Hornblower and the Hotspur. C. S. Forester

Hornblower remembered his unfinished dinner.

“Call me when the boat returns, if you please, Mr Bush.”

This was the last of the blackcurrant jam; Hornblower, ruefully contemplating the sinking level in the final pot, admitted to himself that compulsorily he had actually acquired a taste for blackcurrant. The butter was all gone, the eggs used up, after forty days at sea. For the next seventy-one days, until the ship’s provisions were all consumed he was likely to be living on seaman’s fare, unrelieved salt beef and pork, dried peas, biscuits. Cheese twice a week and suet pudding on Sundays.

At any rate there was time for a nap before the boat returned. He could go to sleep peacefully – a precaution in case the exigencies of the service disturbed his night – thanks to the naval might of Britain, although five miles away there were twenty thousand enemies any one of whom would kill him on sight.

“Boat coming alongside, sir.”

“Very well,” answered Hornblower sleepily.

The boat was deeply laden, right down to her gunwales. The hands must have had a long stiff pull back to the Hotspur; it was the purest bad luck on them that they could run under sail to the Tonnant when lightly laden and then have to row all the way back deeply laden in the teeth of the gentle wind. From the boat as she approached there came a strange roaring noise, a kind of bellow.

“What the devil’s that?” asked Bush of himself as he stood beside Hornblower on the gangway.

The boat was heaped high with sacks.

“There’s fresh food, anyway,” said Hornblower.

“Reeve a whip at the main yardarm!” bellowed Bush – odd how his bellow was echoed from the boat.

Foreman came up the side to report.

“Cabbages, potatoes, cheese, sir. And a bullock.”

“Fresh meat, by God!” said Bush.

With half a dozen hands tailing on to the whip at the yardarm the sacks came rapidly up to the deck; as the boat was cleared there lay revealed in the bottom a formless mass of rope netting; still bellowing. Slings were passed beneath it and soon it lay on deck; a miserable undersized bullock, lowing faintly. A terrified eye rolled at them through the netting that swathed it. Bush turned to Hornblower as Foreman completed his report.

“Tonnant brought twenty-four cattle out for the fleet from Plymouth, sir. This one’s our share. If we butcher it tomorrow, sir, and let it hang for a day, you can have steak on Sunday, sir.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

“We can swab the blood off the deck while it’s still fresh, sir. No need to worry about that. An’ there’ll be tripe, sir! Ox tongue!”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

He could still see that terrified eye. He could wish that Bush was not so enthusiastic, because he felt quite the reverse. As his vivid imagination pictured the butchering he felt no desire at all for meat provided by such a process. He had to change the subject.

“Mr Foreman! Were there no messages from the fleet?”

Foreman started guiltily and plunged his hand into his side pocket to produce a bulky packet. He blanched as he saw the fury on Hornblower’s face.

“Don’t you ever do that again, Mr Foreman! Despatches before everything! You need a lesson and this is the time for it.”

“Shall I pass the word for Mr Wise, sir?” asked Bush.

The boatswain’s rattan could make vigorous play over Foreman’s recumbent form bent over the breech of a gun. Hornblower saw the sick fright in Foreman’s face. The boy was as terrified as the bullock; he must have the horror of corporal punishment that occasionally was evident in the navy. It was a horror that Hornblower himself shared. He looked into the pleading desperate eyes for five long seconds to let the lesson sink in.

“No,” he said, at length. “Mr Foreman would only remember that for a day. I’ll see he gets reminded every day for a week. No spirits for Mr Foreman for seven days; And anyone in the midshipman’s berth who tries to help him out will lose his ration for fourteen days. See to that, if you please, Mr Bush.”

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