Cecil Forester: Hornblower and the Hotspur

With the operation completed he turned to face the criticism of his superiors; there was sweat trickling down his forehead. Hornblower could feel Bush beside him ready to rate him thoroughly; Bush believed sincerely that everyone was the better for a severe dressing-down in any circumstance, and he was usually right. But Hornblower had been watching Hotspur’s behaviour closely.

“Carry on, Mr. Cargill,” he said, and Cargill, relieved turned away again, and Bush met Hornblower’s glance with some slight surprise.

“The ship’s trimmed too much by the head,” said Hornblower. “That makes her unhandy in stays.”

“It might do so,” agreed Bush, doubtfully.

If the bow gripped the water more firmly than the stern Hotspur would act like a weather-vane, persisting in keeping her bow to the wind.

“We’ll have to try it,” said Hornblower. “She’ll never do as she is. We’ll have to trim her so that she draws six inches more aft. At least that. Now, what is there we can shift aft?”

“Well—” began Bush.

In his mind’s eye he called up a picture of the interior of the Hotspur, with every cubic foot crammed with stores. It had been a Herculean feat to prepare her for sea; to find room for everything necessary had called for the utmost ingenuity. It seemed as if no other arrangement could be possible. Yet maybe—

“Perhaps—” went on Bush, and they were instantly deep in a highly technical discussion.

Prowse came up and touched his hat, to report that Hotspur was just able to make good the course for Ushant. Bush could hardly help but prick up his ears at the mention of the name; Prowse could hardly help but be drawn into the discussion regarding the alteration in the trim of the ship. They had to move aside to make room for the hourly casting of the log; the breeze flapped their coats round them. Here they were at sea; the nightmare days and nights of fitting out were over, and so were the—what was the right word? Delirious, perhaps—the delirious days of marriage. This was normal life. Creative life, making a living organism out of Hotspur, working out improvements in material and in personnel.

Bush and Prowse were still discussing possible alteration in the ship’s trim as Hornblower came back into his present world.

“There’s a vacant port right aft on each side,” said Hornblower; a simple solution had presented itself to his mind, as so often happened when his thoughts had strayed to other subjects. “We can bring two of the forward guns aft.”

Prowse and Bush paused while they considered the matter; Hornblower’s rapid mind was already dealing with the mathematics of it. The ship’s nine-pounders weighed twenty-six hundred-weight each. Along with the gun carriages and the ready use shot which would have to be brought aft too there would be a total transfer of four tons. Hornblower’s eye measured the distances, forward and aft of the centre of flotation, from forty feet before to thirty feet abaft. No, the leverage would be a little excessive, even though Hotspur’s dead weight was over four hundred tons.

“Maybe she’d gripe a little, sir,” suggested Prowse, reaching the same conclusions two minutes later.

“Yes. We’ll take the No. 3 guns. That should be exactly right.”

“And leave a gap, sir?” asked Bush in faint protest.

It certainly would, as conspicuous as a missing front tooth. It would break into the two ordered rows of cannon, conveying a make-shift appearance to the ship.

“I’d rather have an ugly ship afloat,” said Hornblower, “than a good-looking one on the rocks of a lee shore.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bush, swallowing this near-heresy.

“As the stores are consumed we can put things to rights again,” added Hornblower soothingly. “Perhaps you’ll be good enough to attend to it now?”

“Aye aye, sir.” Bush turned his mind to the practical aspects of the problem of shifting cannon in a moving ship. “I’ll hoist ‘em out of the carriages with the stay tackle and lower them on to a mat—”

“Quite right. I’m sure you can deal with it, Mr. Bush.”

No one in his senses would try to move a gun in its carriage along a heeling deck—it would go surging about out of control in a moment. But out of its carriage, lying helpless on a mat, with its trunnions prohibiting any roll, it could be dragged about comparatively easily, and hoisted up into its carriage again after that had been moved into its new position. Bush had already passed the word for Mr. Wise, the boatswain, to have the stay-tackles rigged.

“The quarter-bill will have to be changed,” said Hornblower incautiously as the thought struck him—the guns’ crews would need to be re-allotted.

“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush. His sense of discipline was too acute to allow more than a hint of reproach to be apparent in his tone. As first lieutenant it was his business to remember these things without being reminded by his captain. Hornblower made amends as best he could.

“I’ll leave it all in your charge, then, Mr. Bush. Report to me when the guns are moved.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Hornblower crossed the quarter-deck to go to his cabin, passing Cargill as he went; Cargill was keeping an eye on the hands rigging the stay-tackles.

“The ship will be more handy in stays when those guns are shifted, Mr. Cargill,” said Hornblower. “Then you’ll have another opportunity to show how you can handle her.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Cargill. He had clearly been brooding over his recent failure.

Hornblower walked along to his cabin; the moving cogs in the complex machine that was a ship always needed lubrication, and it was a captain’s duty to see that it was provided. The sentry at his door came to attention as he passed in. He glanced round at the bare necessities there. His cot swung from the deck-beams; there was a single chair, a mirror on the bulkhead with a canvas basin on a frame below it. On the opposite bulkhead was clamped his desk, with his sea chest beneath it. A strip of canvas hanging from the deck-beams served as a wardrobe to screen the clothes hanging within. That was all; there was no room for anything else, but the fact that the cabin was so tiny was an advantage in one way. There were no guns mounted in it—it was right aft—and there would be no necessity when the ship cleared for action, to sweep all this away.

And this was luxury, this was affluence, this was the most superlative good fortune. Nine days ago—no, ten days, now—he had been a half-pay lieutenant, under stoppage of pay because the Peace of Amiens had resulted in his promotion not being confirmed. He had been doubtful where his next meal would be coming from. A single night had changed all this. He had won forty-five pounds at a sitting of whist from a group of senior officers, one of them a Lord of Admiralty. The King had sent a message to Parliament announcing the government’s decision to set the Navy on a war footing again. And he had been appointed Commander and given the Hotspur to prepare for sea. He could be sure now of his next meal, even though it would be salt beef and biscuit. And—not so much as a coincidence, but rather as a sequel to all this—he had found himself betrothed to Maria and committed to an early marriage.

The fabric of the ship transmitted the sound of one of the nine-pounders being dragged aft; Bush was a fast worker. Bush had been a half-pay lieutenant too, ten days ago, and senior to Hornblower. It was with diffidence that Hornblower had asked him if he would care to serve as first lieutenant—as the only lieutenant allowed on the establishment of a sloop of war—of the Hotspur, under Hornblower’s command. It had been astonishing, and extremely flattering, to see the delight in Bush’s face at the invitation.