“Where does he think he is?” went on Lomax.
“Oh, he knows he’s in this ship,” said Clive, cautiously.
Now Buckland turned upon Clive; Buckland was hollow-cheeked, unshaven, weary, but he had seen the captain in his berth, and he was in consequence a little more ready to force the issue.
“In your opinion is the captain fit for duty?” he demanded.
“Well —” said Clive again.
“Well?”
“Temporarily, perhaps not.”
That was an unsatisfactory answer, but Buckland seemed to have exhausted all his resolution in extracting it. Hornblower raised a mask‑like face and stared straight at Clive.
“You mean he is incapable at present of commanding this ship?”
The other officers murmured their concurrence in this demand for a quite definite statement, and Clive, looking round at the determined faces, had to yield.
“At present, yes.”
“Then we all know where we stand,” said Lomax, and there was satisfaction in his voice which was echoed by everyone in the wardroom except Clive and Buckland.
To deprive a captain of his command was a business of terrible, desperate importance. King and Parliament had combined to give Captain Sawyer command of the Renown, and to reverse their appointment savoured of treason, and anyone even remotely connected with the transaction might be tainted for the rest of his life with the unsavoury odour of insubordination and rebellion. Even the most junior master’s mate in later years applying for some new appointment might be remembered as having been in the Renown when Sawyer was removed from his command and might have his application refused in consequence. It was necessary that there should be the appearance of the utmost legality in an affair which, under the strictest interpretation, could never be entirely legal.
“I have here Corporal Greenwood’s statement, sir,” said Hornblower, “signed with his mark and attested by Mr Wellard and myself.”
“Thank you,” said Buckland, taking the paper; there was some slight hesitation in Buckland’s gesture, as though the document were a firecracker likely to go off unexpectedly. But only Bush, who was looking for it, could have noticed the hesitation. It was only a few hours since Buckland had been a fugitive in peril of his life, creeping through the bowels of the ship trying to avoid detection, and the names of Wellard and Greenwood, reminding him of this, were a shock to his ears. And like a demon conjured up by the saying of his name, Wellard appeared at that moment at the wardroom door.
“Mr Roberts sent me down to ask for orders, sir,” he said.
Roberts had the watch and must be fretting with worry about what was going on below decks. Buckland stood in indecision.
“Both watches are on deck, sir,” said Hornblower, deferentially.
Buckland looked an inquiry at him.
“You could tell this news to the hands, sir,” went on Hornblower.
He was making a suggestion, unasked, to his superior officer, and so courting a snub. But his manner indicated the deepest respect, and nothing besides but eagerness to save his superior all possible trouble.
“Thank you,” said Buckland.
Anyone could read in his face the struggle that was going on within him; he was still shrinking from committing himself too deeply — as if he was not already committed! — and he was shrinking from the prospect of making a speech to the assembled hands, even while he realised the necessity of doing so. And the necessity grew greater the more he thought about it — rumours must be flying about the lower deck, where the crew, already unsettled by the captain’s behaviour, must be growing more restive still in the prevailing uncertainty. A hard, definite statement must be made to them; it was vitally necessary. Yet the greater the necessity the greater the responsibility that Buckland bore, and he wavered obviously between these two frightening forces.
“All hands, sir?” prompted Hornblower, very softly.
“Yes,” said Buckland, desperately taking the plunge.
“Very well, Mr Wellard,” said Hornblower.
Bush caught the look that Hornblower threw to Wellard with the words. There was a significance in it which might be interpreted as of a nature only to be expected when one junior officer was telling another to do something quickly before a senior could change his mind — that was how an uninitiated person would naturally interpret it — but to Bush, clairvoyant with fatigue and worry, there was some other significance in that glance. Wellard was pale and weak with fatigue and worry too; he was being reassured. Possibly he was being told that a secret was still safe.