There were still evident many signs of yesterday’s battle, quite apart from the sheeted corpses and the dark stains, not thoroughly swabbed, which disfigured the white planking. The decks were furrowed and grooved in all directions, with jagged splinters still standing up here and there. There were shot holes in the ship’s sides with canvas roughly stretched over them. The port sills were stained black with powder; on one of them an eighteen-pounder shot stood out, half buried in the tough oak. But on the other hand an immense amount of work had been done, from laying out the dead to securing the guns and frapping the breechings. Apart from the weariness of her crew, the Lydia was ready to fight another battle at two minutes’ notice.
Hornblower felt a prick of shame that so much should have been done while he slept lazily in his hammock chair. He forced himself to feel no illwill on that account. Although to praise Bush’s work was to admit his own deficiencies he felt that he must be generous.
“Very good indeed, Mr Bush,” he said, walking over to him; yet his natural shyness combined with his feeling of shame to make his speech stilted. “I am both astonished and pleased at the work you have accomplished.”
“Today is Sunday, sir,” said Bush, simply.
So it was. Sunday was the day of the captain’s inspection, when he went round every part of the ship examining everything, to see that the first lieutenant was doing his duty in keeping the ship efficient. On Sunday the ship had to be swept and garnished, all the falls of rope flemished down, the hands fallen in by divisions in their best clothes, divine service held, the Articles of War read — Sunday was the day when the professional ability of every first lieutenant in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy was tried in the balance.
Hornblower could not fight down a smile at this ingenious explanation.
“Sunday or no Sunday,” he said, “you have done magnificently, Mr Bush.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And I shall remember to say so in my report to the Admiralty.”
“I know you’ll do that, sir.”
Bush’s weary face was illuminated by a gleam of pleasure. A successful single ship action was usually rewarded by promotion to Commander of the first lieutenant, and for a man like Bush, with no family and no connections, it was his only hope of making that vitally important step. But a captain who was anxious to enhance his own glory could word his report so that it appeared that he had won his victory despite of, instead of by the aid of, his first lieutenant — instances were known.
“They may make much of this in England, when eventually they hear about it,” said Hornblower.
“I’m certain of it, sir. It isn’t every day of the week that a frigate sinks a ship of the line.”
It was stretching a point to call the Natividad that — sixty years ago when she was built she may have been considered just fit to lie in the line, but times had changed since then. But it was a very notable feat that the Lydia had accomplished, all the same. It was only now that Hornblower began to appreciate how notable it was, and his spirit rose in proportion. There was another criterion which the British public was prone to apply in estimating the merit of a naval action, and the Board of Admiralty itself not infrequently used the same standard.
“What’s the butcher’s bill?” demanded Hornblower, brutally, voicing the thoughts of both of them — brutally because otherwise he might be thought guilty of sentiment.
“Thirty-eight killed, sir,” said Bush, taking a dirty scrap of paper from his pocket. “Seventy-five wounded. Four missing. The missing are Harper, Dawson, North, and Chump the negro, sir — they were lost when the launch was sunk. Clay was killed in the first day’s action —”
Hornblower nodded; he remembered Clay’s headless body sprawled on the quarterdeck.
“— and John Summers, master’s mate, Henry Vincent and James Clifton, boatswain’s mates, killed yesterday, and Donald Scott Galbraith, third lieutenant, Lieutenant Samuel Simmonds of the Marines, Midshipman Howard Savage and four other warrant officers wounded.”