with the trails of a thousand spillages, a thousand mugs have rested here, a thousand arses polished the bench my tail rests upon.

The air around me is full of smoke and song and curses and sex, the sounds and smells of the fleet at play, and I am staring at the dusty, sticky rings on the table.  The world is a little emptier and silent because I have said goodbye, and meant it.

The potboy scoops the coins from the table and grins.  A broad white smile in a bright black face.  He turns away, and then back, and smiles again. 

I have wasted eight years chasing a chimera. 

In an empty world one may still fill an hour or two with song and sunlight and beautiful black boys who smile and wink and promise pleasure. In time that could be more than enough. I have lost a mermaid, but the sea is wide. I might learn to whistle.

Like a fisherman, I place another coin on the table, to catch another smile.

Author's Note:

I read Lieutenant Hornblower and fell in love with the tentative courtship of Horatio Hornblower and William Bush long before the two films  were annouced – the sense of absolute security Bush felt in Hornblower's hands on the bloodsoaked decks of Renown, the farcical attempts to find a night's privacy in Portsmouth, frustrated by Whist, promotion and a unintentional proposal.  And the notorious two day debauch in Kingston, when Bush and Hornblower spent £200 prize money between them, and cemented a friendship that would last a lifetime.

Lt Kennedy is of course nowhere to be seen.  In CS Forester's version of Hornblower's life, Kennedy pursues his own path on leaving the Indefatigable, and is last seen as a flag officer to Admiral Jervis, supervising Nelson's funeral.  And this is the version I have stuck to.

But just this once I imagined how this Kennedy, the living Kennedy with many years ahead of him would have reacted if he had been in Kingston on the night of that Great Debauch...