Hornblower and the Hotspur. C. S. Forester

“I’d been hoping you’d ask me, sir,” said Bush. “I couldn’t really think you’d want me as a first lieutenant.”

“Nobody I’d like better,” Hornblower had replied.

At this moment he nearly lost his footing as Hotspur heaved up her bows, rolled, and then cocked up her stern in the typical motion of a ship close-hauled. She was out now from the lee of the Wight, meeting the full force of the Channel rollers. Fool that he was! He had almost forgotten about this; on the one or two occasions during the past ten days when the thought of seasickness had occurred to him he had blithely assumed that he had grown out of that weakness in eighteen months on land. He had not thought about it all this morning, being too busy. Now with his first moment of idleness here it came. He had lost his sea-legs – a new roll sent him reeling – and he was going to be sick. He could feel a cold sweat on his skin and the first wave of nausea rising to his throat. There was time for a bitter jest – he had just been congratulating himself on knowing where his next meal was coming from, but now he could be more certain still about where his last meal was going to. Then the sickness struck, horribly.

Now he lay face downward across his cot. He heard the rumble of wheels, and cleared his thoughts sufficiently to make the deduction that, with the guns brought aft, Bush was bringing the gun-carriages aft as well. But he hardly cared. His stomach heaved again and he cared even less. He could think about nothing but his own misery. Now what was that? Someone pounding vigorously on the door, and he realized that the pounding had grown up from an earlier gentle tapping that he had ignored.

“What is it?” he called, croaking.

“Message from the master, sir,” said an unknown voice. “From Mr Prowse.”

He had to hear what it was. He dragged himself from his cot, and staggered over and dumped himself into his chair, hunching his shoulders over his desk so that his face could not be seen.

“Come in!” he called.

The opening of the door admitted considerably more of the noise that had been more and more insistently making itself heard.

“What is it?” repeated Hornblower, hoping that his attitude indicated deep concentration upon the paper-work of the ship.

“Message from Mr Prowse, sir,” said a voice that Hornblower could hardly place. “Wind’s freshening an’ hauling forward. Course will have to be altered, sir.”

“Very well. I’ll come.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

He certainly would have to come. He stood up, holding on to the desk with one hand while he adjusted his clothes with the other. He braced himself, and then he plunged out on to the quarter-deck. He had forgotten all these things; he had forgotten how fresh the wind blew at sea, how the rigging shrieked in a gust, how the deck heaved under unwary feet. As the stern rose he was hurried forward, struggling vainly to retain his dignity, and just managed to fetch up without disaster against the hammock netting. Prowse came up at once.

“Course is sou’west by south, now, sir,” he said. “I had to let her fall off a couple of points. Wind’s still backing westerly.”

“So I see,” said Hornblower. He looked at sky and sea, making himself think. “How’s the glass?”

“Hardly fallen at all, sir. But it’s going to blow harder before nightfall, sir.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

Bush appeared at this moment, touching the hat that was now pulled down hard on to his head.

“The guns are shifted aft, sir. The lashings are bowsed up taut.”

“Thank you.”

Hornblower kept his hands on the hammock netting, and his gaze steadily forward, so that, by not turning either to Bush on one side or to Prowse on the other, the whiteness of his landlubber’s face might not be noticed. He struggled to picture the chart of the Channel that he had studied so carefully yesterday. There was the twenty-league gap between the Casquets and the Start; an incorrect decision now might keep them wind-bound for days inside it.

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