The great poop-cabins had been thrown into a single suite for Pellew, in the absence of a flag-officer permanently on board. It was incredibly luxurious. Once past the sentry the decks were actually carpeted – Wilton carpets in which the foot sank noiselessly. There was an anteroom with a steward in dazzling white ducks to take Hornblower’s hat and gloves and cloak.
“Captain Hornblower, sir,” announced the young gentleman, throwing open the door.
The deck-beams above were six feet clear, over the carpet, and Pellew had grown so used to this that he advanced to shake hands with no stoop at all, in contrast with Hornblower, who instinctively crouched with his five-foot-eleven.
“Delighted to see you, Hornblower,” said Pellew. “Genuinely delighted. There is much to say to you, for letters are always inadequate. But I must make the introductions. The Admiral has already made your acquaintance, I think?”
Hornblower shook hands with Cornwallis, mumbling the same politenesses as he had already addressed to Pellew. Other introductions followed, names known to everyone who had read in the Gazette the accounts of naval victories; Grindall of the Prince, Marsfield of the Minotaur, Lord Henry Paulet of the Terrible, and half a dozen others. Hornblower felt dazzled, although he had just come in from the bright outer world. In all this array there was one other officer with a single epaulette, but he wore it on his right shoulder, proof that he, too, had attained the glorious rank of post captain, and had only to go on living to mount a second epaulette on attaining three years’ seniority, and – if long life was granted him – eventually to attain the unspeakable heights of flag rank. He was far higher above a commander than a commander was above a lowly lieutenant.
Hornblower sat in the chair offered him, instinctively edging it backward so as to make himself, the most junior, the infinitely junior officer, as inconspicuous as possible. The cabin was finished in some rich material – damask, Hornblower guessed – with a colour scheme of nutmeg and blue unobtrusive and yet incredibly satisfying to the eye. Daylight poured in through a vast stern window, to glint upon the swaying silver lamps. There was a shelf of books, some in good leather bindings, but Hornblower’s sharp eye detected tattered copies of the Mariners’ Guide and the Admiralty publications for the coasts of France. On the far side were two large masses so draped as to be shapely and in keeping so that no uninitiated person could guess that inside were two eighteen-pounder carronades.
“This must take you a full five minutes to clear for action, Sir Edward,” said Cornwallis.
“Four minutes and ten seconds by stop-watch, sir,” answered Pellew, “to strike everything below, including the bulkheads.”
Another steward, also in dazzling white ducks, entered at this moment and spoke a few words in a low tone to Pellew, like a well-trained butler in a ducal house, and Pellew rose to his feet.
“Dinner, gentlemen,” he announced. “Permit me to lead the way.”
A door, thrown open in the midships bulkhead, revealed a dining-room, an oblong table with white damask, glittering silver, sparkling glasses, while more stewards in white ducks were ranged against the bulkhead. There could be little doubt about precedence, when every captain in the Royal Navy had, naturally, studied his place in the captains’ list ever since his promotion; Hornblower and the single-epauletted captain were headed for the foot of the table when Pellew halted the general sorting-out.
“At the Admiral’s suggestion,” he announced, “we are dispensing with precedence today. You will find your names on cards at your places.”
So now every one began a feverish hunt for their names; Hornblower found himself seated between Lord Henry Paulet and Hosier of the Fame, and opposite him was Cornwallis himself.
“I made the suggestion to Sir Edward,” Cornwallis was saying as he leisurely took his seat, “because otherwise we always find ourselves sitting next to our neighbours in the captains’ list. In blockade service especially, variety is much to be sought after.”
He lowered himself into his chair, and when he had done so his juniors followed his example. Hornblower, cautiously on guard about his manners, still could not restrain his mischievous inner self from mentally adding a passage to the rules of naval ceremonial, to the lines of the rule about the officer’s head reaching the level of the main-deck – ‘when the Admiral’s backside shall touch the seat of his chair -‘.