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—”
The bald words and the trite sentiments seemed to please the crew, although every man-jack of it would have been infuriated if he had been called a ‘jolly tar’.
Up and down went the smart red coats, and the jaunty beat of the drums thrilled so that the crushing heat was forgotten. In the west the marvellous sky still flamed in glory, even while in the east the night was creeping up over the purple sea.
Chapter XV
“Eight bells, sir,” said Polwheal.
Hornblower woke with a start. It seemed to him as if he could not have been asleep more than five minutes, while actually it had been well over an hour. He lay on his cot in his nightshirt, for he had thrown off his coverings during the sweltering heat of the night; his head ached and his mouth had a foul taste. He had retired to bed at midnight, but—thanks to roast pork for supper—he had tossed and turned in the frightful heat for two or three hours before going to sleep, and now here he was awakened at four o’clock in the morning, simply because he had to prepare his report to Captain Bolton or to the admiral (if the latter had arrived) for delivery that morning at the rendezvous. He groaned miserably with fatigue, and his joints ached as he put his feet to the deck and sat up. His eyes were gummy and hard to open, and they felt sore when he rubbed them.
He would have groaned again except for the need to appear in Polwheal’s eyes superior to human weaknesses—at the thought of that he stood up abruptly and posed as somebody feeling perfectly wide awake. A bath under the washdeck pump, and a shave made the pose almost a reality, and then, with dawn creeping up over the misty horizon, he sat down at his desk and cut himself a new pen, licked its point meditatively before dipping it into ink, and began to write.
’I have the honour to report that in accordance with the orders of Captain Bolton, on the 20th inst., I proceeded—’
Polwheal came in with his breakfast, and Hornblower turned to the steaming hot coffee for a spur to his already flagging energies. He flipped the pages of the ship’s log to refresh his memory—so much had happened latterly that he was actually vague already about the details of the capture of the Amelie. The report had to be written badly, avoiding Gibbonesque antitheses or high-flying sentiment, yet at the same time Hornblower disliked the use of the kind of phrasing which was customary in captains’ reports. When listing the prizes taken from beside the battery at Llama he was careful to write ‘as named in the margin’ instead of the irritating phrase ‘as per margin’ which had become stereotyped in the Navy since its classic use by an unlettered captain nearly a hundred years before in the War of Jenkins’ Ear. He was compelled to use the word ‘proceed’ even though he hated it—in official reports the Navy never set sail, nor went, nor put to sea, nor journeyed, but always proceeded, just as in the same way captains never suggested or advised or recommended, but always respectfully submitted. Hornblower had respectfully to submit that until the French battery was re-established at Llanza the coastal route from France to Spain was now most vulnerable between Port Vendres and Rosas Bay.
While he struggled with the wording of his description of the raid on the Etang de Thau near Cette he was interrupted by a knock on his door. Longley entered in response to his call.