Return to the Fleet

We present Nigel Anthony in The Hornblower Story, adapted from four of the C.S. Forester novels by Val Gillgood, with Terence Skeleton as William Bush, part two from Lieutenant Hornblower, sealed orders. While renowned plowed her course westwards across the Atlantic to the West Indies Station, there were two questions, which, for her crew and more especially for her officers,

seemed to the passing of each day more urgently to require answering. Following upon the accident to Captain Sawyer, Wood first looked at an impact and taken upon himself formally to assume the responsibilities of taking command of the ship. And what were the contents of those sealed orders from the Admiralty among the captain's papers? The orders which defined the objectives of

Renion's mission when she reached her station. Swathed in a canvas straight jacket, the Captain lay in his cabin, and less reduced to insensibility by Lord and bleeding, he either screamed or sobbed. A crew that under the tyranny of a mind already deranged had been fast disintegrating could now again be made seamen.

For the officers, and for me, the junior lieutenant, Buckland's decision was the vital thing. Only with Lieutenant William Bush did I find it possible to open the problem. How much longer before Mr. Buckland opens there's orders, Mr. Bush?

God knows. If he takes the ship down to Antigua only to find out afterwards that he has to beat it back to Windwood, he'll get his knuckles wrapped finally by my lords. No, no. And if he reads secret orders, he's liable to be reprimanded for presumption. What's your reading, Mr. Hornblar?

Greatest altitude I've ever measured. I've never been as far south as this before. And what's your result? I'm not certain. What's the difficulty? I can shoot the sun, no trouble about that. It's the calculations that bother me. Almost down corrections.