quigonejinn | Chest and Torso (Reply)

We're talking about Hornblower characters as ice cream over at

thehappyreturn. (See #10 on the meme)

After Caudebec but before he left for England again, Hornblower had Bush's sea chest transferred to his possession. He spoke to Hurst, captain now, and between them, they worked out which things Hurst would buy, and which Hornblower (half-ordering and half-volunteering) would take back to England with him for Bush's family. It was only after the chest had been delivered that Hornblower realized that it was not the one that Bush had on the Renown or the one that he had taken with him around the world with the Lydia -- he had known, in the back of his head, but he had never had a chance to sit down and study the chest, think on it.

This one was new, barely scratched. Bush had lost everything that he had on the Sutherland. Everything he had now had been bought expressly for command of the Nonsuch.
Something that should have been in the chest, but was not: a copy of Norie's Seamanship, cover bent, leaves spotted. Third-hand even when it first came into Bush's possession. A previous owner had been a doodler, but the ink he used was not good quality and had faded, in certain places, to a light brown by the time that Hornblower saw the book as a junior lieutenant.

Bush rarely looked at it; Hornblower only knew that it existed because Bush had once brought it with him to one of their noontime navigation exercises. He could tell Hornblower the pages at which certain propositions could be found -- he had studied the thing, knew parts of it off by heart -- but he couldn't work out drift to save his life.
Something else that Bush owned and that Hornblower would have given dearly to have had after Caudebec: the watch that Bush had carried with him from the Sutherland onwards. Not all of Bush's captains had Hornblower's luck with prize money, and thus, when Hornblower saw Bush after the Princess, Bush had a fifty guinea gentleman's watch that kept better time than Hornblower's.

The back of the watch was engraved to a Mr. John Asworth from his Father-in-Law on the Occaision of His Marriage -- Bush had walked into a watchmaker's in Portsmouth and asked for the best, most expensive, and most complete watch they had and had put down hard cash for it. He put down its price in coin, then put guineas on top to cover the fact that he needed it before the tide in the morning, and a few more to cover the inconvenience to both Mr. John Asworth and his generous father-in-law.

"There could be trouble if Mr. Asworth ever wants his watch," Hornblower remembered saying as he studied it in the cabin of the Lydia. It gleamed softly, was smooth to the touch like the well-kept, well-made piece of equipment that it was. Barely a scratch for a watch that had been carried into Trafalgar and back out again, and it lay, warm in his palm as a living thing, from being carried so close to Bush. "You should have it re-engraved."

"Eventually," Bush said. "Rather difficult finding a goldsmith on board, sir."

And in the dark of a ship creeping over the Pacific, they smiled at each other.

Bush carried the watch on him, but he lost it on the Sutherland all the same: the wounded had been looted before being carried to the infirmary.
When the Lydia came back to England, despite his financial difficulties and other preoccupations, Hornblower scraped together the money to buy Bush a present. A gift to thank him for the fine work he had done putting the Lydia together again, and a little, too, to soothe Hornblower's guilt when the Patriotic Fund awarded him a hundred guinea sword and had nothing for Bush despite the fact that Bush had done the lion's share of the work in fixing the aftermath of the fight with the Natividad, had virtually rebuilt the Lydia and gotten her ready to sail across anything larger than a bathtub.

So a copy of Morris's Complete Shipbuilding, handsomely bound, with an effusive inscription on the fly leaf. Hornblower later realized the stupidity of the gift -- since when had Bush needed a book, much less one from his captain, to teach him anything about ships? A man even somewhat less kind than Bush would have taken offense, and Hornblower had assumed that Bush never read it, that he had just carried it with him on the Sutherland out of respect and never cracked the cover, but then, there had been a night at the Comte's where they were sitting in the shed together, looking at the boat.

There was some problem with the ribs that had been bothering both Bush and Brown, and which Hornblower had explained to him in a torrent of hand gestures and half-familiar words. He understood little of it, so was feeling particularly futile and useless with regards to the construction of the boat -- and then, Bush turned to him and said, with a shy smile, that he wished that he had his Morris with him, because he was quite sure the solution would be in there.

Hornblower remembered, very clearly, the shed, the boat, the light from the lamps and the way that Bush had tried, even though he was the crippled one, the one lost in a country where he did not speak the language, to be kind.
What had, in fact, been in Bush's sea chest: three sets of an ordinary uniforms, a dress uniform made with no allowances for a wooden leg. A navigation kit, still almost entirely new inside its sharkskin case and a greatcoat that was relatively new, of good quality, but had already been put to heavy use. Several sets of right stockings, three right shoes, various small clothes, two nightshirts, a housewife with his hair ribbons and pomade for the queue, a set of brushes, his razors, and a sewing kit, which Hornblower took to be a sign that Bush did not trust his steward to do fine mending.

A packet of letters from his sisters in Chichester that Hornblower had not intended to read, other than to glance at the address, Captain William Bush, HMS Nonsuch, but ended up reading anyways and then wishing he had not, for they were nothing but discussions of money, of wrangling with prize agents.

Hornblower could guess at Bush's strained, dutiful replies from what the letters said back to him, and when the contents of Bush's desk were added, there was also a bit of good English paper, several sticks of sealing wax. Right-handed quills. Two well-thumbed, clearly secondhand volumes of The Naval Chronicle that Hornblower knew Bush used as a reference for his correspondence, personal and official, and the letter that had come to inform Bush that he had command of the Nonsuch, carefully tied with twine and kept, apparently, in the back of a locked drawer.

Later, Hornblower was able to add the sheets and pillow and a coverlet, folded and put on top. Hurst had his own bed linen and did not need Bush's. Hornblower also bought off of Hurst a pair of candlesticks that Bush used whenever he had Hornblower over -- they had dinner by them a few times, and Hornblower remembered admiring them for being surprisingly tasteful and goodlooking.

That was the end of it, though. Clothes. Two books. A few letters that could have come from particularly intimate creditors. A few more miscellaneous items, candlesticks that had been bought from a pawnshop, and when he realized what he had done and why he had done it, Hornblower mocked himelf for thinking that it would make him feel better to hold his dead friend's old things.

Chest and Torso

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