Hornblower and the Monkey, or Horatio's Maturin Moment by Ruth W.

The captain and the monkey looked one another in the eye.

Hornblower found himself more and more bemused by the fact that this animal was aboard his ship at all, let alone sharing his cabin.  It was a slightly larger species than the spider monkeys one usually found on board ships, or travelling with entertainers, and it had an interesting face with the most expressive eyes he had ever seen. Matthews had bought the creature in a flea market in Gibraltar, to save it apparently from several fates worse than death, and had soon discovered it was too volatile and active to live loose below decks, so had been forced to keep it in a parrot cage for its own safety.  

The captain had noted its presence during a routine inspection of the gundeck. With the horrors of the Spanish oubliette still stark in his mind, he had felt sorry for the poor thing in its sad and tight confinement, and had grumpily offered to give it the freedom of his cabin for the final few days of the voyage home.  He was beginning to regret it now, since the experience was not so much like keeping a pet as sharing a cabin with a lively and over-active shipmate.

From the outset, it was clear the monkey was tame and well trained.  He had hopped onto the tallest shoulder – Hornblower’s – as soon as he was released from bondage, and had begun to pull at his unruly queue.  He had played with the epaulette on his shoulder with gentle fingers, not attempting to destroy it.  Once installed in the cabin, he would fetch the bicorne from the chair every time the captain stood up, as if used to acting as officer’s servant.  And he leaped to the desk when food arrived, obviously quite used to the concept of equal sharing.

Hornblower was trying desperately not to find all this charming, but as he sat staring into the deep, dark, intelligent eyes, he was beginning to lose his resolve.

There was clearly a bond.  He gave the monkey a watery smile, and the creature’s lips parted to show pointed white teeth.  Was that sardonic rictus a simian attempt to return the gesture, or merely an expression of derision?

He gave it a small, ripe orange, and the little fellow sat on his desk and began to unpeel it with a chitter of pleasure, passing him the peel for disposal as he dismembered and enjoyed each piece.  Small things give delight in the boring routine of sea service…

Perhaps that was the part Hornblower found compelling.  In many ways they were so alike. They were both full of energy, and both trained to channel the bright spark of life and intelligence into service.  In a very real sense, both were enslaved, but neither of them felt too harshly the pull of their chains, so long as there was the occasional orange to alleviate the tedium of blockade duty.

The monkey solemnly held out a carefully-selected segment of fruit, and Hornblower took it gravely, bowing his thanks.  Though he had no idea where the small hands had been that morning, he ate the gift and smiled again.  It was somehow unthinkable to refuse.

He wondered where the monkey had been born.  Did he enter the world in captivity, or had he been netted and dragged screaming from the trees?  Had he been torn from the arms of a distraught – or even dead - mother?  Had the things he had seen and felt left scars on his soul, the way the memories haunted people?  Did the creature miss those he had lost, as did men who had witnessed far too much war, and felt the swing of the Reaper’s scythe too often on land as well as at sea?

The monkey chattered at him, apparently sharing some titbit of gossip he had heard on the lower deck, and Hornblower nodded and smiled. The incessant chatter this small creature had offered him since taking up residence in his cabin should have caused him great irritation, but it did not.  It reminded him of happier times, when he had shared a cabin with another cheerful chatterer, long, long ago…

And when the monkey had finished his fruit, and came to climb on the captain’s shoulder, he was not brushed off.  The weight of him, clinging like a limpet,  brought back sharp and not wholly unpleasant memories of the loving, clinging wife he had married and lost, and hardly known, her arms around his neck, pulling him down into a final kiss before he had left her – or she had left him - forever.

He stood up and carried creature to the stern windows, to look out at the bright, glittering wake of the ship as she ploughed along.  The sea was cool green this morning, undulating in long, smooth waves which rolled the ship slowly and rhythmically, like a cradle rocking… Gangs of seagulls dived and squawked and fought over the fish which were churned up by her passing.

A little awed by the expanse of horizon, a sight he was obviously not used to, the monkey nestled his head under Hornblower’s chin and stayed very still.  Now the stirring memories hurt, so that he could not articulate them, even in his own mind.  He stroked the warm, hard little head, thinking of another time in another place, when he had felt twice the man he did now. 

Something too powerful for him to handle swelled in his breast, and he beat the confusion of emotion down with the kind of energy he usually reserved for fighting the enemy. In that other time he had had the impression of small shot felt through velvet, though admittedly this half-bald pate, resting on his chest, felt more like a coconut…

He let out a half-mad laugh then, which made the monkey jump. He couldn’t stop himself.  If he had allowed tears to fall, the pain would have been just too much. Here we are, he thought, neither of us content, nor in the company we prefer, but making the best of it… enjoying what we can…looking to the future…

A knock on the cabin door caused him to turn back with a start, and the web of half-formed thoughts in his head vanished like a snuffed candle.

“Come!” he said gruffly, rearranging his features into studied neutrality.

The door opened, and here was Lieutenant Bush, smiling, bringing good news.

“The men have constructed a larger cage, sir,” he announced brightly.  “You won’t have to share your cabin with the ape any longer!”

Hornblower stared at him.  The device gave him a few moments to muster his thoughts on the matter, an exercise which actually took very little time.

“What do you mean, ‘A larger cage’?”  He was clearly not as delighted as Bush had expected him to be, which was surprising. “This creature is not used to being kept in a cage at all.”

Crestfallen, Bush tried not to appear disappointed.  “Well no, sir, but it would be a solution.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Bush, it is no solution at all!” Hornblower growled. “He needs light and air, not confinement!”

Bush’s brows rose. “Well, sir,” he returned uncertainly, wondering if the captain had lost his wits, “if you are happy with the status quo…”

“Of course I’m not happy with it, Mr. Bush,” Hornblower’s voice betrayed exasperation now, “but if the choice is between keeping him caged in the cable tier, and keeping him here in the daylight, I think we both will sleep better knowing we have not been guilty of neglect!”

Sensing his mood, the monkey bared its teeth at Bush and chattered angrily, always ready and eager to join in the fun.

Bush was stunned.  He had never in his life heard of such a thing.  Monkeys were monkeys.  In a cage or in a cabin, what difference did it make?  They did not have the wit to know one from the other.

Realising the effect his decision was having, and that it might reveal in him a dangerous humanity, Hornblower hastily put the creature down on the desk and gave it another orange to keep it quiet.

“Ha-hmm…!” he said self-consciously, “Mr. Bush, please thank the men for their efforts, and inform them that they will be rewarded.  As for the monkey, I’ve never seen his type before, and I regard him as sufficiently unusual to be of some scientific interest.  I am hoping to persuade Mr. Matthews to bring him to a friend of mine in London to be assessed.  With that in mind, I must give some priority to his welfare.  It would not do for a biological specimen to die in transit.

It was not a total lie.  Miss Martingale, the naturalist friend he referred to, would be extremely interested in this little creature, and, unusually for her kind, would have the decency not to harbour any desire to dissect him or have him stuffed.

“Besides, another three days will see us home, and the prize off our hands,”  The captain drove his point home.  “I don’t think it will kill me to share my cabin for three days, do you?”

Bush blinked, not truly understanding any of this, but accepting, as he always did, that Hornblower must be right.  “Aye, sir…” he said, making a tactical withdrawal before the captain’s temper grew worse.

Hornblower sat down again in his oak chair and sighed deeply.  Once more life had caught him between the hard man he wanted to be, and the soft man he really was inside.  It was a condition which seemed to afflict him often as he wove his way through the moral maze of life.  He may as well get used to it.

As if he knew the situation only too well, and was grateful for the support in this unyielding world, the monkey gave him another toothy rictus and held out a comforting segment of orange…

Back to 2007 HAW Contest Entries