“Slaughtering,” said Bush. “Fresh meat.”
Soon another lighter was creeping out to them; hanging from a frame down the midship line were sides of beef, carcasses of sheep and pigs.
“I won’t mind a roast of mutton, sir,” said Bush.
Bullocks and sheep and swine had been driven over the moors to Brixham, and slaughtered and dressed on the waterfront immediately before shipping so that the meat would last fresh as long as possible.
“Four days’ rations there, sir,” said Bush making a practiced estimate. “An’ there’s a live bullock an’ four sheep an’ four pigs. Excuse me, sir, and I’ll post a guard at the side.”
Most of the hands had money in their pockets and would spend it freely on liquor if they were given the chance, and the men in the victualling barges would sell to them unless the closest supervision were exercised. The water-lighters had finished their task and were casting off. It had been a brief orgy; from the moment that the hoses were taken in ship’s routine would be re-established. One gallon of water per man per day for all purposes from now on.
The place of the watering barges was taken by the dry victualling barge, with bags of biscuit, sacks of dried peas, kegs of butter, cases of cheese, sacks of oatmeal, but conspicuous on top of all this were half a dozen nets full of fresh bread. Two hundred four-pound loaves – Hornblower could taste the crustiness of them in his watering mouth when he merely looked at them. A beneficent government, under the firm guidance of Cornwallis, was sending these luxuries aboard; the hardships of a life at sea were the result of natural circumstances quite as much as of ministerial ineptitude.
There was never a quiet moment all through that day. Here was Bush touching his hat again with a final demand on his attention.
“You’ve given no order about wives, sir.”
“Wives?”
“Wives, sir.”
There was an interrogative lift in Hornblower’s voice as he said the word; there was a flat, complete absence of expression in Bush’s. It was usual in His Majesty’s Ships when they lay in harbour for women to be allowed on board, and one or two of them might well be wives. It was some small compensation for the system that forbade a man to set foot on shore lest he desert; but the women inevitably smuggled liquor on board, and the scenes of debauchery that ensued on the lower-deck were as shameless as in Nero’s court. Disease and indiscipline were the natural result; it took days or weeks to shake the crew down again into an efficient team. Hornblower did not want his fine ship ruined but if Hotspur were to stay long at anchor in Tor Bay he could not deny what was traditionally a reasonable request. He simply could not deny it.
“I’ll give my orders later this morning,” he said.
It was not difficult, some minutes later, to intercept Bush at a moment when a dozen of the hands were within earshot.
“Oh, Mr Bush!” Hornblower hoped his voice did not sound as stilted and theatrical as he feared. “You’ve plenty of work to be done about the ship.”
“Yes, sir. There’s a good deal of standing rigging I’d like set up again. And there’s running rigging to be re-rove. And there’s the paintwork -”
“Very well, Mr Bush. When the ship’s complete in all respects we’ll allow the wives on board, but not until then. Not until then, Mr Bush. And if we have to sail before then it will be the fortune of war.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Next came the letters; word must have reached the post office in Plymouth of the arrival of Hotspur in Tor Bay, and the letters had been sent across overland. Seven letters from Maria; Hornblower tore open the last first, to find that Maria was well and her pregnancy progressing favourably, and then he skimmed through the others to find, as he expected, that she had rejoiced to read her Valiant Hero’s Gazette letter although she was perturbed by the risks run by her Maritime Alexander, and although she was consumed with sorrow because the Needs of the Service had denied from her eyes the light of his Countenance. Hornblower was half-way through writing a reply when a midshipman came escorted to his cabin door with a note . . .