“The weather hasn’t moderated?”

“Still blowin’ a full gale, sir. West-sou’west. We’re hove-to under maintopmast stays’l and maintops’l with three reefs. Out o’ sight o’ land, an’ no sail visible neither, sir.”

This was an aspect of war to which he should have grown used; endless delay with peril just over the horizon. He felt marvellously fortified by his four hours’ sleep; his depression and his yearning for the end of the war had disappeared, not eradicated but overlain by the regained fatalism of the veteran. He stretched luxuriously in his heaving cot. His stomach was decidedly squeamish still, but, rested and recumbent as he was, it was not in active rebellion, whatever it might promise should he become active. And there was no need to be active! There was nothing for him to do if he should rise and dress. He had no watch to keep; by law he was merely a passenger; and until this gale blew itself out, or until some unforeseen danger should develop, there was nothing about which he need trouble his head. He had still plenty of sleep to make up; probably there were anxious and sleepless nights ahead of him when he should come to tackle the duty to which he had been assigned. He might just as well make the most of his present languor.

“Very good, Brown,” he said, imparting to his voice the flat indifference after which he always strove. “Call me when the weather moderates.”

“Breakfast, sir?” The surprise in Brown’s voice was apparent and most pleasurable to Hornblower; this was the one reaction on his restless captain’s part which Brown had not anticipated. “A bite o’ cold beef an’ a glass o’ wine, sir?”

“No,” said Hornblower. His stomach would not keep them down, he feared, in any case.