The seaman took his competence gratifyingly for granted, but Hornblower, looking at the tangle on the foremast, had not the remotest idea of how to deal with the next problem. He was not even sure about what was wrong. But the hands under his orders were seamen of vast experience, who must have dealt with similar emergencies a score of times. The first — indeed the only — thing to do was to delegate his responsibility.
“Who’s the oldest seaman among you?” he demanded — his determination not to quaver made him curt.
“Matthews, sir,” said someone at length, indicating with his thumb the pigtailed and tattooed seaman upon whom he had fallen in the cutter.
“Very well, then. I’ll rate you petty officer, Matthews. Get to work at once and clear that raffle away forrard. I’ll be busy here aft.”
It was a nervous moment for Hornblower, but Matthews put his knuckles to his forehead.
“Aye aye, sir,” he said, quite as a matter of course.
“Get that jib in first, before it flogs itself to pieces,” said Hornblower, greatly emboldened.
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Carry on, then.”
The seaman turned to go forward, and Hornblower walked aft. He took the telescope from its becket on the poop, and swept the horizon. There were a few sails in sight; the nearest ones he could recognize as prizes, which, with all sail set that they could carry, were heading for England as fast as they could go. Far away to windward he could see the Indefatigable‘s topsails as she clawed after the rest of the convoy — she had already overhauled and captured all the slower and less weatherly vessels, so that each succeeding chase would be longer. Soon he would be alone on this wide sea, three hundred miles from England. Three hundred miles — two days with a fair wind; but how long if the wind turned foul?
He replaced the telescope; the men were already hard at work forward, so he went below and looked round the neat cabins of the officers; two single ones for the captain and the mate, presumably, and a double one for the bos’un and the cook or the carpenter. He found the lazarette, identifying it by the miscellaneous stores within it; the door was swinging to and fro with a bunch of keys dangling. The French captain, faced with the loss of all he possessed, had not even troubled to lock the door again after taking out the case of wine. Hornblower locked the door and put the keys in his pocket and felt suddenly lonely — his first experience of the loneliness of the man in command at sea. He went on deck again, and at sight of him Matthews hurried aft and knuckled his forehead.
“Beg pardon, sir, but we’ll have to use the jeers to sling that yard again.”
“Very good.”
“We’ll need more hands than we have, sir. Can I put some o’ they Frenchies to work?”
“If you think you can. If any of them are sober enough.”
“I think I can, sir. Drunk or sober.”
“Very good.”
It was at this moment that Hornblower remembered with bitter self-reproach that the priming of his pistol was probably wet, and he had not scorn enough for himself at having put his trust in a pistol without re-priming after evolutions in a small boat. While Matthews went forward he dashed below again. There was a case of pistols which he remembered having seen in the captain’s cabin, with a powder flask and bullet bag hanging beside it. He loaded both weapons and reprimed his own, and came on deck again with three pistols in his belt just as his men appeared from the forecastle herding half a dozen Frenchmen. He posed himself in the poop, straddling with his hands behind his back, trying to adopt an air of magnificent indifference and understanding. With the jeers taking the weight of yard and sail, an hour’s hard work resulted in the yard being slung again and the sail reset.
When the work was advancing towards completion, Hornblower came to himself again to remember that in a few minutes he would have to set a course, and he dashed below again to set out the chart and the dividers and parallel rulers. From his pocket he extracted the crumpled scrap of paper with his position on it — he had thrust it in there so carelessly a little while back, at a time when the immediate problem before him was to transfer himself from the Indefatigable to the cutter. It made him unhappy to think how cavalierly he had treated that scrap of paper then; he began to feel that life in the Navy, although it seemed to move from one crisis to another, was really one continuous crisis, that even while dealing with one emergency it was necessary to be making plans to deal with the next. He bent over the chart, plowed his position, and laid off his course. It was a queer uncomfortable feeling to think that what had up to this moment been an academic exercise conducted under the reassuring supervision of Mr Soames was now something on which hinged his life and his reputation. He checked his working, decided on his course, and wrote it down on a scrap of paper for fear he should forget it.
So when the foretopsail yard was re-slung, and the prisoners herded back into the forecastle, and Matthews looked to him for further orders he was ready.
“We’ll square away,” he said. “Matthews, send a man to the wheel.”
He himself gave a hand at the braces; the wind had moderated and he felt his men could handle the brig under her present sail.
“What course, sir?” asked the man at the wheel, and Hornblower dived into his pocket for his scrap of paper.
“Nor’-east by north,” he said, reading it out.
“Nor’-east by north, sir,” said the helmsman; and the Marie Galante, running free, set her course for England.
Night was closing in by now, and all round the circle of the horizon there was not a sail in sight. There must be plenty of ships just over the horizon, he knew, but that did not do much to ease his feeling of loneliness as darkness came on. There was so much to do, so much to bear in mind, and all the responsibility lay on his unaccustomed shoulders. The prisoners had to be battened down in the forecastle, a watch had to be set — there was even the trivial matter of hunting up flint and steel to light the binnacle lamp. A hand forward as a lookout, who could also keep an eye on the prisoners below; a hand aft at the wheel. Two hands snatching some sleep — knowing that to get in any sail would be an all-hands job — a hasty meal of water from the scuttle-butt and of biscuit from the cabin stores in the lazarette — a constant eye to be kept on the weather. Hornblower paced the deck in the darkness.
“Why don’t you get some sleep, sir?” asked the man at the wheel.
“I will, later on, Hunter,” said Hornblower, trying not to allow his tone to reveal the fact that such a thing had never occurred to him.
He knew it was sensible advice, and he actually tried to follow it, retiring below to fling himself down on the captain’s cot; but of course he could not sleep. When he heard the lookout bawling down the companionway to rouse the other two hands to relieve the watch (they were asleep in the next cabin to him) he could not prevent himself from getting up again and coming on deck to see that all was well. With Matthews in charge he felt he should not be anxious, and he drove himself below again, but he had hardly fallen onto the cot again when a new thought brought him to his feet again, his skin cold with anxiety, and a prodigious self-contempt vying with anxiety for first glance in his emotions. He rushed on deck and walked forward to where Matthews was squatting by the knightheads.
“Nothing has been done to see if the brig is taking in any water,” he said — he had hurriedly worked out the wording of that sentence during his walk forward, so as to cast no aspersion on Matthews and yet at the same time, for the sake of discipline, attributing no blame to himself.
“That’s so, sir,” said Matthews.
“One of those shots fired by the Indefatigable hulled her,” went on Hornblower. “What damage did it do?”