Lieutenant Hornblower. C. S. Forester

“Give way,” he said to the men at the pump handles.

They were dubious about all this, but they obeyed the order, and in alternate pairs they threw their weight upon the handles. Up — down, up — down; clank — clank. The seaman holding the hose felt it stir in his hands as the water from far overside came surging up along it; and next moment a clear stream of water came gushing out of it.

“Turn it on me,” said Hornblower, casting his towel aside and standing naked in the sunshine. The hoseman hesitated.

“Hurry up, now!”

As dubiously as ever the hoseman obeyed orders, turning the jet upon his officer, who rotated first this way and then that as it splashed upon him; an amused crowd was gathering to watch.

“Pump, you sons of seacooks!” said Hornblower; and obediently the men at the pump handles, now grinning broadly, threw all their weight on the handles, with such enthusiasm that their feet left the deck as they hauled down upon them and the clear water came hurtling out through the hose with considerable force. Hornblower twirled round and round under the stinging impact, his face screwed up in painful ecstasy.

Buckland had been standing aft at the taffrail, lost in thought and gazing down at the ship’s wake, but the clanking of the pump attracted his attention and he strolled forward to join Roberts and Bush and to look at the strange spectacle.

“Hornblower has some odd fancies,” he remarked, but he smiled as he said it — a rather pathetic smile, for his face bore the marks of the anxieties he was going through.

“He seems to be enjoying himself, sir,” said Bush.

Bush, looking at Hornblower revolving under the sparkling stream, was conscious of a prickling under his shirt in his heavy uniform coat, and actually had the feeling that it might be pleasurable to indulge in that sort of shower bath, however injurious it might be to the health.

“‘Vast pumping!” yelled Hornblower. “Avast, there!”

The hands at the pumps ceased their labours, and the jet from the hose died away to a trickle, to nothing.

“Captain of the waist! Secure the pump. Get the deck swabbed.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Hornblower grabbed his towel and came trotting back along the maindeck. He looked up at the group of officers with a grin which revealed his exhilaration and high spirits.

“Dunno if it’s good for discipline,” commented Roberts, as Hornblower disappeared; and then, with a tardy flash of insight, “I suppose it’s all right.”

“I suppose so,” said Buckland. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get himself a fever, checking the perspiration like that.”

“He showed no sign of one, sir,” said Bush; lingering in Bush’s mind’s eye was the picture of Hornblower’s grin. It blended with his memory of Hornblower’s eager expression when they were discussing what Buckland had best do in the dilemma in which he found himself.

“Ten minutes to eight bells, sir,” reported the quartermaster.

“Very well!” said Roberts.

The wet patch on the deck was now almost dry; a faint steam rose from it as the sun, still fierce at four o’clock in the afternoon, beat on it.

“Call the watch,” said Roberts.

Hornblower came running up to the quarterdeck with his telescope; he must have pulled on his clothes with the orderly rapidity that marked all his actions. He touched his hat to the quarterdeck and stood by to relieve Roberts.

“You feel refreshed after your bath?” asked Buckland.

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

Bush looked at the pair of them, the elderly, worried first lieutenant and the young fifth lieutenant, the older man pathetically envying the youngster’s youth. Bush was learning something about personalities. He would never be able to reduce the results of his observations to a tabular system, and it would never occur to him to do so, but he could learn without doing so; his experience and observations would blend with his native wit to govern his judgments, even if he were too self‑conscious to philosophise over them. He was aware that naval officers (he knew almost nothing of mankind on land) could be divided into active individuals and passive individuals, into those eager for responsibility and action and into those content to wait until action was forced on them. Before that he had learned the simpler lesson that officers could be divided into the efficient and the blunderers, and also into the intelligent and the stupid — this last division was nearly the same as the one immediately preceding, but not quite. There were the officers who could be counted on to act quickly and correctly in an emergency, and those who could not — again the dividing line did not quite coincide with the preceding. And there were officers with discretion and officers with none, patient officers and impatient ones, officers with strong nerves and officers with weak nerves. In certain cases Bush’s estimates had to contend with his prejudices — he was liable to be suspicious of brains and of originality of thought and of eagerness for activity, especially because in the absence of some of the other desirable qualities these things might be actual nuisances. The final and most striking difference Bush had observed during ten years of continuous warfare was that between the leaders and the led, but that again was a difference of which Bush was conscious without being able to express it in words, and especially not in words as succinct or as definite as these; but he was actually aware of the difference even though he was not able to bring himself to define it.