Cecil Forester: Lieutenant Hornblower

The captain had gone in under the halfdeck to his cabin; Buckland and Roberts were standing by the hammock nettings deep in conversation, and Bush joined them.

“These articles apply to my officers,” said Buckland as he approached.

“Ropeyarn Sunday and double rum,” added Roberts. “All for these good men.”

Buckland shot a furtive glance round the deck before he spoke next. It was pitiful to see the first lieutenant of a ship of the line taking precautions lest what he should say should be overheard. But Hornblower and Wellard were on the other side of the wheel. On the poop the master was assembling the midshipmen’s navigation class with their sextants to take their noon sights.

“He’s mad,” said Buckland in as low a voice as the northeast trade wind would allow.

“We all know that,” said Roberts.

Bush said nodding. He was too cautious to commit himself at present.

“Clive won’t lift a finger,” said Buckland. “He’s a ninny if there ever was one.”

Clive was the surgeon.

“Have you asked him?” asked Roberts.

“I tried to. But he wouldn’t say a word. He’s afraid.”

“Don’t move from where you are standing, gentlemen,” broke in a loud harsh voice; the wellremembered voice of the captain, speaking apparently from the level of the deck on which they stood. All three officers started in surprise.

“Every sign of guilt,” blared the voice. “Bear witness to it, Mr. Hobbs.”

They looked round them. The skylight of the captain’s fore cabin was open a couple of inches, and through the gap the captain was looking at them; they could see his eyes and his nose. He was a tall man and by standing on anything low, a book or a footstool, he could look from under the skylight over the coaming. Rigid, the officers waited while another pair of eyes appeared under the skylight beside the captain’s. They belonged to Hobbs, the actinggunner.

“Wait there until I come to you, gentlemen,” said the captain, with a sneer as he said the word ‘gentlemen’. “Very good, Mr. Hobbs.”

The two faces vanished from under the skylight, and the officers had hardly time to exchange despairing glances before the captain came striding up the ladder to them.

“A mutinous assembly, I believe,” he said.

“No, sir,” replied Buckland. Any word that was not a denial would be an admission of guilt, on a charge that could put a rope round his neck.

“Do you give me the lie on my own quarterdeck?” roared the captain. “I was right in suspecting my officers. Plotting. Whispering. Scheming. Planning. And now treating me with gross disrespect. I’ll see that you regret this from this minute, Mr. Buckland.”

“I intended no disrespect, sir,” protested Buckland.

“You give me the lie again to my face! And you others stand by and abet him! You keep him in countenance! I thought better of you, Mr. Bush, until now.”

Bush thought it wise to say nothing.

“Dumb insolence, eh?” said the captain. “Eager enough to talk when you think my eye isn’t on you, all the same.”

The captain glowered round the quarterdeck.

“And you, Mr. Hornblower,” he said. “You did not see fit to report this assembly to me. Officer of the watch, indeed! And of course Wellard is in it too. That is only to be expected. But I fancy you will be in trouble with these gentlemen now, Mr. Wellard. You did not keep a sharp enough lookout for them. In fact you are in serious trouble now, Mr. Wellard, without a friend in the ship except for the gunner’s daughter, whom you will be kissing again soon.”

The captain stood towering on the quarterdeck with his gaze fixed on the unfortunate Wellard, who shrank visibly away from him. To kiss the gunner’s daughter was to be bent over a gun and beaten.

“But later will still be sufficient time to deal with you, Mr. Wellard. The lieutenants first, as their lofty rank dictates.”

The captain looked round at the lieutenants, fear and triumph strangely alternating in his expression.

“Mr. Hornblower is already on watch and watch,” he said. “You others have enjoyed idleness in consequence, and Satan found mischief for your idle hands. Mr. Buckland does not keep a watch. The high and mighty and aspiring first lieutenant.”

“Sir—” began Buckland, and then bit off the words which were about to follow. That word ‘aspiring’ undoubtedly implied that he was scheming to gain command of the ship, but a courtmartial would not read that meaning into it. Every officer was expected to be an aspiring officer and it would be no insult to say so.

“Sir!” jeered the captain. “Sir! So you have grace enough still to guard your tongue. Cunning, maybe. But you will not evade the consequences of your actions. Mr. Hornblower can stay on watch and watch. But these two gentlemen can report to you when every watch is called, and at two bells, at four bells, and at six bells in every watch. They are to be properly dressed when they report to you, and you are to be properly awake. Is that understood?”

Not one of the dumbfounded trio could speak for a moment.

“Answer me!”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Buckland.

“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush and Roberts as the captain turned his eyes on them.

“Let there be no slackness in the execution of my orders,” said the captain. “I shall have means of knowing if I am obeyed or not.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Buckland.

The captain’s sentence had condemned him, Bush and Roberts to be roused and awakened every hour, day and night.

It was pitch dark down here, absolutely dark, not the tiniest glimmer of light at all. Out over the sea was the moonless night, and here it was three decks down, below the level of the sea’s surface—through the oaken skin of the ship could be heard the rush of the water alongside, and the impact of the waves over which the ship rode; the fabric of the ship grumbled to itself with the alternating stresses of the pitch and the roll. Bush hung on to the steep ladder in the darkness and felt for foothold; finding it, he stepped off among the water barrels, and, crouching low, he began to make his way aft through the solid blackness. A rat squeaked and scurried past him, but rats were only to be expected down here in the hold, and Bush went on feeling his way aft unshaken. Out of the blackness before him, through the multitudinous murmurings of the ship, came a slight hiss, and Bush halted and hissed in reply. He was not selfconscious about these conspiratorial goings on. All precautions were necessary, for this was something very dangerous that he was doing.

“Bush!” whispered Buckland’s voice.

“Yes.”

“The others are here.”

Ten minutes before, at two bells, in the middle watch Bush and Roberts had reported to Buckland in his cabin in obedience to the captain’s order. A wink, a gesture, a whisper, and the appointment to meet here was made; it was an utterly fantastic state of affairs that the lieutenants of a King’s ship should have to act in such a fashion for fear of spies and eavesdroppers, but it had been necessary. Then they had dispersed and by devious routes and different hatchways had made their way here. Hornblower, relieved by Smith on watch, had preceded them.

“We mustn’t be here long,” whispered Roberts.

Even by his whisper, even in the dark, one could guess at his nervousness. There could be no doubt about this being a mutinous assembly. They could all hang for what they were doing.

“Suppose we declare him unfit for command?” whispered Buckland. “Suppose we put him in irons?”

“We’d have to do it quick and sharp if we do it at all,” whispered Hornblower. “He’ll call on the hands and they might follow him. And then—”