'Muggridge?'
'Is that his name?'
'He's a good surgeon's mate. Get him to compound a black draught for you and you'll see. In fact, I'd prescribe one for you — you seem in a mighty bad temper, young man.'
Mr Low finished his glass of rum and pounded on the table for the steward. Hornblower realized that he was lucky to have found Low sober enough to give him even this much information, and turned away to go aloft so as to brood over the question in the solitude of the mizzen-top. This was his new station in action; when the men were not at their quarters a man might find a little blessed solitude there — something hard to kind in the crowded Indefatigable. Bundled up in his peajacket, Hornblower sat in the mizzen-top; over his head the mizzen-topmast drew erratic circles against the grey sky; beside him the topmast shrouds sang their high-pitched note in the blustering gale, and below him the life of the ship went on as she rolled and pitched, standing to the northward under close reefed topsails. At eight bells she would wear to the southward again on her incessant patrol. Until that time Hornblower was free to meditate on the boils on Styles' face and the covert grins on the faces of the other men of the division.
Two hands appeared on the stout wooden barricade surrounding the top, and as Hornblower looked up with annoyance at having his meditations interrupted a head appeared above them. It was Finch, another man in Hornblower's division, who also had his station in action here in the mizzen-top. He was a frail little man with wispy hair and pale blue eyes and a foolish smile, which lit up his face when, after betraying some disappointment at finding the mizzen-top already occupied, he recognized Hornblower.
'Beg pardon, sir,' he said. 'I didn't know as how you was up here.'
Finch was hanging on uncomfortably, back downwards, in the act of transferring himself from the futtock shrouds to the top, and each roll threatened to shake him loose.
'Oh come here if you want to,' said Hornblower, cursing himself for his soft heartedness. A taut officer, he felt, would have told Finch to go back whence he came and not bother him.
'Thank 'ee, sir. Thank 'ee,' said Finch, bringing his leg over the barricade and allowing the ship's roll to drop him into the top.
He crouched down to peer under the foot of the mizzen-topsail forward to the mainmast head, and then turned back to smile disarmingly at Hornblower like a child caught in moderate mischief. Hornblower knew that Finch was a little weak in the head — the all embracing press swept up idiots and landsmen to help man the fleet — although he was a trained seaman who could hand, reef and steer. That smile betrayed him.