“Oh, ‘im?” said Jackson. “Don’t you fret about ‘im, sir. ‘E wouldn’t never ‘ave made no seaman, not no ‘ow.”
CHAPTER FIVE — THE MAN WHO SAW GOD
Winter had come to the Bay of Biscay. With the passing of the Equinox the gales began to increase in violence, adding infinitely to the labours and dangers of the British Navy watching over the coast of France; easterly gales, bitter cold, which the storm‑tossed ships had to endure as best they could, when the spray froze on the rigging and the labouring hulls leaked like baskets; westerly gales, when the ships had to claw their way to safety from a lee shore and make a risky compromise between gaining sufficient sea‑room and maintaining a position from which they could pounce on any French vessel venturing out of harbour. The storm‑tossed ships, we speak about. But those ships were full of storm‑tossed men, who week by week and month by month had to endure the continual cold and the continual wet, the salt provisions, the endless toil, the boredom and misery of life in the blockading fleet. Even in the frigates, the eyes and claws of the blockaders, boredom had to be endured, the boredom of long periods with the hatches battened down, with the deck seams above dripping water on the men below, long nights and short days, broken sleep and yet not enough to do.
Even in the Indefatigable there was a feeling of restlessness in the air, and even a mere midshipman like Hornblower could be aware of it as he was looking over the men of his division before the captain’s regular weekly inspection.
“What’s the matter with your face, Styles?” he asked.
“Boils, sir. Awful bad.”
On Styles’ cheeks and lips there were half a dozen dabs of sticking plaster.
“Have you done anything about them?”
“Surgeon’s mate, sir, ‘e give me plaister for ’em, an’ ‘e says they’ll soon come right, sir.”
“Very well.”
Now was there, or was there not, something strained about the expressions on the faces of the men on either side of Styles? Did they look like men smiling secretly to themselves? Laughing up their sleeves? Hornblower did not want to be an object of derision; it was bad for discipline — and it was worse for discipline if the men shared some secret unknown to their officers. He glanced sharply along the line again. Styles was standing like a block of wood, with no expression at all on his swarthy face; the black ringlets over his ears were properly combed, and no fault could be found with him. But Hornblower sensed that the recent conversation was a source of amusement to the rest of his division, and he did not like it.
After divisions he tackled Mr Low the surgeon, in the gunroom.
“Boils?” said Low. “Of course the men have boils. Salt pork and split peas for nine weeks on end — what d’you expect but boils? Boils — gurry sores — blains — all the plagues of Egypt.”
“On their faces?”
“That’s one locality for boils. You’ll find out others from your own personal experience.”
“Does your mate attend to them?” persisted Hornblower.
“Of course.”
“What’s he like?”
“Muggridge?”
“Is that his name?”
“He’s a good surgeon’s mate. Get him to compound a black draught for you and you’ll see. In fact, I’d prescribe one for you — you seem in a mighty bad temper, young man.”
Mr Low finished his glass of rum and pounded on the table for the steward. Hornblower realized that he was lucky to have found Low sober enough to give him even this much information, and turned away to go aloft so as to brood over the question in the solitude of the mizzen‑top. This was his new station in action; when the men were not at their quarters a man might find a little blessed solitude there — something hard to find in the crowded Indefatigable. Bundled up in his peajacket, Hornblower sat in the mizzen‑top; over his head the mizzen‑topmast drew erratic circles against the grey sky; beside him the topmast shrouds sang their high‑pitched note in the blustering gale, and below him the life of the ship went on as she rolled and pitched, standing to the northward under close reefed topsails. At eight bells she would wear to the southward again on her incessant patrol. Until that time Hornblower was free to meditate on the boils on Styles’ face and the covert grins on the faces of the other men of the division.