Triad
Disclaimer: I don't own characters or situations. They belong to the C. S. Forester estate and A&E productions.
Note: You really need to know both the HH3 episodes to understand any of these little reflections. They are not arranged in chronological order, merely an order I happen to like. I'm aware the interpretation of one of Hornblower's speeches given here is certainly not what A&E intended: I just like my interpretation better.
A word of warning: if you think Pellew's Bible quoting speech from the end of 'Loyalty' was one of the series's sweetest moments, then you won't like the third vignette.
1. Matthews
She called him heartless. She wasn't meaning any of us to hear her, but I did.
And she's right. Bad though it is, she's right. He doesn't have the heart he should. Not now. He doesn't have the heart he used to.
And I know why. Not that I'd say it to her. It ain't her business. But I know, even if he don't.
You hear them say it. You hear them speak of someone whose heart is buried in a grave somewhere. But you don't think what it means. Usually it don't mean anything, just fancy words. But I've seen it now, and I know what it means when it happens. Because if a heart's in a grave, it ain't where it should be. If a man's left his heart somewhere, he don't have it any more. He's heartless.
Like the captain is these days.
I don't mean he's not a decent man still. Look at the way he let Doughty go – though I'd wondered if he would, and there was a time when I wouldn't have wondered that. But he did it. He knows what's right and he'll act on that, if it ain't too important.
What he'll do if it was, I don't like to think, which is mostly because I reckon I know.
He's decent still, at least on things that don't matter all that much, but it ain't from the heart like it used to be. Because he doesn't properly have a heart these days.
He left his heart in Kingston, whether he knows it himself or not. And times I reckon the knowing it'll break my own.
I think back to how he was when I first knew him and how much he cared, and then I think to how he is now and how it's not there any more. When he's angry even, and I've seen it, it ain't about the things that used to matter to him. And I wonder, I remember the man who would take us back to a Spanish prison, because he'd given his word, and I wonder if he'd do that now, or if he'd say it was for the good of the service to break that word....
He is decent still. But there's something gone from him. And I don't reckon I'll ever see it coming back.
And sometimes I think as it's maybe a good thing Mr Kennedy ain't here to see this. And then I remember it's his not being here that's at the root of it anyway.
