Cecil Forester: Lieutenant Hornblower

When the spirits had been issued and drunk he could dismiss the watch below and set himself to drive the watch on deck to their duties again, slashing at their sulkiness and indifference with bitter words. And there was no pleasure now in standing on the heaving deck watching the corkscrew roll of the ship and the hurrying Atlantic waves, the trim of the sails and the handling of the wheel—Bush still was unaware that there was any pleasure to be found in these everyday matters, but he was vaguely aware that something had gone out of his life.

He saw Booth and his mates making their way forward again, and here came Wellard on to the quarterdeck.

“Reporting for duty, sir,” he said.

The boy’s face was white, set in a strained rigidity, and Bush, looking keenly at him, saw that there was a hint of moisture in his eyes. He was walking stiffly, too, holding himself inflexibly; pride might be holding back his shoulders and holding up his head, but there was some other reason for his not bending at the hips.

“Very good, Mr. Wellard,” said Bush.

He remembered those knots on Booth’s cane. He had known injustice often enough. Not only boys but grown men were beaten without cause on occasions, and Bush had nodded sagely when it happened, thinking that contact with injustice in a world that was essentially unjust was part of everyone’s education. And grown men smiled to each other when boys were beaten, agreeing that it did all parties good; boys had been beaten since history began, and it would be a bad day for the world if ever, inconceivably, boys should cease to be beaten. This was all very true, and yet in spite of it Bush felt sorry for Wellard. Fortunately there was something waiting to be done which might suit Wellard’s mood and condition.

“Those sandglasses need to be run against each other, Mr. Wellard,” said Bush, nodding over to the binnacle. “Run the minute glass against the halfhour glass as soon as they turn it at seven bells.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Mark off each minute on the slate unless you want to lose your reckoning,” added Bush.

“Aye aye, sir.”

It would be something to keep Wellard’s mind off his troubles without calling for physical effort, watching the sand run out of the minute glass and turning it quickly, marking the slate and watching again. Bush had his doubts about that halfhour glass and it would be convenient to have both checked. Wellard walked stiffly over to the binnacle and made preparation to begin his observations.

Now here was the captain coming back again, the big nose pointing to one side and the other. But now the mood had changed again; the activity, the restlessness, had evaporated. He was like a man who had dined well. As etiquette dictated, Bush moved away from the weather rail when the captain appeared and the captain proceeded to pace slowly up and down the weather side of the quarterdeck, his steps accommodating themselves by long habit to the heave and pitch of the ship. Wellard took one glance and then devoted his whole attention to the matter of the sandglasses; seven bells had just struck and the halfhour glass had just been turned. For a short time the captain paced up and down. When he halted he studied the weather to windward, felt the wind on his cheek, looked attentively at the dogvane and up at the topsails to make sure that the yards were correctly trimmed, and came over and looked into the binnacle to check the course the helmsman was steering. It was all perfectly normal behaviour; any captain in any ship would do the same when he came on deck. Wellard was aware of the nearness of his captain and tried to give no sign of disquiet; he turned the minute glass and made another mark on the slate.

“Mr. Wellard at work?” said the captain.

His voice was thick and a little indistinct, the tone quite different from the anxietysharpened voice with which he had previously spoken. Wellard, his eyes on the sandglasses, paused before replying. Bush could guess that he was wondering what would be the safest, as well as the correct, thing to say.

“Aye aye, sir.”

In the navy no one could go far wrong by saying that to a superior officer.

“Aye aye, sir,” repeated the captain. “Mr. Wellard has learned better now perhaps than to conspire against his captain, against his lawful superior set in authority over him by the Act of His Most Gracious Majesty King George II?”

That was not an easy suggestion to answer. The last grains of sand were running out of the glass and Wellard waited for them; a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ might be equally fatal.

“Mr. Wellard is sulky,” said the captain. “Perhaps Mr. Wellard’s mind is dwelling on what lies behind him. Behind him. ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept.’ But proud Mr. Wellard hardly wept. And he did not sit down at all. No, he would be careful not to sit down. The dishonourable part of him has paid the price of his dishonour. The grown man guilty of an honourable offence is flogged upon his back, but a boy, a nasty dirtyminded boy, is treated differently. Is not that so, Mr. Wellard?”

“Yes, sir,” murmured Wellard. There was nothing else he could say, and an answer was necessary.

“Mr. Booth’s cane was appropriate to the occasion. It did its work well. The malefactor bent over the gun could consider of his misdeeds.”

Wellard inverted the glass again while the captain, apparently satisfied, took a couple of turns up and down the deck, to Bush’s relief. But the captain checked himself in midstride beside Wellard and went on talking; his tone now was highpitched.

“So you chose to conspire against me?” he demanded. “You sought to hold me up to derision before the hands?”

“No, sir,” said Wellard in sudden new alarm. “No, sir, indeed not, sir.”

“You and that cub Hornblower. Mister Hornblower. You plotted and you planned, so that my lawful authority should be set at nought.”

“No, sir!”

“It is only the hands who are faithful to me in this ship where everyone else conspires against me. And cunningly you seek to undermine my influence over them. To make me a figure of fun in their sight. Confess it!”

“No, sir. I didn’t, sir.”

“Why attempt to deny it? It is plain, it is logical. Who was it who planned to catch that reef point in the reef tackle block?”

“No one, sir. It—”

“Then who was it that countermanded my orders? Who was it who put me to shame before both watches, with all hands on deck? It was a deeplaid plot. It shows every sign of it.”

The captain’s hands were behind his back, and he stood easily balancing on the deck with the wind flapping his coattails and blowing his hair forward over his cheeks, but Bush could see he was shaking with rage again—if it was not fear. Wellard turned the minute glass again and made a fresh mark on the slate.

“So you hide your face because of the guilt that is written on it?” blared the captain suddenly. “You pretend to be busy so as to deceive me. Hypocrisy!”

“I gave Mr. Wellard orders to test the glasses against each other, sir,” said Bush.

He was intervening reluctantly, but to intervene was less painful than to stand by as a witness. The captain looked at him as if this was his first appearance on deck.

“You, Mr. Bush? You’re sadly deceived if you believe there is any good in this young fellow. Unless”—the captain’s expression was one of sudden suspicious fear—“unless you are part and parcel of this infamous affair. But you are not, are you, Mr. Bush? Not you. I have always thought better of you, Mr. Bush.”

The expression of fear changed to one of ingratiating good fellowship.

“Yes, sir,” said Bush.

“With the world against me I have always counted on you, Mr. Bush,” said the captain, darting restless glances from under his eyebrows. “So you will rejoice when this embodiment of evil meets his deserts. We’ll get the truth out of him.”