William Bush (Hornblower)

William Bush
Horatio Hornblower character
First appearance	Lieutenant Hornblower
Last appearance	Lord Hornblower
Created by	C. S. Forester
Portrayed by	Robert Beatty, Paul McGann
Information
Occupation	British naval officer
Title	Captain
Nationality	British

Captain William Bush RN is a fictional character in C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series. He is Hornblower's best friend, and serves with Hornblower in the Royal Navy prior to the Peace of Amiens and again during the Napoleonic Wars.

Bush's role in the novels is that of Hornblower's best friend and second-in-command. He is characterized chiefly by his loyalty, his patience, good nature, and stolid matter-of-fact outlook. Although Hornblower genuinely cares for Bush, he sometimes frustrates and hurts him through harsh criticism. Hornblower, although a brilliant strategist, is a painfully self-conscious and hyperactively introspective man who tries desperately to conceal from the world what he perceives as "weaknesses". However, Bush sees Hornblower as he is:

Bush's loyalty to Hornblower is in fact strengthened by Hornblower's limitations and his attempts to conceal them.

As the Hornblower novels progress, Bush often worries that Hornblower is depriving himself not only of food and rest, but also of human contact. Although Bush is an excellent judge of character, he is not a diplomat, and he must often keep his concern for his sensitive friend to himself as Hornblower is inclined to snap when Bush expresses it. Their friendship survives because of Bush's perseverance. In Hotspur, Hornblower decides that Bush is as resigned to the vagaries of Hornblower's mood as he is to the vagaries of wind and weather.

Outside his friendship with Hornblower, Bush is characterized as a stoic who endures the hardships and vagaries of naval life without complaint. Unlike Hornblower, he is untroubled by enforcing brutal naval discipline, believing that "contact with injustice in a world that was essentially unjust was part of everyone's education" and being entirely intolerant of cowardice and disloyalty, though he otherwise has a kind nature. Although he is not as imaginative as Hornblower (it is frequently noted in Lieutenant Hornblower that Bush's pattern of thinking is not as vivid or innovative) he is a highly competent and reliable seaman who finds enjoyment in naval routine.

Little of the private life of William Bush is revealed in the Hornblower novels. A significant personal detail about Bush is that he has a mother and four sisters who live in a cottage in Chichester and depend upon Bush for their support. His sisters "devoted all their attention to him whenever it was possible," and he is as devoted to them as he gives them half of his pay. Forester does not reveal whether Bush grew up in Chichester, or at what age he left home. He was "brought up in a harsh school," an experience which taught him caution and perhaps contributed to his natural stolidity.

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