Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  ‘The correct salute for me, Captain, is twenty-three guns.’

  That was two more guns than His Majesty King George himself would receive. Hornblower stared for a moment, thought wildly of how he could refuse, and finally salved his conscience with the notion that a salute of that number of guns would be entirely meaningless. He sent a message hurriedly to Mr Marsh ordering twenty-three guns – it was odd, the way in which the ship’s boy almost reduplicated Hornblower’s reactions, by staring, composing his features, and hurrying off comforted by the thought that it was the Captain’s responsibility and not his own. And Hornblower could hardly repress a grin as he thought of Marsh’s certain astonishment, and the boiling exasperation in his voice when he reached – ‘If I hadn’t been a born bloody fool I shouldn’t be here. Fire twenty-three.’

  El Supremo stepped on to the quarterdeck with a keen glance round him, and then, while Hornblower looked at him, the interest faded from his face and he lapsed into the condition of abstracted indifference in which Hornblower had seen him before. He seemed to listen, but he looked over the heads of Bush and Gerard and the others as Hornblower presented them. He shook his head without a word when Hornblower suggested that he might care to inspect the ship. There was a little awkward pause, which was broken by Bush addressing his captain.

  ‘Natividad hoisting another flag to the main yardarm, sir. No it’s not, it’s—’

  It was the body of a man, black against the blue sky, rising slowly, jerking and twisting as it rose. A moment later another body rose at the other end of the yard. All eyes instinctively turned towards el Supremo. He was still gazing away into the distance, his eyes focused on nothing, yet everyone knew he had seen. The English officers cast a hasty glance at their captain for guidance, and followed his lead in lapsing into an uncomfortable pose of having noticed nothing. Disciplinary measures in a ship of another nation could be no affair of theirs.

  ‘Dinner will be served shortly, Supremo,’ said Hornblower with a gulp. ‘Would you care to come below?’

  Still without a word el Supremo walked over to the companion and led the way. Down below his lack of stature was made apparent by the fact that he could walk upright. As a matter of fact, his head just brushed the deck beams above him, but the nearness of the beams did nothing to make him stoop as he walked. Hornblower became conscious of a ridiculous feeling that el Supremo would never need to stoop, that the deck beams would raise themselves as he passed rather than commit the sacrilege of bumping his head – that was how el Supremo’s quiet dignity of carriage affected him.

  Polwheal and the stewards assisting him, in their best clothes, held aside the screens which still took the place of the discarded bulkheads, but at the entrance to the cabin el Supremo stopped for a moment and said the first words which had passed his lips since he came on board.

  ‘I will dine alone here,’ he said. ‘Let the food be brought to me.’

  None of his suite saw anything in the least odd about his request – Hornblower, watching their expressions, was quite sure that their unconcern was in no way assumed. El Supremo might have been merely blowing his noise for all the surprise they envinced.

  It was all a horrible nuisance, of course. Hornblower and his other guests had to dine in makeshift fashion in the gunroom mess, and his one linen tablecloth and his one set of linen napkins, and the two last bottles of his old Madeira remained in the after cabin for el Supremo’s use. Nor was the meal improved by the silence that prevailed most of the time; el Supremo’s suite were not in the least talkative, and Hornblower was the only Englishman with conversational Spanish. Bush tried twice, valiantly, to make polite speeches to his neighbours, putting a terminal ‘o’ on the ends of his English words in the hope that so they might be transmuted into Spanish, but the blank stares of the men he addressed reduced him quickly to stammering inarticulation.

  Dinner was hardly finished; everyone had hardly lighted the loose brown cigars which had been part of the stores handed over to the Lydia when a new messenger arrived from the shore and was brought in by the bewildered officer of the watch who could not understand his jabbering talk. The troops were ready to come on board. With relief Hornblower put away his napkin and went on deck, followed by the others.

  The men whom the launch and the cutter, plying steadily between ship and shore, brought out, were typical Central American soldiers, barefooted and ragged, swarthy and lankhaired. Each man carried a bright new musket and a bulging cartridge pouch, but these were merely what Hornblower had brought for them; most of the men carried in their hands cotton bags presumably filled with provisions – some bore melons and bunches of bananas in addition. The crew herded them on to the maindeck; they looked about them curiously and chattered volubly, but they were amenable enough, squatting in gossiping groups between the guns where the grinning crew pushed them. They sat on the planking and most of them incontinently began to eat; Hornblower suspected them to be half starved and to be devouring the rations which were expected to last them for several days.

  When the last man was on board Hornblower looked across to the Natividad; it appeared as if her share of the expeditionary force was already embarked. Suddenly the babble on the main deck died away completely, to be succeeded by a silence surprising in its intensity. Next moment el Supremo came on the quarterdeck – it must have been his appearance from the after cabin which had quelled the noise.

  ‘We shall sail for La Libertad, Captain,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Supremo,’ replied Hornblower. He was glad that el Supremo had made his appearance when he did; a few seconds later and the ship’s officers would have seen that their captain was awaiting his orders, and that would never have done.

  ‘We will weigh anchor, Mr Bush,’ said Hornblower.

  VIII

  The voyage up the coast was completed. La Libertad had fallen, and el Supremo and his men had vanished into the tangle of volcanoes surrounding the city of the Holy Saviour. Once again in the early morning Captain Hornblower was pacing the quarterdeck of His Britannic Majesty’s 36-gun frigate Lydia, and Lieutenant Bush as officer of the watch was standing by the wheel rigidly taking no notice of him.

  Hornblower was gazing round him, and filling his lungs deep with air at every respiration as he walked. He noticed that he was doing this, and grinned to himself at the realisation that what he was doing was to savour the sweet air of liberty. For a space he was free from the nightmare influence of el Supremo and his cut-throat methods, and the feeling of relief was inexpressible. He was his own master again, free to walk his quarterdeck undisturbed. The sky was blue, the sea was blue and silver – Hornblower caught himself making the old comparison with heraldic argent and azure, and knew that he was himself again; he smiled once more out of sheer high spirits, looking out to sea, nevertheless, so that his subordinates should not see that their captain was walking the deck grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  There was just the gentlest wind abeam pushing the Lydia along at three or four knots; peeping over the horizon on the port side were the tops of the interminable volcanoes which formed the backbone of this benighted country. Perhaps after all el Supremo might accomplish his wild dream of conquering Central America; perhaps after all there might be some solid foundation in the hope that good communications might be opened across the Isthmus – by Panama if the Nicaraguan scheme proved impracticable. That would make a profound difference to the world. It would bring Van Diemen’s Land and the Moluccas into closer relation to the civilised world. It would open the Pacific to England by evading the difficulties of the journey round the Horn or by the Cape of Good Hope and India, and in that case the Pacific might see squadrons of ships of the line cruising where hardly a frigate had penetrated up to that moment. The Spanish Empire of Mexico and California might acquire a new importance.

  Hornblower told himself hastily that all this was only a wild dream at present. As a kind of punishment for dreaming he began to take himself to task regarding his present movements, and t
o subject himself to a severe examination regarding the motives which had brought him southwards towards Panama. He knew full well that the main one was to shake himself free from el Supremo, but he tried to justify his action in the face of his self-accusation.

  If el Supremo’s attempt upon San Salvador should fail, the Natividad would suffice to bring off what few might survive of his army. The presence of the Lydia could in no way influence the land operations. If el Supremo should succeed it might be as well that while he was conquering Nicaragua there should be a diversion in Panama to distract the Spaniards and to prevent them from concentrating their whole strength upon him. It was only right that the Lydia’s crew should be given a chance of winning some prize money among the pearl fishers of the Gulf of Panama; that would compensate them for their probable loss of the prize money already gained – there would be no screwing money out of the Admiralty for the Natividad. The presence of the Lydia in the Gulf would hamper the transport of Spanish forces from Peru. Besides, the Admiralty would be glad of a survey of the Gulf and the Pearl Islands; Anson’s charts were wanting in this respect. Yet for all these plausible arguments Hornblower knew quite well that why he had come this way was to get away from el Supremo.

  A large flat ray, the size of a table top, suddenly leaped clear of the water close overside and fell flat upon the surface again with a loud smack, leaped clear again, and then vanished below, its pinky brown gleaming wet for a moment as the blue water closed over it. There were flying fish skimming the water in all directions, each leaving behind it a momentary dark furrow. Hornblower watched it all, carefree, delighted that he could allow his thoughts to wander and not feel constrained to keep them concentrated on a single subject. With a ship full of stores and a crew contented by their recent adventures he had no real care in the world. The Spanish prisoners whose lives he had saved from el Supremo were sunning themselves lazily on the forecastle.

  ‘Sail ho!’ came echoing down from the masthead.

  The idlers thronged the bulwark, gazing over the hammock nettings; the seamen holystoning the deck surreptitiously worked more slowly in order to hear what was going on.

  ‘Where away?’ called Hornblower.

  ‘On the port bow, sir. Lugger, sir, I think, an’ standing straight for us, but she’s right in the eye of the sun—’

  ‘Yes, a lugger, sir,’ squeaked midshipman Hooker from the fore top gallant masthead. ‘Two masted. She’s right to windward, running down to us, under all sail, sir.’

  ‘Running down to us?’ said Hornblower, mystified. He jumped up on the slide of the quarterdeck carronade nearest him, and stared into the sun and the wind under his hand, but at present there was still nothing to be seen from that low altitude.

  ‘She’s still holding her course, sir,’ squeaked Hooker.

  ‘Mr Bush,’ said Hornblower. ‘Back the mizzen tops’l.’

  A pearling lugger from the Gulf of Panama, perhaps, and still ignorant of the presence of a British frigate in those waters; on the other hand she might be bearing a message from el Supremo – her course made that unlikely, but that might be explained. Then as the ship lifted, Hornblower saw a gleaming square of white rise for a second over the distant horizon and vanish again. As the minutes passed by the sails were more and more frequently to be seen, until at last from the deck the lugger was in plain view, nearly hull up, running goose-winged before the wind with her bow pointed straight at the Lydia.

  ‘She’s flying Spanish colours at the main, sir,’ said Bush from behind his levelled telescope. Hornblower had suspected so for some time back, but had not been able to trust his eyesight.

  ‘She’s hauling ’em down, all the same,’ he retorted, glad to be the first to notice it.

  ‘So she is, sir,’ said Bush, a little puzzled, and then – ‘There they go again, sir. No! What do you make of that, sir?’

  ‘White flag over Spanish colours now,’ said Hornblower. ‘That’ll mean a parley. No, I don’t trust ’em. Hoist the colours, Mr Bush, and send the hands to quarters. Run out the guns and send the prisoners below under guard again.’

  He was not going to be caught unaware by any Spanish tricks. That lugger might be as full of men as an egg is of meat, and might spew up a host of boarders over the side of an unprepared ship. As the Lydia’s gun ports opened and she showed her teeth the lugger rounded-to just out of gunshot, and lay wallowing, hove-to.

  ‘She’s sending a boat, sir,’ said Bush.

  ‘So I see,’ snapped Hornblower.

  Two oars rowed a dinghy jerkily across the dancing water, and a man came scrambling up the ladder to the gangway – so many strange figures had mounted that ladder lately. This new arrival, Hornblower saw, wore the full dress of the Spanish royal navy, his epaulette gleaming in the sun. He bowed and came forward.

  ‘Captain Hornblower?’ he asked.

  ‘I am Captain Hornblower.’

  ‘I have to welcome you as the new ally of Spain.’

  Hornblower swallowed hard. This might be a ruse, but the moment he heard the words he felt instinctively that the man was speaking the truth. The whole happy world by which he had been encompassed up to that moment suddenly became dark with trouble. He could foresee endless worries piled upon him by some heedless action of the politicians.

  ‘We have had the news for the last four days,’ went on the Spanish officer. ‘Last month Bonaparte stole our king Ferdinand from us and has named his brother Joseph King of Spain. The Junta of Government has signed a treaty of perpetual alliance and friendship with His Majesty of England. It is with great pleasure. Captain, that I have to inform you that all ports in the dominions of His Most Catholic Majesty are open to you after your most arduous voyage.’

  Hornblower still stood dumb. It might all be lies, a ruse to lure the Lydia under the guns of Spanish shore batteries. Hornblower almost hoped it might be – better that than all the complications which would hem him in if it were the truth. The Spaniard interpreted his expression as implying disbelief.

  ‘I have letters here,’ he said, producing them from his breast. ‘One from your admiral in the Leeward Islands, sent overland from Porto Bello, one from His Excellency the Viceroy of Peru, and one from the English lady in Panama.’

  He tendered them with a further bow, and Hornblower, muttered an apology – his fluent Spanish had deserted him along with his wits – began to open them. Then he pulled himself up; on deck under the eye of the Spanish officer was no place to study these documents. With another muttered apology he fled below to the privacy of his cabin.

  The stout canvas wrapper of the naval orders was genuine enough. He scrutinised the two seals carefully, and they showed no signs of having been tampered with; and the wrapper was correctly addressed in English script. He cut the wrapper open carefully and read the orders enclosed. They could leave him in no doubt. There was the signature – Thomas Troubridge, Rear Admiral, Bart. Hornblower had seen Troubridge’s signature before, and recognised it. The orders were brief, as one would expect from Troubridge – an alliance having been concluded between His Majesty’s Government and that of Spain Captain Hornblower was directed and required to refrain from hostilities towards the Spanish possessions, and, having drawn upon the Spanish authorities for necessary stores, to proceed with all dispatch to England for further orders. It was a genuine document without any doubts at all. It was marked ‘Copy No. 2’; presumably other copies had been distributed to other parts of the Spanish possessions to ensure that he received one.

  The next letter was flamboyantly sealed and addressed – it was a letter of welcome from the Viceroy of Peru assuring him that all Spanish America was at his disposal, and hoping that he would make full use of all facilities so that he would speedily be ready to help the Spanish nation in its sacred mission of sweeping the French usurper back to his kennel.

  ‘Ha – h’m,’ said Hornblower – the Spanish viceroy did not know yet about the fate of the Natividad, nor about the new enterprise of el Supremo. He might
not be so cordial when he heard about the Lydia’s part in these occurrences.

  The third letter was sealed merely with a wafer and was addressed in a feminine hand. The Spanish officer had spoken about a letter from the English lady in Panama – what in the world was an English lady doing there? Hornblower slit open the letter and read it.

  The Citadel,

  Panama.

  Lady Barbara Wellesley presents her compliments to the captain of the English frigate. She requests that he will be so good as to convey her and her maid to Europe, because Lady Barbara finds that owing to an outbreak of yellow fever on the Spanish Main she cannot return home the way she would desire.

  Hornblower folded the letter and tapped it on his thumb nail in meditation. The woman was asking an impossibility, of course. A crowded frigate sailing round the Horn was no place for females. She seemed to have no doubt about it, all the same; on the contrary, she seemed to assume that her request would be instantly granted. That name Wellesley, of course, gave the clue to that. It had been much before the public of late. Presumably the lady was a sister or an aunt to the two well-known Wellesleys – the Most Hon. the Marquis Wellesley, K.P., late Governor General of India and now a member of the Cabinet, and General the Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley, K.B., the victor of Assaye and now pointed at as England’s greatest soldier after Sir John Moore. Hornblower had seen him once, and had noticed the high arched arrogant nose and the imperious eye. If the woman had that blood in her she would be the sort to take things for granted. So she might, too. An impecunious frigate captain with no influence at all would be glad to render a service to a member of that family. Maria would be pleased as well as suspicious when she heard that he had been in correspondence with the daughter of an Earl, the sister of a Marquis.

  But this was no time to stop and think about women. Hornblower locked the letters in his desk and ran up on deck; forcing a smile as he approached the Spanish captain.