“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush, warned by the scowl on his captain’s forehead not to enlarge on the subject. But his affection for his captain compelled him to open a fresh one. “If that’s the case, sir, why not take a rest? You look mortally tired, sir, indeed you do. Let me send and have a berth screened off for you in the ward room.”
Bush found his hand twitching — he had been about to commit the enormity of patting his captain’s shoulder, and restrained himself just in time.
“Fiddlesticks!” snapped Hornblower. As if a captain of a frigate could publicly admit that he was tired! And Hornblower could not trust himself to show any weakness at all — he always remembered how on his first commission his second-in-command had taken advantages of lapses on his part.
“It is rather you who need a rest,” said Hornblower. “Dismiss the starboard watch, and go below and turn in. Have someone attend to that forehead of yours, first. With the enemy in sight I shall stay on deck.”
After that it was Polwheal who came to plague him — Hornblower wondered ineffectively whether he came of his own initiative or whether Bush sent him up.
“I’ve been to attend to the lady, sir,” said Polwheal; Hornblower’s tired mind was just beginning to grapple with the problem of what to do with Lady Barbara in a damaged ship cleared for action. “I’ve screened off a bit of the orlop for her, sir. The wounded’s mostly quiet by now, sir. I slung a ‘ammock for her — nipped into it like a bird, she did, sir. She’s taken food, too, sir — what was left of that cold chicken an’ a glass of wine. Not that she wanted to, sir, but I persuaded her, like.”
“Very good, Polwheal,” said Hornblower. It was an enormous relief to hear that one responsibility at least was lifted from his shoulders.
“An’ now about you, sir,” went on Polwheal. “I’ve got you up some dry clothes from your chest in your storeroom, sir — I’m afraid that last broadside spoilt everything in your cabin, sir. An’ I’ve got your boat cloak, sir, all warm an’ dry. Do you care to shift your clothes up here or down below, sir?”
Polwheal could take much for granted and could wheedle the rest. Hornblower had anticipated dragging his weary form in his waterlogged clothes up and down the quarterdeck all through the night, his nervous irritation not permitting him to contemplate any other course. Polwheal unearthed Lady Barbara’s hammock chair from somewhere and lashed it to the rail and persuaded Hornblower to sit in it and consume a supper of biscuit and rum. Polwheal draped the boat cloak about him and airily took it for granted that he would continue to sit there, since his determination was fixed not to turn in while the enemy was still close at hand.
And marvellously, as he sat there, with the spray wetting his face and the ship leaping and rolling under him, his head drooped upon his breast and he slept. It was only a broken and fitful sleep, but astonishingly restorative. He awoke every few minutes. Twice it was the sound of his own snores which roused him. At other times he woke with a start to see whether the weather was moderating; at other times still the thoughts which went running on through his mind despite his dozing called him out of his unconsciousness when they reached some fresh startling conclusion regarding what opinion England and his crew would hold of him after this battle.
Soon after midnight his sailor’s instinct called him definitely into complete wakefulness. Something was happening to the weather. He scrambled stiffly to his feet. The ship was rolling more wildly than ever, but as he sniffed round him he knew that there was an improvement. He walked across to the binnacle, and Bush looked vastly out of the darkness beside him.
“Wind’s shifting southerly an’ moderating, sir,” said Bush.
The shift of the wind was breaking up the long Pacific waves into steeper seas, as the Lydia’s antics displayed well enough.
“Black as the Earl of Hell’s riding boots, all the same, sir,” grumbled Bush, peering into the darkness.