He drew on the other.
"A-ah," gasped Bush, with sweat on his face.
"Nearly free," commented the surgeon.
"I could tell by the feeling of the threads. Your friend will soon be well.
Now let us replace the dressings.
So.
And so."
His dexterous plump fingers rebandaged the stump, replaced the wicker basket, and drew down the bed coverings.
"Thank you, gentlemen," said the surgeon, rising to his feet and brushing his hands one against the other.
"I will return in the morning."
"Hadn't you better sit down, sir," came Brown's voice to Hornblower's ears as though from a million miles away, after the surgeon had withdrawn.
The room was veiled in grey mist which gradually cleared away as he sat, to reveal Bush lying back on his pillow and trying to smile, and Brown's homely honest face wearing an expression of acute concern.
"Rare bad you looked for a minute, sir.
You must be hungry, I expect, sir, not having eaten nothing since breakfast, like."
It was tactful of Brown to attribute this faintness to hunger, to which all flesh might be subject without shame, and not merely to weakness in face of wounds and suffering.
"That sounds like supper coming now," croaked Bush from the stretcher, as though one of a conspiracy to ignore their captain's feebleness.
The sergeant of gendarmerie came clanking in, two women behind him bearing trays.
The women set the table deftly and quickly, their eyes downcast, and withdrew without looking up, although one of them smiled at the corner of her mouth in response to a meaning cough from Brown which drew a gesture of irritation from the sergeant.
The latter cast one searching glance round the room before shutting and locking the door with a clashing of keys.
"Soup," said Hornblower, peering into the tureen which steamed deliciously.
"And I fancy this is stewed veal."
The discovery confirmed him in his notion that Frenchmen lived exclusively on soup and stewed veal — he put no faith in the more vulgar notions regarding frogs and snails.
"You will have some of this broth, I suppose, Bush?" he continued. He was talking desperately hard now to conceal the feeling of depression and unhappiness which was overwhelming him.
"And a glass of this wine?
It has no label — let's hope for the best."
"Some of their rotgut claret, I suppose," grunted Bush.
Eighteen years of war with France had given most Englishmen the notion that the only wines fit for men to drink were port and sherry and Madeira, and that Frenchmen only drank thin claret which gave the unaccustomed drinker the bellyache.
"We'll see," said Hornblower as cheerfully as he could.
"Let's get you propped up first."
With his hand behind Bush's shoulders he heaved him up a little; as he looked round helplessly, Brown came to his rescue with pillows taken from the bed, and between them they settled Bush with his head raised and his arms free and a napkin under his chin. Hornblower brought him a plate of soup and a piece of bread.
"M'm," said Bush, tasting.
"Might be worse.
Please, sir, don't let yours get cold."
Brown brought a chair for his captain to sit at the table, and stood in an attitude of attention beside it; there was another place laid, but his action proclaimed as loudly as words how far it was from his mind to sit with his captain. Hornblower ate, at first with a distaste and then with increasing appetite.
"Some more of that soup, Brown," said Bush.
"And my glass of wine, if you please."
The stewed veal was extraordinarily good, even to a man who was accustomed to meat he could set his teeth in.
"Dash my wig," said Bush from the bed.
"Do you think I could have some of that stewed veal, sir?
This travelling has given me an appetite."
Hornblower had to think about that.
A man in a fever should be kept on a low diet, but Bush could not be said to be in a fever now, and he had lost a great deal of blood which he had to make up.
The yearning look on Bush's face decided him.
"A little will do you no harm," he said.
"Take this plate to Mr Bush, Brown."
Good food and good wine — the fare in the Sutherland had been repulsive, and at Rosas scanty — tended to loosen their tongues and make them more cheerful.
Yet it was hard to unbend beyond a certain unstated limit.
The awful majesty surrounding a captain of a ship of the line lingered even after the ship had been destroyed; more than that, the memory of the very strict reserve which Hornblower had maintained during his command acted as a constraint.
And to Brown a first lieutenant was in a position nearly as astronomically lofty as a captain; it was awesome to be in the same room as the two of them, even with the help of making-believe to be their old servant.
Hornblower had finished his cheese by now, and the moment which Brown had been dreading had arrived.