“Two hours of that will do for today, Mr Bush. I can only remember one short exercise at the guns?”
Tortured by sea-sickness while running down the Channel he could not be sure.
“Only one, sir.”
“Then after dinner we’ll have an hour at the guns. One of these days we might use them.”
“We might, sir,” said Bush.
Bush could face with equanimity the prospects of a war that would engulf the whole world.
The pipes of the bos’n’s mates called all hands, and very soon the exercises were well under way, the sweating sailors racing up and down the rigging tailing on to ropes under the urgings of the petty officers and amid a perfect cloud of profanity from Mr Wise. It was as well to drill the men, simply to keep them exercised, but there were no serious deficiencies to make up. Hotspur had benefited by being the very first ship to be manned after the press had been put into force. Of her hundred and fifty hands no fewer than a hundred were prime seamen, rated A.B. She had twenty ordinary seamen and only ten landsmen all told, and no more than twenty boys. It was an extraordinary proportion, one that would never be seen again as the manning of the fleet continued. Not only than but more than half the men had seen service in men o’ war before the Peace of Amiens. They were not only seamen, but Royal Navy seamen, who had hardly had time to make more than a single voyage in the merchant navy during the peace before being pressed again. Consequently most of them had had experience with ship’s guns; twenty or thirty of them had actually seen action. The result was that when the gun exercise was ordered they went to their stations in business-like fashion. Bush turned to Hornblower and touched his hat awaiting the next order.
“Thank you, Mr Bush. Order ‘silence’, if you please.”
The whistles pealed round the deck, and the ship fell deathly still.
“I shall now inspect, if you will be so kind as to accompany me, Mr Bush.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hornblower began by glowering down at the starboard-side quarter-deck carronade. Everything was in order there, and he walked down into the waist to inspect the starboard-side nine-pounders. At each he stopped to look over the equipment. Cartridge, crowbar, hand-spike. Sponge, quoin. He passed on from gun to gun.
“What’s your station if the larboard guns are being worked?”
He had picked for questioning the youngest seaman visible, who moved uneasily from one foot to another finding himself addressed by the captain.
“Stand to attention, there!” bellowed Bush.
“What’s your station?” repeated Hornblower, quietly.
“O – over there, sir. I handle the rammer, sir.”
“I’m glad you know. If you can remember your station when the captain and the first lieutenant are speaking to you I can trust you to remember it when round-shot are coming in through the side.”
Hornblower passed on; a captain could always be sure of raising a laugh if he made a joke. Then he halted again.
“What’s this? Mr Cheeseman!”
“Sir.”
“You have an extra powder-horn here. There should be only one for every two guns.”
“Er – yessir. It’s because -”
“I know the reason. A reason’s no excuse, though, Mr Cheeseman. Mr Orrock! What powder-horns have you in your section? Yes, I see.”
Shifting No. 3 gun aft had deprived Orrock’s section of a powder-horn and given an additional one to Cheeseman’s.
“It’s the business of you young gentlemen to see that the guns in your section are properly equipped. You don’t have to wait for orders.”
Cheeseman and Orrock were two of the four ‘young gentlemen’ sent on board from the Naval College to be trained as midshipmen. Hornblower liked nothing he had seen as yet of any of them. But they were what he had to use as petty officers, and for his own sake he must train them into becoming useful lieutenants – his needs corresponded with his duty. He must make them and not break them.
“I’m sure I won’t have to speak to you young gentlemen again,” he said. He was sure he would, but a promise was better than a threat. He walked on, completing the inspection of the guns on the starboard-side. He went up to the forecastle to look at the two carronades there, and then back down the main-deck guns of the port side. He stopped at the marine stationed at the fore-hatchway.