Cecil Forester: Lieutenant Hornblower

“What in hell?” he began as he saw Bush.

“Don’t ask me!” said Bush, striving after that natural appearance. So tense and desperate was he at that moment that his normally quiescent imagination was hard at work. He could imagine the prosecutor in the deceptive calm of a courtmartial saying to Whiting, “Did Mr. Bush appear to be his usual self?” and it was frightfully necessary that Whiting should be able to answer, “Yes.” Bush could even imagine the hairy touch of a rope round his neck. But next moment there was no more need for him to simulate surprise or ignorance. His reactions were genuine.

“Pass the word for the doctor,” came the cry. “Pass the word, there.”

And here came Wellard, whitefaced, hurrying.

“Pass the word for the doctor. Call Dr Clive.”

“Who’s hurt, Wellard?” asked Bush.

“The ccaptain, sir.”

Wellard looked distraught and shaken, but now Hornblower made his appearance behind him. Hornblower was pale, too, and breathing hard, but he seemed to have command of himself. The glance which he threw round him in the dim light of the lanterns passed over Bush without apparent recognition.

“Get Dr Clive!” he snapped at one midshipman peering out from the midshipmen’s berth; and then to another, “You there. Run for the first lieutenant. Ask him to come below here. Run!”

Hornblower’s glance took in Whiting and travelled forward to where the marines were snatching their muskets from the racks.

“Why are your men turning out, Captain Whiting?”

“Captain’s orders.”

“Then you can form them up. But I do not believe there is any emergency.”

Only then did Hornblower’s glance comprehend Bush.

“Oh, Mr. Bush. Will you take charge, sir, now that you’re here? I’ve sent for the first lieutenant. The captain’s hurt—badly hurt, I’m afraid, sir.”

“But what’s happened?” asked Bush.

“The captain’s fallen down the hatchway, sir,” said Hornblower.

In the dim light Hornblower’s eyes stared straight into Bush’s, but Bush could read no message in them. This after part of the lower gundeck was crowded now, and Hornblower’s definite statement, the first that had been made, raised a buzz of excitement. It was the sort of undisciplined noise that most easily roused Bush’s wrath, and, perhaps fortunately, it brought a natural reaction from him.

“Silence, there!” he roared. “Get about your business.”

When Bush glowered round at the excited crowd it fell silent.

“With your permission I’ll go below again, sir,” said Hornblower. “I must see after the captain.”

“Very well, Mr. Hornblower,” said Bush; the stereotyped phrase had been uttered so often before that it escaped sounding stilted.

“Come with me, Mr. Wellard,” said Hornblower, and turned away.

Several new arrivals made their appearance as he did so—Buckland, his face white and strained, Roberts at his shoulder, Clive in his shirt and trousers walking sleepily from ho cabin. All of them started a little at the sight of the marines forming line on the cumbered deck, their musket barrels glinting in the feeble light of the lanterns.

“Would you come at once, sir?” asked Hornblower, turning back at sight of Buckland.

“I’ll come,” said Buckland.

“What in the name of God is going on?” asked Clive.

“The captain’s hurt,” said Hornblower curtly. “Come at once. You’ll need a light.”

“The captain?” Clive blinked himself wider awake. “Where is he? Give me that lantern, you. Where are my mates? You there, run and rouse my mates. They sling their hammocks in the sick bay.”

So it was a procession of half a dozen that carried their lanterns down the ladder—the four lieutenants, Clive and Wellard. While waiting at the head of the ladder Bush stole a side glance at Buckland; his face was working with anxiety. He would infinitely rather have been walking a shottorn deck with grape flying round him. He rolled an inquiring eye at Bush, but with Clive within earshot Bush dared say no word—he knew no more than Buckland did, for that matter. There was no knowing what was awaiting them at the foot of the ladder—arrest, ruin, disgrace, perhaps death.

The faint light of a lantern revealed the scarlet tunic and white crossbelts of a marine, standing by the hatchway. He wore the chevrons of a corporal.

“Anything to report?” demanded Hornblower.

“No, sir. Nothink, sir.”

“Captains down there unconscious. There are two marines guarding him,” said Hornblower to Clive, pointing down the hatchway, and Clive swung his bulk painfully on to the ladder and descended.

“Now, corporal,” said Hornblower, “tell the first lieutenant all you know about this.”

The corporal stood stiffly to attention. With no fewer than four lieutenants eyeing him he was nervous, and he probably had a gloomy feeling based on his experience of the service that when there was trouble among the higher ranks it was likely to go ill with a mere corporal who was unfortunate enough to be involved, however innocently. He stood rigid, trying not to meet anybody’s eye.

“Speak up, man,” said Buckland, testily. He was nervous as well, but that was understandable in a first lieutenant whose captain had just met with a serious accident.

“I was corporal of the guard, sir. At two bells I relieved the sentry at the captain’s door.”

“Yes?”

“An—an—then I went to sleep again.”

“Damn it,” said Roberts. “Make your report.”

“I was woke up, sir,” went on the corporal, “by one of the gentlemen. Gunner, I think ‘e is.”

“Mr. Hobbs?”

“That may be ‘is name, sir. ‘E said, ‘Cap’n’s orders, and guard turn out.’ So I turns out the guard, sir, an’ there’s the cap’n with Wade, the sentry I’d posted. ‘E ‘ad pistols in ‘is ‘ands, sir.”

“Who—Wade?”

“No, sir, the cap’n, sir.”

“What was his manner like?” demanded Hornblower.

“Well, sir—” The corporal did not want to offer any criticism of a captain, not even to a lieutenant.

“Belay that, then. Carry on.”

“Cap’n says, sir, ‘e says ‘e says, sir, ‘Follow me’; an’ then ‘e says to the gennelman, ‘e says, ‘Do your duty, Mr. Hobbs.’ So Mr. Hobbs, ‘e goes one way, sir, and we comes with the captain down ‘ere, sir. ‘There’s mutiny brewing,’ says the cap’n, ‘black bloody mutiny. We’ve got to catch the mutineers. Catch ‘em red’anded,’ says the cap’n.”

The surgeon’s head appeared in the hatchway.

“Give me another of those lanterns,” he said.

“How’s the captain?” demanded Buckland.

“Concussion and some fractures, I would say.”

“Badly hurt?”

“No knowing yet. Where are my mates? Ah, there you are, Coleman. Splints and bandages, man, as quick as you can get ‘em. And a carryingplank and a canvas and lines. Run, man! You, Pierce, come on down and help me.”

So the two surgeon’s mates had hardly made their appearance than they were hurried away.

“Carry on, corporal,” said Buckland.

“I dunno what I said, sir.”

“The captain brought you down here.”

“Yessir. ‘E ‘ad ‘is pistols in ‘is ‘ands, sir, like I said, sir. ‘E sent one file for’ard. ‘Stop every bolt’ole,’ ‘e says; an’ ‘e says, ‘You, corporal, take these two men down an’ search.’ ‘E—’e was yellin’, like. ‘E ‘ad ‘is pistols in ‘is ‘ands.”

The corporal looked anxiously at Buckland as he spoke.

“That’s all right, corporal,” said Buckland. “Just tell the truth.”

The knowledge that the captain was unconscious and perhaps badly hurt had reassured him, just as it had reassured Bush.