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.