“Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower at last, gathering up his notes. “I will begin these preparations at once.”

“Greatly obliged, I’m sure, sir,” said Mr. Pallender, as Hornblower took his leave.

This was an operation as elaborate as Abercrombie’s landing on the Egyptian coast—and in the Mediterranean there were no tides to complicate arrangements. Thirtyeight boats with their crews and oarsmen; guards of honour; mourners and officials; there would be a thousand officers and men at least under Hornblower’s command. And Hornblower’s heart sank a little when he was able to take one of the barges from the hands of the workmen who were attaching the insignia to it in Deptford Yard, and conduct his own trials with it. It was a vast clumsy vessel, not much smaller and no more manageable then a cargo lighter. Forward in the open bows she pulled twelve oars; from midships aft she was covered with a vast canopy of solid construction, exposing an enormous area to the wind. The barge allotted to the conveyance of the Body (Mr. Pallender had made that capital letter quite obvious in their discussion) was being so covered with plumes that she would catch the wind like a frigate’s mainsail. There must be lusty oarsmen detailed to the task of rowing that barge along—and it would be best to have as nearly as complete a relief available as possibly hidden away under the canopy. But as she would head the procession, with the other boats taking station upon her, he must be careful not to overdo that. He must time everything exactly—up with the flood tide, arriving at Whitehall Steps precisely at slack water so that the complicated manoeuvres there could be carried out with the minimum of risk, and then back with the ebb, dispersing barges and crews along the route as convenient.

“My dear,” said Maria to him, in their bedroom at the “George.” “I fear I have little of your attention at present.”

“Your pardon, dear?” said Hornblower, looking round from the table at which he was writing. He was deep in plans for issuing a solid breakfast to a thousand men who would have small chance of eating again all day.

“I was telling you that I spoke to the midwife today. She seems a worthy woman. She will hold herself free from tomorrow. As she lives only in the next street there is no need for her to take up residence here until the time comes, which is fortunate—you know how little money we have, Horatio.”

“Yes, dear,” said Hornblower. “Have those black breeches of mine been delivered yet?”

It was a perfectly natural step from Maria’s approaching confinement to Hornblower’s black breeches, via the question of money, but Maria resented her husband’s apparent heartlessness.

“Do you care more for your breeches than for your child?” she asked, “—or for me?”

“Dearest,” answered Hornblower. He had to put down his pen and rise from his chair to comfort her. “I have much on my mind. I can’t tell you how much I regret it at this moment.”

This was the very devil. The eyes not only of London but of all England would be on that procession. He would never be forgiven if there was any blunder. But he had to take Maria’s hands in his and reassure her.

“You, my dear,” he said, smiling into her eyes, “are my all in all. There is nothing in my world as important as you are.”

“I wish I could be sure,” said Maria.

He kissed the hands he held.

“What can I say to make you sure?” he asked. “That I love you?”

“That would be pleasant enough,” said Maria.

“I love you, dear,” he said, but he had not had now a smile from her as yet, and he went on, “I love you more dearly even than my new black breeches.”

“Oh!” said Maria.

He had to labour the point to make sure that she understood he was both joking and tender.

“More dearly than a thousand pair of black breeches,” he said. “Could any man say more?”

She was smiling now, and she took her hands from his and laid them on his shoulders.

“Is that a compliment for me to treasure always?” she asked.

“It will always be true, my dear,” he said.

“You are the kindest of husbands,” she said, and the break in her voice showed that she meant it.

“With the sweetest of wives,” he answered. “And now may I go on with my work?”

“Of course, darling. Of course. I fear I am selfish. But—but—darling, I love you so. I love you so!”

“There, there,” said Hornblower patting her shoulder. Perhaps he felt as strongly over this business as Maria did, but he had much else to feel strongly about. And if he mismanaged these ceremonial arrangements the child to come might go on short commons with him on half-pay for life. And Nelson’s body was at this very moment lying in state at Greenwich, and the day after tomorrow was the date fixed for the procession, with the tide beginning to flood at eleven, and there was still much to be done. He was glad to get back to the writing of his orders. He was glad to go back on board Atropos and plunge into business there.

“Mr. Jones, I’d be glad if you’d call the midshipmen and master’s mates. I need half a dozen who can write a fair round hand.”

The cabin of the Atropos took on the appearance of a schoolroom, with the midshipmen sitting on mess stools at improvised tables, with inkwells and pens, copying out Hornblower’s drafts of the orders, and Hornblower going from one to another, like a squirrel in a cage, answering questions.

“Please, sir, I can’t read this word.”

“Please, sir, do I start a new paragraph here?”

It was one way of finding out something of the junior officers, of distinguishing them as individuals out of what had been so far a formless mass of officers; there were the ones who appealed for help at every turn, and the ones who could make deductions from the context; there were the stupid ones who wrote orders that made nonsense.

“Damn it, man,” said Hornblower. “Would anyone out of Bedlam say a thing like that—far less write it?”

“That’s what it looked like, sir,” said the midshipman stubbornly.

“God help us all,” said Hornblower in despair.

But that was the man who wrote a very clear hand; Hornblower put him on to the task of writing the beginnings of each letter.

Other men could carry on from there, with a saving of time. The ninety different written orders with their duplicates were written at last, and distributed by midnight; crews and petty officers had been found from various sources for every boat that was to take part in the procession, rations allotted to them, their place in the line clearly stated—“You will take the seventeenth position, immediately after the barge of the CommanderinChief at the Nore and immediately preceding that of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers.”

The final arrangements were made with Mr. Pallender at two in the morning of the day of the procession, and Hornblower, yawning, could think of nothing else to be done. Yes, there was a final change to be made.

“Mr. Horrocks, you will come with me with the Body in the first barge. Mr. Smiley, you’ll command the second with the Chief Mourner.”

Horrocks was the stupidest of the midshipmen and Smiley the brightest—it had been natural to reserve the latter for himself, but now he realized how stupid Horrocks was, and how necessary it was to keep him under his own eye.

“Aye aye, sir.”

Hornblower fancied Smiley looked pleased at thus escaping from the direct supervision of his captain, and he pricked that bubble.

“You’ll have nine admirals and four captains as passengers, Smiley,” he said. “Including Admiral of the Fleet Sir Peter Parker and Lord St Vincent.”