Alexander, followed by two aides-de-camp, came slowly on board side by side with the Minister of Marine to whom nominally all this ceremony was dedicated. He put his hand to his hat-brim while the pipes died away in a final squeal, the drums completed their fourth ruffle, the first gun of the salute banged out forward, and the fifes and drums of the marine band burst into ‘Heart of Oak’. Hornblower walked forward and saluted.
“Good morning, Commodore,” said the Minister of Marine. “Permit me to present you to the Comte du Nord.”
Hornblower saluted again, his face as expressionless as he could manage it even while he fought down a smile at Alexander’s queer liking to be incognito.
“Good morning, Commodore,” said Alexander; with a shock Hornblower realized that he was speaking English of a sort. “I hope our little visit does not discommode you too much?”
“Not in any way to compare with the honour done to the ship, sir,” said Hornblower, wondering as he said it whether ‘sir’ was the right way to address a Tsar incognito. Apparently it sufficed.
“You may present your officers,” said Alexander.
Hornblower brought them up one by one, and they saluted and bowed with the uneasy stiffness to be expected of junior officers in the presence of a Tsar of all the Russias, and an incognito one at that.
“I think you can give orders to prepare the ship for watering now, Captain,” said Hornblower to Bush, and then he turned back to Alexander. “Would you care to see more of the ship, sir?”
“I would indeed,” said Alexander.
He lingered on the quarter-deck to watch the preparations begin. The topmen came pouring down from aloft; Alexander blinked in the sunlight with admiration as half a dozen hands came sliding down the mizzen-backstays and the mizzen-topsail halliards to land on their feet on the quarter-deck beside him. Under the petty officers’ urging the men ran hither and thither about their tasks; it was a scene of activity like a disturbed ants’ nest, but far more orderly and purposeful. The hatches were whipped off, the pumps made ready, tack rigged at the yard-arms, fenders dropped over the port side. Alexander stared at the sight of a half-company of marines tailing on to a fall and walking away with it in flat-footed rhythm.
“Soldiers and sailors too, sir,” explained Hornblower, deprecatingly, as he led the way below.
Alexander was a very tall man, an inch or two taller than Hornblower, and he bent himself nearly double as he crouched under the low deck beams below decks and peered about with short-sighted eyes. Hornblower took him forward along the lower gun-deck, where the head clearance was no more than five feet six inches; he showed him the midshipmen’s berth, and the warrant officers’ mess, all the unlovely details of the life of a sailor. He called away a group of seamen, had them unstow and sling their hammocks, and get into them, so that Alexander could see more clearly what twenty-two inches per man really meant, and he gave a graphic description of a whole deck full of hammocks swinging together in a storm, with the men packed in a solid mass. The grins of the men who made the demonstration were proof enough to Alexander not merely of the truth of what Hornblower was saying, but also of the high spirits of the men, far different from the patient uneducated peasants whom he was accustomed to see in the ranks of his army.
They peered down through the hatchway to see the working party down there breaking out the water casks and preparing the tiers for refilling, and a whiff of the stench of the orlop came up to them—bilge-water and cheese and humanity intermingled.
“You are an officer of long service, I believe, Commodore?” said Alexander.
“Nineteen years, sir,” said Hornblower.
“And how much of that time have you spent at sea?”
“Sixteen years, sir. For nine months I was a prisoner in Spain, and for six months in France.”
“I know of your escape from France. You went through much peril to return to this life.”
Alexander’s handsome forehead was wrinkled as he puzzled over the fact that a man could spend sixteen years of his life living in these conditions and still be sane and healthy.
“How long have you held your present rank?”
“As Commodore, sir, only two months. But I have nine years’ seniority as Captain.”
“And before that?”
“I was six years lieutenant, and four years midshipman.”
“Four years? You lived four years in a place like the midshipmen’s berth you showed me?”
“Not quite as comfortable as that, sir. I was in a frigate nearly all the time, under Sir Edward Pellew. A battleship is not quite as crowded as a frigate, sir.”
Hornblower, watching Alexander closely, could see that he was impressed, and he could guess at the line of thought Alexander was following. The Tsar was not so much struck by the miserable conditions of life on board ship—if he knew anything about his people at all he must be aware that nearly all of them lived in conditions a good deal worse—as by the fact that those conditions could train an officer of ability.
“I suppose it is necessary,” sighed Alexander, revealing for a moment the humane and emotional side of his nature which rumour had long hinted that he possessed.
By the time they came on deck again the water-boat was already alongside. Some of the Nonsuch’s hands were down on her decks, mingling with the Russians to help with the work. Working parties were swinging away lustily at the pumps, and the long snake-like canvas hoses pulsated at each stroke. Forward they were swaying up bundles of firewood, the men chanting as they hauled.
“Thanks to your generosity, sir,” said Hornblower, “we will be able to keep the sea for four months if necessary without entering port.”
Luncheon was served in Hornblower’s cabin to a party of eight, Hornblower, Bush, the two senior lieutenants, and the four Russians. Bush was sweating with nervousness at the sight of the inhospitable table; at the last moment he had drawn Hornblower aside and pleaded unavailingly for Hornblower to change his mind and serve some of his remaining cabin delicacies as well as the plain ship’s fare. Bush could not get out of his mind the obsession that it was necessary to feed the Tsar well; any junior officer entertaining an admiral would blast all his hopes of future promotion if he put the men’s ration beef on the table, and Bush could only think in terms of entertaining admirals.
The Tsar looked with interest at the battered pewter tureen which Brown set before Hornblower.
“Pea soup, sir,” explained Hornblower. “One of the great delicacies of shipboard life.”
Carlin, of long habit, began to rap his biscuit on the table, stopped when he realized what he was doing, and then started rapping again, guiltily. He remembered the orders Hornblower had given, that everyone should behave as if no distinguished company were present; Hornblower had backed up those orders with the direct threat of punishment should they be forgotten, and Carlin knew that Hornblower did not threaten in that way without every intention of doing what he promised. Alexander looked at Carlin and then inquiringly at Bush beside him.
“Mr. Carlin is knocking out the weevils, sir,” explained Bush, almost overcome with self-consciousness. “If you tap gently they come out of their own accord, this way, you see, sir.”
“Very interesting,” said Alexander, but he ate no bread; one of his aides-de-camp repeated the experiment, peered down at the fat white weevils with black heads that emerged, and exploded into what must have been a string of Russian oaths—almost the first words he had said since boarding the ship.