“When in God’s name is that damned doctor going to report?” said Buckland, to no one in particular.
“Why don’t you turn in, sir, until he does?” said Bush.
“I will.” Buckland hesitated before he went on speaking. “You gentlemen had best continue to report to me every hour as the captain ordered.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush and Roberts.
That meant, as Bush realised, that Buckland would take no chances; the captain must hear, when he should recover consciousness, that his orders had been carried out. Bush was anxious — desperate — as he went below to try to snatch half an hour’s rest before he would next have to report. He could not hope to sleep. Through the slight partition that divided his cabin from the next he could hear a drone of voices as Hornblower took down the marine corporal’s statement in writing.
Chapter V
Breakfast was being served in the wardroom. It was a more silent and less cheerful meal even than breakfast there usually was. The master, the purser, the captain of marines, had said their conventional ‘good mornings’ and had sat down to eat without further conversation. They had heard — as had everyone in the ship — that the captain was recovering consciousness.
Through the scuttles in the side of the ship came two long shafts of sunlight, illuminating the crowded little place, and swinging back and forward across the wardroom with the easy motion of the ship; the fresh, delightful air of the northeast trades came in through the hooked‑open door. The coffee was hot; the biscuit, only three weeks on board, could not have been more than a month or two in store before that, because it had hardly any weevils in it. The wardroom cook had intelligently taken advantage of the good weather to fry the remains of last night’s salt pork with some of the ship’s dwindling store of onions. A breakfast of fried slivers of salt pork with onions, hot coffee and good biscuit, fresh air and sunshine and fair weather; the wardroom should have been a cheerful place. Instead there was brooding anxiety, apprehension, tense uneasiness. Bush looked across the table at Hornblower, drawn and pale and weary; there were many things Bush wanted to say to him but they had to remain unsaid, at least at present, while the shadow of the captains madness darkened the sunlit ship.
Buckland came walking into the wardroom with the surgeon following him, and everyone looked up questioningly — practically everyone stood up to hear the news.
“He’s conscious,” said Buckland, and looked round at Clive for him to elaborate on that statement.
“Weak,” said Clive.
Bush looked round at Hornblower, hoping that he would ask the questions that Bush wanted asked. Hornblower’s face was set in a mask without expression. His glance was fixed penetratingly on Clive, but he did not open his mouth. It was Lomax, the purser, who asked the question in the end.
“Is he sensible?”
“Well —” said Clive, glancing sidelong at Buckland. Clearly the last thing Clive wanted to do was to commit himself definitely regarding the captain’s sanity. “He’s too weak at present to be sensible.”
Lomax, fortunately, was inquisitive enough and bullheaded enough not to be deterred by Clive’s reluctance.
“What about this concussion?” he asked. “What’s it done to him?”
“The skull is intact,” said Clive. “There are extensive scalp lacerations. The nose is broken. The clavicle — that’s the collar‑bone — and a couple of ribs. He must have fallen headfirst down the hatchway, as might be expected if he tripped over the roaming.”
“But how on earth did he come to do that?” asked Lomax.
“He has not said,” answered Clive. “I think he does not remember.”
“What?”
“That is a usual state of affairs,” said Clive. “One might almost call it symptomatic. After a severe concussion the patient usually displays a lapse of memory, extending back to many hours before the injury.”
Bush stole a glance at Hornblower again. His face was still expressionless, and Bush tried to follow his example, both in betraying no emotion and in leaving the questioning to others. And yet this was great, glorious, magnificent news which could not be too much elaborated on for Bush’s taste.