“Where’s my servant?” he suddenly roared, “Grimes! Grimes!”
“Sir?”
Grimes put his head round the chart‑room door.
“I’m going to dress, and I’ll want my breakfast. I’ll have coffee.”
“Coffee, sir?”
“Yes.” Hornblower bit off the ‘damn you’ he nearly added. To swear at a man who could not swear back and whose only offence lay in being unoffending was not to his taste, just as some men could not shoot foxes. “You don’t know anything about coffee?”
“No, sir.”
“Get the oak box and bring it in to me.”
Hornblower explained about coffee to Grimes while working up a lather with a quarter of a pint of fresh‑water.
“Count out twenty of those beans. Put them in an open jar — get that from the cook. Then you toast ’em over the galley fire. And be careful with ’em. Keep shaking ’em. They’ve got to be brown, not black. Toasted, not burnt. Understand?”
“Well, yes, sir.”
“Then you take ’em to the surgeon, with my compliments.”
“The surgeon? Yes, sir.” Grimes, seeing Hornblower’s brows come together like thunderclouds, had the sense to suppress in the nick of time his astonishment at the entry of the surgeon’s name into this conversation.
“He has a pestle and mortar to pound his jalap with. You pound those beans in that mortar. You break ’em up small. Small, mark you, but you don’t make dust of ’em. Like large grain gunpowder, not mealed gunpowder. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.”
“Next you — oh go and get that done and then report to me again.”
Grimes was clearly not a man to do things quickly. Hornblower had shaved and dressed and was pacing the quarterdeck, raging for his breakfast, before Grimes appeared again with a panful of dubious powder. Hornblower gave him brief instructions on how to make coffee with it, and Grimes listened doubtfully.
“Go and get it done. Oh, and Grimes!”
“Sir?”
“I’ll have two eggs. Fried. Can you fry eggs?”
“Er — yes, sir.”
“Fry ’em so the yolk’s nearly hard but not quite. And get out a crock of butter and a crock off jam.”
Hornblower was throwing discretion to the winds; he was determined on a good breakfast. And those winds to which he had thrown discretion suddenly asserted themselves. With hardly a warning puff there was a sudden gust which almost took Hotspur aback, and with it, while Hotspur paid off and recovered herself, there came driving rain, an April shower, icy cold. Hornblower shook off Grimes the first time he appeared to report that breakfast was ready, and only went off with him on his second appearance, after Hotspur was steady on her course again. With the weather clearing and daylight growing there was little time he could spare.
“I’ll be on deck again in ten minutes, Mr Young,” he said.
The chart‑room was a minute compartment beside his cabin — cabin, chart‑room, and the captain’s pantry and head occupied the whole space of the Hotspur’s tiny poop. Hornblower squeezed himself into the chair at the little table.
“Sir,” said Grimes. “You didn’t come when breakfast was ready.”
Here were the eggs. The rim of the whites was black; the yolks were obviously hard.
“Very well,” growled Hornblower. He could not blame Grimes for that.
“Coffee, sir?” said Grimes. With the chart‑room door shut he was wedged against it hardly able to move. He poured from a jug into a cup, and Hornblower sipped. It was only just hot enough to drink, which meant that it was not hot enough, and it was muddy.
“See that it’s hotter than this another time,” said Hornblower. “And you’ll have to strain it better than this.”
“Yes, sir.” Grimes’ voice seemed to come from a great distance. The man could hardly whisper. “Sir —”
Hornblower looked up at him; Grimes was cold with fright.
“What is it?”
“I kept these to show you, sir.” Grimes produced a pan containing a bloody and stinking mess. “The first two eggs was bad, sir. I didn’t want you to think —”
“Very well.” Grimes was afraid in case he should be accused of stealing them. “Take the damned things away.”
Now was it not exactly like Mrs Mason to buy eggs for him of which half were bad? Hornblower ate his unpleasant eggs — even these two, although not exactly bad, were flavoured — while reconciling himself with the prospect of making up for it all with the jam. He spread a biscuit with the precious butter, and here was the jam. Blackcurrant! Of all the misguided purchases! Grimes, squeezing back into the chart‑room, positively jumped as Hornblower let out the oath that had been seeking an outlet for several minutes.