“Look at this, sir,” said Bush, telescope in hand and gesturing towards Brixham.
The telescope revealed a busy crowd at work there, and there were cattle visible.
“Slaughtering,” said Bush. “Fresh meat.”
Soon another lighter was creeping out to them; hanging from a frame down the midship line were sides of beef, carcasses of sheep and pigs.
“I won’t mind a roast of mutton, sir,” said Bush.
Bullocks and sheep and swine had been driven over the moors to Brixham, and slaughtered and dressed on the waterfront immediately before shipping so that the meat would last fresh as long as possible.
“Four days’ rations there, sir,” said Bush making a practiced estimate. “An’ there’s a live bullock an’ four sheep an’ four pigs. Excuse me, sir, and I’ll post a guard at the side.”
Most of the hands had money in their pockets and would spend it freely on liquor if they were given the chance, and the men in the victualling barges would sell to them unless the closest supervision were exercised. The water-lighters had finished their task and were casting off. It had been a brief orgy; from the moment that the hoses were taken in ship’s routine would be re-established. One gallon of water per man per day for all purposes from now on.
The place of the watering barges was taken by the dry victualling barge, with bags of biscuit, sacks of dried peas, kegs of butter, cases of cheese, sacks of oatmeal, but conspicuous on top of all this were half a dozen nets full of fresh bread. Two hundred four-pound loaves — Hornblower could taste the crustiness of them in his watering mouth when he merely looked at them. A beneficent government, under the firm guidance of Cornwallis, was sending these luxuries aboard; the hardships of a life at sea were the result of natural circumstances quite as much as of ministerial ineptitude.
There was never a quiet moment all through that day. Here was Bush touching his hat again with a final demand on his attention.
“You’ve given no order about wives, sir.”
“Wives?”
“Wives, sir.”
There was an interrogative lift in Hornblower’s voice as he said the word; there was a flat, complete absence of expression in Bush’s. It was usual in His Majesty’s Ships when they lay in harbour for women to be allowed on board, and one or two of them might well be wives. It was some small compensation for the system that forbade a man to set foot on shore lest he desert; but the women inevitably smuggled liquor on board, and the scenes of debauchery that ensued on the lower-deck were as shameless as in Nero’s court. Disease and indiscipline were the natural result; it took days or weeks to shake the crew down again into an efficient team. Hornblower did not want his fine ship ruined but if Hotspur were to stay long at anchor in Tor Bay he could not deny what was traditionally a reasonable request. He simply could not deny it.
“I’ll give my orders later this morning,” he said.
It was not difficult, some minutes later, to intercept Bush at a moment when a dozen of the hands were within earshot.
“Oh, Mr Bush!” Hornblower hoped his voice did not sound as stilted and theatrical as he feared. “You’ve plenty of work to be done about the ship.”
“Yes, sir. There’s a good deal of standing rigging I’d like set up again. And there’s running rigging to be re-rove. And there’s the paintwork —”
“Very well, Mr Bush. When the ship’s complete in all respects we’ll allow the wives on board, but not until then. Not until then, Mr Bush. And if we have to sail before then it will be the fortune of war.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Next came the letters; word must have reached the post office in Plymouth of the arrival of Hotspur in Tor Bay, and the letters had been sent across overland. Seven letters from Maria; Hornblower tore open the last first, to find that Maria was well and her pregnancy progressing favourably, and then he skimmed through the others to find, as he expected, that she had rejoiced to read her Valiant Hero’s Gazette letter although she was perturbed by the risks run by her Maritime Alexander, and although she was consumed with sorrow because the Needs of the Service had denied from her eyes the light of his Countenance. Hornblower was half-way through writing a reply when a midshipman came escorted to his cabin door with a note …
HMS Hibernia
Tor Bay
Dear Captain Hornblower,
If you can be tempted out of your ship at three o’clock this afternoon to dine in the flagship it would give great pleasure to
Your ob’t servant,
Wm. Cornwallis, Vice Ad.
P.S. - An affirmative signal hung out in the Hotspur is all the acknowledgement necessary.
Hornblower went out on to the quarter-deck.
“Mr Foreman. Signal ‘Hotspur to Flag. Affirmative’.”
“Just affirmative, sir?”
“You heard me.”
An invitation from the Commander in Chief was as much a royal command as if it had been signed George R. — even if the postcript did not dictate the reply.
Then there was the powder to be put on board, with all the care and precautions that operation demanded; Hotspur had fired away one ton of the five tons of gunpowder that her magazine could hold. The operation was completed when Prowse brought up one of the hands who manned the powder-barge.
“This fellow says he has a message for you, sir.”
This was a swarthy gypsy-faced fellow who met Hornblower’s eye boldly with all the assurance to be expected of a man who carried in his pocket a protection against impressment.
“What is it?”
“Message for you from a lady, sir, and I was to have a shilling for delivering it to you.”
Hornblower looked him over keenly. There was only one lady who could be sending a message.
“Nonsense. That lady promised sixpence. Now didn’t she?”
Hornblower knew that much about Maria despite his brief married life.
“Well, yes, sir.”
“Here’s the shilling. What’s the message?”
“The lady said look for her on Brixham Pier, sir.”
“Very well.”
Hornblower took the glass from its becket and walked forward. Busy though the ship was, there were nevertheless a few idlers round the knightheads who shrank away in panic at the remarkable sight of their captain here. He trained the glass; Brixham Pier, as might be expected, was crowded with people, and he searched for a long time without result, training the glass first on one woman and then on another. Was that Maria? She was the only woman wearing a bonnet and not a shawl. Of course it was Maria; momentarily he had forgotten that this was the end of the seventh month. She stood in the front row of the crowd; as Hornblower watched she raised an arm and fluttered a scarf. She could not see him, or at least she certainly could not recognize him at that distance without a telescope. She must have heard, along with the rest of Plymouth, of the arrival of Hotspur in Tor Bay; presumably she had made her way here via Totnes in the carrier’s cart — a long and tedious journey.
She fluttered her scarf again, in the pathetic hope that he was looking at her. In that part of his mind which never ceased attending to the ship Hornblower became conscious of the pipes of the bos’n’s mate — the pipes had been shrilling one call or another all day long.
“Quarter-boat away-ay-ay!”
Hornblower had never been so conscious of the slavery of the King’s service. Here he was due to leave the ship to dine with the Commander-in-Chief, and the Navy had a tradition of punctuality that he could not flout. And there was Foreman, breathless from his run forward.