Full text of the book is in Public Domain in Canada and is available in Project Gutenberg Canada.
Nine days ago–no, ten days, now–he had been a half-pay lieutenant, under stoppage of pay because the Peace of Amiens had resulted in his promotion not being confirmed. He had been doubtful where his next meal would be coming from. A single night had changed all this. He had won forty-five pounds at a sitting of whist from a group of senior officers, one of them a Lord of Admiralty. The King had sent a message to Parliament announcing the government’s decision to set the Navy on a war footing again. And he had been appointed Commander and given the Hotspur to prepare for sea. He could be sure now of his next meal, even though it would be salt beef and biscuit.
…
At this moment he nearly lost his footing as Hotspur heaved up her bows, rolled, and then cocked up her stern in the typical motion of a ship close-hauled. She was out now from the lee of the Wight, meeting the full force of the Channel rollers. Fool that he was! He had almost forgotten about this; on the one or two occasions during the past ten days when the thought of sea-sickness had occurred to him he had blithely assumed that he had grown out of that weakness in eighteen months on land. He had not thought about it at all this morning, being too busy. Now with his first moment of idleness here it came. He had lost his sea-legs–a new roll sent him reeling–and he was going to be sick. He could feel a cold sweat on his skin and the first wave of nausea rising to his throat. There was time for a bitter jest–he had just been congratulating himself on knowing where his next meal was coining from, but now he could be more certain still about where his last meal was going to. Then the sickness struck, horribly.
- Chapter III
So this very deck on which he stood was over at that fantastic angle too; he was proud of the fact that he was regaining his sea-legs so rapidly. He could stand balanced, one knee straight and rigid, the other considerably bent, while he leaned over against the heel, and then he could straighten with the roll almost as steadily as Bush could. And his sea-sickness was better as well–no; a pity he had let that subject return to his mind, for he had to struggle with a qualm the moment it did so.
- Chapter VI
Yet there was one source of self-congratulation. He had held his tongue when the subject of prize money had come up in the conversation. He had been about to burst out condemning the whole system as pernicious, but he had managed to refrain. Bush thought him a queer character in any case, and if he had divulged his opinion of prize money–of the system by which it was earned and paid–Bush would have thought him more than merely eccentric. Bush would think him actually insane, and liberal-minded, revolutionary, subversive and dangerous as well.
- Chapter VIII
‘How do you get these chickens so fat, Sir Edward?’ asked Grindall.
‘A matter of feeding, merely. Another secret of my chef.’
‘In the public interest you should disclose it,’ said Cornwallis. ‘The life of a sea-sick chicken rarely conduces to putting on flesh.’
‘Well, sir, since you ask. This ship has a complement of six hundred and fifty men. Every day thirteen fifty-pound bread bags are emptied. The secret lies in the treatment of those bags.’
‘But how?’ asked several voices.
‘Tap them, shake them, before emptying. Not enough to make wasteful crumbs, but sharply enough. Then take out the biscuits quickly, and behold! At the bottom of each bag is a mass of weevils and maggots, scared out of their natural habitat and with no time allowed to seek shelter again. Believe me, gentlemen, there is nothing that fattens a chicken so well as a diet of rich biscuit-fed weevils. Hornblower, your plate’s still empty. Help yourself, man.’
Hornblower had thought of helping himself to chicken, but somehow–and he grinned at himself internally–this last speech diverted him from doing so. The beefsteak pie was in great demand and had almost disappeared, and as a junior officer he knew better than to anticipate his seniors’ second helpings. The ragout of pork, rich in onions, was at the far end of the table.
- Chapter IX
As the landlady left the room Hornblower’s instincts guided him into an action of which he was actually unconscious. He threw up the window and drew the icy evening air deep into his lungs.
‘You’ll give him his death!’ said Maria’s voice, and Hornblower swung round, surprised.
Maria had snatched up little Horatio from his cradle and stood clasping him to her bosom, a lioness defending her cub from the manifest and well-known perils of the night air.
‘I beg your pardon, dear,’ said Hornblower. ‘I can’t imagine what I was thinking of.’
He knew perfectly well that little babies should be kept in stuffy heated rooms, and he was full of genuine contrition regarding little Horatio. But as he turned back and pulled the window shut again his mind was dwelling on the Blackstones and the Little Girls, on bleak harsh days and dangerous nights, on a deck that he could call his own. He was ready to go to sea again.
- Chapter XVII