“I said ‘Yes, sir’,” he piped.

“And what ought you to have said?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Right. Very good.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

That boy had a certain amount of quickness of wit, and did not allow fright to bereave him entirely of his senses. If he learned quickly how to handle the men he would make a useful warrant officer. Hornblower put away his papers and locked his desk; he took a few more turns up and down his cabin, and then, a sufficient interval having elapsed to conserve his dignity, he went up to the quarterdeck.

“Make sail when you’re ready, Mr. Bush,” he said.

“Aye aye, sir. Easy with those falls there, you—you—”

Even Bush had reached the condition when there was no more savour in oaths. The ship was in a horrible state of muddle, the decks were filthy, the crew exhausted. Hornblower stood with his hands behind him in a careful attitude of Olympian detachment as the order was given for all hands to make sail, and the petty officers drove the crew, stupid with weariness, to their stations. Savage, the senior midshipman, whom Hornblower had seen grow from boyhood to manhood under his eye, came shouting for the afterguard to man the main topsail halliards. Savage was wan and his eyes were bloodshot; a night of debauchery in some foul haunt in Plymouth had not left him in the best of conditions. As he shouted he put his hand to his temple, where clearly the din he was making was causing him agony. Hornblower smiled to himself at the sight—the next few days would sweat him clean again.

“Captain of the afterguard!” yelled Savage, his voice cracking. “I don’t see the afterguard coming aft! Quicker than that, you men! Clap on to the main topsail halliards, there! I say, you master-at-arms. Send the idlers aft. D’ye hear, there!”

A boatswain’s mate headed a rush to the mizzen rigging at Hornblower’s elbow. Hornblower saw young Longley standing hesitating for a second, looking up at the men preceding him, and then, with a grimace of determination, the boy leaped for the ratlines and scrambled up after them. Hornblower appreciated the influences at work upon him—his fear of the towering height above him, and then his stoical decision that he could follow wherever the other men could venture. Something might be made of that boy.

Bush was looking at his watch and fuming to the master.

“Nine minutes already! God, look at them! The marines are more like sailors!”

The marines were farther aft, at the mizzen topsail halliards. Their booted feet went clump-clump-clump on the deck. They did their work like soldiers, with soldierly rigidity, as if at drill. Sailors always laughed at that, but there was no denying that at the present moment it was the marines who were the more efficient.

The hands scurried from halliards to braces. A roar from Harrison forward told that the mooring was slipped, and Hornblower, casting a final glance up at the windvane, saw that the wind had backed so far easterly that rounding Devil’s Point was not going to be simple. With the yards braced round the Sutherland turned on her keel and slowly gathered way. Women’s screeches and a fluttering of handkerchiefs from the shore boats told how some of the wives whom Hornblower had turned out twenty-four hours ago had put off to say good-bye. Close overside he saw a woman in the stern-sheets of a boat blubbering unashamed, her mouth wide open and the tears running like rivers. It was no more than an even chance that she would never see her man again.

“Keep your eyes inboard, there!” yelled Harrison, who had detected some member of the crew waving farewell. Every man’s attention must be kept strictly to the business in hand now.

Hornblower felt the ship heel as Bush directed her course as near to the wind as she would lie; with Devil’s Point ahead, and an unfamiliar ship to handle, it was clearly as well to get as far to windward as possible. That heeling of the ship awakened a storm of memories. It was not until one was in a ship under sail, with the deck unstable under one’s feet, and the familiar rattle of the blocks and piping of the rigging in one’s ear, that the thousand and one details of life at sea became vivid and recognisable again. Hornblower found himself swallowing hard with excitement.

They were shaving the Dockyard Point as closely as possible. Most of the dockyard hands left their work to stare at them, stolidly, but not a soul among them raised a cheer. In seventeen years of warfare they had seen too many King’s ships putting out to sea to be excited about this one. Hornblower knew that he ought to have a band on board, to strike up ‘Britons, Strike Home’ or ‘Come cheer up, my lads, ‘tis to glory we steer,’ but he had no band; he had not the money for one, and he was not going to call on the marine fifer or the ship’s fiddler to make a tinny little noise at this moment. Stonehouse Pool was opening up before them now, and beyond it lay the roofs of Plymouth. Maria was there somewhere; perhaps she could see the white topsails, closehauled to the wind. Perhaps Lady Barbara was there, looking out at the Sutherland. Hornblower gulped again.

A little flaw of wind, blowing down Stonehouse Pool, took the ship nearly aback. She staggered until the helmsman allowed her to pay off. Hornblower looked round to starboard. They were coming dangerously close in to Cremyll—he had been correct in his surmise that the Sutherland would make plenty of leeway. He watched the wind, and the set of the tide off the point. He looked ahead at Devil’s Point on the starboard bow. It might be necessary at any moment to put the ship about and beat up to the northward again before breasting the tide once more. At the very moment when he saw that they would weather the point he saw Bush raise his head to bark the orders to go about.

“Keep her steady as she goes, Mr. Bush,” he said; the quiet order was an announcement that he had taken charge, and Bush closed the mouth which had opened to give the order.

They cleared the buoy a bare fifty yards from any danger, with the water creaming under the lee now as she lay over to the fresh breeze. Hornblower had not interfered to demonstrate the superiority of his seamanship and judgment, but merely because he could not stand by and watch something being done a little less artistically than was possible. In the cold-blooded calculation of chances he was superior to his lieutenant, as his ability at whist proved. Hornblower stood sublimely unconscious of his motives; in fact he hardly realised what he had done—he never gave a thought to his good seamanship.

They were heading straight for the Devil’s Point now; Hornblower kept his eye on it as they opened up the Sound.

“You can put the helm aport now,” he said. “And set the t’gallant sails, Mr. Bush.”

With the wind abeam they headed into the Sound, the rugged Staddon Heights to port and Mount Edgcumbe to starboard. At every yard they advanced towards the open sea the wind blew fresher, calling a keener note from the rigging. The Sutherland was feeling the sea a little now, heaving perceptibly to the waves under her bows. With the motion, the creaking of the wooden hull became audible—noticeable on deck, loud below until the ear grew indifferent to the noise.

“God blast these bloody farmers!” groaned Bush, watching the way in which the top gallant sails were being set.

Drake’s Island passed away to windward; the Sutherland turned her stern to it as with the wind on her port quarter she headed down the Sound. Before the top gallant sails were set they were abreast of Picklecomb Point and opening up Cawsand Bay. There was the convoy—six East Indiamen with their painted ports like men of war, all flying the gridiron flag of the Honourable Company and one sporting a broad pendant for all the world like a king’s commodore; the two naval storeships and the four transports destined for Lisbon. The three-decker Pluto and the Caligula were rolling to their anchors to seaward of them.