Hornblower wondered how he would set them to work again, but there was no need for him to interfere. As soon as Looney had his white garments about his shoulders he stood up in the bows of the gig and looked about him, considering. Then he pointed to a spot in the water a few yards away, looking round at Hornblower.
“Give way!” said Hornblower.
One of the Ceylonese hauled in on the grapnel and let it go again when the boat reached the spot indicated. Now it was his turn to strip, to inflate and deflate his chest, and to take a cannonball into his hands and drop over the side. Cannonballs cost money, thought Hornblower, and a time might come when he would need them to fire at the enemy. It would be better in the future to play in a supply of small rocks gathered on the shore. The diver came up to the surface and scrambled on board, to be received by his companions just as Looney had been. There was some kind of discussion among the divers, which was ended by the third one going down in the same place, apparently to settle the point in dispute. What he discovered led on his return to Looney requesting by signs a further shifting of the gig, and then Looney took off his clothes again to go down.
The divers were working industriously and, as far as Hornblower could see, intelligently. Later on Looney and one of his mates made a simultaneous descent, and it was on this occasion that Hornblower noticed that Looney’s legs and feet, when he climbed in, were scratched and bleeding. For a moment Hornblower thought of sharks and similar underwater perils, but he revised his opinion at once. Looney must have been scrambling about on the wreck itself. There were decaying timbers down there, deep in the bright water, overgrown with barnacles and razor‑edged sea shells. Hornblower felt confirmed in his opinion when Looney desired to buoy this particular spot. They anchored a plank there by a grapnel, and then dived more than once again in the neighbourhood.
Now the divers were exhausted, lying doubled up and huddled together beside the bow thwart.
“Very well, Looney,” said Hornblower, and he pointed back to the ship.
Looney gave him a weary nod.
“Up anchor,” ordered Hornblower, and the gig pulled back towards Atropos.
A mile away were visible the lug sails of longboat and launch also on their return journey, coming down with the freshening wind abeam. It seemed to Hornblower as if things could never happen to him one at a time; he had hardly set foot on the deck of the Atropos before they were running alongside, and as the Ceylonese made their weary way forward to report to McCullum here were Carslake and Turner demanding his attention.
“The water casks are refilled, sir,” said Carslake. “I used the little stream that comes in half a mile from the town. I thought that would be better than those in the town.”
“Quite right, Mr. Carslake,” said Hornblower. On account of what he had seen in North Africa, Hornblower agreed with Carslake that a water supply that had not passed through a Turkish town would be preferable.
“What stores did you get?”
“Very little, sir, today, I’m afraid.”
“There was only the local market, sir,” supplemented Turner. “The Mudir has only sent out word today. The goods will be coming in for sale tomorrow.”
“The Mudir?” asked Hornblower. That was the word Turner had used before.
“The head man, sir, the local governor. The old man with the sword who came out to us in the boat yesterday.”
“And he is the Mudir?”
“Yes, sir. The Mudir is under the Kaimakam, and the Kaimakam is under the Vali, and the Vali is under the Grand Vizier, and he’s under the Sultan, or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be — all of ’em try to be independent when they get the chance.”
“I understand that,” said Hornblower.
No one who had given any study at all to the military and naval history of the last few years in the Eastern Mediterranean could be ignorant of the anarchy and disintegration prevailing in the Turkish Empire. What Hornblower wanted to hear about was the effect these were producing locally and today. He turned back to Carslake to listen patiently first to his account of what had been bought and what would be available later.