HH01-Mr Midshipman Hornblower

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Mr Midshipman Hornblower

C. S. Forester

(1950)

v1.1

CHAPTER ONE — THE EVEN CHANCE................. 2

CHAPTER TWO — THE CARGO OF RICE............ 55

CHAPTER THREE — THE PENALTY OF FAILURE.. 99

CHAPTER FOUR — THE MAN WHO FELT QUEER131

CHAPTER FIVE — THE MAN WHO SAW GOD ....161

CHAPTER SIX — THE FROGS AND THE LOBSTERS

.................................................................193

CHAPTER SEVEN — THE SPANISH GALLEYS ....250

CHAPTER EIGHT — THE EXAMINATION FOR

LIEUTENANT ...............................................289

CHAPTER NINE — NOAH'S ARK......................321

CHAPTER TEN — THE DUCHESS AND THE DEVIL

.................................................................355

CHAPTER ONE — THE EVEN CHANCE

A January gale was roaring up the Channel,

blustering loudly, and bearing in its bosom rain

squalls whose big drops rattled loudly on the

tarpaulin clothing of those among the officers and

men whose duties kept them on deck. So hard and

so long had the gale blown that even in the

sheltered waters of Spithead the battleship moved

uneasily at her anchors, pitching a little in the

choppy seas, and snubbing herself against the

tautened cables with unexpected jerks. A shore boat

was on its way out to her, propelled by oars in the

hands of two sturdy women; it danced madly on the

steep little waves, now and then putting its nose

into one and sending a sheet of spray flying aft. The

oarswoman in the bow knew her business, and with

rapid glances over her shoulder not only kept the

boat on its course but turned the bows into the

worst of the waves to keep from capsizing. It slowly

drew up along the starboard side of the Justinian,

and as it approached the mainchains the

midshipman of the watch hailed it.

"Aye aye" came back the answering hail from the

lusty lungs of the woman at the stroke oar; by the

curious and ages-old convention of the Navy the

reply meant that the boat had an officer on board —

presumably the huddled figure in the sternsheets

looking more like a heap of trash with a boat-cloak

thrown over it.

That was as much as Mr Masters, the lieutenant

of the watch, could see; he was sheltering as best

he could in the lee of the mizzen-mast bitts, and in

obedience to the order of the midshipman of the

watch the boat drew up towards the mainchains and

passed out of his sight. There was a long delay;

apparently the officer had some difficulty in getting

up the ship's side. At last the boat reappeared in

Masters' held of vision; the women had shoved off

and were setting a scrap of lugsail, under which the

boat, now without its passenger, went swooping

back towards Portsmouth, leaping on the waves like

a steeplechaser. As it departed Mr Masters became

aware of the near approach of someone along the

quarterdeck; it was the new arrival under the escort

of the midshipman of the watch, who, after pointing

Masters out, retired to the mainchains again. Mr

Masters had served in the Navy until his hair was

white; he was lucky to have received his

commission as lieutenant, and he had long known

that he would never receive one as captain, but the

knowledge had not greatly embittered him, and he

diverted his mind by the study of his fellow men.

So he looked with attention at the approaching

figure. It was that of a skinny young man only just

leaving boyhood behind, something above middle

height, with feet whose adolescent proportions to

his size were accentuated by the thinness of his legs

and his big half-boots. His gawkiness called

attention to his hands and elbows. The newcomer

was dressed in a badly fitting uniform which was

soaked right through by the spray; a skinny neck

stuck out of the high stock, and above the neck was

a white bony face. A white face was a rarity on the

deck of a ship of war, whose crew soon tanned to a

deep mahogany, but this face was not merely white;

in the hollow cheeks there was a faint shade of

green — clearly the newcomer had experienced

seasickness in his passage out in the shore boat.

Set in the white face were a pair of dark eyes which

by contrast looked like holes cut in a sheet of paper;

Masters noted with a slight stirring of interest that

the eyes, despite their owner's seasickness, were

looking about keenly, taking in what were obviously

new sights; there was a curiosity and interest there

which could not be repressed and which continued

to function notwithstanding either seasickness or

shyness, and Mr Masters surmised in his far-fetched

fashion that this boy had a vein of caution or

foresight in his temperament and was already

studying his new surroundings with a view to being

prepared for his next experiences. So might Daniel

have looked about him at the lions when he first

entered their den.

The dark eyes met Masters', and the gawky

figure came to a halt, raising a hand selfconsciously

to the brim of his dripping hat. His mouth opened

and tried to say something, but closed again without

achieving its object as shyness overcame him, but

then the newcomer nerved himself afresh and

forced himself to say the formal words he had been

coached to utter.

"Come aboard, sir."

"Your name?" asked Masters, after waiting for it

for a moment.

"H-Horatio Hornblower, sir. Midshipman,"

stuttered the boy.

"Very good, Mr Hornblower," said Masters, with

the equally formal response. "Did you bring your

dunnage aboard with you?"

Hornblower had never heard that word before,

but he still had enough of his wits about him to

deduce what it meant.

"My sea chest, sir. It's — it's forrard, at the entry

port."

Hornblower said these things with the barest

hesitation; he knew that at sea they said them, that

they pronounced the word 'forward' like that, and

that he had come on board through the 'entry port',

but it called for a slight effort to utter them himself.

"I'll see that it's sent below," said Masters. "And

that's where you'd better go, too. The captain's

ashore, and the first lieutenant's orders were that

he's not to be called on any account before eight

bells, so I advise you, Mr Hornblower, to get out of

those wet clothes while you can."

"Yes, sir," said Hornblower; his senses told him,

the moment he said it, that he had used an

improper expression — the look on Masters' face

told him, and he corrected himself (hardly believing

that men really said these things off the boards of

the stage) before Masters had time to correct him.

"Aye aye, sir," said Hornblower, and as a second

afterthought he put his hand to the brim of his hat

again.

Masters returned the compliment and turned to

one of the shivering messengers cowering in the

inadequate shelter of the bulwark. "Boy! Take Mr

Hornblower down to the midshipmen's berth."

"Aye aye, sir."

Hornblower accompanied the boy forward to the

main hatchway. Seasickness alone would have

made him unsteady on his feet, but twice on the

short journey he stumbled like a man tripping over

a rope as a sharp gust brought the Justinian up

against her cables with a jerk. At the hatchway the

boy slid down the ladder like an eel over a rock;

Hornblower had to brace himself and descend far

more gingerly and uncertainly into the dim light of

the lower gundeck and then into the twilight of the

'tweendecks. The smells that entered his nostrils

were as strange and as assorted as the noises that

assailed his ears. At the foot of each ladder the boy

waited for him with a patience whose tolerance was

just obvious. After the last descent, a few steps —

Hornblower had already lost his sense of direction

and did not know whether it was aft or forward —

took them to a gloomy recess whose shadows were

accentuated rather than lightened by a tallow dip

spiked onto a bit of copper plate on a table round

which were seated half a dozen shirt-sleeved men.

The boy vanished and left Hornblower standing

there, and it was a second or two before the

whiskered man at the head of the table looked up at

him.

"Speak, thou apparition," said he.

Hornblower felt a wave of nausea overcoming

him — the after effects of his trip in the shore boat

were being accentuated by the incredible stuffiness

and smelliness of the 'tweendecks. It was very hard

to speak, and the fact that he did not know how to

phrase what he wanted to say made it harder still.

"My name is Hornblower," he quavered at length.

"What an infernal piece of bad luck for you," said

a second man at the table, with a complete absence

of sympathy.

At that moment in the roaring world outside the

ship the wind veered sharply, heeling the Justinian a

trifle and swinging her round to snub at her cables

again. To Hornblower it seemed more as if the world

had come loose from its fastenings. He reeled where

he stood, and although he was shuddering with cold

he felt sweat on his face.

"I suppose you have come," said the whiskered

man at the head of the table, "to thrust yourself

among your betters. Another soft-headed ignoramus

come to be a nuisance to those who have to try to

teach you your duties. Look at him" — the speaker

with a gesture demanded the attention of everyone

at the table — "look at him, I say! The King's latest

bad bargain. How old are you?"

"S-seventeen, sir," stuttered Hornblower.

"Seventeen!" the disgust in the speaker's voice

was only too evident. "You must start at twelve if

you ever wish to be a seaman. Seventeen! Do you

know the difference between a head and a halliard?"

That drew a laugh from the group, and the

quality of the laugh was just noticeable to

Hornblower's whirling brain, so that he guessed that

whether he said 'yes' or 'no' he would be equally

exposed to ridicule. He groped for a neutral reply.

"That's the first thing I'll look up in Norie's

Seamanship," he said.

The ship lurched again at that moment, and he

clung on to the table.

"Gentlemen," he began pathetically, wondering

how to say what he had in mind.

"My God!" exclaimed somebody at the table.

"He's seasick!"

"Seasick in Spithead!" said somebody else, in a

tone in which amazement had as much place as

disgust.

But Hornblower ceased to care; he was not really

conscious of what was going on round him for some

time after that. The nervous excitement of the last

few days was as much to blame, perhaps, as the

journey in the shore boat and the erratic behaviour

of the Justinian at her anchors, but it meant for him

that he was labelled at once as the midshipman who

was seasick in Spithead, and it was only natural that

the label added to the natural misery of the

loneliness and homesickness which oppressed him

during those days when that part of the Channel

Fleet which had not succeeded in completing its

crews lay at anchor in the lee of the Isle of Wight.

An hour in the hammock into which the messman

hoisted him enabled him to recover sufficiently to be

able to report himself to the first lieutenant; after a

few days on board he was able to find his way round

the ship without (as happened at first) losing his

sense of direction below decks, so that he did not

know whether he was facing forward or aft. During

that period his brother officers ceased to have faces

which were mere blurs and came to take on

personalities; he came painfully to learn the stations

allotted him when the ship was at quarters, when he

was on watch, and when hands were summoned for

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摘要：

MrMidshipmanHornblowerC.S.Forester(1950)v1.1CHAPTERONE—THEEVENCHANCE.................2CHAPTERTWO—THECARGOOFRICE............55CHAPTERTHREE—THEPENALTYOFFAILURE..99CHAPTERFOUR—THEMANWHOFELTQUEER131CHAPTERFIVE—THEMANWHOSAWGOD....161CHAPTERSIX—THEFROGSANDTHELOBSTERS..........................................

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HH01-Mr Midshipman Hornblower

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