Hornblower 05 - Hornblower and the Atropos (12 page)

“Aye aye, sir.”

“What the devil's that noise?” asked Hornblower pettishly. For some minutes now there had been some sort of altercation on the quarterdeck over their heads. Strange voices were making themselves heard through the skylight.

“Shall I find out, sir?” asked Jones eagerly, hoping for some distraction. But as he spoke there was a knock at the cabin door.

“This'll tell us,” said Hornblower. “Come in!”

Midshipman Horrocks opened the door.

“Mr. Still's respects, sir, an' there are some gentlemen come on board with an Admiralty letter for you, sir.”

“Ask them to come here.”

It could only be trouble of one sort or another, Hornblower decided, as he waited. One more distraction at a moment when he was about to be desperately busy. Horrocks ushered in two figures, one large and one diminutive, wearing glittering uniforms of green and gold — Hornblower had last seen them only yesterday at the Court of St. James's, the German princeling and his bear-leader. Hornblower rose to his feet, and Eisenbeiss stepped forward with an elaborate bow, to which Hornblower replied with a curt nod.

“Well, sir?”

Eisenbeiss ceremoniously handed over a letter; a glance showed Hornblower that it was addressed to him. He opened it carefully and read it.

You are hereby requested and required to receive into your ship His Serene Highness Ernst Prince of Seitz-Bunau, who has been rated as midshipman in His Majesty's Navy. You will employ your diligence in instructing His Serene Highness in his new profession as well as in continuing his education in readiness for the day which under Providence may not be far distant, when His Serene Highness will again assume the government of his hereditary dominions. You will also receive into your ship His Excellency the Baron Otto von Eisenbeiss, Chamberlain and First Secretary of State to His Serene Highness. His Excellency was until recently practicing as a surgeon, and he has received from the Navy Office a warrant as such in His Majesty's Navy. You will make use of His Excellency's services, therefore, as Surgeon in your ship while, as far as naval discipline and the Articles of War allow, he continues to act as Chamberlain to His Serene Highness.

“I see,” he said. He looked at the odd pair in their resplendent uniforms. “Welcome aboard, Your Highness.”

The prince nodded and smiled, clearly without understanding.

Hornblower sat down again, and Eisenbeiss began to speak at once, his thick German accent stressing his grievances.

“I must protest, sir,” he said.

“Well?” said Hornblower, in a tone that might well have conveyed a warning.

“His Serene Highness is not being treated with proper respect. When we reached your ship I sent my footman on board to announce us so that His Highness could be received with royal honours. They were absolutely refused, sir. The man on the deck there — I presume he is an officer — said he had no instructions. It was only when I showed him that letter, sir, that he allowed us to come on board at all.”

“Quite right. He had no instructions.”

“I trust you will make amends, then. And may I remind you that you are sitting in the presence of royalty?”

“You call me 'sir',” snapped Hornblower. “And you will address me as my subordinate should.”

Eisenbeiss jerked himself upright in his indignation, so that his head came with a shattering crash against the deck-beam above; this checked his flow of words and enabled Hornblower to continue.

“As officers in the King's service you should have worn the King's uniform. You have your dunnage with you?”

Eisenbeiss was still too stunned to answer, even if he understood the word, and Horrocks spoke for him.

“Please, sir, it's in the boat alongside. Chests and chests of it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Horrocks. Now, doctor, I understand you have the necessary professional qualifications to act as surgeon in this ship. That is so?”

Eisenbeiss still strove to retain his dignity.

“As Secretary of State I am addressed as 'Your Excellency',” he said.

“But as surgeon in this ship you are addressed as 'doctor'. And that is the last time I shall overlook the omission of the word 'sir'. Now. Your qualifications?”

“I am a surgeon — sir.”

The last word came out with a jerk as Hornblower's eyebrows rose.

“You have been in practice recently?”

“Until a few months ago — sir. I was surgeon to the Court of Seitz-Bunau. But now I am —”

“Now you are surgeon in H.M.S. Atropos, and we can leave off the farce of your being Secretary of State.”

“Sir —”

“Silence, if you please, doctor. Mr. Horrocks!”

“Sir!”

“My compliments to Mr. Still. I'll have these two gentlemen's baggage swayed up. They are to make immediate selection of their necessities to the extent of one sea chest each. You will be able to help them in their choice. The remainder is to leave the ship within ten minutes by the boat in which it came. Is that quite clear, Mr. Horrocks?”

“Aye aye, sir. If you please, sir, there's a couple of footmen with the baggage.”

“Footmen?”

“Yes, sir, in uniforms like these,” Horrocks indicated the green and gold of the Germans.

“That's two more hands, then. Read 'em in and send 'em for'rard.”

The Navy could always use more men, and a couple of fat, well-fed footmen would make useful hands in time to come.

“But sir —” said Eisenbeiss.

“Speak when you're spoken to, doctor. Now Mr. Horrocks, you will take the prince and settle him into the midshipmen's berth. I'll introduce you. Mr. Midshipman Horrocks — er, Mr. Midshipman Prince.”

Horrocks automatically offered his hand, and the prince as automatically took it, displaying no immediate change at the contamination of a human touch. He smiled shyly, without understanding.

“And my compliments to the master's mate, too, Mr. Horrocks. Ask him to be good enough to show the doctor where he berths for'rard.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Now, doctor, in half an hour I wish to see you both in the King's uniform. You can take up your duties then. There will be a court of inquiry opened at that time, consisting of the first lieutenant, the purser, and yourself, to decide whether certain hogsheads of beef are fit for human consumption. You will be secretary of that court and I want your written report by noon. Go with Mr. Horrocks now.”

Eisenbeiss hesitated a moment under Hornblower's sharp glance before he turned to leave the cabin, but at the curtain his indignation overcame him again.

“I shall write to the Prime Minister, sir,” he said. “He shall hear about this treatment of His Majesty's Allies.”

“Yes, doctor. If you contravene the Mutiny Act you'll swing at the yardarm. Now, Mr. Jones, with regard to these station and quarter bills.”

As Hornblower turned to Jones to re-enter into the business of getting Atropos ready for sea he was conscious of feeling some contempt for himself. He could browbeat a silly German doctor effectively enough; he could flatter himself that he had dealt adequately with what might have been a difficult though petty situation. But that was nothing to be proud of, when he had to realize that with regard to his real duties he had been found wanting. He had wasted precious hours. During the last two days he had twice played with his little son; he had sat by his wife's bedside and held his little daughter in his arms, when really he should have been on board here looking after his ship. It was no excuse that it was Jones's duty to have attended to the matters under consideration; it had been Hornblower's duty to see that Jones had attended to them. A naval officer should not have a wife or children — this present situation was the proof of that trite saying. Hornblower found himself setting his mouth hard as he came to that conclusion. There were still eight hours of daylight left today. He began an orderly planning of those eight hours. There were the matters that would call for his own personal activity like appealing to the superintendent of the dockyard; there were the matters he could safely leave to his subordinates. There was work that could be done on one side of the ship, leaving the other side clear; there was work that would demand the services of skilled seamen, and work that landsmen could do. There were some jobs that could not be started until other jobs were finished. If he was not careful some of his officers would have to be in two places at once, there would be confusion, delay, ridiculous disorder. But with good planning it could be done.

Purser and gunner, boatswain and cooper, each in turn was summoned to the after cabin. To each was allotted his tasks; to each was grudgingly conceded a proportion of the men that each demanded. Soon the pipes were shrilling through the ship.

“Launch's crew away!”

Soon the launch was pulling across the river, full of the empty barrels the cooper and his mates had made ready, to begin ferrying over the twenty tons of water necessary to complete the ship's requirements. A dozen men went scurrying up the shrouds and out along the yards under the urging of the boatswain; yardarm tackles and stay tackles had to be readied for the day's work.

“Mr. Jones! I am leaving the ship now. Have that report on the beef ready for me by the time I return from the dockyard.”

Hornblower became aware of two figures on the quarterdeck trying to attract his attention. They were the prince and the doctor. He ran his eye over their uniforms, the white collar patches of the midshipman and the plain coat of the surgeon.

“They'll do,” he said, “your duties are awaiting you, doctor. Mr. Horrocks! Keep Mr. Prince under your lee for today. Call away my gig.”

The captain superintendent of the dockyard listened to Hornblower's request with the indifference acquired during years of listening to requests from urgent officers.

“I've the men ready to send for the shot, sir. Port side's clear for the powder hulk to come alongside — slack water in half an hour, sir. I can send men to man her too if necessary. It's only four tons that I need. Half an hour with the hulk.”

“You say you're ready now?”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain superintendent looked across at the Atropos lying in the stream.

“Very well. I hope what you say is quite correct, captain, for your sake. You can start warping the hulk alongside — I warn you I want her back at her moorings in an hour.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Back in the Atropos the cry went round the ship.

“Hands to the capstan! Waisters! Sailmakers! Loblolly boys ! ”

The inmost recesses of the ship were cleared of men to man the capstan bars — any pairs of arms, any stout backs, would serve for that purpose. A drum went roaring along the deck.

“All lights out! ”

The cook and his mates dumped the galley fire overside and went reluctantly to man the yardarm and stay tackles. The powder hulk came creeping alongside. She had stout sheers and wide hatchways, efficient equipment for the rapid transfer of explosives. Four tons of powder, eighty kegs of one hundredweight each, came climbing out of the hulk's holds to be swayed down the hatchways of the Atropos, while down below the gunner and his mates and a sweating working party toiled in near darkness — barefooted to avoid all chance of friction or sparks — to range the kegs about the magazines. Some day Atropos might be fighting for her life, and her life would depend on the proper arrangement of those kegs down below so that the demands of the guns on deck might be met.

The members of the court of inquiry, fresh from their investigation of the defective beef barrels, made their appearance on deck again.

“Mr. Jones, show the doctor how to make his report in due form.” Then to the purser, “Mr. Carslake, I want to be able to sign your indents as soon as that report is ready.”

One final look round the deck, and Hornblower could dive below, take pen and ink and paper, and devote himself single-mindedly to composing a suitable covering letter to the Victualling Yard (worded with the right urgency and tactfully coaxing the authorities there into agreement without annoying them by too certain assumption of acquiescence) beginning: “Sir, I have the honour to enclose —” and concluding: “— in the best interests of His Majesty's service, Your Obedient Servant —”

Then he could come on deck again to see how the work was progressing and fume for a space before Jones and Carslake appeared with the documents they had been preparing. Amid the confusion and din he had to clear his head again to read them with care before signing them with a bold “H. Hornblower, Captain”.

“Mr. Carslake, you can take my gig over to the Victualling Yard. Mr. Jones, I expect the Yard will need hands to man their lighter. See to that, if you please.”

A moment to spare now to observe the hands at work, to settle his cocked hat square on his head, to clasp his hands behind him, to walk slowly forward, doing his best to look quite cool and imperturbable, as if all this wild activity were the most natural thing in the world.

“Avast heaving there on that stay-tackle. Belay!”

The powder keg hung suspended just over the deck. Hornblower forced himself to speak coldly, without excitement. A stave of the keg had started a trifle. There was a minute trail of powder grains on the deck; more were dribbling very slowly out.

“Sway that keg back into the hulk. You, bos'n's mate, get a wet mop and swill that powder off the deck.”

An accident could have fired that powder easily. The flash would pass in either direction; four tons of powder in Atropos, forty, perhaps in the hulk — what would have happened to the massed shipping in the Pool in that event? The men were eyeing him; this would be a suitable moment to encourage them with their work.

“Greenwich Hospital is over there, men,” said Hornblower, pointing down river to the graceful outlines of Wren's building. “Some of us will wind up there in the end, I expect, but we don't want to be blown straight there today.”

A feeble enough joke, perhaps, but it raised a grin or two all the same.

“Carry on.”

Hornblower continued his stroll forward, the imperturbable captain who was nevertheless human enough to crack a joke. It was the same sort of acting that he used towards Maria when she seemed likely to be in a difficult mood.