Hornblower cocked his ear at the din on the main deck. The hoarse orders, the pipes of the boatswain’s mates, and the stamp-and-go of many feet told him that they were heaving up the longboat from overside. A strange squeaking, unlike that of the sheaves in the blocks, which had reached him for some time and which he had been unable to identify so far, he suddenly realised was the noise of the various families of pigs — captain’s stores and wardroom stores — at last come on board. He heard a sheep bleating and then a cock crowing to the accompaniment of a roar of laughter. He had brought no cock along with his hens; it must belong to someone in the wardroom or the midshipmen’s berth.
Someone thumped on the cabin door, and Hornblower snatched up his papers and dropped into his chair. Not for worlds would he be seen standing up and obviously awaiting the hour of departure with discomposure.
“Come in!” he roared.
A scared young midshipman put his head round the door — it was Longley, Gerard’s nephew, newly come to sea.
“Mr Bush says the last of the stores are just coming on board, sir,” he piped.
Hornblower eyed him with a stony indifference which was the only alternative to grinning at the frightened little imp.
“Very good,” he growled, and busied himself with his papers.
“Yes, sir,” said the boy, after a moment’s hesitation, withdrawing.
“Mr Longley!” roared Hornblower.
The child’s face, more terrified than ever, reappeared round the door.
“Come inside, boy,” said Hornblower, testily. “Come in and stand still. What was it you said last?”
“Er — sir — I said — Mr Bush —”
“No, nothing of the sort. What was it you said last?”
The child’s face wrinkled into the extreme of puzzlement, and then cleared as he realised the point of the question.
“I said ‘Yes, sir’,” he piped.
“And what ought you to have said?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Right. Very good.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
That boy had a certain amount of quickness of wit, and did not allow fright to bereave him entirely of his senses. If he learned quickly how to handle the men he would make a useful warrant officer. Hornblower put away his papers and locked his desk; he took a few more turns up and down his cabin, and then, a sufficient interval having elapsed to conserve his dignity, he went up to the quarterdeck.
“Make sail when you’re ready, Mr Bush,” he said.
“Aye aye, sir. Easy with those falls there, you — you —”
Even Bush had reached the condition when there was no more savour in oaths. The ship was in a horrible state of muddle, the decks were filthy, the crew exhausted. Hornblower stood with his hands behind him in a careful attitude of Olympian detachment as the order was given for all hands to make sail, and the petty officers drove the crew, stupid with weariness, to their stations. Savage, the senior midshipman, whom Hornblower had seen grow from boyhood to manhood under his eye, came shouting for the afterguard to man the main topsail halliards. Savage was wan and his eyes were bloodshot; a night of debauchery in some foul haunt in Plymouth had not left him in the best of conditions. As he shouted he put his hand to his temple, where clearly the din he was making was causing him agony. Hornblower smiled to himself at the sight — the next few days would sweat him clean again.
“Captain of the afterguard!” yelled Savage, his voice cracking. “I don’t see the afterguard coming aft! Quicker than that, you men! Clap on to the main topsail halliards, there! I say, you master-at-arms. Send the idlers aft. D’ye hear, there!”
A boatswain’s mate headed a rush to the mizzen rigging at Hornblower’s elbow. Hornblower saw young Longley standing hesitating for a second, looking up at the men preceding him, and then, with a grimace of determination, the boy leaped for the ratlines and scrambled up after them. Hornblower appreciated the influences at work upon him — his fear of the towering height above him, and then his stoical decision that he could follow wherever the other men could venture. Something might be made of that boy.