“Wine with you, sir.” “Your health, Admiral.” “Would you give the onions a fair wind, Grindall?” and so on.
“Won’t you try the galantine, Lord Henry?” asked Pellew. “Steward, a fresh plate for Lord Henry.”
That was how Hornblower learned the real name of the brawn he was eating. The ragout of pork drifted his way and he helped himself generously; the steward behind him changed his plate in the nick of time. He savoured the exquisite boiled onions that wallowed in the beatific sauce. Then like magic the table was cleared and fresh dishes made their appearance, a pudding rich with raisins and currants, jellies of two colours; much labour must have gone into boiling down the bullock’s feet and into subsequent straining to make that brilliant gelatine.
“No flour for that duff,” said Pellew apologetically. “The galley staff has done its best with biscuit crumbs.”
That best was as near perfection as mind could conceive; there was a sweet sauce with it, hinting of ginger, that made the most of the richness of the fruit. Hornblower found himself thinking that if ever he became a post captain, wealthy with prize money, he would have to devote endless thought to the organization of his cabin stores. And Maria would not be of much help he thought ruefully. He was still drifting along with thoughts of Maria when the table was swept clear again.
“Caerphilly, sir?” murmured a steward in his ear. “Wensleydale? Red Cheshire?”
These were cheeses that were being offered him. He helped himself at random — one name meant no more to him than mother — and went on to make an epoch-making discovery, that Wensleydale cheese and vintage port were a pair of heavenly twins, Castor and Pollux riding triumphantly as the climax of a glorious procession. Full of food and with two glasses of wine inside him — all he allowed himself — he felt vastly pleased with the discovery, rivalling those of Columbus and Cook. Almost simultaneously he made another discovery which amused him. The chased silver fingerbowls which were put on the table were very elegant; the last time he had seen anything like them was as a midshipman at a dinner at Government House in Gibraltar. In each floated a fragment of lemon peel, but the water in which the peel floated — as Hornblower discovered by a furtive taste as he dabbed his lips — was plain sea water. There was something comforting in that fact.
Cornwallis’s blue eyes were fixed on him.
“Mr Vice, the King,” said Cornwallis.
Hornblower came back from pink hazes of beatitude. He had to take a grip of himself, as when he had tacked Hotspur with the Loire in pursuit; he had to await the right moment for the attention of the company. Then he rose to his feet and lifted his glass, carrying out the ages old ritual of the junior officer present.
“Gentlemen, the King,” he said.
“The King!” echoed everyone present, and some added phrases like “God Bless him” and “Long may he reign” before they sat down again.
“His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence,” said Lord Henry in conversational tone, “told me that during his time at sea he had knocked his head — he’s a tall man, as you know — so often on so many deck beams while drinking his father’s health that he seriously was considering requesting His Majesty’s permission, as a special privilege, for the Royal Navy to drink the royal health while sitting down.”
At the other corner of the table Andrews, captain of the Flora, was going on with an interrupted conversation.
“Fifteen pounds a man,” he was saying. “That’s what my Jacks were paid on account of prize money, and we were in Cawsand Bay ready to sail. The women had left the ship, not a bumboat within call, and so my men — the ordinary seamen, mind you — still have fifteen pounds apiece in their pockets.”
“All the better when they get a chance to spend it,” said Marsfield.
Hornblower was making a rapid calculation. The Flora would have a crew of some three hundred men, who divided a quarter of the prize money between them. The captain had one quarter to himself, so that Andrews would have been paid — on account, not necessarily in full — some four thousand five hundred pounds as a result of some lucky cruise, probably without risk, probably without a life being lost, money for seizing French merchant ships intercepted at sea. Hornblower thought ruefully about Maria’s latest letter, and about the uses to which he could put four thousand five hundred pounds.
“There’ll be lively times in Plymouth when the Channel Fleet comes in,” said Andrews.
“That is something which I wish to explain to you gentlemen,” said Cornwallis, breaking in on the conversation. There was something flat and expressionless about his voice, and there was a kind of mask-like expression on his good-tempered face, so that all eyes turned on him.
“The Channel Fleet will not be coming in to Plymouth,” said Cornwallis. “This is the time to make that plain.”
A silence ensued, during which Cornwallis was clearly waiting for a cue. The saturnine Collins supplied it.
“What about water, sir? Provisions?”
“They are going to be sent out to us.”
“Water, sir?”
“Yes. I have had four water-hoys constructed. They will bring us water. Victualling ships will bring us our food. Each new ship which joins us will bring us fresh food, vegetables and live cattle, all they can carry on deck. That will help against scurvy. I’m sending no ship back to replenish.”
“So we’ll have to wait for the winter gales before we see Plymouth again, sir?”
“Nor even then,” said Cornwallis. “No ship, no captain, is to enter Plymouth without my express orders. Do I have to explain why, to experienced officers like you?”
The reasons were as obvious to Hornblower as to the others. The Channel Fleet might well have to run for shelter when southwesterly gales blew, and with a gale at southwest the French fleet could not escape from Brest. But Plymouth Sound was difficult; a wind from the eastward would delay the British fleet’s exits, prolong it over several days, perhaps, during which time the wind would be fair for the French fleet to escape, There were plenty of other reasons, too. There was disease; every captain knew that ships grew healthier the longer they were at sea. There was desertion. There was the fact that discipline could be badly shaken by debauches on shore.
“But in a gale, sir?” asked someone. “We could get blown right up-Channel.”
“No,” answered Cornwallis decisively. “If we’re blown off this station our rendezvous is Tor Bay. There we anchor.”
Confused murmurings showed how this information was being digested. Tor Bay was an exposed uncomfortable anchorage, barely sheltered from the west, but it had the obvious advantage that at the first shift of wind the fleet could put to sea, could be off Ushant again before the unwieldy French fleet could file out down the Goulet.
“So none of us will set foot on English soil again until the end of the war, sir?” said Collins.
Cornwallis’s face was transfigured by a smile. “We need never say that. All of you, any one of you, can go ashore …” the smile broadened as he paused, “the moment I set foot ashore myself.”
That caused a laugh, perhaps a grudging laugh, but with an admiring echo. Hornblower, watching the scene keenly, suddenly came to a fresh realization. Collins’s questions and remarks had been very apt, very much to the point. Hornblower suspected that he had been listening to a prepared piece of dialogue, and his suspicions were strengthened by the recollection that Collins was First Captain under Cornwallis, somebody whom the French would call a Chief of Staff. Hornblower looked about him again. He could not help feeling admiration for Cornwallis, whose guileless behaviour concealed such unsuspected depths of subtlety. And it was a matter for self-congratulation that he had guessed the secret, he, the junior officer present, surrounded by all these captains of vast seniority, of distinguished records and of noble descent. He felt positively smug, a most unusual and gratifying feeling.