Hornblower’s meditations regarding Harrison’s weakness had occupied nearly all the time necessary for the trimming of the sails; as they came to an end Harrison roared “Belay!” and the watch trooped back to their previous duties. Ting‑ting, ting‑ting, ting‑ting, ting went the bell. Seven bells in the morning watch. Homblower had been walking for well over his covenanted hour, and he was aware of a gratifying trickle of sweat under his shirt. He walked over to where Bush was standing by the wheel.
“Good morning, Mr Bush,” said Captain Hornblower.
“Good morning, sir,” said Bush, exactly as if Captain Hornblower had not been walking up and down within four yards of him for the last hour and a quarter.
Hornblower looked at the slate which bore the rough log of the last twenty‑four hours; there was nothing of special note — the hourly casting of the log had given speeds of three knots, four and a half knots, four knots, and so on, while the traverse board showed that the ship had contrived to hold to her north easterly course throughout the day. The captain was aware of a keen scrutiny from his first lieutenant, and he knew that internally the lieutenant seethed with questions. There was only one man on board who knew whither the Lydia was bound, and that was the captain. He had sailed with sealed orders, and when he had opened and read them, in accordance with his instructions, in 30° N. 20° W., he had not seen fit to tell even his second in command what they contained. For seven months Lieutenant Bush had contrived to refrain from asking questions, but the strain was visibly telling on him.
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower, clearing his throat non‑committally. Without a word he hung up the slate and went down the companion and entered his sleeping‑cabin.
It was unlucky for Bush that he should be kept in the dark in this fashion, but Hornblower had refrained from discussing his orders with him not through any fear of Bush’s garrulity, but through fear of his own. When he had first sailed as captain five years ago he had allowed his natural talkativeness full play, and his first lieutenant of that time had come to presume upon the licence allowed him until Hornblower had been unable to give an order without having it discussed. Last commission he had tried to limit discussion with his first lieutenant within the ordinary bounds of politeness, and had found that he had been unable to keep himself within those limits — he was always opening his mouth and letting fall one word too many to his subsequent regret. This voyage he had started with the firm resolve (like a drinker who cannot trust himself to drink only in moderation) to say nothing whatever to his officers except what was necessitated by routine, and his resolution had been hardened by the stress which his orders laid upon the need for extreme secrecy. For seven months he had held to it, growing more and more silent every day as the unnatural state of affairs took a firmer grip upon him. In the Atlantic he had sometimes discussed the weather with Mr Bush. Round in the Pacific he only condescended to clear his throat.
His sleeping‑cabin was a tiny morsel of space bulkheaded off from his main cabin. Half the room was occupied by an eighteen pounder; the remainder was almost filled by his cot, his desk, and his chest. His steward Polwheal was putting out his razor and lather bowl on a bracket under a strip of mirror on the bulkhead — there was just room for the two of them to stand. Polwheal squeezed himself against the desk to allow his captain to enter; he said nothing, for Polwheal was a man of gratifyingly few words — Hornblower had picked him for that reason, because he had to guard against his besetting sin of garrulity even with servants.
Hornblower stripped off his wet shirt and trousers and shaved standing naked before the mirror. The face he regarded in the glass was neither handsome nor ugly, neither old nor young. There was a pair of melancholy brown eyes, a forehead sufficiently high, a nose sufficiently straight; a good mouth set with all the firmness acquired during twenty years at sea. The tousled curly brown hair was just beginning to recede and leave the forehead a little higher still, which was a source of irritation to Captain Hornblower, because he hated the thought of going bald. Noticing it, he was reminded of his other trouble and glanced down his naked body. He was slender and well muscled; quite a prepossessing figure, in fact, when he drew himself to his full six feet. But down there where his ribs ended there was no denying the presence of a rounded belly, just beginning to protrude beyond the line of his ribs of his iliac bones. Hornblower hated the thought of growing fat with an intensity rare in his generation; he hated to think of his slender smooth‑skinned body being disfigured by an unsightly bulge in the middle, which was the reason why he, a naturally indolent individual who hated routine forced himself to take that regular morning walk on the quarterdeck.