A Ship of the Line

From this position of vantage beside the quarterdeck rail he looked down upon a curious bit of bye-play on the main deck. A bewildered young giant—a tin miner, Hornblower guessed, from his biceps—had rounded upon Harrison, apparently driven frantic by the volley of orders and blasphemy hurled at him. But Harrison at forty-five had fought his way up to the boatswain’s rank through hundreds of such encounters, and in his prime might have contested the highest honours of the prize ring. He slipped the Cornishman’s clumsy punch and felled him with a crashing blow on the jaw. Then without ceremony he seized him by the scruff of the neck and kicked him across the deck to the tackle which was waiting. Dazed, the Cornish-man took hold with the others and heaved with them, while Hornblower nodded approvingly.

The Cornishman had made himself liable to ‘death, or such less penalty’—as the Articles of War said, by raising his hand to his superior officer. But it was not the moment to invoke the Articles of War, even though they had been read over to the Cornishman last night on his compulsory enlistment. Gerard had sailed round with the longboat and had raided Redruth and Camborne and St. Ives, taking each place by surprise and returning with fifty stout Cornish-men who could hardly be expected yet to appreciate the administrative machinery of the service which they had joined. In a month’s time, perhaps, when everyone on board would have learnt the heinousness of such an offence, a court martial might be needed, and a flogging—death, perhaps—but at the present time it was best to do what Harrison had just done, and crack the man on the jaw and set him to work again. Hornblower found time to thank God he was a captain and out of the hurly burly, for any attempt on his part at cracking men on the jaw would be a lamentable failure, he knew.

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and was reminded of the fact that he was horribly tired. Night after night now he had not slept, and his days had been spent in all the numerous activities necessitated by commissioning a ship of the line. The nervous tension induced by his worrying about Lady Barbara and Maria, by money troubles and ma

He had the sense to realise that this new meeting with her had thoroughly upset him. He had given up as insoluble the problem of whether or not she had secured his nomination to the Sutherland; he had tried his hardest to combat his consuming jealousy of her husband. He had persuaded himself in the end that what he had wanted more than anything else was to escape from her, just as he wanted to escape from Maria’s cloying sweetness and lovable stupidity, from all the complex misery of life on land. He had yearned for the sea as a castaway yearns for a drink of water. Two days ago the prospect of thus standing on the deck in the final bustle of departure seemed marvellously desirable to him. Now, he realised with a gulp, he was not quite so sure. It was like having a limb torn out by the roots to be leaving Lady Barbara like this. And, oddly enough, he was distressed at leaving Maria, too. There would be a child born before he could be home again, a child well over a year old, ru

With all her courage her lips had trembled and her eyes had been wet when she lifted her face to him, in the sitting-room of their lodgings; they had agreed long ago that it was foolish to prolong the pangs of parting by her accompanying him on board. Even then the urge to be off had still been strong enough to take him from her arms without a pang, but it was different now. Hornblower mentally spurned himself as a sentimental fool, and glanced impatiently up at the masthead vane. Without a doubt the wind was backing northerly. If it should come round to north or nor’east the admiral would be anxious to start. The convoy, and the Pluto and Caligula, were assembled now, or pretty nearly, in Cawsand Bay; if the admiral decided not to wait for the stragglers he would be irritated at the Sutherland’s delay, be it never so unavoidable.

“Keep the men to it, Mr. Bush,” shouted Hornblower.

“Aye aye, sir,” answered Bush, patiently.

That patience in his voice irritated Hornblower further. It implied a slight rebuke, a rebuke only apparent to Bush and Hornblower. Hornblower knew that Bush was working as hard as he could, and that he was working the men as hard as he could, too. Hornblower’s order had been a mere manifestation of impatience, and Bush knew it. Hornblower was a

The sentry stood aside for him as he entered the door of his sleeping cabin on the half deck. There was plenty of room here; even the present of a twelve pounder left ample space for his cot and his desk and his chest. Polwheal had set everything to rights here already; Hornblower passed through into the main cabin. Here there was ample room, too; the Dutchmen who designed the Sutherland had lofty ideas regarding the comfort of the captain. The cabin extended across the whole width of the stern, and the great stern windows gave plenty of light. The stone-coloured paint made the cabin su

He went back to the sleeping cabin and threw himself with a sigh on his cot, but his restlessness brought him to his feet again and across to his desk. He took out a crackling document and sat down to look through it again.

Orders to the Inshore Squadron, Western Mediterranean, by Sir Percy Gilbert Leighton, K.B., Rear Admiral of the Red, Commanding.

There was nothing unusual about them at all-night signals, private signals, British, Spanish, and Portuguese; rendezvous in case of separation; a line or two regarding the tactics to be adopted in the event of encountering while with the convoy a hostile squadron of any force. The flagship would accompany the Lisbon convoy of transports into the Tagus—calling for orders, presumably; the Caligula was to take the storeships Harriet and Nancy to Port Mahon; the Sutherland was to escort the East Indiamen as far as Latitude 35° before heading for the Straits, to the final rendezvous off Palamos Point. Captains of His Brita