Hornblower and the Atropos

Chapter VII

So it was to be the Mediterranean. Hornblower sat in his canvas chair in his cabin in Atropos, rereading the orders which hat come for him.

He was to prepare himself with the utmost diligence ready to proceed to Gibraltar, and there he was to call for orders which the Vice-Admiral Commanding in the Mediterranean might send to him there. In the event that no such orders should be forthcoming, he was to ascertain where the ViceAdmiral was likely to be found, and to proceed with the same diligence to put himself under the ViceAdmiral’s orders.

That must be Cuthbert Collingwood—Lord Collingwood now that he had received his peerage after Trafalgar. The fleet that had won the battle there—or such ships of it as were still seaworthy—had been sent into the Mediterranean after the battle, he knew. The destruction of the French and Spanish fleets outside Cadiz had definitely established British command of the Atlantic, so now the Navy was carrying its ponderous weight into the Mediterranean to head off there any moves that Bonaparte might make now that Austerlitz had given him command of Continental Europe. Austerlitz—Trafalgar. The French army—and the Royal Navy. The one might be balanced against the other. There was no corner of Europe whither French troops might not march—as long as there was land for them to march on; there was no corner of the sea where British ships might not bring their influence to bear—as long as there was water in which they could float. In the landlocked Mediterranean with its peninsulas and islands sea power could best confront land power. The bloody and seemingly endless conflict between tyranny and liberty would be fought out there. He would play his part in it. The Secretary to the Lords Commissioners signed himself “your obedient humble servant,” but before he did so he went on to say that Their Lordships rested assured that Atropos was ready for immediate departure, so that on receipt of final orders and of the last minute despatches which would be entrusted to her she would be able to leave at once. Hornblower and his ship, in other words, were being put on notice of instant readiness.

Hornblower felt a slight feeling of apprehension, a sensation of gooseflesh at the back of his neck. He did not believe that his ship was prepared in all respects to leave at a moment’s notice.

Hornblower lifted up his voice in a call to the sentry outside his door.

“Pass the word for Mr. Jones.”

He heard the cry repeated in ‘tween decks like an echo, as he sat on with the orders in his hands. It was only a few moments before Mr. Jones came in hastily, and it was only when he arrived that Hornblower realized that he had not prepared himself to give the necessary orders and make the necessary inquiries. As a result Hornblower found himself compelled to look Jones over without speaking. His mind was sorting out his thoughts without reacting at all to the reports his eyes were making to it, but Hornblower’s steady stare discomposed the unfortunate Jones, who put his hand up nervously to his face. Hornblower saw a dab of dry lather in front of Jones’s right ear, and as the lieutenant’s gesture recalled him to himself he noticed something more; one lantern cheek was smooth and well shaved, while the other bristled with a fair growth of black beard.

“Pardon, sir,” said Jones, “but your call caught me half shaved, and I judged it best to come at once.”

“Very well, Mr. Jones,” said Hornblower; he was not sorry that Jones had something to explain away while he himself was not ready with the definite orders that a good officer should be able to issue.

Under that embarrassing stare Jones had to speak again.

“Did you want me, sir?”

“Yes,” said Hornblower. “We are under orders for the Mediterranean.”

“Indeed, sir?” Mr. Jones’s remarks did not make any great contribution to the progress of the conversation.

“I want your report on how soon we can be ready for sea.”

“Oh, sir—”

Jones put his hand up to his face again; perhaps it was as long as it was because of his habit of pulling at his chin.

“Are stores and water complete?”

“Well, sir, you see—”

“You mean they are not?”

“N—no, sir. Not altogether.”

Hornblower was about to ask for an explanation, but changed his approach at the last second.

“I won’t ask why at present. How short are we?”

“Well, sir—” The wretched Jones entered into a hurried statement. They were twenty tons of water short. Bread, spirits, meat—

“You mean that with the Victualling Yard only across the river you have not kept the ship complete with stores?”

“Well, sir—” Jones tried to explain that he had not thought it necessary to draw supplies from day to day. “There was plenty of other work for the hands, sir, fitting out.”

“Watch bills? Station bills?”

These were the lists that allocated the hands to their duties and quarters in the ship.

“We’re twenty topmen short, sir,” said Jones pitifully.

“All the more reason to make the most of what we have.”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir.” Jones sought desperately in his mind for excuses for himself. “Some of our beef, sir—it—it isn’t fit to eat.”

“Worse than usual?”

“Yes, sir. Must be some of an old batch. Real bad, some of it.”

“In which tier?”

“I’ll ask the purser, sir.”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“No, sir—yes, sir.”

Hornblower fell into deep thought again, but as once more he did not take his eyes from Jones’s face that did not help the delinquent first lieutenant to recover his equanimity. Actually Hornblower was condemning himself. During the few days he had held command of the Atropos he had been hard at work on the details of Nelson’s funeral, and then he had been preoccupied with his own family affairs, but all that was no excuse. The captain of a ship should be aware at every moment of the state of his command. He was savagely angry with himself. He hardly knew his officers’ names; he could not even estimate what sort of fight Atropos could put up—and yet he would not have to go very far down the river to find his ship likely to be in action.

“What about the gunner’s stores?” he asked. “Powder? Shot? Wads? Cartridges?”

“I’ll send for the gunner, sir, shall I?” asked Jones. He was desperate at all this revelation of his own inadequacies.

“I’ll see ‘em all in a minute,” said Hornblower. “Purser, gunner, bos’n, cooper, master’s mate.”

These were the subordinate heads of department responsible through the first lieutenant to the captain for the proper functioning of the ship.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“What the devil’s that noise?” asked Hornblower pettishly. For some minutes now there had been some sort of altercation on the quarterdeck over their heads. Strange voices were making themselves heard through the skylight.

“Shall I find out, sir?” asked Jones eagerly, hoping for some distraction. But as he spoke there was a knock at the cabin door.

“This’ll tell us,” said Hornblower. “Come in!”

Midshipman Horrocks opened the door.

“Mr. Still’s respects, sir, an’ there are some gentlemen come on board with an Admiralty letter for you, sir.”

“Ask them to come here.”

It could only be trouble of one sort or another, Hornblower decided, as he waited. One more distraction at a moment when he was about to be desperately busy. Horrocks ushered in two figures, one large and one diminutive, wearing glittering uniforms of green and gold—Hornblower had last seen them only yesterday at the Court of St. James’s, the German princeling and his bearleader. Hornblower rose to his feet, and Eisenbeiss stepped forward with an elaborate bow, to which Hornblower replied with a curt nod.

“Well, sir?”

Eisenbeiss ceremoniously handed over a letter; a glance showed Hornblower that it was addressed to him. He opened it carefully and read it.

“I see,” he said. He looked at the odd pair in their resplendent uniforms. “Welcome aboard, Your Highness.”

The prince nodded and smiled, clearly without understanding.

Hornblower sat down again, and Eisenbeiss began to speak at once, his thick German accent stressing his grievances.

“I must protest, sir,” he said.

“Well?” said Hornblower, in a tone that might well have conveyed a warning.

“His Serene Highness is not being treated with proper respect. When we reached your ship I sent my footman on board to announce us so that His Highness could be received with royal honours. They were absolutely refused, sir. The man on the deck there—I presume he is an officer—said he had no instructions. It was only when I showed him that letter, sir, that he allowed us to come on board at all.”

“Quite right. He had no instructions.”

“I trust you will make amends, then. And may I remind you that you are sitting in the presence of royalty?”

“You call me ‘sir’,” snapped Hornblower. “And you will address me as my subordinate should.”

Eisenbeiss jerked himself upright in his indignation, so that his head came with a shattering crash against the deckbeam above; this checked his flow of words and enabled Hornblower to continue.

“As officers in the King’s service you should have worn the King’s uniform. You have your dunnage with you?”

Eisenbeiss was still too stunned to answer, even if he understood the word, and Horrocks spoke for him.

“Please, sir, it’s in the boat alongside. Chests and chests of it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Horrocks. Now, doctor, I understand you have the necessary professional qualifications to act as surgeon in this ship. That is so?”

Eisenbeiss still strove to retain his dignity.

“As Secretary of State I am addressed as ‘Your Excellency’,” he said.

“But as surgeon in this ship you are addressed as ‘doctor’. And that is the last time I shall overlook the omission of the word ‘sir’. Now. Your qualifications?”

“I am a surgeon—sir.”

The last word came out with a jerk as Hornblower’s eyebrows rose.

“You have been in practice recently?”

“Until a few months ago—sir. I was surgeon to the Court of Seitz-Bunau. But now I am—”

“Now you are surgeon in H.M.S. Atropos, and we can leave off the farce of your being Secretary of State.”

“Sir—”

“Silence, if you please, doctor. Mr. Horrocks!”

“Sir!”

“My compliments to Mr. Still. I’ll have these two gentlemen’s baggage swayed up. They are to make immediate selection of their necessities to the extent of one sea chest each. You will be able to help them in their choice. The remainder is to leave the ship within ten minutes by the boat in which it came. Is that quite clear, Mr. Horrocks?”

“Aye aye, sir. If you please, sir, there’s a couple of footmen with the baggage.”

“Footmen?”

“Yes, sir, in uniforms like these,” Horrocks indicated the green and gold of the Germans.

“That’s two more hands, then. Read ‘em in and send ‘em for’rard.”

The Navy could always use more men, and a couple of fat, wellfed footmen would make useful hands in time to come.

“But sir—” said Eisenbeiss.

“Speak when you’re spoken to, doctor. Now Mr. Horrocks, you will take the prince and settle him into the midshipmen’s berth. I’ll introduce you. Mr. Midshipman Horrocks—er, Mr. Midshipman Prince.”

Horrocks automatically offered his hand, and the prince as automatically took it, displaying no immediate change at the contamination of a human touch. He smiled shyly, without understanding.

“And my compliments to the master’s mate, too, Mr. Horrocks. Ask him to be good enough to show the doctor where he berths for’rard.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Now, doctor, in half an hour I wish to see you both in the King’s uniform. You can take up your duties then. There will be a court of inquiry opened at that time, consisting of the first lieutenant, the purser, and yourself, to decide whether certain hogsheads of beef are fit for human consumption. You will be secretary of that court and I want your written report by noon. Go with Mr. Horrocks now.”

Eisenbeiss hesitated a moment under Hornblower’s sharp glance before he turned to leave the cabin, but at the curtain his indignation overcame him again.

“I shall write to the Prime Minister, sir,” he said. “He shall hear about this treatment of His Majesty’s Allies.”

“Yes, doctor. If you contravene the Mutiny Act you’ll swing at the yardarm. Now, Mr. Jones, with regard to these station and quarter bills.”

As Hornblower turned to Jones to reenter into the business of getting Atropos ready for sea he was conscious of feeling some contempt for himself. He could browbeat a silly German doctor effectively enough; he could flatter himself that he had dealt adequately with what might have been a difficult though petty situation. But that was nothing to be proud of, when he had to realize that with regard to his real duties he had been found wanting. He had wasted precious hours. During the last two days he had twice played with his little son; he had sat by his wife’s bedside and held his little daughter in his arms, when really he should have been on board here looking after his ship. It was no excuse that it was Jones’s duty to have attended to the matters under consideration; it had been Hornblower’s duty to see that Jones had attended to them. A naval officer should not have a wife or children—this present situation was the proof of that trite saying. Hornblower found himself setting his mouth hard as he came to that conclusion. There were still eight hours of daylight left today. He began an orderly planning of those eight hours. There were the matters that would call for his own personal activity like appealing to the superintendent of the dockyard; there were the matters he could safely leave to his subordinates. There was work that could be done on one side of the ship, leaving the other side clear; there was work that would demand the services of skilled seamen, and work that landsmen could do. There were some jobs that could not be started until other jobs were finished. If he was not careful some of his officers would have to be in two places at once, there would be confusion, delay, ridiculous disorder. But with good planning it could be done.

Purser and gunner, boatswain and cooper, each in turn was summoned to the after cabin. To each was allotted his tasks; to each was grudgingly conceded a proportion of the men that each demanded. Soon the pipes were shrilling through the ship.

“Launch’s crew away!”

Soon the launch was pulling across the river, full of the empty barrels the cooper and his mates had made ready, to begin ferrying over the twenty tons of water necessary to complete the ship’s requirements. A dozen men went scurrying up the shrouds and out along the yards under the urging of the boatswain; yardarm tackles and stay tackles had to be readied for the day’s work.

“Mr. Jones! I am leaving the ship now. Have that report on the beef ready for me by the time I return from the dockyard.”

Hornblower became aware of two figures on the quarterdeck trying to attract his attention. They were the prince and the doctor. He ran his eye over their uniforms, the white collar patches of the midshipman and the plain coat of the surgeon.

“They’ll do,” he said, “your duties are awaiting you, doctor. Mr. Horrocks! Keep Mr. Prince under your lee for today. Call away my gig.”

The captain superintendent of the dockyard listened to Hornblower’s request with the indifference acquired during years of listening to requests from urgent officers.

“I’ve the men ready to send for the shot, sir. Port side’s clear for the powder hulk to come alongside—slack water in half an hour, sir. I can send men to man her too if necessary. It’s only four tons that I need. Half an hour with the hulk.”

“You say you’re ready now?”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain superintendent looked across at the Atropos lying in the stream.

“Very well. I hope what you say is quite correct, captain, for your sake. You can start warping the hulk alongside—I warn you I want her back at her moorings in an hour.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Back in the Atropos the cry went round the ship.

“Hands to the capstan! Waisters! Sailmakers! Loblolly boys!”

The inmost recesses of the ship were cleared of men to man the capstan bars—any pairs of arms, any stout backs, would serve for that purpose. A drum went roaring along the deck.

“All lights out!”

The cook and his mates dumped the galley fire overside and went reluctantly to man the yardarm and stay tackles. The powder hulk came creeping alongside. She had stout sheers and wide hatchways, efficient equipment for the rapid transfer of explosives. Four tons of powder, eighty kegs of one hundredweight each, came climbing out of the hulk’s holds to be swayed down the hatchways of the Atropos, while down below the gunner and his mates and a sweating working party toiled in near darkness—barefooted to avoid all chance of friction or sparks—to range the kegs about the magazines. Some day Atropos might be fighting for her life, and her life would depend on the proper arrangement of those kegs down below so that the demands of the guns on deck might be met.

The members of the court of inquiry, fresh from their investigation of the defective beef barrels, made their appearance on deck again.

“Mr. Jones, show the doctor how to make his report in due form.” Then to the purser, “Mr. Carslake, I want to be able to sign your indents as soon as that report is ready.”

One final look round the deck, and Hornblower could dive below, take pen and ink and paper, and devote himself single-mindedly to composing a suitable covering letter to the Victualling Yard (worded with the right urgency and tactfully coaxing the authorities there into agreement without annoying them by too certain assumption of acquiescence) beginning: “Sir, I have the honour to enclose—” and concluding: “—in the best interests of His Majesty’s service, Your Obedient Servant—”

Then he could come on deck again to see how the work was progressing and fume for a space before Jones and Carslake appeared with the documents they had been preparing. Amid the confusion and din he had to clear his head again to read them with care before signing them with a bold “H. Hornblower, Captain.”

“Mr. Carslake, you can take my gig over to the Victualling Yard. Mr. Jones, I expect the Yard will need hands to man their lighter. See to that, if you please.”

A moment to spare now to observe the hands at work, to settle his cocked hat square on his head, to clasp his hands behind him, to walk slowly forward, doing his best to look quite cool and imperturbable, as if all this wild activity were the most natural thing in the world.

“Avast heaving there on that staytackle. Belay!”

The powder keg hung suspended just over the deck. Hornblower forced himself to speak coldly, without excitement. A stave of the keg had started a trifle. There was a minute trail of powder grains on the deck; more were dribbling very slowly out.

“Sway that keg back into the hulk. You, bos’n’s mate, get a wet mop and swill that powder off the deck.”

An accident could have fired that powder easily. The flash would pass in either direction; four tons of powder in Atropos, forty, perhaps in the hulk—what would have happened to the massed shipping in the Pool in that event? The men were eyeing him; this would be a suitable moment to encourage them with their work.

“Greenwich Hospital is over there, men,” said Hornblower, pointing down river to the graceful outlines of Wren’s building. “Some of us will wind up there in the end, I expect, but we don’t want to be blown straight there today.”

A feeble enough joke, perhaps, but it raised a grin or two all the same.

“Carry on.”

Hornblower continued his stroll forward, the imperturbable captain who was nevertheless human enough to crack a joke. It was the same sort of acting that he used towards Maria when she seemed likely to be in a difficult mood.

Here was the lighter with the shot, coming along the starboard side. Hornblower looked down into it. Ninepounder balls for the four long guns, two forward and two aft; twelvepounder balls for the eighteen carronades that constituted the ship’s main armament. The twenty tons of iron made a pathetically small mass lying in the bottom of the lighter, when regarded with the eye of a man who had served in a ship of the line; the old Renown would have discharged that weight of shot in a couple of hours’ fighting. But this dead weight was a very considerable proportion of the load Atropos had to carry. Half of it would be distributed fairly evenly along the ship in the shotgarlands; where he decided to stow the other ten tons would make all the difference to Atropos, could add a knot to her speed or reduce it by a knot, could make her stiff in a breeze or crank, handy or awkward under sail. He could not reach a decision about that until the rest of the stores were on board and he had had an opportunity of observing her trim. Hornblower ran a keen eye over the nets in which the shot were to be swayed up at the starboard foreyardarm, and went back through his mind in search of the data stored away there regarding the breaking strain of Manila line—this, he could tell, had been several years in service.

“Sixteen rounds to the load,” he called down into the lighter, “no more.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

It was typical of Hornblower’s mind that it should spend a moment or two thinking about the effect that would be produced if one of those nets was to give way; the shot would pour down into the lighter again; falling from the height of the yardarm they could go clear through the bottom of the lighter; with all that deadweight on board, the lighter would sink like a stone, there on the edge of the fairway, to be an intolerable nuisance to London’s shipping until divers had painfully cleared the sunken wreck of the shot, and camels had lifted the wreck clear of the channel. The vast shipping of the Port of London could be seriously impeded as a result of a momentary inattention regarding the condition of a cargo net.

Jones was hastening across the deck to touch his hat to him.

“The last of the powder’s just coming aboard, sir.”

“Thank you. Mr. Jones. Have the hulk warped back to her moorings. Mr. Owen can send the powder boys here to put the shot in the garlands as they come on board.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

And the gig was coming back across the river with Carslake sitting in the stern.

“Well, Mr. Carslake, how did the Victualling Yard receive those indents?”

“They’ve accepted them, sir. They’ll have the stores on the quayside tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Didn’t you listen to my orders, Mr. Carslake? I don’t want to have to put a black mark against your name. Mr. Jones! I’m going over to the Victualling Yard. Come back with me, Mr. Carslake.”

The Victualling Yard was a department of the Navy Office, not of the Admiralty. The officials there had to be approached differently from those of the dockyard. One might almost think the two organizations were rivals, instead of working to a common patriotic end against a deadly enemy.

“I can bring my own men to do the work,” said Hornblower. “You needn’t use your own gangs at all.”

“M’m,” said the victualling superintendent.

“I’ll move everything to the quayside myself, besides lightering it over.”

“M’m,” said the victualling superintendent again, a trifle more receptively.

“I would be most deeply obliged to you,” went on Hornblower. “You need only instruct one of your clerks to point out the stores to the officer in command of my working party. Everything else will be attended to. I beg of you, sir.”

It was highly gratifying to a Navy Office official to have a captain, metaphorically, on his knees to him, in this fashion. Equally gratifying was the thought that the Navy would do all the work, with a great saving of timetallies to the Victualling Yard. Hornblower could see the satisfaction in the fellow’s fat face. He wanted to wipe it off with his fist, but he kept himself humble. It did him no harm, and by this means he was bending the fellow to his will as surely as if he was using threats.

“There’s the matter of those stores you have condemned,” said the superintendent.

“My court of inquiry was in due form,” said Hornblower.

“Yes,” said the superintendent thoughtfully.

“Of course I can return you the hogsheads,” suggested Hornblower. “I was intending to do so, as soon as I had emptied the beef over into the tide.”

“No, please do not go to that trouble. Return me the full hogsheads.”

The working of the minds of these government Jacksinoffice was beyond normal understanding. Hornblower could not believe—although it was just possible—that the superintendent had any personal financial interest in the matter of those condemned stores. But the fact that the condemnation had taken place presumably was a blot on his record, or on the record of the yard. If the hogsheads were returned to them no mention of the condemnation need be made officially, and presumably they could be palmed off again on some other ship—some ship that might go to sea without the opportunity of sampling the stuff first. Sailors fighting for their country might starve as long as the Victualling Yard’s records were unsmirched.

“I’ll return the full hogsheads gladly, sir,” said Hornblower. “I’ll send them over to you in the lighter that brings the other stores over.”

“That might do very well,” said the superintendent.

“I am delighted, and, as I said, intensely obliged to you, sir. I’ll have my launch over here with a working party in ten minutes.”

Hornblower bowed with all the unction he could command; this was not the moment to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar. He bowed himself out before the discussion could be reopened. But the superintendent’s last words were:

“Remember to return those hogsheads, captain.”

The powder hulk had been warped back to her moorings; the other ordnance stores that were being taken on board seemed trifling in appearance, bundles of wads, and bales of empty serge cartridges, a couple of sheaves of flexible rammers, spare gun trucks, reels of slow-match—the multifarious accessories necessary to keep twentytwo guns in action. Hornblower sent off Midshipman Smiley with the working party promised to the Victualling Yard.

“Now I’ll have those condemned hogsheads got up on deck, Mr. Carslake. I must keep my promise to return them.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Carslake.

Carslake was a bullheaded, youngish man with expressionless pale-blue eyes. Those eyes were even more expressionless than usual. He had been a witness of the interview between Hornblower and the superintendent, and he did not allow his feelings to show. He could not guess whether as a purser he thoroughly approved of saving the stores to be fobbed off on another ship or whether as a sailor certain to endure privations at sea he despised Hornblower’s weakness in agreeing to the superintendent’s demands.

“I’ll mark ‘em before I return ‘em,” said Hornblower.

He had thought of paint when he had been so accommodating towards the superintendent, but was not quite happy in his mind about it, for turpentine would remove paint fast enough. A better idea occurred to him, marvellously, at that very moment.

“Have the cook relight the fire in the galley,” he ordered. “I’ll have—I’ll have a couple of iron musket ramrods heated in the fire. Get them from the armourer, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir. If you please sir, it’s long past the hands’ dinnertime.”

“When I’ve time for my own dinner the hands can have theirs,” said Hornblower.

He was glad that the deck was crowded so that those words of his could be overheard, for he had had the question of the men’s dinnertime in his mind for some time although he was quite resolved not to waste a moment over it.

The first of the condemned hogsheads came creaking and swaying up from the hold and was lowered to the deck. Hornblower looked round him; there was Horrocks with the young prince, quite bewildered with all the continuous bustles trailing after him.

“You’ll do, Mr. Horrocks. Come here,” said Hornblower. He took the chalk from beside the slate at the binnacle; and wrote with it, in large letters diagonally round the hogshead, the word “CONDEMNED.” “There are two irons heating in the galley fire. You and Mr. Prince can spend your time branding these hogsheads. Trace out those letters on every one. Understand?”

“Er—yes, sir.”

“Good and deep, so there is no chance of planing it off. Look sharp about it.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The next lighter for the Dockyard was alongside now, at the port side recently vacated by the powder hulk. It was full of boatswain’s stores, cordage, canvas, paint; and a weary party of men were at work swaying the bundles up. There seemed no end to this business of getting Atropos fully equipped for sea. Hornblower himself felt as legweary as a foundered horse, and he stiffened himself up to conceal his fatigue. But as he looked across the river he could see the Victualling Yard’s lighter already emerging from the Creek. Smiley had his men at work on the sweeps, straining to row the ponderous thing across the ebbing tide.

Prom the quarterdeck he could see the lighter was crammed with the hogsheads and kegs and biscuit bags. Soon Atropos would be full-gorged. And the acrid smell of the redhot irons burning into the brine-soaked staves of the condemned hogsheads came to his nostrils. No ship would ever accept those stores. It was a queer duty for a Serene Highness to be employed upon. How had those orders read? “You will employ your diligence in instructing His Serene Highness in his new profession.” Well, perhaps it was not a bad introduction to the methods of fighting men and civilian employees.

Later—ever so much later, it seemed—Mr. Jones came up and touched his hat.

“The last of the stores are on board, sir,” he said. “Mr. Smiley’s just returning the Victualling Yard’s lighter.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones. Call away my gig, please.”

Hornblower stepped down into the boat conscious of many weary eyes on him. The winter afternoon was dissolving in a cold and gloomy drizzle as a small rain was beginning to fall. Hornblower had himself rowed round his ship at a convenient distance to observe her trim. He looked at her from ahead, from broadside on, from astern. In his mind’s eye he was visualizing her underwater lines. He looked up at the spread of her lower yards; the wind would be pressing against the canvas there, and he worked out the balance of the forces involved, wind against lateral resistance, rudder versus headsails. He had to consider seaworthiness and handiness as well as speed. He climbed back on deck to where Jones was awaiting him.

“I want her more down by the head,” he announced. “I’ll have those beef casks at the for’rard end of the tier, and the shot for’rard of the magazine. Get the hands to work, if you please.”

Once more the pipes shrilled through the ship as the hands began to move the stores ranged upon the deck. It was with anxiety that Hornblower’s return was awaited from his next pull round the ship.

“She’ll do for the present,” said Hornblower.

It was not a casual decision, no stageeffect. The moment Atropos should clear the land she would be in danger, she might find herself in instant action. She was only a little ship; even a well found privateer might give her a hard battle. To overtake in pursuit; to escape in flight; to handle quickly when manoeuvring for position in action; to claw off to windward should she be caught on a lee shore; she must be capable of all this, and she must be capable of it today, for tomorrow, even tomorrow, might be too late. The lives of his crew, his own life, his professional reputation, could hang on that decision.

“You can strike everything below now, Mr. Jones.”

Slowly the littered decks began to clear, while the rain grew heavier and the night began to close in round the little ship. The tiers of great casks, down against the skin of the ship, were squeezed and wedged into position; the contents of the hold had to be jammed into a solid mass, for once at sea Atropos would roll and pitch, and nothing must budge, nothing must shift, lest the fabric of the ship be damaged or even perhaps the ship might be rolled completely over by the movement of an avalanche of her cargo. The Navy still thought of Sir Edward Berry as the officer who, when captain of Nelson’s own Vanguard, allowed the masts of his ship to be rolled clear out of her in a moderate gale of wind off Sardinia.

Hornblower stood aft by the taffrail while the rain streamed down on him. He had not gone below; this might be part of the penance he was inflicting on himself for not having sufficiently supervised the management of his ship.

“The decks are cleared, sir,” said Jones, looming up in the wet darkness before him.

“Very well, Mr. Jones. When everything is swabbed down the men can have their dinners.”

The little cabin down below was cold and dark and cheerless. Two canvas chairs and a trestletable stood in the day cabin; in the night cabin there was nothing at all. The oil lamp shone gloomily over the bare planks of the deck under his feet. Hornblower could call for his gig again; it would whisk him fast enough half a mile downstream to Deptford Hard, and there at the “George” were his wife and his children. There would be a roaring fire of sea coal, a spluttering beef steak with cabbage, a feather bed with the sheets made almost too hot to bear by the application of a warming pan. His chilled body and aching legs yearned inexpressibly for that care and warmth. But in his present mood he would have none of them. Instead he dined, shivering, off ship’s fare hastily laid out for him on the trestletable. He had a hammock slung for himself in the night cabin, and he climbed into it and wrapped himself in clammy blankets. He had not lain in a hammock since he was a midshipman, and his spine had grown unused to the necessary curvature. He was too numb, both mentally and physically, to feel any glow of conscious virtue.