Purser and gunner, boatswain and cooper, each in turn was summoned to the after cabin. To each was allotted his tasks; to each was grudgingly conceded a proportion of the men that each demanded. Soon the pipes were shrilling through the ship.
“Launch’s crew away!”
Soon the launch was pulling across the river, full of the empty barrels the cooper and his mates had made ready, to begin ferrying over the twenty tons of water necessary to complete the ship’s requirements. A dozen men went scurrying up the shrouds and out along the yards under the urging of the boatswain; yardarm tackles and stay tackles had to be readied for the day’s work.
“Mr. Jones! I am leaving the ship now. Have that report on the beef ready for me by the time I return from the dockyard.”
Hornblower became aware of two figures on the quarterdeck trying to attract his attention. They were the prince and the doctor. He ran his eye over their uniforms, the white collar patches of the midshipman and the plain coat of the surgeon.
“They’ll do,” he said, “your duties are awaiting you, doctor. Mr. Horrocks! Keep Mr. Prince under your lee for today. Call away my gig.”
The captain superintendent of the dockyard listened to Hornblower’s request with the indifference acquired during years of listening to requests from urgent officers.
“I’ve the men ready to send for the shot, sir. Port side’s clear for the powder hulk to come alongside — slack water in half an hour, sir. I can send men to man her too if necessary. It’s only four tons that I need. Half an hour with the hulk.”
“You say you’re ready now?”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain superintendent looked across at the Atropos lying in the stream.
“Very well. I hope what you say is quite correct, captain, for your sake. You can start warping the hulk alongside — I warn you I want her back at her moorings in an hour.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Back in the Atropos the cry went round the ship.
“Hands to the capstan! Waisters! Sailmakers! Loblolly boys ! ”
The inmost recesses of the ship were cleared of men to man the capstan bars — any pairs of arms, any stout backs, would serve for that purpose. A drum went roaring along the deck.
“All lights out! ”
The cook and his mates dumped the galley fire overside and went reluctantly to man the yardarm and stay tackles. The powder hulk came creeping alongside. She had stout sheers and wide hatchways, efficient equipment for the rapid transfer of explosives. Four tons of powder, eighty kegs of one hundredweight each, came climbing out of the hulk’s holds to be swayed down the hatchways of the Atropos, while down below the gunner and his mates and a sweating working party toiled in near darkness — barefooted to avoid all chance of friction or sparks — to range the kegs about the magazines. Some day Atropos might be fighting for her life, and her life would depend on the proper arrangement of those kegs down below so that the demands of the guns on deck might be met.
The members of the court of inquiry, fresh from their investigation of the defective beef barrels, made their appearance on deck again.
“Mr. Jones, show the doctor how to make his report in due form.” Then to the purser, “Mr. Carslake, I want to be able to sign your indents as soon as that report is ready.”
One final look round the deck, and Hornblower could dive below, take pen and ink and paper, and devote himself single-mindedly to composing a suitable covering letter to the Victualling Yard (worded with the right urgency and tactfully coaxing the authorities there into agreement without annoying them by too certain assumption of acquiescence) beginning: “Sir, I have the honour to enclose —” and concluding: “— in the best interests of His Majesty’s service, Your Obedient Servant —”
Then he could come on deck again to see how the work was progressing and fume for a space before Jones and Carslake appeared with the documents they had been preparing. Amid the confusion and din he had to clear his head again to read them with care before signing them with a bold “H. Hornblower, Captain”.