“I’ll have you know I allow no one to conspire behind my back, Mr — ah — Bush,” said the captain.
“Aye aye, sir.”
Bush met the captain’s searching stare with the composure of innocence, but he was doing his best to keep his surprise out of his expression, too, and as he was no actor the struggle may have been evident.
“You wear your guilt on your face, Mr Bush,” said the captain. “I’ll remember this.”
With that he turned away and went below, and Bush, relaxing from his attitude of attention, turned to express his surprise to Hornblower. He was eager to ask questions about this extraordinary behaviour, but they died away on his lips when he saw that Hornblower’s face was set in a wooden unresponsiveness. Puzzled and a little hurt, Bush was about to note Hornblower down as one of the captain’s toadies — or as a madman as well — when he caught sight out of the tail of his eye of the captain’s head reappearing above the deck. Sawyer must have swung round when at the foot of the companion and come up again simply for the purpose of catching his officers off their guard discussing him — and Hornblower knew more about his captain’s habits than Bush did. Bush made an enormous effort to appear natural.
“Can I have a couple of hands to carry my sea‑chest down?” he asked, hoping that the words did not sound nearly as stilted to the captain as they did to his own ears.
“Of course, Mr Bush,” said Hornblower, with a formidable formality. “See to it, if you please, Mr James.”
“Ha!” snorted the captain, and disappeared once more down the companion.
Hornblower flicked one eyebrow at Bush, but that was the only indication he gave, even then, of any recognition that the captain’s actions were at all unusual, and Bush, as he followed his sea‑chest down to his cabin, realised with dismay that this was a ship where no one ventured on any decisive expression of opinion. But the Renown was completing for sea, amid all the attendant bustle and confusion, and Bush was on board, legally one of her officers, and there was nothing he could do except reconcile himself philosophically to his fate. He would have to live through this commission, unless any of the possibilities catalogued by Hornblower in their first conversation should save him the trouble.
Chapter II
HMS Renown was clawing her way southward under reefed topsails, a westerly wind laying her over as she thrashed along, heading for those latitudes where she would pick up the north‑east trade wind and be able to run direct to her destination in the West Indies. The wind sang in the taut weather-rigging, and blustered around Bush’s ears as he stood on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, balancing to the roll as the roaring wind sent one massive grey wave after another hurrying at the ship; the starboard bow received the wave first, beginning a leisurely climb, heaving the bowsprit up towards the sky, but before the pitch was in any way completed the ship began her roll, heaving slowly over, slowly, slowly, while the bowsprit rose still more steeply. And then as she still rolled the bows shook themselves free and began to slide down the far side of the wave, with the foam creaming round them; the bowsprit began the downward portion of its arc as the ship rose ponderously to an even keel again, and as she heeled a trifle into the wind with the send of the sea under her keel her stern rose while the last of the wave passed under it, her bows dipped, and she completed the corkscrew roll with the massive dignity to be expected of a ponderous fabric that carried five hundred tons of artillery on her decks. Pitch — roll — heave — roll; it was magnificent, rhythmic, majestic, and Bush, balancing on the deck with the practiced ease of ten years’ experience, would have felt almost happy if the freshening of the wind did not bring with it the approaching necessity for another reef, which meant, in accordance with the ship’s standing orders, that the captain should be informed.