A captain with strict ideas of discipline would merely have announced what they should eat, and would certainly not have called his subordinates into consultation, but Hornblower was too conscious of the top-heavy organization of his present ship's company to be able to maintain appearances to that extent.
Yet Bush and Brown were still oppressed by a life-long experience of subordination and could not bring themselves to proffer advice to their captain; they merely fidgeted and stood silent, leaving it to Hornblower to decree that they should finish off the cold pate with some boiled potatoes.
Once the decision was made, Bush proceeded to amplify and interpret his captain's original order, just as a good first lieutenant should.
"I'll handle the fire here," he said.
"There ought to be all the driftwood we need, Brown.
Yes, an' I'll want some sheer-legs to hang the pan over the fire — cut me three off those trees, there."
Bush felt it in his bones that Hornblower was meditating taking part in the preparation of supper, and could not bear the thought.
He looked up at his captain half appealingly, half defiantly.
A captain should not merely never be seen doing undignified work, but he should be kept in awful isolation, screened away in the mysterious recesses of his cabin.
Homblower left them to it, and wandered off round the tiny island, looking over at the distant banks and the far houses, fast disappearing in the growing twilight.
It was a shock to discover that the pleasant green which carpeted most of the island was not the grass he had assumed it to be, but a bank of nettles, knee high already despite the earliness of the season.
Judging by his language, Brown on the other side had just made the same discovery while seeking fuel with his feet bare.
Hornblower paced the gravel bank for a space, and on his return it was an idyllic scene which met his eyes.
Brown was tending the little fire which flickered under the pot swinging from its tripod, while Bush, his wooden leg sticking stiffly out in front of him, was peeling the last of the potatoes.
Apparently Bush had decided that a first lieutenant could share menial work with the sole member of the crew without imperilling discipline.
They all ate together, wordless but friendly, beside the dying fire; even the chill air of the evening did not cool the feeling of comradeship of which each was conscious in his own particular way.
"Shall I set a watch, sir?" asked Bush, as supper ended.
"No," said Hornblower.
The minute additional security which would be conferred by one of them staying awake would not compare with the discomfort and inconvenience of everyone losing four hours' sleep each night.
Bush and Brown slept in cloak and blanket on the bare soil, probably, Hornblower anticipated, most uncomfortably.
For himself there was a mattress of cut nettles cunningly packed under the boat cover which Brown had prepared for him on the most level part of the gravel spit, presumably at a grave cost in stings.
He slept on it peacefully, the dew wetting his face and the gibbous moon shining down upon it from the starry sky.
Vaguely he remembered, in a troubled fashion, the stories of the great leaders of men — Charles XII especially — who shared their men's coarse fare and slept like them on the bare ground.
For a second or two he feared he should be doing likewise, and then his common sense overrode his modesty and told him that he did not need to have recourse to theatrical tricks to win the affections of Bush and Brown.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Those days on the Loire were pleasant, and every day was more pleasant than the one preceding.
For Hornblower there was not merely the passive pleasure of a fortnight's picnic, but there was the far more active one of the comradeliness of it all.
During his ten years as a captain his natural shyness had reinforced the restrictions surrounding his position, and had driven him more and more in upon himself until he had grown unconscious of his aching need for human companionship.
In that small boat, living at close quarters with the others, and where one man's misfortune was everyone's, he came to know happiness.
His keen insight made him appreciate more than ever the sterling good qualities of Bush, who was secretly fretting over the loss of his foot, and the inactivity to which that loss condemned him, and the doubtfulness of his future as a cripple.
"I'll see you posted as captain," said Hornblower, on the only occasion on which Bush hinted at his troubles, "if it's my last act on earth."
He thought he might possibly contrive that, even if disgrace awaited him personally in England.
Lady Barbara must still remember Bush and the old days in the Lydia, and must be aware of his good qualities as Hornblower was himself.
An appeal to her, properly worded — even from a man broken by court martial — might have an effect, and might set turning the hidden wheels of Government patronage.
Bush deserved post rank more than half the captains he knew on the list.
Then there was Brown with his unfailing cheerfulness.
No one could judge better than Hornblower the awkwardness of Brown's position, living in such close proximity to two officers.
But Brown always could find the right mixture of friendliness and deference; he could laugh gaily when he slipped on a rounded stone and sat down in the Loire, and he could smile sympathetically when the same thing happened to Hornblower.
He busied himself over the jobs of work which had to be done, and never, not even after ten days' routine had established something like a custom, appeared to take it for granted that his officers would do their share.
Hornblower could foresee a great future for Brown, if helped by a little judicious exertion of influence.
He might easily end as a captain, too — Darby and Westcott had started on the lower deck in the same fashion.
Even if the court martial broke him Hornblower could do something to help him.
Elliott and Bolton at least would not desert him entirely, and would rate Brown as midshipman in their ships if he asked them to with special earnestness.
In making these plans for the future of his friends, Hornblower could bring himself to contemplate the end of the voyage and the inevitable court martial with something like equanimity; for the rest, during those golden days, he was able to avoid all thought of their approaching end.
It was a placid journey through a placid Limbo.
He was leaving behind him in the past the shameful memory of his treatment of Marie, and the troubles to come were still in the future; for once in his life he was able to live in the lotus-eating present.
All the manifold little details of the journey helped towards this desirable end — they were so petty and yet temporarily so important.
Selecting a course between the golden sandbanks of the river; stepping out overside to haul the boat over when his judgement was incorrect; finding a lonely island on which to camp at night, and cooking supper when one was found; drifting past the gravel dredgers and the rare fishing parties; avoiding conspicuous behaviour while passing towns; there were always trifles to occupy the mind.
There were the two nights when it rained, and they all slept huddled together under the shelter of a blanket stretched between willow trees — there had been a ridiculous pleasure about waking up to find Bush snoring beside him with a protective arm across him.
There was the pageantry of the Loire — Gien with its chateau-fortress high on its terraces, and Sully with its vast rounded bastions, and Chateau-Neuf-sur-Loire, and Jargeau.