#commodore hornblower

[musewrangler]

Horatio and Barbara with their new baby, Arthur William. :D 

A little something I did to finish a Hornblower rewrite which Winterinhimring and I have been working on. 

[sanguinarysanguinity]

What sequel, if any, would you write to fake married? What effect does the showy gold-braid-packed wedding have?

As goldenhart's "A Political Affair" suggests: Hornblower in his pessimism failed to take into account his own celebrity; he furthermore failed to take into account Barbara Wellesley's social acumen and connections. When the Duke of Clarence made an appearance at Bush and Hornblower's wedding breakfast, thereby signaling royal approval, the moment was ripe for Society and Admiralty perception of military marriages to tip.

And it did. Slowly. Ponderously. There were still plenty of old guard who looked askance at the marriage, but they no longer held the complete sway over opinion that they once did.

Consequently, instead of being beached, Hornblower is given command of the squadron being sent to the Baltic, and is further permitted to take Bush as his flag captain. Nevertheless, Hornblower is very aware that his appointment is a test case: a chance to excel and prove the old guard wrong in their prejudices -- or, if he fails, to inadvertently set the cause back by a decade or more, making life very difficult for anyone considering following in his and Bush's footsteps.

Thus we come to the story of the Baltic mission, the overwhelming pressure on them as poster husbands, and the difficulties of navigating the twin spheres of being both spouses and commodore/flag captain, and new to both sets of roles, to boot. Remember how weird Hornblower is in Commodore about ostentatiously demonstrating to everyone that Bush will be shown no special favours? Hornblower is so determined not to let their being husbands fuck up the mission, that he risks the cascade of instead fucking up their marriage, thereby fucking up their working relationship, thereby fucking up the mission after all. (Remember the bit about Hornblower watching Bush sleep through the gallery windows? Someone got sent to sleep on the couch for being an asshole and is having regrets about it.)

Unfortunately, just as they're figuring it all out, Hornblower falls ill with Typhus...

[aubreysmaturin]

omg Hornblower you idiot. Hears thumping above him on quaterdeck...cant account for it for ages and doesnt even think for a moment that its Bush and his wooden leg.

[musewrangler]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30667745

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Just a little drabble in which Bush and Pellew interact more.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

While I’m thinking about Commodore Hornblower, I just want to give a shout-out to the 1950s radio adaptation, The Adventures of Horatio Hornblower, in which the Russian countess makes a pass at Hornblower but he turns her down, returns to the Nonsuch, and spends the rest of the evening writing a letter to his wife.

The radio adaptation also uses the American/happy ending, but instead of having Freeman and the Clam bring Hornblower back to England, Bush throws duty to the wind, sends the squadron home on its own, and risks letting the Nonsuch become frozen-in in Russian waters, all so that he can watch over Hornblower while he has typhus.

@shabraque

[sanguinarysanguinity]

PG. HH/WB. Once upon a time, there was a very bad hobgoblin.

500-word fairy tale about Hornblower and Bush: how Hornblower sees the world, and how Bush helps him.

I have spent far, far too much time thinking about this story: it goes straight to the heart of what I feel about them.

[aubreysmaturin]

seriously how LONG is Hornblower gonna be on the quaterdeck butt ass naked...its been many pages...

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Hornblower gasped and shuddered as he took his bath under the wash-deck pump. [...] The two seamen at the pump, and Brown standing by with towel and dressing-gown, preserved a proper solemnity of aspect, close under his eye as they were.

Suddenly the jet ceased; a skinny little midshipman was standing saluting his naked Commodore. Despite the gravity of addressing so great a man the child was round-eyed with wonder at this fantastic behaviour on the part of an officer whose doings were a household word.

"What is it?" said Hornblower, water streaming off him. He could not return the salute.

"Mr Montgomery sent me, sir. Lotus signals 'Sail to leeward', sir."

"Very good."

Hornblower snatched the towel from Brown, but the message was too important for time to be wasted drying himself, and he ran up the companion still wet and naked, with Brown following with his dressing-gown. The officer of the watch touched his hat as Hornblower appeared on the quarter-deck — it was like some old fairy story, the way everybody rigidly ignored the Commodore's lack of clothes.

[...folderol over the newly-sighted ship, its location and heading, its probable identity, etc...]

Hornblower remembered he was still wet and naked; at least, he was still wet in those parts of him which did not offer free play for the wind to dry him. He began to dab at these inner corners with the towel he still held, only to be interrupted again.

[...the new ship comes alongside, Hornblower has a conversation with its captain, eventually Hornblower decides something is fishy and orders a launch to go investigate, whereupon all hell breaks loose on the deck of the other ship...]

"Why the devil didn't I go myself?" Hornblower demanded of no one in particular. "Captain Bush, I'll be obliged if you'll have my barge called away."

[...the other ship is discovered to be a captured prize, the Nonsuch liberates the ship and imprisons its prize crew...]

"And now I'll get some clothes on, by God," said Hornblower; he had only just realized that he had been standing naked on the quarter-deck for an hour or more — if he had obeyed his first impulse and gone over in his barge he would have boarded the Maggie Jones without a stitch on.

(C.S. Forester, Commodore Hornblower)

Once again, Hornblower running naked around the quarterdeck like a little nudist.

...and now I kinda want the fic -- or art, either would make me happy! -- wherein Captain Bush adopts exactly the same habit of reporting to the quarterdeck buck-ass naked. With Commodore Hornblower goggling in the background, of course, wondering at what he had wrought. :-D