I remember everything.
It was Huffnell, the purser, who presented the case to Hornblower, but there were more witnesses than Huffnell alone- Cargill, the master's mate for one. Without a doubt, Miller was guilty of theft from his fellow crewmen. Hornblower disliked floggings and this was theft serious enough to warrant the cat with three knots at three inch intervals.
"He's to run the gauntlet. See to it Mr Bush."
"Oh, but look, you remember me when we were boys at school together." Miller stammered out.
And, looking Miller straight in the eye, Hornblower did. It was amazing really that he had failed to do so earlier. True, he was the same height as Miller now, and Miller's hair was beginning to thin. Miller was a fat man, currently growing thinner, but still with enough weight about him to show that life before his recent pressganging had treated him well enough. The expression behind the eyes was still the same though. Hornblower was surprised that on a ship as small as Hotspur he had failed to recognise Miller. But then Miller had always had the talent, if talent it was, of fading into insignificance in the eyes of those in authority over him and looming large in the life of anyone weaker.
Hornblower remembered the fear and petty misery that the popular many could mete out to one boy on his own with such unfailing, inventive regularity. He remembered the jeers, the blows and kicks, the relentless destruction of all his meagre possessions. Hornblower remembered his own confusion, his desperate desire to win acceptance from the other boys in the little day school. He remembered all those times he had asked himself how he had brought this on himself only to finally accept the realisation that it was his name, both parts of it, his stupid, ridiculous name that had marked him out for Miller's scorn and entertainment, leaving him forever damned to his fellow pupils. He remembered Davidson, newer and smaller than himself who had recently arrived to live with his aunt and was sent to school. Davidson's mother had died and Davidson had never mentioned his father. For a month – a little more than a month – Hornblower felt he had found a friend, drawn together by the knowledge of grief and their loneliness and their constant need to be on guard against Miller and his crew.
And then, one morning before the start of school there was Davidson in the midst of Miller and his cronies, laughing and backslapping. And there were Hornblower's few confidences bandied about in the huddle of boys.
And then, on the way home through narrow lanes full of hedge parsley, was Davidson, shamefaced and excusing himself, though not actually apologising.
"I had to do it – I had to. Otherwise they'll treat me the same as they treat you."
Hornblower had remained silent, not knowing what to say. Davidson took the silence as criticism.
"Look here, it's doesn't matter for you. You're brave. You can take it. I can't. They said they wouldn't ask me again. I had to throw my let in with them, don't you see?"
And Hornblower had had to press his lips together hard and brush past Davidson and carry on walking, not daring to trust his voice to be absolutely steady and not daring to speak at all if it was not.
And then a few months later, life became easier. First Dawson spoke to him quite civilly on one or two occasions, and then Davidson and Jenkinson and then Miller himself. Perhaps they had got tired of the pastime of Hornblower-baiting. He suspected nothing untoward when Davidson joined him on his walk home although he was wary of talking on anything but the most mundane subjects. Hornblower did not even suspect when they met the other four coming the other way along the high banked lane, kicking a lump of dead wood between them in time-honoured fashion.
There were five of them and one of him and fighting back might have preserved his self-respect but certainly didn't serve to preserve his dignity. He had been immensely relieved they didn't attempt to carry out their other threats. Inevitably he had to make his way home without a stitch on, slipping through the hedgerows into the woods and trees to pass such other wayfarers as he met. So far he had met with success. It was just possible that he had managed to spot everyone before they had noticed him.
And then…
And then a head poked itself though the hedge after him. It was a tousled, uncombed head, which was good so far as it went, and it was a head no older than his own, but it was unmistakably a girl's head, which was not.
At least it was Jenny, and being Jenny who "wasn't from hereabouts" and moreover squinted, she would be alone. She was out of breath.
"They left your keks on a holly bush. Bit torn but they'll mend." Jenny announced. The word was unfamiliar to Hornblower, the garment was not.
"Thank you." scarlet faced, Hornblower scrambled into them.
"Thank you." he said again, less hastily, with his dignity partially restored.
Jenny grinned at him, friendly and casual, as if she saw naked ten year olds in behind hedgerows every day.
"They saw me take'em. Can't get your drawers and your shirt back for you. Sorry about that."
Hornblower made himself look at her straight in the eyes, as well as he could. He owed her that.
"You got the most important thing back." He said. He wasn't sure what made him reach out and shake her hand. It pleased her anyway.
"I'd best be gone." She said. "It'll do you no good to be seen with one like me."
And she scrambled back through the hedgerow and back to whatever bit of fieldwork she had been doing.
That had been the nadir – at least for Hornblower. He had kept an eye out for Jenny after that and saw her often enough about the fields and lanes and the village itself. They seldom spoke though.
"Nowt good will come to either of us from it." Jenny had said firmly the first time he had greeted her in the village itself, though only old Jacob, bleary of eye and hard of hearing could possibly have heard him. Over the next months – certainly by the winter, Miller and his cronies had…well not quite laid off tormenting Hornblower, but matters got no worse. He saw Jenny a few times with bruises though, then a split lip and a bloody nose. Once her skirt seemed to have been ripped and coarsely mended with what looked like thread from a sack. It hadn't been until Jenny disappeared at the start of a cold hard February, almost unnoticed by the rest of the village that Hornblower, belatedly, put two and two together.
"I reckons her got fritted and went back up north." Old Jacob had said to any who would listen, but Jenny had always been from elsewhere and counted for little.
"Aye." Hornblower said. "And I remember you. And after this sorry excuse has run the gauntlet, he's to be flogged seven days after. Twelve stokes. I'll be obliged to if you'll see to the arrangements, Mr Bush."
Cargill and Huffnell, who didn't know Hornblower, looked pleased at this show of stern discipline. Bush, who knew Hornblower better, retained an impassive face, but the corner of his eyes gave a slight flicker of surprise.
Hornblower gave Bush as much explanation as he ever could or would. It was addressed to Miller.
"Yes, I do remember you, Miller. A coward then and a coward now, as well as a thief. I remember everything."