“Yes, sir.” Again a pause before Eisenbeiss asked an important question. “And your promise, sir?”
Hornblower did not have to think very long about the question as to whether Eisenbeiss would work more efficiently or not if he were faced with the certainty of flogging and hanging if he failed. The man would do all he could out of sheer professional pride. And the thought that his life was at stake might possibly make him nervous.
“I’ll take my promise back,” said Hornblower. “You’ll suffer no harm, whatever happens.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“No bottom!” called the leadsman in the chains.
“Very well, then. You have until this evening to make what preparations you can.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
With Eisenbeiss out of the cabin Hornblower sat for hardly a moment retracing the grounds of his decision. His ship was entering Rhodes Channel and he must be on deck.
“Wind’s come southerly a point, sir,” said Still, touching his hat.
The first thing, of course, that Hornblower had noticed as he came up the companion was that Atropos was still braced up as close to the wind as she would lie. Still and Turner had acted correctly without troubling him about it.
“Very well, Mr. Still.”
Hornblower put his glass to his eye and swept the horizon. A bold, wildly rugged coast on the one hand; on the other a low sandy shore. He bent to study the chart.
“Cape Angistro to starboard, sir,” said Turner at his side. “Cape Kum abaft the port beam.”
“Thank you.”
Everything was as it should be. Hornblower straightened up and turned his glass upon the Turkish coast. It was steep, with bold cliffs, behind which rose a chain of steeply undulating hills.
“They’re only green at this time of year, sir,” explained Turner. “The rest of the year they’re brown.”
“Yes.”
Hornblower had read all he could about the Eastern Mediterranean, and he knew something of the climatic conditions.
“Not many people live there now, sir,” went on Turner. “Farmers, a few. Shepherds. Little fishing villages in some of the coves. A little coasting trade in caiques from Rhodes — not so much of that now, sir. There’s piracy in all these waters, on account of the feuds between the Greeks and the Turks. There’s a bit of trade in honey an’ timber, but precious little.”
“Yes.”
It was fortunate the wind had backed southerly, even by so little. It eased one of the myriad complications in his complicated life.
“Ruins a‑plenty along that coast, though, sir,” droned on Turner. “Cities — temples — you’d be surprised.”
Ancient Greek civilization had flourished here. Over there had stood Artemisia and a score of other Greek cities, pulsating with life and beauty.
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
“The villages mostly stand where the old cities were,” persisted Turner. “Ruins all round ’em. Half the cottages are built of marble from the temples.”
“Yes.”
In other circumstances Hornblower could have been deeply interested, but as it was Turner was merely distraction. There was not merely the immediate business in hand of taking Atropos up into Marmorice harbour; there was the business of how to deal with the Turkish authorities; of how to set about the problems of salvage; there was the question — the urgent, anxious question — as to whether McCullum would live. There was the routine of the ship; when Hornblower looked round him he could see the hands and the officers clustered along the ship’s sides gazing out eagerly at the shores. There were Greeks dwelling among the Mohammedans of the mainland — that would be important when it came to a question of keeping liquor from the men. And he would like to fill his water barrels; and there was the matter of obtaining fresh vegetables.
Here was Still with a routine question. Hornblower nodded in agreement.
“Up spirits!”
The cry went through the little ship, and when they heard it the men had no ears for any siren song from the shore. This was the great moment of the day for most of them, when they would pour their tiny issue of rum‑and‑water down their eager throats. To deprive a man of his ration was like barring a saint from Paradise. The speculations that went on among the men, their dealings with their rum rations, the exchanging, the buying, the selling, made the South Sea Bubble seem small by comparison. But Hornblower decided he need not vaunt himself above the herd, he need not look down with condescension at the men as if they were Circe’s hogs swilling at a trough; it was perfectly true that this was the great moment of their day, but it was because they had no other moment at all, for months and for years, confined within the wooden walls of their little ship, often seeing not a shilling of money in all that time, not a fresh face, not a single human problem on which to exercise their wits. Perhaps it was better to be a captain and have too many problems.