Bush was fretting and fuming as he hastened about the ship trying to coax a little more speed out of her, setting every spare man to work carrying hammocks laden with shot from the lee side to the weather side, trimming the sails to the nicest possible degree of accuracy, blaspheming wildly whenever the gap between the ship and men showed signs of lengthening.
But Hornblower was well content. An infantry division which had been knocked about as badly as this one, and then sent flying helter skelter in panic for miles, dropping stragglers by the score, and pursued by a relentless enemy, would have such a blow to its self-respect as to be vastly weakened as a fighting force for weeks. Before he came into range of the big coastal battery on the farther side of Arens de Mar he gave over the pursuit—he did not want the flying enemy to recover any of its lost spirit by seeing the Sutherland driven off by the fire of the heavy guns there, and to circle round out of range would consume so much time that night would be upon them before they could be back on the coast again.
“Very good, Mr. Bush. You can put the ship on the starboard tack and secure the guns.”
The Sutherland steadied to an even keel, and then heeled over again as she paid off on the other tack.
“Three cheers for the cap’n,” yelled someone on the maindeck—Hornblower could not be sure who it was, or he would have punished him. The storm of cheering that instantly followed drowned his voice and prevented him from checking the men, who shouted until they were tired, all grinning with enthusiasm for the captain who had led them to victory five times in three days. Bush was grinning, too, and Gerard, beside him on the quarterdeck. Little Longley was dancing and yelling with an utter disregard for an officer’s dignity, while Hornblower stood sullenly glowering down at the men below. Later he might be delighted at the recollection of this spontaneous proof of the men’s affection and devotion, but at present it merely irritated and embarrassed him.
As the cheering died away the voice of the leadsman made itself heard again.
“No bottom! No bottom with this line!”
He was still doing the duty to which he had been assigned, and would continue to do it until he received orders to rest—a most vivid example of the discipline of the navy.
“Have that man taken out of the chains at once, Mr. Bush!” snapped Hornblower, annoyed at the omission to relieve the man.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush, chagrined at having been for once remiss in his work.
The sun was dipping in purple and red into the mountains of Spain, in a wild debauch of colour that made Hornblower catch his breath as he looked at the extravagant beauty of it. He was mazed and stupid now, in reaction from his exalted quickness of thought of the preceding hours; too stupid as yet even to be conscious of any fatigue. Yet he must still wait to receive the surgeon’s report. Someone had been killed or wounded today—he remembered vividly the crash and the cry when the shot from the field guns hit the ship.
The gunroom steward had come up on the quarterdeck and touched his forehead to Gerard.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But Tom Cribb’s been killed.”
“What?”
“Yes indeed, sir. Knocked ‘is ‘ead clean off. Dretful, ‘e looks, laying there, sir.”
“What’s this you say?” interrupted Hornblower. He could remember no man on board of the name of Tom Cribb—which was the name of the heavyweight champion of England—nor any reason why the gunroom steward should report a casualty to a lieutenant.
“Tom Cribb’s been killed, sir,” explained the steward. “And Mrs Siddons, she’s got a splinter in ‘er—in ‘er backside, begging your pardon, sir. You could ‘ave ‘eard ‘er squeak from ‘ere, sir.”
“I did,” said Hornblower.
Tom Cribb and Mrs Siddons must be a pig and a sow belonging to the gunroom mess. It was a comfort to realise that.
“She’s all right now, sir. The butcher clapped a ‘andful o’ tar on the place.”
Here came Walsh the surgeon with his report that there had been no casualties in the action.
“Excepting among the pigs in the manger, sir,” added Walsh, with the deprecating deference of one who proffers a joke with his superior officer.
“I’ve just heard about them,” said Hornblower.
Gerard was addressing the gunroom steward.
“Right!” he was saying. “We’ll have his chitterlings fried. And you can roast the loin. See that you get the crackling crisp. If it’s leathery like the last time we killed a pig, I’ll have your grog stopped. There’s onions and there’s sage—yes, and there’s a few apples left. Sage and onions and apple sauce—and mark you this, Loughton, don’t put any cloves in that sauce. No matter what the other officers say. I won’t have ‘em. In an apple pie, yes, but not with roast pork. Get started on that at once. You can take a leg to the bos’n’s mess with my compliments, and roast the other one—it’ll serve cold for breakfast.”
Gerard was striking the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other to accentuate his points; the light of appetite was in his face—Hornblower fancied that when there were no women available Gerard gave all the thought he could spare from his guns to his belly. A man whose eyes could go moist with appetite at the thought of fried chitterlings and roast pork for dinner on a scorching July afternoon in the Mediterranean, and who could look forward with pleasure to cold leg of pork for breakfast next day should by right have been fat like a pig himself. But Gerard was lean and handsome and elegant. Hornblower thought of the developing paunch within his own waistband with momentary jealousy.
But Colonel Villena was wandering about the quarterdeck like a lost soul. Clearly he was simply living for the moment when he would be able to start talking again—and Hornblower was the only soul on board with enough Spanish to maintain a conversation. Moreover, as a colonel he ranked with a post captain, and could expect to share the hospitality of the captain’s cabin. Hornblower decided that he would rather be overfed with hot roast pork than have to endure Villena’s conversation.
“You seemed to have planned a feast for tonight, Mr. Gerard,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Would my presence be unwelcome in the gunroom to share it?”
“Oh no, sir. Of course not, sir. We would be delighted if you would honour us, sir.”
Gerard’s face lit with genuine pleasure at the prospect of acting as host to his captain. It was such a sincere tribute that Hornblower’s heart was warmed, even while his conscience pricked him at the memory of why he had invited himself.
“Thank you, Mr. Gerard. Then Colonel Villena and myself will be guests of the gunroom tonight.”
With any luck, Villena would be seated far enough from him to save him from the necessity for Spanish conversation.
The marine sergeant drummer had brought out all that the ship could boast of a band—the four marine fifers and the four drummers. They were marching up and down the gangway to the thunder and the rumble of the drums while the fifes squealed away bravely at the illimitable horizon.
“Hearts of oak are our ships
Jolly tars are our men—”