'I will, later on, Hunter,' said Hornblower, trying not to allow his tone to reveal the fact that such a thing had never occurred to him.
He knew it was sensible advice, and he actually tried to follow it, retiring below to fling himself down on the captain's cot; but of course he could not sleep. When he heard the lookout bawling down the companionway to rouse the other two hands to relieve the watch (they were asleep in the next cabin to him) he could not prevent himself from getting up again and coming on deck to see that all was well. With Matthews in charge he felt he should not be anxious, and he drove himself below again, but he had hardly fallen onto the cot again when a new thought brought him to his feet again, his skin cold with anxiety, and a prodigious self-contempt vying with anxiety for first glance in his emotions. He rushed on deck and walked forward to where Matthews was squatting by the knightheads.
'Nothing has been done to see if the brig is taking in any water,' he said — he had hurriedly worked out the wording of that sentence during his walk forward, so as to cast no aspersion on Matthews and yet at the same time, for the sake of discipline, attributing no blame to himself.
'That's so, sir,' said Matthews.
'One of those shots fired by the Indefatigable hulled her,' went on Hornblower. 'What damage did it do?'
'I don't rightly know, sir,' said Matthews. 'I was in the cutter at the time.'
'We must look as soon as it's light,' said Hornblower.' And we'd better sound the well now.'
Those were brave words; during his rapid course in seamanship aboard the Indefatigable Hornblower had had a little instruction everywhere, working under the orders of every head of department in rotation. Once he had been with the carpenter when he sounded the well — whether he could find the well in this ship and sound it he did not know.
'Aye aye, sir,' said Matthews, without hesitation, and strolled aft to the pump. 'You'll need a light, sir. I'll get one.'
When he came back with the lantern he shone it on the coiled sounding line hanging beside the pump, so that Hornblower recognized it at once. He lifted it down, inserted the three-foot weighted rod into the aperture of the well, and then remembered in time to take it out again and make sure it was dry. Then he let it drop, paying out the line until he felt the rod strike the ship's bottom with a satisfactory thud. He hauled out the line again, and Matthews held the lantern as Hornblower with some trepidation brought out the timber to examine it.