The Commodore

in the line, both to endure the worst of the enemy’s fire and to be in a position to run down to a cripple and start towing without delay. Anyone could have made those deductions—it was vaguely irritating that Bush should look like that.

“Make a general signal to heave to,” said Hornblower. “Captain Bush, stand by, if you please, to cast off the tow. I’ll have Harvey jury rigged before we round Falsterbo. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to send a party on board to help with the work.”

And with that he went off below. He had seen all he wanted both of Bush and of the world for the present. He was tired, drained of his energy. Later there would be time enough to sit at his desk and begin the weary business of—‘Sir, I have the honour to report—’ There would be dead and wounded to enumerate, too.

Chapter Seven

His Britannic Majesty’s seventy-four-gun ship Nonsuch was out of sight of land in the Baltic. She was under easy sail, running before that persistent westerly wind, and astern of her, like a couple of ugly ducklings following their portly mother, came the two bomb-ketches. Far out to starboard, only just in sight, was the Lotus, and far out to port was the Raven. Beyond the Raven, unseen from the Nonsuch, was the Clam; the four ships made a visual chain which could sweep the narrow neck of the Baltic, from Sweden to Rugen, from side to side. There was still no news; in spring, with the melting of the ice, the whole traffic of the Baltic was outwards, towards England and Europe, and with this westerly wind so long prevailing little was astir. The air was fresh and keen, despite the sunshine, and the sea was silver-grey under the dappled sky.

Hornblower gasped and shuddered as he took his bath under the wash-deck pump. For fifteen years he had served in tropical and Mediterranean waters; he had had lukewarm sea-water pumped over him far more often than he could remember, and this Baltic water, chilled by the melting ice in the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and the snow-water of the Vistula and the Oder, was still a shock to him. There was something stimulating about it, all the same, and he pranced grotesquely under the heavy jet, forgetful—as he always was while having his bath—of the proper dignity of a Commodore. Half a dozen seamen, working in leisurely fashion under the direction of the ship’s carpenter at replacing a shattered gun-port, stole wondering glances at him. The two seamen at the pump, and Brown standing by with towel and dressing-gown, preserved a proper solemnity of aspect, close under his eye as they were.

Suddenly the jet ceased; a skinny little midshipman was standing saluting his naked Commodore. Despite the gravity of addressing so great a man the child was round-eyed with wonder at this fantastic behaviour on the part of an officer whose doings were a household word.

“What is it?” said Hornblower, water streaming off him. He could not return the salute.

“Mr. Montgomery sent me, sir. Lotus signals ‘Sail to leeward’, sir.”

“Very good.”

Hornblower snatched the towel from Brown, but the message was too important for time to be wasted drying himself, and he ran up the companion still wet and naked, with Brown following with his dressing-gown. The officer of the watch touched his hat as Hornblower appeared on the quarter-deck—it was like some old fairy story, the way everybody rigidly ignored the Commodore’s lack of clothes.

“New signal from Lotus, sir. ‘Chase has tacked. Chase is on the port tack, bearing east-by-north, half east’.”

Hornblower leaped to the compass; only the topsails of the Lotus were in sight from the deck as he took the bearing by eye. Whatever that sail was, he must intercept it and gather news. He looked up to see Bush hastening on deck, buttoning his coat.

“Captain Bush, I’ll trouble you to alter course two points to starboard.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Lotus signalling again, sir. ‘Chase is a ship. Probably British merchantman’.”

“Very good. Set all sail, Captain Bush, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The pipes shrilled through the ship, and 400 men went pouring up the ratlines to loose the royals and set studding-sails. Hornblower raised a professional eye to watch the operation, carried out under a storm of objurgation from the officer of the watch. The still clumsy crew was driven at top speed by the warrant officers through the evolution, and it was hardly completed before there was a yell from the mast-head.

“Sail on the starboard bow!”

“Must be the ship Lotus can see, sir,” said Bush. “Mast-head there! What can you see of the sail?”

“She’s a ship, sir, close-hauled an’ coming up fast. We’re headin’ to meet her.”

“Hoist the colours, Mr. Hurst. If she was beating up for the Sound, sir, she would have tacked whether she saw Lotus or not.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

A shriek came from the mast-head, where one of the midshipmen of the watch, an urchin who had not yet mastered his changing voice, had run up with a glass.

“British colours, sir!”

Hornblower remembered he was still wet and naked; at least, he was still wet in those parts of him which did not offer free play for the wind to dry him. He began to dab at these inner corners with the towel he still held, only to be interrupted again.

“There she is!” said Bush; the ship’s upper sails were over the horizon, in view from the deck.

“Lay a course to pass her within hail, if you please,” said Hornblower.

“Aye aye, sir. Starboard a point, Quartermaster. Get those stuns’ls in again, Mr. Hurst.”

The ship they were approaching held her course steadily; there was nothing suspicious about her, not even the fact that she had gone about immediately on sighting Lotus.

“Timber from the South Baltic, I expect, sir,” said Bush, training his glass. “You can see the deck cargo now.”

Like most ships bound out of the Baltic her decks were piled high with timber, like barricades along the bulwarks.

“Make the merchant ships’ private signal if you please, Captain,” said Hornblower.

He watched the reply run up the ship’s halliards.

“A—T—numeral—five—seven, sir,” read Hurst through his glass. “That’s the correct reply for last winter, and she won’t have received the new code yet.”

“Signal her to heave to,” said Hornblower.

With no more delay than was to be expected of a merchant ship, inept at reading signals, and with a small crew, the ship backed her main-topsail and lay-to. The Nonsuch came hurtling down upon her.

“That’s the yellow Q she’s hoisting now, sir,” said Hurst, suddenly. “The fever flag.”

“Very good. Heave to, Captain Bush, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir. I’ll keep to wind’ard of her, too, if you’ve no objection, sir.”

The Nonsuch laid her topsails to the mast and rounded-to, rocking in the gentle trough of the waves a pistol-shot to windward. Hornblower took his speaking-trumpet.

“What ship’s that?”

“Maggie Jones of London. Eleven days out from Memel!”

In addition to the man at the wheel there were only two figures visible on the poop-deck of the Maggie Jones; one of them, wearing white duck trousers and a blue coat, was obviously the captain. It was he who was answering by speaking-trumpet.

“What’s that yellow flag for?”

“Smallpox. Seven cases on board, and two dead. First case a week ago.”