“Do you give me the lie on my own quarterdeck?” roared the captain. “I was right in suspecting my officers. Plotting. Whispering. Scheming. Planning. And now treating me with gross disrespect. I’ll see that you regret this from this minute, Mr Buckland.”
“I intended no disrespect, sir,” protested Buckland.
“You give me the lie again to my face! And you others stand by and abet him! You keep him in countenance! I thought better of you, Mr Bush, until now.”
Bush thought it wise to say nothing.
“Dumb insolence, eh?” said the captain. “Eager enough to talk when you think my eye isn’t on you, all the same.”
The captain glowered round the quarterdeck.
“And you, Mr Hornblower,” he said. “You did not see fit to report this assembly to me. Officer of the watch, indeed! And of course Wellard is in it too. That is only to be expected. But I fancy you will be in trouble with these gentlemen now, Mr Wellard. You did not keep a sharp enough lookout for them. In fact you are in serious trouble now, Mr Wellard, without a friend in the ship except for the gunner’s daughter, whom you will be kissing again soon.”
The captain stood towering on the quarterdeck with his gaze fixed on the unfortunate Wellard, who shrank visibly away from him. To kiss the gunner’s daughter was to be bent over a gun and beaten.
“But later will still be sufficient time to deal with you, Mr Wellard. The lieutenants first, as their lofty rank dictates.”
The captain looked round at the lieutenants, fear and triumph strangely alternating in his expression.
“Mr Hornblower is already on watch and watch,” he said. “You others have enjoyed idleness in consequence, and Satan found mischief for your idle hands. Mr Buckland does not keep a watch. The high and mighty and aspiring first lieutenant.’
“Sir —” began Buckland, and then bit off the words which were about to follow. That word ‘aspiring’ undoubtedly implied that he was scheming to gain command of the ship, but a court‑martial would not read that meaning into it. Every officer was expected to be an aspiring officer and it would be no insult to say so.
“Sir!” jeered the captain. “Sir! So you have grace enough still to guard your tongue. Cunning, maybe. But you will not evade the consequences of your actions. Mr Hornblower can stay on watch and watch. But these two gentlemen can report to you when every watch is called, and at two bells, at four bells, and at six bells in every watch. They are to be properly dressed when they report to you, and you are to be properly awake. Is that understood?”
Not one of the dumbfounded trio could speak for a moment.
“Answer me!”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Buckland.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush and Roberts as the captain turned his eyes on them.
“Let there be no slackness in the execution of my orders,” said the captain. “I shall have means of knowing if I am obeyed or not.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Buckland.
The captain’s sentence had condemned him, Bush and Roberts to be roused and awakened every hour, day and night.
Chapter IV
It was pitch dark down here, absolutely dark, not the tiniest glimmer of light at all. Out over the sea was the moonless night, and here it was three decks down, below the level of the sea’s surface — through the oaken skin of the ship could be heard the rush of the water alongside, and the impact of the waves over which the ship rode; the fabric of the ship grumbled to itself with the alternating stresses of the pitch and the roll. Bush hung on to the steep ladder in the darkness and felt for foothold; finding it, he stepped off among the water barrels, and, crouching low, he began to make his way aft through the solid blackness. A rat squeaked and scurried past him, but rats were only to be expected down here in the hold, and Bush went on feeling his way aft unshaken. Out of the blackness before him, through the multitudinous murmurings of the ship, came a slight hiss, and Bush halted and hissed in reply. He was not self‑conscious about these conspiratorial goings on. All precautions were necessary, for this was something very dangerous that he was doing.