Lieutenant Hornblower. C. S. Forester

“When did you gennelmen have supper?” asked Mrs Mason.

“I don’t think we did,” answered Hornblower, with a side glance at Bush.

“You must be hungry, then, if you was up all night. Let me cook you a nice breakfast. A couple of thick chops for each of you. Now how about that?”

“By George!” said Hornblower.

“You go on up,” said Mrs Mason. “I’ll send the girl up with hot water an’ you can shave. Then when you come down there’ll be a nice breakfast ready for you. Maria, run and make the fire up.”

Up in the attic Hornblower looked whimsically at Bush.

“That bed you paid a shilling for is still virgin,” he said. “You haven’t had a wink of sleep all night and it’s my fault. Please forgive me.”

“It’s not the first night I haven’t slept,” said Bush. He had not slept on the night they stormed Samaná; many were the occasions in foul weather when he had kept the deck for twenty‑four hours continuously. And after a month of living with his sisters in the Chichester cottage, of nothing to do except to weed the garden, of trying to sleep for twelve hours a night for that very reason, the variety of excitement he had gone through had been actually pleasant. He sat down on the bed while Hornblower paced the floor.

“You’ll have plenty more if it’s war,” Hornblower said; and Bush shrugged his shoulders.

A thump on the door announced the arrival of the maid of all work of the house, a can of hot water in each hand. Her ragged dress was too large for her — handed down presumably from Mrs Mason or from Maria — and her hair was tousled, but she, too, turned wide eyes on Hornblower as she brought in the hot water. Those wide eves were too big for her skinny face, and they followed Hornblower as he moved about the room, and never had a glance for Bush. It was plain that Hornblower was as much the hero of this fourteen‑year‑old foundling as he was of Maria.

“Thank you, Susie,” said Hornblower; and Susie dropped an angular curtsey before she scuttled from the room with one last glance round the door as she left.

Hornblower waved a hand at the wash‑hand stand and the hot water.

“You first,” said Bush.

Hornblower peeled off his coat and his shirt and addressed himself to the business of shaving. The razor blade rasped on his bristly cheeks; he turned his face this way and that so as to apply the edge. Neither of them felt any need for conversation, and it was practically in silence that Hornblower washed himself, poured the wash water into the slop pail, and stood aside for Bush to shave himself.

“Make the most of it,” said Hornblower. “A pint of fresh water twice a week for shaving’ll be all you’ll get if you have your wish.”

“Who cares?” said Bush.

He shaved, restropped his razor with care, and put it back into his roll of toilet articles. The scars that seamed his ribs gleamed pale as he moved. When he had finished dressing he glanced at Hornblower.

“Chops,” said Hornblower. “Thick chops. Come on.”

There were several places laid at the table in the diningroom opening out of the hall, but nobody else was present; apparently it was not the breakfast hour of Mrs Mason’s other gentlemen.

“Only a minute, sir,” said Susie, showing up in the doorway for a moment before hurrying down into the kitchen.

She came staggering back laden with a tray; Hornblower pushed back his chair and was about to help her, but she checked him with a scandalised squeak and managed to put the tray safely on the side table without accident.

“I can serve you, sir,” she said.

She scuttled back and forward between the two tables like the boys running with the nippers when the cab was being hove in. Coffee‑pot and toast, butter and jam, sugar and milk, cruet and hot plates and finally a wide dish which she laid before Hornblower; she took off the cover and there was a noble dish of chops whose delightful scent, hitherto pent up, filled the room.

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