Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #7
Ship of the Line
C.S. Forester
Takes some time to figure out who did what on shipboard and who was responsible for getting a ship ready for sea and who paid for it all. The ship and its armaments were supplied by the Navy who assigned the officer who would captain her. The Navy supplied his pay and that of his sailors, the vitualling yard their food stores, dunnage, shot and gunpowder, fresh water.
But it was the captain who was responsible for hiring the crew, preventing them from deserting, and keeping them sober when in port. As Hornblower is circling his newly assigned ship of the line, a recently captured prize ship not of English make, and assessing its handling qualities, he is faced with the issue that as a newly rated ship she came with no crew. His friend Bush from his days as Midshipman is his First Lieutenant and many of the other officers and ratings are in place having transferred from his last ship along with the marines without shore leave but a much larger ship is in need of 250 more men. Upon boarding he is presented with a group of 30 men offered the choice between hanging, transport, or goal and servitude aboard ship. The men he does have are faced with waiting for their pay. The ragged gang he just met will be clothed from ship's stores and billed upon their first pay.
As narrator of his own story Hornblower does not spare his own embarrassments admitting to being seasick on his first day in harbour aboard a flagship and thereafter his first days on shipboard on a regular basis. He is bemused to relate that his namesake, Lord Nelson was similarly discommoded, and that general knowledge demonstrating the fact that his own malady was impossible to hide.
A captain may suffer misgivings in private but must always exhibit utter confidence in public. Utterly tone deaf he was required to perform Sunday Worship followed by the reading of the 38 articles of war which list the causes for which death is the punishment.
Asked to render assistance to the Spaniards on land against the French Hornblower encounters the incompetence and unreliability he expected thanks to his incompetent Admiral.
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