Cecil Forester: Lieutenant Hornblower

Bush had the feeling that if he were a man of instant quickness of thought and readiness of tongue he would take advantage of this new attitude of the captain’s to free Wellard from his peril; by posing as the captain’s devoted companion in trouble and at the same time laughing off the thought of danger from any conspiracy, he might modify the captain’s fears. So he felt, but he had no confidence in himself.

“He knows nothing, sir,” he said, and he forced himself to grin. “He doesn’t know the bobstay from the spankerboom.”

“You think so?” said the captain doubtfully, teetering on his heels with the roll of the ship. He seemed almost convinced, and then suddenly a new line of argument presented itself to him.

“No, Mr. Bush. You’re too honest. I could see that the first moment I set eyes on you. You are ignorant of the depths of wickedness into which this world can sink. This lout has deceived you. Deceived you!”

The captain’s voice rose again to a hoarse scream, and Wellard turned a white face towards Bush, lopsided with terror.

“Really, sir—” began Bush, still forcing a death’shead grin.

“No, no, no!” roared the captain. “Justice must be done! The truth must be brought to light! I’ll have it out of him! Quartermaster! Quartermaster! Run for’ard and tell Mr. Booth to lay aft here. And his mates!”

The captain turned away and began to pace the deck as if to offer a safety valve to the pressure within him, but he turned back instantly.

“I’ll have it out of him! Or he’ll jump overboard! You hear me? Where’s that bosun?”

“Mr. Wellard hasn’t finished testing the glasses, sir,” said Bush in one last feeble attempt to postpone the issue.

“Nor will he,” said the captain.

Here came the bosun hurrying aft on his short legs, his two mates striding behind him.

“Mr. Booth!” said the captain; his mood had changed again and the mirthless smile was back on his lips. “Take that miscreant. Justice demands that he be dealt with further. Another dozen from your cane, properly applied. Another dozen, and he’ll coo like a dove.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said the bosun, but he hesitated.

It was a momentary tableau: the captain with his flapping coat; the bosun looking appealingly at Bush and the burly bosun’s mates standing like huge statues behind him; the helmsman apparently imperturbable while all this went on round him, handling the wheel and glancing up at the topsails; and the wretched boy beside the binnacle—all this under the grey sky, with the grey sea tossing about them and stretching as far as the pitiless horizon.

“Take him down to the maindeck, Mr. Booth,” said the captain.

It was the utterly inevitable; behind the captain’s words lay the authority of Parliament, the weight of agesold tradition. There was nothing that could be done. Wellard’s hands rested on the binnacle as though they would cling to it and as though he would have to he dragged away by force. But he dropped his hands to his sides and followed the bosun while the captain watched him, smiling.

It was a welcome distraction that came to Bush as the quartermaster reported, “Ten minutes before eight bells, sir.”

“Very good. Pipe the watch below.”

Hornblower made his appearance on the quarterdeck and made his way towards Bush.

“You’re not my relief,” said Bush.

“Yes I am. Captain’s orders.”

Hornblower spoke without any expression—Bush was used to the ship’s officers by now being as guarded as that, and he knew why it was. But his curiosity made him ask the question.

“Why?”

“I’m on watch and watch,” said Hornblower stolidly. “Until further orders.”

He looked at the horizon as he spoke, showing no sign of emotion.

“Hard luck,” said Bush, and for a moment felt a twinge of doubt as to whether he had not ventured to far in offering such an expression of sympathy. But no one was within earshot.

“No wardroom liquor for me,” went on Hornblower, “until further orders either. Neither my own nor anyone else’s.”

For some officers that would be a worse punishment than being put on watch and watch—four hours on duty and four hours off day and night—but Bush did not know enough about Hornblower’s habits to judge whether this was the case with him. He was about to say ‘hard luck’ again, when at that moment a wild cry of pain reached their ears, cutting its way through the whistling wind. A moment later it was repeated, with even greater intensity. Hornblower was looking out at the horizon and his expression did not change. Bush watched his face and decided not to pay attention to the cries.

“Hard luck,” he said.

“It might be worse,” said Hornblower.

It was Sunday morning. The Renown had caught the northeast trades and was plunging across the Atlantic at her best speed, with studding sails set on both sides, the roaring trades driving her along with a steady pitch and heave, her bluff bows now and then raising a smother of spray that supported momentary rainbows. The rigging was piping loud and clear, the treble and the tenor to the baritone and bass of the noises of the ship’s fabric as she pitched—a symphony of the sea. A few clouds of startling white dotted the blue of the sky, and the sun shone down from among them, revivifying and rejuvenating, reflected in dancing facets from the imperial blue of the sea.

The ship was a thing of exquisite beauty in an exquisite setting, and her bluff bows and her rows of guns added something else to the picture. She was a magnificent fighting machine, the mistress of the waves over which she was sailing in solitary grandeur. Her very solitude told the story; with the fleets of her enemies cooped up in port, blockaded by vigilant squadrons eager to come to grips with them, the Renown could sail the seas in utter confidence that she had nothing to fear. No furtive blockaderunner could equal her in strength; nowhere at sea was there a hostile squadron which could face her in battle. She could flout the hostile coasts; with the enemy blockaded and helpless she could bring her ponderous might to bear in a blow struck wherever she might choose. At this moment she was heading to strike such a blow, perhaps, despatched across the ocean at the word of the Lords of the Admiralty.

And drawn up in ranks on her maindeck was the ship’s company, the men whose endless task it was to keep this fabric at the highest efficiency, to repair the constant inroads made upon her material by sea and weather and the mere passage of time. The snowwhite decks, the bright paintwork, the exact and orderly arrangement of the lines and ropes and spars severe proofs of the diligence of their work; and when the time some for the Renown to deliver the ultimate argument regarding the sovereignty of the seas, it would be they who would man the guns—the Renown might be a magnificent fighting machine, but she was so only by virtue of the frail humans who handled her. They, like the Renown herself, were only cogs in the greater machine which was the Royal Navy, and most of them, caught up in the time-honoured routine and discipline of the service, were content to be cogs, to wash decks and set up rigging, to point guns or to charge with cutlasses over hostile bulwarks, with little thought as to whether the ship’s bows were headed north or south, whether it was Frenchman or Spaniard or Dutchman who received their charge. Today only the captain knew the mission upon which the Lords of the Admiralty—presumably in consultation with the Cabinet—had despatched the Renown . There had been the vague knowledge that she was headed for the West Indies, but whereabouts in that area, and what she was intended to do there was known only to one man in the seven hundred and forty on the Renown ’s decks.