Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  It was necessary that all this should be confirmed without doubt, however. The Cabinet would be anxious for early and first-hand information regarding the situation in Venezuela.

  ‘Sir Thomas,’ said Hornblower, ‘I shall go ashore.’

  ‘You’ll have an armed guard, My Lord?’

  ‘As you will,’ said Hornblower. A dozen seamen with muskets would hardly save him from the clutches of a conquering army, but agreement saved him from argument and reproachful looks.

  By the time Hornblower set foot on the pier in the blinding sunlight the little harbour was deserted. Not a fishing boat was left, nor was there a human being in sight. He pressed on, his guard tramping behind him and Gerard at his side. The long, winding street was not quite deserted; there were a few women, a few old men, a few children to be seen, peering out of the houses. Then away to his right he heard a brief rattle of musketry, the reports sounding flat in the heavy, damp air. Now here came a ghastly column of sick and wounded, half-naked, hobbling along the road; some fell down to struggle to their feet again, and some, under Hornblower’s very eyes, fell, not to rise again, and of these some managed to roll to the side of the road while others lay still while their staggering comrades stumbled over them. Wounded, half-naked, barefooted, crazy with fever or bending double with abdominal pains, they came reeling along the road, while behind them the rattle of musketry came nearer and nearer. At the heels of the last of the wounded came the first of the rearguard, soldiers whose rags were faintly reminiscent of the blue and white of the Spanish royal army. Hornblower made a mental note that the royal forces still could provide a disciplined rearguard, and so were not in total rout, but the rearguard was woefully small, a couple of hundred men, perhaps; they were not keeping good order, but they were fighting a steady fight, biting open their cartridges, ramming home their charges, spitting their bullets into their musket barrels, and waiting in ones and twos behind cover to get a fair shot at their pursuers. A dozen officers, their drawn swords flashing in the sun, were among them. The mounted officer-in-command caught sight of Hornblower and his party and reined round his horse in astonishment.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted.

  ‘English,’ replied Hornblower.

  But before another word could be exchanged the firing in the rear increased in intensity; not only that, but suddenly from out of a side lane level with the rearguard appeared a dozen horsemen, lancers, their spear-points reflecting the sun, and the rearguard broke in disorder, running wildly down the road to escape being cut off. Hornblower saw a lance-point enter between the shoulders of a running man, saw him fall on his face, sliding over the surface of the road for a yard before the lance-point tore its way out again, leaving him struggling like a broken-backed animal. Over him swept the skirmishers of the insurgent advanced guard, a swarm of men of every shade of colour, running, loading, and firing. There was a moment when the air was full of bullets.

  ‘My Lord—’ expostulated Gerard.

  ‘That’s all right. It’s all over now,’ said Hornblower.

  The fight had swept past them up the road; no one had paid them any attention save for the single question of the mounted Spanish officer. The small column of infantry marching in regular order behind the skirmishers saw them, however, saw the glittering gold, the epaulettes and the cocked hats. Again a mounted officer wheeled towards them with the same question, to receive the same answer from Hornblower.

  ‘Ingleses?’ repeated the officer. ‘English? Why – you’re a British Admiral!’

  ‘Commanding the British Squadron in West Indian waters,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘A pleasure to see you, sir. William Jones, late Captain, Twenty-Third Foot, now Major commanding a battalion in the Army of Greater Colombia.’

  ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Major.’

  ‘Pardon me, but I must attend to my duties,’ said Jones, wheeling his horse again.

  ‘Hooray for England!’ yelled someone in the marching ranks, and he was answered by a thin cheer; half of these ragged scarecrows must have been British, mingled indiscriminately with Negroes and South Americans. The cavalry followed them, regiment after regiment, a flood of men and horses filling the road like a river brimming its banks. Lancers and light horse, sore-backed horses and lame horses; most of the men had coiled ropes at their saddle bows, and they were all ragged and drooping in their saddles with fatigue; from the appearance of both men and beasts they had marched far and fought hard, and now they were pressing on to the limit of their strength after their defeated foe. A thousand men had passed, estimated Hornblower, judging the column as well as he could, when a new sound came to his ears through the monotonous trampling of the horses’ hoofs. A thumping and a jingling, loud and irregular. Here came the guns, dragged along by weary horses; at the heads of the horses walked men, ragged and bearded – they were wearing the remains of blue jumpers and white trousers. It was the crew of the Bride of Abydos. One of them lifted his weary head and recognised the party at the roadside.

  ‘Good old Horny!’ he shouted; his voice was thin with fatigue and sounded like an old man’s.

  In the mounted officer riding alongside Hornblower recognised one of Ramsbottom’s lieutenants; he sat his plodding horse like a sailor, and raised his arm in a weary salute. One gun clattered by, and another followed it. The guns of Carabobo, which had won the independence of a continent.

  Hornblower realised that he had not yet seen Ramsbottom, whom he would have expected to be at the head of the artillery column, but as the realisation came to him he saw something now beside the second gun. It was a horse litter, extemporised from two poles and some sheets of canvas. It was slung from two horses, one fore and one aft; the bight of canvas between the poles was shaded by an awning spread above it, and lying in the trough was a man, a smallish man, black-bearded, lying feebly against pillows behind his back. A seaman walked at the head of each horse, and with the plodding step of the animals the litter lurched and rolled, and the black-bearded man lurched and rolled at the same time. Yet he was able to take note of the group by the roadside, and he made an effort to sit up, and he called an order to the seamen leading the horses which caused them to turn out of the road and stop by Hornblower.

  ‘Good morning, My Lord,’ he said; he spoke shrilly, like someone hysterical.

  Hornblower had to look twice and more to recognise him. The black beard, the feverish eyes, the shocking dead pallor upon which the tan looked like some unnatural coating, all made identification difficult.

  ‘Ramsbottom!’ exclaimed Hornblower.

  ‘The very same but a little different,’ said Ramsbottom, with a cackling laugh.

  ‘Are you wounded?’ asked Hornblower; at the moment the words passed his lips he perceived that Ramsbottom’s left arm was concealed in a roll of rags – Hornblower had been looking so intently at the face that the arm had escaped his notice until then.

  ‘I have made my sacrifice in the cause of liberty,’ said Ramsbottom, with the same laugh – it might have been a laugh of derision or a laugh of mere hysteria.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My left hand lies on the field of Carabobo,’ cackled Ramsbottom.’ I doubt if it has received Christian burial.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Do you see my guns? My beautiful guns. They tore the Dons apart at Carabobo.’

  ‘But you – what treatment have you received?’

  ‘Field surgery, of course. Boiling pitch for the stump. Have you ever felt boiling pitch, My Lord?’

  ‘My frigate is anchored in the roadstead. The surgeon is on board—’

  ‘No – oh no. I must go on with my guns. I must clear El Liberador’s path to Caracas.’

  The same laugh. It was not derision – it was something the opposite. A man on the edge of delirium keeping a desperate hold on his sanity so as not to be diverted from his aim. Nor was it a case of a man laughing lest he weep. He was laughing lest he should indulge in heroics.

 
; ‘Oh, you can’t—’

  ‘Sir! Sir! My Lord!’

  Hornblower swung round. Here was a midshipman from the frigate touching his hat, agitated by the urgency of his message.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Message from the cap’n, My Lord. Ships-of-war in sight in the offing. A Spanish frigate an’ what looks like a Dutch frigate, My Lord. Bearing down on us.’

  Desperate news indeed. He must have his flag flying in Clorinda to meet these strangers, but it was a maddening moment in which to be told about it. He turned back to Ramsbottom and back again to the midshipman, his customary quickness of thought not as apparent as usual.

  ‘Very well,’ he rasped. ‘Tell the captain I’m coming immediately.’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord.’ He turned again to Ramsbottom.

  ‘I must go,’ he said. ‘I must—’

  ‘My Lord,’ said Ramsbottom. Some of his feverish vitality had left him. He was leaning back again on his pillows, and it took him a second or two to gather his strength to speak again, and when he did the words lagged as he uttered them. ‘Did you capture the Bride, My Lord?’

  ‘Yes.’ He must end this; he must get back to his ship.

  ‘My bonny Bride. My Lord, there’s another keg of caviare in the after lazarette. Please enjoy it, My Lord.’

  The cackling laugh again. Ramsbottom was still laughing as he lay back with his eyes closed, not hearing the hurried ‘good-bye’ which Hornblower uttered as he turned away. It seemed to Hornblower as if that laugh followed him while he hastened to the pier and down into the boat.

  ‘Shove off! Put your backs into it!’

  There lay Clorinda at anchor, with the Bride of Abydos close to her. And there, undoubtedly, were the topsails of two frigates heading in towards them. He scrambled up the ship’s side with hardly a moment to spare for the compliments with which he was received. He was too busy taking in the tactical situation, the trend of the shore, the position of the Bride of Abydos, the approach of the strangers.

  ‘Hoist my flag,’ he ordered, curtly, and then, recovering his poise, with the customary elaborate politeness, ‘Sir Thomas, I’d be obliged if you’d get springs on the cable, out of the after ports on both sides.’

  ‘Springs, My Lord? Aye aye, My Lord.’

  Cables passed through the after ports to the anchor cable; by hauling in on one or the other with the capstan he could turn the ship to bring her guns, to bear in any direction. It was only one of the many exercises Hornblower had put his crews through during the recent manoeuvres. It called for heavy, closely co-ordinated labour on the part of the hands. Orders were bellowed; warrant and petty officers ran at the heads of their different parties to rouse out the cables and drag them aft.

  ‘Sir Thomas, please order the brig to kedge closer in. I want her inshore of us.’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord.’

  Now it became apparent that there was some time in hand. The approaching frigates, hull up now when a glass was trained on them from the quarterdeck, were shortening sail, and then, even while Hornblower held them in the field of his telescope, he saw their main-topsails suddenly broaden as they were swung round. They were heaving-to, and a moment later he saw a boat lowered from the Dutch frigate and pull to the Spanish one. That would mean a consultation, presumably. Thanks to the difference of language they could hardly be expected to agree on a course of action by signal nor even by speaking trumpet.

  ‘The Spaniard’s wearing a commodore’s broad pendant, Sir Thomas. Will you please be ready to salute it as soon as he salutes my flag?’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord.’

  The consultation took some little time, the second half of one sandglass and the beginning of the next. A monstrous creaking down below, and a clanking of the capstan, told that the springs were being tested. Clorinda swung a trifle to starboard, and then a trifle to port.

  ‘Springs are tested and ready, My Lord.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir Thomas. Now will you be good enough to send the hands to quarters and clear for action?’

  ‘Clear for action? Aye aye, My Lord.’

  It was a detestable nuisance to take this precaution. It meant that his bedding and books and personal equipment down below would be swept away in a horrible muddle that might take days to straighten. But on the other hand, if those frigates came down determined to fight, his reputation would never survive being unready for them. It would be chaos to try to clear away the guns and bring up cartridges while actually under fire; the battle – if there were to be a battle – would be lost before it was begun. And there was something of the old thrill about these preparations; the pealing of the whistles, the hoarse cries of the petty officers, the orderly rush of the men to the guns, the tramp of the marines to the quarterdeck and the sharp order of their officer as they dressed into a rigid line.

  ‘Ship cleared for action, My Lord.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir Thomas. Stand by, if you please.’

  There would have been just time even if the strangers had come instantly down and gone into action without parley. By a rapid use of his springs he would rake the first-comer thoroughly enough to have made her captain wish he had never been born. Now he must wait, and the ship’s company, standing by their guns, must wait with him, the matches smouldering in their tubs, the fire parties standing by with their buckets, the powder boys, cartridge carriers in hand, waiting to start their race from powder magazine to guns and back again.

  ‘Here they come, My Lord!’

  Those topsails were narrowing again; those masts were coming into line. Now the frigates’ bows were pointed straight at Clorinda as they came towards her. Hornblower held them steady in his telescope; no guns were run out, he could see, but it was impossible to tell if they were cleared for action. Nearer and nearer; now they were almost within extreme random cannon shot. At that moment where was a puff of smoke from the Spaniard’s starboard bow, and for the life of him Hornblower could not check a gulp of excitement. The breeze blew the puff away, and then the puff was replaced by another; as the second appeared, the heavy thud of the first discharge came to Hornblower’s ears. There was a momentary temptation to plunge into the luxury of mental arithmetic, involving the speed of sound conveyed over water, and the five seconds’ interval between saluting guns, and the distance between the ships, but it had to be foregone.

  ‘You may return the salute to the broad pendant, Sir Thomas.’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord.’

  Thirteen guns for a Rear-Admiral’s flag; eleven for a Commodore; twenty-four guns, one hundred and twenty seconds, exactly two minutes; those ships, approaching at four miles in the hour would be a cable’s length closer at the end of the salutes, within distant gunshot.

  ‘Sir Thomas, I would be glad if you would take several turns upon the starboard spring.’

  ‘Aye aye, My Lord.’

  The violent creaking made itself heard again, and Clorinda turned herself to present her broadside towards the newcomers. No harm whatever in letting them know that a hot reception was awaiting them if they intended mischief; it might save much trouble later.

  ‘They’re taking in sail, My Lord!’

  So he could see for himself, but there was nothing to be gained by saying so. The two ships obviously had heavy crews, judging by the rapidity with which sail was got in. Now round they went, up into the wind. Hornblower believed he could hear the roar of the cables as they anchored. It seemed like a decisive moment, and Hornblower was about to mark it by shutting up his telescope with a snap when he saw a boat lowering from the Spaniard.

  ‘I fancy we’ll be having a visitor shortly,’ said Hornblower.

  The boat seemed to fly over the glittering water; the men at the oars were pulling like madmen – presumably the eternal desire of the men of one navy to show another navy what they could do.

  ‘Boat ahoy!’ hailed the officer of the watch.

  The Spanish officer in the sternsheets, conspicuous by his epaulettes, hailed back; Hornblower could
not be sure of what he said, but the letter that was waved at the same time told the story.

  ‘Receive him on board, if you please, Sir Thomas.’

  The Spanish lieutenant looked sharply round him as he came over the ship’s side; no harm in his seeing the men at quarters and the preparations made. He picked out Hornblower at once, and with a salute and a bow presented his letter.

  Su excellencia el Almirante Sir Hornblower, said the superscription.

  Hornblower broke the seal; he could read the Spanish of the letter easily enough.

  The Brigadier, Don Luiz Argote, would be honoured if His Excellency Sir Hornblower would accord him the opportunity of an interview. The Brigadier mould be delighted if he could visit His Excellency’s ship and would be equally delighted if His Excellency would visit His Most Catholic Majesty’s ship.

  In Spanish naval usage, Hornblower knew, ‘Brigadier’ was equivalent to ‘Commodore’.

  ‘I’ll write a reply,’ said Hornblower. ‘Sir Thomas, please make this gentleman welcome. Come with me, Gerard.’

  Down below, with the ship cleared for action, it was a nuisance to hunt up writing paper and ink; it was even more of a nuisance to have to compose a letter in Spanish, for in writing misspellings and bad grammar would be far more evident than in speech. Luckily the Brigadier’s letter itself supplied most of the spelling and the tricky conditional form.

  Rear Admiral Lord Hornblower would be delighted to receive the Brigadier Don Luiz Argote in his flagship whenever the Brigadier wishes.

  Sealing wax and seal and candle had to be discovered; it would never do to appear careless about these formalities.

  ‘Very well,’ said Hornblower, giving grudging approval of the second impression after the failure of the first attempt. ‘Take a boat to the Bride of Abydos as quick as lightning and see if there’s any of that sherry left which Ramsbottom served at his dinner party.’