A Ship of the Line

Chapter XIX

The Sutherland was wallowing through the stormy waters of the Gulf of the Lion, under a grey sky, with flecked wave tops all round her, while her captain stood on his heaving quarterdeck enjoying the cold blast of the mistral round his ears. The nightmare adventure on the Spanish mainland was three weeks past now, for over a fortnight the ship had been clear of horses and mules, and the stable-smell had nearly disappeared, and the decks were white once again. Much more important, the Sutherland had been sent away on detached duty with orders to examine the French coast line all the way along to Toulon; he was free from the clogging authority of the admiral again, and he breathed the keen air with the delight of someone released from slavery. Barbara’s husband was not a man whom it was a pleasure to serve.

The whole ship seemed to be infected with this feeling of freedom—unless it was the pleasure in the contrast between the present weather and the tranquil skies and calm seas which had prevailed so long. Here came Bush, rubbing his hands and gri

“Blowing a little, sir,” said Bush, “and it’ll blow harder than this before it’s over.”

“Very likely,” said Hornblower.

He gri

“You can put the hands to any work you please, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower magnanimously, as discretion returned to him and he evaded the tempting snares of falling into idle conversation.

“Aye aye, sir.”

Young Longley came aft with the sand glass to attend to the hourly heaving of the log, and Hornblower watched him from the corner of his eye. The boy was carrying himself with assurance now, and gave his orders easily. He was the only one of all the midshipmen whose calculations of the day’s work made any pretence at accuracy, and the incident on the cliff had shown him to be a lad of quick decision. Towards the end of this commission, and at a suitable opportunity, Hornblower decided, he would appoint him acting lieutenant; he watched him bending over the traverse board marking up the hour’s run with a queer wonder as to whether he was observing a future Nelson, an admiral who would some day rule forty ships of the line.

He was an ugly little fellow, with this stubby hair and monkey face, yet it was hard not to feel a surge of affection for him. If little Horatio, the child whom smallpox had killed on the third day in those Southsea lodgings, had grown up in this fashion Hornblower would have been proud of him. Perhaps he might have done—but it was not a good thing to think himself into gloom on a fresh morning like this about the little boy he had loved. There would be another child by the time he reached home. Hornblower hoped it might be a boy; and he was nearly sure that Maria hoped the same. Not that any little boy could quite take the place of Horatio—Hornblower felt a new flood of depression when he remembered how Horatio had said “Papa! Want papa!” and had rested his face against his shoulder that evening when the first malaise of the illness was creeping over him. He shook his depression off; if his return to England was at the earliest moment he could hope for the child would be crawling about the floor with all a baby’s misdirected zeal. He might even be talking a little, and would hang his head in shyness when his strange papa arrived, so that Hornblower would have the task of wi

Maria was going to ask Lady Barbara to be godmother to the child—it would be delightful if Lady Barbara agreed. Any child with the influence of the Wellesley family behind it could contemplate a secure future. Without a doubt it was the Wellesley influence which had put Leighton in command of the squadron he was mismanaging. And by this time Hornblower was sure that it was the Wellesley influence which had put him in command of one of the ships of that squadron and retained him in employment without a single day of half pay. He was still in doubt about what had been Lady Barbara’s motive, but on a stimulating morning like this he could almost venture to believe that it was because she loved him; he would far rather it were that than it should merely be because she admired his professional ability. Or it might be just an amused and tolerant kindliness towards an inferior whom she knew to love her.

That thought called up a surge of revolt. She had been his for the asking, once. He had kissed her, clasped her. No matter that he had been afraid to take her—he slurred that memory over in his present indignation—she had offered, and he had declined. As a suppliant once, she had no right to pose to herself now as his patroness. He stamped his feet with mortification as he paced the deck.

But his clairvoyance was instantly blurred by his idealism. His memory of a cool and self collected Lady Barbara, the perfect hostess, the dignified wife of an admiral, was overlaid by mental pictures of a tender Lady Barbara, a loving Lady Barbara, with a beauty which would take a man’s breath away. His heart was torn with longing for her; he felt sick and sad and lonely in his rush of desire for her, for the angel of goodness and sweetness and kindliness he thought her to be. His pulse beat faster as he remembered her white bosom with the sapphire pendant resting on it, and animal desire came to reinforce the boyish affection he bore her.

“Sail ho!” bellowed the masthead lookout, and Hornblower’s dreaminess was stripped from him in a flash, like the straw wrapping from a bottle.

“Where away?”

“Right in the wind’s eye, sir, an’ comin’ up fast.”

A brisk nor’easterly wind like the present meant ideal weather conditions for French ships which wished to escape from the blockade of Marseille and Toulon. It was a fair wind for the escaping ship, enabling her to get out of harbour and cover a long distance during the first night, while at the same time it pushed the blockading squadron away to leeward. This might well be a ship engaged in breaking the blockade, and if such were the case she would have small chance of escape with the Sutherland right to leeward of her. It would be consistent with the good fortune he had enjoyed on detached service during the present commission if this were to be another prize for him.

“Keep her steady as she goes,” said Hornblower, in reply to Bush’s look of inquiry. “And turn the hands up, if you please, Mr. Bush.”

“Deck, there!” hailed the lookout. “She’s a frigate, and British by the look of her.”

That was a disappointment. There were fifty possible explanations of a British frigate’s presence here and on her present course which offered no chance of action as opposed to one which might involve the proximity of an enemy. Her topsails were in sight already, white against the grey sky.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the gunlayer of one of the port side quarterdeck carronades. “Stebbings here thinks he knows who she is.”

Stebbings was one of the hands taken from the East India convoy, a middle-aged man with grey hairs in his beard.

“Cassandra, sir, thirty-two, seems to me. She convoyed us last v’yage.”

“Captain Frederick Cooke, sir,” added Vincent, flipping hastily over the pages of the printed list.

“Ask her number and make sure,” ordered Hornblower.

Cooke had been posted six months later than he had; in the event of any combined operations he would be the senior officer.