“Can’t say that she does, sir,” he decided. “Mebbe she does, a trifle. No, sir, I can’t say that she gripes. Just a touch of weather helm’s all she needs now, sir.”

“That’s as it should be,” said Hornblower. Bush and Prowse had not spoken a word, and there was no need even for a glance to underline the situation, but a word to Cargill would not be out of place. “You can go off watch feeling better pleased with yourself now, Mr. Cargill.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” said Cargill.

Cargill’s round red face split into a grin. Hotspur rose to a wave, lay over, and Hornblower, taken by surprise, staggered down the deck on to Cargill’s broad chest. Luckily Gargill was a heavyweight and fast of footing; he took the shock without staggering—otherwise he and his captain might have gone reeling across the deck into the scuppers. Hornblower felt a burst of shame. He had no more sea-legs than the merest landlubber; his envy of Cargill and Bush and Prowse, standing firm and swaying easily with the send of the ship, amounted to positive dislike. And his stomach was about to betray him again. His dignity was in peril, and he summoned up all that was left of it, turning to Bush stiff-legged and stiff-necked.

“See that I am called when any alteration of course is necessary, if you please, Mr. Bush,” he said.

“Aye aye, sir.”

The deck was heaving, but he knew it was not heaving as much as his distorted mind told him it was. He forced himself somehow to walk aft to his cabin; twice he had to stop and brace himself, and when Hotspur rose to a wave he was nearly made to run—certainly he had to walk faster than a captain should—past the sentry, and he fetched up against the door with some little violence. It was no comfort—in fact it added to his distress—to see that the sentry had a bucket on the deck beside him. He wrenched open the door, hung suspended for a moment as Hotspur completed her pitch, with her stern in the air, and then crashed down groaning on to his cot, his feet dragging on the deck as the cot swung.