“A man who does his duty as best he can,” he said, kindly, “has nothing to fear in this ship, and everything to hope for. Now I want to see how smart you can look in your new clothes, and with the dirt of the place you have come from washed off you. Dismiss.”
He had won over some of the poor fools, at least, he told himself. Some of the faces which had been sullen with despair were shining with hope now, after this experience of being treated as men and not as brutes — for the first time for months, if not the first time in their lives. He watched them off the gangway. Poor devils; in Hornblower’s opinion they had made a bad bargain in exchanging the gaol for the navy. But at least they represented thirty out of the two hundred and fifty additional human bodies which he needed to drag at ropes and to heave at capstan bars so as to take this old Sutherland out to sea.
Lieutenant Bush came hastening on to the quarterdeck, and touched his hat to his captain. The stern swarthy face with its incongruous blue eyes broke into a smile just as incongruous. It gave Hornblower a queer twinge, almost of conscience, to see the evident pleasure which Bush experienced at sight of him. It was odd to know that he was admired — it might even be said that he was loved — by this very capable sailor, this splendid disciplinarian and fearless fighter who boasted so many of the good qualities in which Horn-blower felt himself to be lacking.
“Good morning, Bush,” he said. “Have you seen the new draft?”
“No, sir. I was rowing guard for the middle watch and I’ve only just turned out. Where do they hail from, sir?”
Hornblower told him, and Bush rubbed his hands with pleasure.
“Thirty!” he said. “That’s rare. I never hoped for more than a dozen from Exeter Assizes. And Bodmin Assizes open today. Please God we get another thirty there.”
“We won’t get topmen from Bodmin Assizes,” said Hornblower, comforted beyond measure at the equanimity with which Bush regarded the introduction of gaolbirds into the Sutherland’s crew.
“No, sir. But the West India convoy’s due this week. The guards ought to nab two hundred there. We’ll get twenty if we get our rights.”
“M’m,” said Hornblower, and turned away uneasily. He was not the sort of captain — neither the distinguished kind nor the wheedling kind — who could be sure of favours from the Port Admiral. “I must look round below.”
That changed the subject effectively enough.
“The women are restless,” said Bush. “I’d better come, too, sir, if you don’t object.”
The lower gun deck offered a strange spectacle, lit vaguely by the light which came through half a dozen open gun ports. There were fifty women there. Three or four were still in their hammocks, lying on their sides looking out on the others. Some were sitting in groups on the deck, chattering loud-voiced. One or two were chaffering for food through the gun ports with the occupants of shore boats floating just outside; the netting which impeded desertion had a broad enough mesh to allow a hand to pass through. Two more, each backed by a supporting group, were quarrelling violently. They were in odd contrast — one was tall and dark, so tall as to have to crouch round-shouldered under the five foot deck beams, while the other, short, broad, and fair, was standing up boldly before her menacing advance.
“That’s what I said,” she maintained stoutly. “And I’ll say it again. I ain’t afeared o’ you, Mrs Dawson, as you call yourself.”
“A-ah,” screamed the dark one at this crowning insult. She swooped forward, and with greedy hands she seized the other by the hair, shaking her head from side to side as if she would soon shake it off. In return her face was scratched and her shins were kicked by her stout-hearted opponent. They whirled round in a flurry of petticoats, when one of the women in the hammocks screamed a warning to them.
“Stop it, you mad bitches! ‘Ere’s the cap’n.”