The pipes twittered through the ship.
“All hands! All hands!” roared the bosun’s mates. “All hands fall in abaft the mainmast! All hands!”
Buckland went nervously up on deck, but he acquitted himself well enough at the moment of trial. In a harsh, expressionless voice he told the assembled hands that the accident to the captain, which they all must have heard about, had rendered him incapable at present of continuing in command.
“But we’ll all go on doing our duty,” said Buckland, staring down at the level plain of upturned faces.
Bush, looking with him, picked out the grey head and paunchy figure of Hobbs, the actinggunner, the captain’s toady and informer. Things would be different for Mr. Hobbs in future—at least as long as the captain’s disability endured. That was the point: as long as the captain’s disability endured. Bush looked down at Hobbs and wondered how much he knew, how much he guessed—how much he would swear to at a courtmartial. He tried to read the future in the fat old man’s face, but his clairvoyance failed him. He could guess nothing.
When the hands were dismissed there was a moment of bustle and confusion, as the watches resumed their duties and the idlers streamed off below. It was there, in the noise and confusion of a crowd, that momentary privacy and freedom from observation could best be found. Bush intercepted Hornblower by the mizzenmast bitts and could ask the question that he had been wanting to ask for hours; the question on which so much depended.
“How did it happen?” asked Bush.
The bosun’s mates were bellowing orders; the hands were scurrying hither and thither; all round the two of them was orderly confusion, a mass of people intent on their own business, while they stood face to face, isolated, with the beneficent sunshine streaming down on them, lighting up the set face which Hornblower turned towards his questioner.
“How did what happen, Mr. Bush?” said Hornblower.
“How did the captain fall down the hatchway?”