Читать книгу Lieutenant Hornblower онлайн

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"Can't tell" answered Hornblower, "but he makes up his mind now or never. We lose ground to loo'ard every day from now, you see."

"What'd you do?" Bush was curious about this junior lieutenant who had shown himself ready of resources and so guarded in speech.

"I'd read those orders" said Hornblower instantly. "I'd rather be in trouble for having done something than for not having done anything."

"I wonder" said Bush. On the other hand a definite action could be made the subject of a court-martial charge far more easily than the omission to do something; Bush felt this, but he had not the facility with words to express it easily.

"Those orders may detach us on independent service" went on Hornblower. "God, what a chance for Buckland!"

"Yes" said Bush.

The eagerness in Hornblower's expression was obvious. If ever a man yearned for an independent command and the consequent opportunity to distinguish himself it was Hornblower. Bush wondered faintly if he himself was as anxious to have the responsibility of the command of a ship of the line in troubled waters. He looked at Hornblower with an interest which he knew to be constantly increasing. Hornblower was a man always ready to adopt the bold course, a man who infinitely preferred action to inaction; widely read in his profession and yet a practical seaman, as Bush had already had plenty of opportunity to observe. A student yet a man of action; a fiery spirit and yet discreet--Bush remembered how tactfully he had acted during the crisis following the captain's injury and how dexterously he had handled Buckland.