“That’s the greatest altitude I’ve ever measured,” remarked Hornblower. “I’ve never been as far south as this before. What’s your result?”
They compared readings.
“That’s accurate enough,” said Hornblower. “What’s the difficulty?”
“Oh, I can shoot the sun,” said Bush. “No trouble about that. It’s the calculations that bother me — those damned corrections.”
Hornblower raised an eyebrow for a moment. He was accustomed to taking his own observations each noon and making his own calculations of the ship’s position, in order to keep himself in practice. He was aware of the mechanical difficulty of taking an accurate observation in a moving ship, but — although he knew plenty of other instances he still could not believe that any man could really find the subsequent mathematics difficult. They were so simple to him that when Bush had asked him if he could join him in their noontime exercise for the sake of improving himself he had taken it for granted that it was only the mechanics of using a sextant that troubled Bush. But he politely concealed his surprise.
“They’re easy enough,” he said, and then he added “sir.” A wise officer, too, did not make too much display of his superior ability when speaking to his senior. He phrased his next speech carefully.
“If you were to come below with me, sir, you could check through my calculations.”
Bush listened in patience to Hornblower’s explanation. They made the problem perfectly clear for the moment — it was by a hurried last‑minute reading up that Bush had been able to pass his examination for lieutenant, although it was seamanship and not navigation that got him through — but Bush knew by bitter experience that tomorrow it would be hazy again.
“Now we can plot the position,” said Hornblower, bending over the chart.
Bush watched as Hornblower’s capable fingers worked the parallel rulers across the chart; Hornblower had long bony hands with something of beauty about them, and it was actually fascinating to watch them doing work at which they were so supremely competent. The powerful fingers picked up the pencil and ruled a line.
“There’s the point of interception,” said Hornblower. “Now we can check against the dead reckoning.”
Even Bush could follow the simple steps necessary to plot the ship’s course by dead reckoning since noon yesterday. The pencil in the steady fingers made a tiny x on the chart.
“We’re still being set to the s’uth’ard, you see,” said Hornblower. “We’re not far enough east yet for the Gulf Stream to set us to the nor’ard.”
“Didn’t you say you’d never navigated these waters before?” asked Bush.
“Yes.”
“Then how — ? Oh, I suppose you’ve been studying.”
To Bush it was as strange that a man should read up beforehand and be prepared for conditions hitherto unknown as it was strange to Hornblower that a man should find trouble in mathematics.
“At any rate, there we are,” said Hornblower, tapping the chart with the pencil.
“Yes,” said Bush.
They both looked at the chart with the same thought in mind.
“What d’ye think Number One’ll do?” asked Bush.
Buckland might be legally in command of the ship, but it was too early yet to speak of him as the captain — ‘the capain’ was still that weeping figure swathed in canvas on the cot in the cabin.
“Can’t tell,” answered Hornblower, “but he makes up his mind now or never. We lose ground to loo’ard every day from now, you see.”
“What’d you do?” Bush was curious about this junior lieutenant who had shown himself ready of resources and so guarded in speech.
“I’d read those orders,” said Hornblower instantly. “I’d rather be in trouble for having done something than for not having done anything.”
“I wonder,” said Bush. On the other hand a definite action could be made the subject of a court‑martial charge far more easily than the omission to do something; Bush felt this, but he had not the facility with words to express it easily.
“Those orders may detach us on independent service,” went on Hornblower. “God, what a chance for Buckland!”
“Yes,” said Bush.
The eagerness in Hornblower’s expression was obvious. If ever a man yearned for an independent command and the consequent opportunity to distinguish himself it was Hornblower. Bush wondered faintly if he himself was as anxious to have the responsibility of the command of a ship of the line in troubled waters. He looked at Hornblower with an interest which he knew to be constantly increasing. Hornblower was a man always ready to adopt the bold course, a man who infinitely preferred action to inaction; widely read in his profession and yet a practical seaman, as Bush had already had plenty of opportunity to observe. A student, yet a man of action; a fiery spirit and yet discreet — Bush remembered how tactfully he had acted during the crisis following the captain’s injury and how dexterously he had handled Buckland.