In Search of Captain Hornblower

Of all the Tzars’ palaces, the one I look forward to visiting the most is Peterhof, outside St Petersburg. Why? Because in 1812, as the story goes, Commodore Horatio Hornblower sails up the Gulf of Finland with his Baltic Squadron -- a ship-of-the-line, two sloops, two bomb-ketches and a cutter. Unlike Tsarskoe Selo and the Winter Palace, Peterhof is by the sea. Open landaus take him and his officers from the jetty to the palace, for an Imperial Reception given by Tsar Alexander I.

The road wound through a vast park, alternate sweeps of grass and groves of trees; here and there fountains threw lofty jets of water at the sky, and marble naiads posed by marble basins. Occasional turns in the road opened up beautiful vistas down the terraced lawns; there were long flights of marble steps and beautiful little marble pavilions, but also, at every turning, besides every fountain and every pavilion, there were sentries on guard, stiffly presenting arms as the carriages whirled by.

Hornblower is interviewed by the Minister of Marine, with the Tzar sitting incognito in the room. Hornblower forcefully argues as to why the Russians should stand up to Napoleon.

At the reception hall, he is given the Countess Canerine as  dinner companion.

The countess was the boldest-eyed and most beautiful of them all; under the arches of her brows her eyes were dark and liquid and yet with a consuming fire within them. Her face was a perfect oval, her complexion like rose petals, her magnificent bosom white as snow above the low décolleté of her Court dress.

Perhaps impressed by Hornblower's eloquence earlier, Alexander stops to have a few words during his entrance.

“It is a pleasure to meet Commodore Hornblower,” said Alexander pleasantly. “We have all of us heard of his exploits.” 

“Your majesty is too kind,” gulped Hornblower. 

Then the royal group passed on, and Hornblower turned to meet the Countess’s glance again. The fact that the Tsar had addressed a few words to him personally evidently confirmed her suspicions that he was a man of potential influence, and there was a considering look in her eyes.

At dinner, the Countess introduces Hornblower to caviar and vodka. She also plays footsie. Near the end of the dinner, she asks:

“Do pictures interest monsieur very much?”

“Of course,” said Hornblower politely.

“Then if, after the royal party has withdrawn, you are by the door on the far side of the room, I show you the way.”

There is a subplot involving Hornblower’s Finnish translator, who wants to assassinate the Tsar. The attempt is foiled by Hornblower in time, but still it is essential that the British party leaves Peterhof as soon as possible with the failed assassin. However Hornblower has bigger fish to fry.

“The Italian pictures of the Cinque Cento are in the far gallery,” said the Countess as they came to a broad corridor. “Would you care to see the more modern ones first?”

“As madame wishes,” said Hornblower.

Once through a door, once out of the ceremonial part of the palace, it was a rabbit warren, narrow passages, innumerable staircases, an infinity of rooms. The apartment to which she led him was on the first floor; a sleepy maid who was waiting her coming vanished into the room beyond as they came into the luxurious sitting-room. It was into the room beyond that the Countess called him, five minutes later.

 There is an non-fictional foot-note to the story. Twenty years after writing The Commodore, C S Forester wrote:

One small incidental point; the Commodore appeared as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post. And in the Commodore there was a certain small amount of adultery. Not even very profound adultery, if such an adjective is permissible. But it was adultery, all the same, and never before, not since the days of Benjamin Franklin, had adultery made any appearance at all in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post. It really caused quite an effect. Many American newspapers commented on the fact; so did innumerable readers. It was the first rift in the dike of convention, and there was no little boy handy to put his finger in the hole. Before very long topics that had been barred for a century and a half were being freely discussed in the pages of the Post. The commodore was not the cause of all this, but he certainly was the Saturday Evening Post’s first adulterer.

In Form III we had an English primer of short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, G K Chesterton, Saki, Dorothy L Sawyers, C S Forester, etc. Forester’s is The Cargo of Rice, a chapter out of Mr Midshipman Hornblower. Within six months, I had read all the Hornblower novels that I could find in Hong Kong’s City Hall Library and the British Council Library. Over the years, I have followed Hornblower’s footsteps to London, Portsmouth, Paris, the Loire, Gibraltar, Malta, the Mediterranean, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, New Orleans, and in a couple days, if all goes well, to St Petersburg as well.

Tomorrow we get on the plane.