That was the height of magnanimity on Osborns part, although he was safe in assuming that there would be few men in his fleet foolish enough to exchange the comparative comfort of the East India Companys service for the rigours of life in the Royal Navy.
Your seamanship in that affair with the privateers, sir, was so admirable that I find it hard to refuse you anything, said Osborn, pacifically.
The Sutherlands boats were alongside the last of the convoy now.
That is very good of you, sir, said Hornblower, bowing. Allow me, then, to escort you into your gig. I will recall my boats. Since they will have taken volunteers first, we can rely upon it that they will have all the willing ones on board, and I shall return the unwilling ones. Thank you, Captain Osborn. Thank you.
He saw Captain Osborn over the side and walked back to the quarterdeck. Rayner was eyeing him with amazement on account of his sudden volte-face, which gave him pleasure, for Rayner would be still more amazed soon. The cutter and launch, both of them as full of men as they could be, were running down now to rejoin, passing Osborns gig as it was making its slow course to windward. Through his glass Hornblower could see Osborn wave his arm as he sat in his gig; presumably he was shouting something to the boats as they went by. Bush and Gerard very properly paid him no attention. In two minutes they were alongside, and the men came pouring on deck, a hundred and twenty men laden with their small possessions, escorted by thirty of the Sutherlands hands. They were made welcome by the rest of the crew all with broad grins. It was a peculiarity of the British pressed sailor that he was always glad to see other men pressedin the same way, thought Hornblower, as the fox who lost his brush wanted all the other foxes to lose theirs.
Bush and Gerard had certainly secured a fine body of men; Hornblower looked them over as they stood in apathy, or bewilderment, or sullen rage, upon the Sutherlands main deck. At no warning they had been snatched from the comfort of an Indiaman, with regular pay, ample food, and easy discipline, into the hardships of the Kings service, where the pay was problematic, the food bad, and where their backs were liable to be flogged to the bones at a simple order from their new captain. Even a sailor before the mast could look forward with pleasure to his visit to India, with all its possibilities; but these men were destined instead now to two years of monotony only varied by danger, where disease and the cannon balls of the enemy lay in wait for them.
Ill have those boats hoisted in, Mr. Rayner, said Hornblower.
Rayners eyelids flickered for a secondhe had heard Hornblowers promise to Captain Osborn, and he knew that more than a hundred of the new arrivals would refuse to volunteer. The boats would only have to be hoisted out again to take them back. But if Hornblowers wooden expression indicated anything at all, it was that he meant what he said.
Aye aye, sir, said Rayner.
Bush was approaching now, paper in hand, having agreed his figures regarding the recruits with Gerard.
A hundred and twenty, total, sir, as you ordered, said Bush. One coopers matehe was a volunteer, one hundred and nine able seamentwo of em volunteered; six quarter gunners; four landsmen, all volunteers.
Excellent, Mr. Bush, Read em in. Mr. Rayner, square away as soon as those boats are inboard. Mr. Vincent! Signal to the convoy. All-men-have-volunteered. Thank you. Good-bye. Youll have to spell out volunteered but its worth it.
Hornblowers high spirits had lured him into saying an unecessary sentence. But when he took himself to task for it he could readily excuse himself. He had a hundred and twenty new hands, nearly all of them able seamenthe Sutherland had nearly her full complement now. More than that, he had guarded himself against the wrath to come. When the inevitable chiding letter arrived from the Admiralty he would be able to write back and say that he had taken the men with the East India Companys Commodores permission; with any good fortune he could keep the ball rolling for another six months. That would give him a year altogether in which to convince the new hands that they had volunteeredby that time some of them at least might be sufficiently enamoured of their new life to swear to that; enough of them to befog the issue, and to afford to an Admiralty, prepared of necessity to look with indulgence on breaches of the pressing regulations, a loophole of excuse not to prosecute him too hard.
Lord Mornington replying, sir, said Vincent. Do not understand the signal. Await boat!
Signal Good-bye again, said Hornblower.
Down on the maindeck Bush had hardly finished reading through the Articles of War to the new handsthe necessary formality to make them servants of the King, submissive to the hangman and the cat.
Chapter IX
Sutherlandapparently the first of the squadron, for there was no sign as yet of the flagship or of the Caligula. As she beat slowly up under easy sail against the gentle south-easterly wind Gerard was taking advantage of this period of idleness to exercise the crew at the guns. Bush had too long had his way in drilling the crew aloft; it was time for practice with the big guns, as Hornblower had agreed. Under the scorching sun of a Mediterranean midsummer the men, naked to the waist, had sweated rivers running the guns out and in again, training round with handspikes, each man of the crew learning the knack of the flexible rammerall the mechanical drill which every man at the guns had to learn until he could be trusted to run up, fire, clean, and reload, and to go on doing so for hour after hour, in thick powder smoke and with death all round him. Drill first, marksmanship a long way second, but all the same it was policy to allow the men to fire off the guns a few timesthey found compensation in that for the arduous toil at the guns.