“Of course not,” interposed Cornwallis, soothingly. “Well, may good fortune always go with you, Hornblower.”
Chapter XX
Hornblower came back on board Hotspur in a positively cheerful state of mind. There was the imminent prospect of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds in prize money. That ought to satisfy Mrs Mason, and Hornblower found it possible not to dwell too long on the picture of Maria as chatelaine of a country estate. He could avoid that subject by thinking about the immediate future, a visit to Cadiz, a diplomatic contact, and then the adventure of intercepting a Spanish treasure fleet in the broad Atlantic. And if that were not sufficiently ample food for pleasant day dreams, he could recall his conversation with Cornwallis. A Commander-in-Chief in home waters had small power of promotion, but surely his recommendations might have weight. Perhaps—?
Bush, with his hand to his hat, welcoming him aboard again, was not smiling. He was wearing a worried, anxious look.
“What is it, Mr. Bush?” asked Hornblower.
“Something you won’t like, sir.”
Were his dreams to prove baseless? Had Hotspur sprung some incurable leak?
“What is it?” Hornblower bit back at the “damn you” that he nearly said.
“Your servant’s under arrest for mutiny, sir,” Hornblower could only stare as Bush went on. “He struck his superior officer.”
Hornblower could not show his astonishment or his distress. He kept his face set like stone.
“Signal from the Commodore, sir!” This was Foreman breaking in. “Our number. ‘Send boat’.”
“Acknowledge. Mr. Orrock! Take the boat over at once.”
Moore in the Indefatigable had already hoisted the broad pendant that marked him as officer commanding a squadron. The frigates were still hove-to, clustered together. There were enough captains there to constitute a general court martial, with power to hang Doughty that very afternoon.
“Now, Mr. Bush, come and tell me what you know about this.”
The starboard side of the quarter-deck was instantly vacated as Hornblower and Bush walked towards it. Private conversation was as possible there as anywhere in the little ship.
“As far as I can tell, sir,” said Bush, “it was like this—”
Taking stores on board at sea was a job for all hands, and even when they were on board there was still work for all hands, distributing the stores through the ship. Doughty, in the working-party in the waist, had demurred on being given an order by a bos’n’s mate, Mayne by name. Mayne had swung his ‘starter’, his length of knotted line that petty officers used on every necessary occasion—too frequently, in Hornblower’s judgement. And then Doughty had struck him. There were twenty witnesses, and if that were not enough, Mayne’s lip was cut against his teeth and blood poured down.
“Mayne’s always been something of a bully, sir,” said Bush. “But this—”
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
He knew the Twenty-Second Article of War by heart. The first half dealt with striking a superior officer; the second half with quarrelling and disobedience. And the first half ended with the words ‘shall suffer death’; there were no mitigating words like ‘or such less punishment’. Blood had been drawn and witnesses had seen it. Even so, some petty officers in the give and take of heavy labour on board ship might have dealt with the situation unofficially, but not Mayne.
“Where’s Doughty now?” he asked.
“In irons, sir.” That was the only possible answer.
“Orders from the Commodore, sir!” Orrock was hastening along the deck towards them, waving a sealed letter which Hornblower accepted.
Doughty could wait; orders could not. Hornblower thought of returning to his cabin to read them at leisure, but a captain had no leisure. As he broke the seal Bush and Orrock withdrew to give him what little privacy was possible when every idle eye in the ship was turned on him. The opening sentence was plain enough and definite enough.
‘Sir,
You are requested and required to proceed immediately in HM Sloop Hotspur under your command to the port of Cadiz.’
The second paragraph required him to execute at Cadiz the orders he had received from the Commander-in-Chief. The third and last paragraph named a rendezvous, a latitude and longitude as well as a distance and bearing from Cape St. Vincent, and required him to proceed there ‘with the utmost expedition’ as soon as he carried out his orders for Cadiz.
He re-read, unnecessarily, the opening paragraph. There was the word ‘immediately’.
“Mr. Bush! Set all plain sail. Mr. Prowse! A course to weather Finisterre as quickly as possible, if you please. Mr. Foreman, signal to the Commodore. ‘Hotspur to Indefatigable. Request permission to proceed’.”
Only time for one pacing of the quarter-deck, up and down, and then “‘Commodore to Hotspur. Affirmative’.”
“Thank you, Mr. Foreman. Up helm, Mr. Bush. Course sou’west by south.”
“Sou’west by south. Aye aye sir.”
Hotspur came round, and as every sail began to fill she gathered way rapidly.
“Course sou’west by south, sir,” said Prowse, breathlessly returning.
“Thank you, Mr. Prowse.”
The wind was just abaft the beam, and Hotspur foamed along as sweating hands at the braces trimmed the yards to an angle that exactly satisfied Bush’s careful eye.
“Set the royals, Mr. Bush. And we’ll have the stuns’l booms rigged out, if you please.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hotspur lay over to the wind, not in any spineless fashion, but in the way in which a good sword-blade bends under pressure. A squadron of ships of the line lay just down to leeward, and Hotspur tore past them, rendering passing honours as she did so. Hornblower could imagine the feelings of envy in the breasts of the hands over there at the sight of this dashing little sloop racing off towards adventure But in that case they did not allow for a year and half spent among the rocks and shoals of the Iroise.
“Set the stuns’ls, sir?” asked Bush.
“Yes, if you please, Mr. Bush. Mr. Young, what d’you get from the log?”
“Nine, sir. A little more, perhaps—nine an’ a quarter.”
Nine knots, and the studding sails not yet set. This was exhilarating, marvellous, after months of confinement.
“The old lady hasn’t forgotten how to run, sir,” said Bush, grinning all over his face with the same emotions; and Bush did not know yet that they were going to seek eight million dollars. Nor—and at that moment all Hornblower’s pleasure suddenly evaporated.
He fell from the heights to the depths like a man falling from the main royal yard. He had forgotten until then all about Doughty. That word ‘immediately’ in Moore’s orders had prolonged Doughty’s life. With all those captains available, and the Commander-in-Chief at hand to confirm the sentence, Doughty could have been court-martialled and condemned within the hour. He could be dead by now; certainly he would have died tomorrow morning. The captains in the Channel Fleet would be unmerciful to a mutineer.
Now he had to handle the matter himself. There was no desperate emergency; there was no question of a conspiracy to be quelled. He did not have to use his emergency powers to hang Doughty. But he could foresee a dreary future of Doughty in irons and all the ship’s company aware they had a man in their midst destined for the rope. That would unsettle everyone. And Hornblower would be more unsettled than anyone else—except perhaps Doughty. Hornblower sickened at the thought of hanging Doughty. He knew at once that he had grown fond of him. He felt an actual respect for Doughty’s devotion and attention to duty; along with his tireless attention Doughty had developed skills in making his captain comfortable comparable with those of a tarry-fingered salt making long splices.