By nature Hornblower was the mildest of men, but in any matter regarding his ship fear of being deemed a failure drove him into unexpected hardness and temerity.
‘Two hundred bullocks!’ said the wretched Hernandez. ‘Five hundred pigs?’
‘That is what I said,’ replied Hornblower, inexorably. ‘Two hundred fat bullocks.’
At this point el Supremo intervened.
‘See that the captain’s wants are satisfied,’ he said, with an impatient wave of his hand. ‘Start now.’
Hernandez only hesitated for a further tenth of a second, and then retired. The big brass bound door closed silently behind him.
‘That is the only way to deal with these people,’ said el Supremo, lightly. ‘They are no better than beasts. Any kind of refinement is wasted upon them. Doubtless you saw on your way here various criminals suffering punishment?’
‘I did.’
‘My ancestors on earth,’ said el Supremo ‘went to much trouble in arranging elaborate punishments. They burned people to death with elaborate ceremonial. They cut out their hearts to the accompaniment of music and dances, or pressed them to death in wrappings of raw hide exposed to the sun. I find all that quite unnecessary. A simple order to have the man tied up to die of thirst is sufficient. The man dies, and there is an end of him.’
‘Yes,’ said Hornblower.
‘They are incapable of absorbing even the simplest of conceptions. There are some who to this very day cannot understand the very obvious principle that the blood of Alvarado and Moctezuma must be divine. They still cling to their absurd Christs and Virgins.’
‘Indeed?’ said Hornblower.
‘One of my earliest lieutenants could not shake himself free from the influence of early education. When I announced my divinity he actually made suggestions that missionaries should be sent out to preach to the tribes so as to convert them, as though I were putting forward a new religion. He could never realise that it was not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact. He was of course one of the first to die of thirst.’
‘Of course.’
Hornblower was utterly bewildered by all this. But he clung to the fact that he had to ally himself to this madman. The revictualling of the Lydia depended upon his acting in concert with him, if nothing else did – and that was a matter of the most vital primary importance.
‘Your King George must have been delighted to hear that I had decided to act in concert with him,’ continued el Supremo.
‘He charged me with messages to you assuring you of his friendship,’ said Hornblower cautiously.
‘Of course,’ said el Supremo ‘he would not venture to push himself forward beyond that point. The blood of the family of Guelph naturally cannot compare with that of Alvarado.’
‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower. He found that noncommittal noise as useful in conversation with el Supremo as with Lieutenant Bush.
El Supremo’s brows approached each other a trifle.
‘I suppose you are aware,’ he said a little sternly, ‘of the history of the family of Alvarado? You know who was the first of that name to reach this country?’
‘He was Cortez’ lieutenant—’ began Hornblower.
‘Lieutenant? Nothing of the sort. I am surprised that you should believe such lies. He was the leader of the Conquistadores; it is only by the falsification of history that Cortez is represented as in command. Alvarado conquered Mexico, and from Mexico he descended upon this coast and conquered it all, as far as the Isthmus. He married the daughter of Moctezuma the last of the Emperors; and as a direct descendant from that union I have chosen to select from my family names those of Alvarado and Moctezuma. But in Europe; long before the head of the house came to the Americas, the name of Alvarado can be traced back, beyond the Hapsburgs and the Visigoths, beyond the Romans and the empire of Alexander, to the ultimate sources of time. It is only natural, therefore, that in this present generation the family should have attained to the divine state in my person. I find it satisfactory that you agree with me, Captain – Captain—’
‘Hornblower.’
‘I thank you. And now I think we had better, Captain Hornblower, discuss the plans for the extension of my Empire.’
‘As you please,’ said Hornblower. He felt he must at least agree with this madman until the Lydia was revictualled, although his already faint hope of heading a successful insurrection in this country was fast becoming fainter.
‘The Bourbon who calls himself King of Spain,’ said el Supremo, ‘maintains in this country an official who calls himself Captain General of Nicaragua. I sent to this gentleman some time ago a message ordering him to announce his fealty to me. This he had not done, and he was even misguided enough to hang my messenger publicly in Managua. Of the insolent men whom he subsequently sent to secure my divine person some were killed on the road and some died while attached to stakes, while a few were fortunate enough to see the light and are now included in my army. The Captain General is now, I hear, at the head of an army of three hundred men in the city of El Salvador. When you have landed the weapons consigned to me I propose to move on this town, which I shall burn, along with the Captain General and the unenlightened among his men. Perhaps, Captain, you will accompany me? A burning town is worth seeing.’
‘My ship must be revictualled first,’ said Hornblower, sturdily.
‘I have given the orders for that,’ replied el Supremo with a trace of impatience.
‘And further,’ continued Hornblower ‘it will be my duty first to ascertain the whereabouts of a Spanish ship of war, the Natividad, which I believe to be on this station. Before I can engage in any operations on land I must see that she can do no harm to my ship. I must either capture her or know for certain that she is too distant to interfere.’
‘Then you had better capture her, captain. I expect, from the information I have received, she will be sailing into the bay here at any moment.’
‘Then I must go back to my ship immediately,’ said Hornblower, all agitation. The possibility that his frigate might be attacked in his absence by a fifty-gun ship threw him into a seething panic. What would the Lords of the Admiralty say if the Lydia were lost while her captain was on shore?
‘There is food being brought in. Behold,’ said el Supremo.
The door at the end of the hall was flung open as he spoke. A crowd of attendants began to walk slowly in, carrying a large table covered with silver dishes, and bearing four large silver candelabra each supporting five lighted candles.
‘Your pardon, but I cannot wait for food. I must not,’ said Hornblower.
‘As you will,’ said el Supremo indifferently. ‘Alfonso!’
The negroid major-domo came forward, bowing.
‘See that Captain Hornblower goes back to his ship.’
El Supremo had no sooner spoken the words than he relapsed into an attitude of contemplation. The bustle attendant upon the bringing in of the banquet he allowed to pass unheeded. He did not bestow another glance on Hornblower, who stood before him, regretting already his precipitation in deciding to rejoin his ship, anxious to cause no offence by a breach of good manners, worried by the need to revictual the Lydia, and acutely conscious that his present attitude of uncertainty before a man who was paying him no attention whatever was quite undignified.
‘This way, señor,’ said Alfonso, at his elbow, while el Supremo still gazed blankly over his head. Hornblower yielded, and followed the major-domo out to the patio.
Two men and three horses awaited him there, in the half light. Without a word, bewildered by this sudden turn of events, Hornblower set his foot in the linked hands of a half naked slave who knelt at his horse’s side and swung himself up into the saddle. The escort clattered before him out through the gates, and he followed them; night was falling fast.
At the corner of the path the wide bay opened before them. A young moon was fast fading down th sky. A shadowy shape in the centre of the silver water showed where the Lydia swung to h
er anchor – she, at least, was something solid and matter-of-fact in this mad world. Eastward a mountain top suddenly glowed red, illuminating the clouds above it, and then died away into darkness. They rode at a sharp trot down the steep path, past the moaning men tied to the stakes, past the stinking corpses, and into the little town. Here there was neither light nor movement; Hornblower had to leave his horse to the task of following the escort round the corners. The sound of the horses’ hoofs ceased as they reached the soft sand of the beach; and simultaneously he heard the pitiful moaning of the first man he had seen tied to a stake and saw the faint phosphorescence of the edge of the sea.
He felt his way in the darkness into the waiting boat, and sat on a thwart while to the accompaniment of an explosion of orders the unseen crew pushed off. There was not a breath of wind – the sea breeze had died with the sunset and the land breeze had not yet sprung up. The unseen crew tugged at six oars, and the water sprang into view, the foam faintly visible as each stroke waked the phosphorescence. Slowly they made their way out into the bay to the rhythmical sound of the oars. Far out across the water he could see the faint loom of the Lydia, and a minute later he heard the welcome sound of Bush’s voice as he hailed.
‘Boat ahoy!’
Hornblower made a speaking trumpet of his hands and hailed back ‘Lydia!’
The captain of a King’s ship calls himself by the name of that ship when he is on board a small boat.
Hornblower could hear all the expected noises now, could see all the expected sights; the bustle and clatter as boatswain’s mate and sideboys ran to the gangway, the measured tramp of the marines, the flickering of lanterns. The boat ran alongside and he sprang to the ladder. It was good to feel solid oak under his feet again. The pipes of the boatswain’s mates twittered in chorus; the marines brought their muskets to the present, and Bush was at the gangway to receive him, with all the pomp and ceremony due to a Captain arriving on board.
Hornblower saw, by the lantern light, the relief in Bush’s honest face. He glanced round the decks; one watch, wrapped in blankets, was lying on the bare boards of the deck, while the other squatted by the guns ready for action. Bush had very properly maintained all precautions while thus at anchor in a presumably hostile port.
‘Very good, Mr Bush,’ said Hornblower. Then he became conscious that his white breeches were stained by the dirty saddle, and that his best silk stockings were in threads about his calves. He felt discontented with his appearance; he was ashamed of the fact that he had come back to his ship in this undignified fashion, and without, as far as he knew, having settled anything for the future. He was angry with himself; he feared lest Bush should have a worse opinion of him should he come to know the facts. He felt his cheeks go hot with self-consciousness, and he took refuge, as ever, in uncommunicativeness.
‘Ha – h’m,’ he rasped. ‘Call me if there is anything unusual to justify it.’
With that, and no other word, he turned and went below to his cabin, where canvas screens replaced the torn down bulkheads.
Bush stared at his disappearing form. The volcanoes flicked and glowed round the bay. The crew, excited at their arrival in this strange land and anxious to hear about the future, saw themselves doomed to disappointment, just like the officers, who watched with dropped jaws their captain descending the companion ladder.
For one brief instant Hornblower felt that his dramatic appearance and exit compensated him for his consciousness of failure, but it was only for an instant. Seated on his cot, having sent away Polwheal, he felt his spirits fall again. His weary mind set itself vaguely again to debate the question of whether he would be able to obtain stores on the morrow. He fretted about whether he would be able to raise a rebellion successful enough to satisfy the Admiralty. He fretted about the approaching duel with the Natividad.
And throughout these considerations he continually found himself blushing again at the recollection of his abrupt dismissal by el Supremo. He felt that there were few captains in His Britannic Majesty’s service who would have submitted so meekly to such cavalier treatment.
‘But what the devil could I have done?’ he asked himself pathetically.
Without turning out his lantern he lay on his cot sweating in the still tropical night while his mind raced back and forth through past and future.
And then the canvas screen flapped. A little breath of wind came stealing along the decks. His sailor’s instincts kept him informed of how the Lydia was swinging to her anchor. He felt the tiny tremor which ran through the ship as she brought up short to her anchor cable in a new direction. The land breeze had begun at last. The ship was cooler at once. Hornblower wriggled over on to his side, and slept.
V
Those doubts and fears which encompassed Hornblower while he was trying to go to sleep the night before vanished with the day. Hornblower felt a new strength running through his veins when he awoke. His mind was teeming with plans as he drank the coffee which Polwheal brought him at dawn, and for the first time for weeks he dispensed with his morning walk on the quarterdeck. He had decided as he stepped on the deck that at least he could fill the watercasks and restock with fuel, and his first orders sent parties of men hurriedly to the tackles to hoist out the launch and lower the quarter boats. Soon they were off for the shore, charged with the empty casks and manned by crews of excited chattering men; in the bows of each boat sat two marines in their red coats with their muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, and in their ears echoing their final orders from their sergeant, to the effect that if a single sailor succeeded in deserting while on shore every man among them would have his back well scratched with the cat.
An hour later the launch came back under sail, deep laden with her watercasks full, and while the casks were being swayed out of her and lowered into the hold Mr Midshipman Hooker came running up to Hornblower and touched his hat.
‘The beef cattle are coming down to the shore, sir,’ he said.
Hornblower had to struggle hard to keep his face immobile and to receive the news as if he expected it.
‘How many?’ he snapped; it seemed a useful question to ask in order to waste time, but the answer was more surprising still.
‘Hundreds, sir. There’s a Dago in charge with a lot to say, but there’s no one ashore who can speak his lingo.’
‘Send him out to me when you go ashore again,’ said Hornblower.
Hornblower spent the interval granted him in making up his mind. He hailed the lookout at the main royal masthead to ensure that a careful watch was kept to seaward. On the one hand there was the chance that the Natividad might come sailing in from the Pacific, in which case the Lydia, caught with half her crew ashore, would have no time to clear from the bay and would have to fight in confined waters and with the odds necessarily against her. On the other hand there was the opportunity of filling up completely with stores and regaining entire independence of the shore. From what Hornblower had seen of conditions prevailing there he judged that to postpone regaining that independence would be dangerous in the extreme; at any moment Don Julian Alvarado’s rebellion might come to a hurried and bloody ending.
It was Hernandez who came out to him, in the same boat with the two tiny lateen sails in which Hornblower had been ferried across last night. They exchanged salutes on the quarterdeck.
‘There are four hundred cattle awaiting your orders, Captain,’ said Hernandez. ‘My men are driving them down to the beach.’
‘Good,’ said Hornblower, his mind still not made up.
‘I am afraid it will take longer to assemble the pigs,’ went on Hernandez. ‘My men are sweeping the country for them, but pigs are slow animals to drive.’
‘Yes,’ said Hornblower.
‘With regard to the salt, it will not be easy to collect the hundred quintals you asked for. Until our lord declared his divinity salt was a royal monopoly and scarce in consequence, but I have sent a party to the salt pans at Jiquilisio and hope to find sufficient there.’
‘The women are out collecting the lemons, oranges, and limes which you ordered,’ continued Hernandez, ‘but I am afraid it will be two days before we shall have them all ready.’
‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower.
‘The sugar is ready at el Supremo’s mill, however. And with regard to the tobacco, señor, there is a good deal in store. What special kind do you prefer? For some time we have only been rolling cigars for our own consumption, but I can set the women to work again after the fruit has been collected.’
‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower again, suppressing just in time the cry of delight which nearly escaped him involuntarily at the mention of cigars – it was three months since he had last smoked one. Virginia pigtail twist was what his men used, but that, of course, would be unobtainable on this coast. However, he had often seen British sailors chewing and enjoying the half-cured native leaf.
‘Send as many cigars as will be convenient to you,’ he said, lightly. ‘For the rest, it is of no importance what you send.’
Hernandez bowed.
‘Thank you, señor. The coffee, the vegetables, and the eggs will of course be easy to supply. But with regard to the bread—’
‘Well?’
Hernandez was obviously nervous about what he was going to say next.
‘Your excellency will forgive me, but in this country we have only maize. There is a little wheat grown in the tierra templeda, but it rests still in the hands of the unenlightened. Would maize flour suffice?’
Hernandez’ face was working with anxiety as he gazed at Hornblower. It was only then that Hornblower realised that Hernandez was in terror of his life, and that el Supremo’s lighthearted endorsement of the requisitions he had made was far more potent than any stamped and sealed order addressed to a Spanish official.
‘This is very serious,’ said Hornblower sternly. ‘My English sailors are unaccustomed to maize flour.’
Captain Hornblower R. N. Page 34