The Happy Return hh-7

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Coffee, sir,” said Polwheal. “Burgoo.”

  Hornblower sat down at table; in the seven months’ voyage every luxury had long since been consumed. The coffee was a black extract of burnt bread, and all that could be said in its favour was that it was sweet and hot. The burgoo was a savoury mess of unspeakable appearance compounded of mashed biscuit crumbs and minced salt beef. Hornblower ate absentmindedly. With his left hand he tapped a biscuit on the table so that the weevils would all be induced to have left it by the time he had finished his burgoo.

  There were shipnoises all round him as he ate. Every time the Lydia rolled and pitched a trifle as she reached the crest of the swell which was lifting her, the woodwork all creaked gently in unison. Overhead came the sound of Gerard’s shod feet as he paced the quarterdeck, and sometimes the pattering of horny bare feet as some member of the crew trotted by. From forward came a monotonous steady clanking as the pumps were put to the daily task of pumping out the ship’s bilges. But these noises were all transient and interrupted; there was one sound which went on all the time so steadily that the ear grew accustomed to it and only noticed it when the attention was specially directed to it—the sound of the breeze in the innumerable ropes of the rigging. It was just the faintest singing, a harmony of a thousand highpitched tones and overtones, but it could be heard in every part of the ship, transmitted from the chains through the timbers along with the slow, periodic creaking.

  Hornblower finished his burgoo, and was turning his attention to the biscuit he had been rapping on the table. He contemplated it with calm disfavour; it was poor food for a man, and in the absence of butter—the last cask had gone rancid a month back—he would have to wash down the dry mouthfuls with sips of burntbread coffee. But before he could take his first bite a wild cry from above caused him to sit still with the biscuit half way to his mouth.

  “Land ho!” he heard. “Deck there! Land two points on the larboard bow, sir.”

  That was the lookout in the foretop hailing the deck. Hornblower, as he sat with his biscuit in mid air, heard the rush and bustle on deck; everyone would be wildly excited at the sight of land, the first for three months, on this voyage to an unknown destination. He was excited himself. There was not merely the imminent thrill of discovering whether he had made a good landfall; there was also the thought that perhaps within twenty four hours he would be in the thick of the dangerous and difficult mission upon which my lords of the Admiralty had despatched him. He was conscious of a more rapid beating of his heart in his breast. He wanted passionately to rush out on deck as his first instincts dictated, but he restrained himself. He wanted still more to appear in the eyes of his officers and crew to be a man of complete self confidence and imperturbability—and this was only partially to gratify himself. The more respect in which a captain was held, the better for his ship. He forced himself into an attitude of complete composure, crossing his knees and sipping his coffee in entire unconcern as Mr. Midshipman Savage knocked at the cabin door and came bouncing in.

  “Mr. Gerard sent me to tell you land’s in sight on the larboard bow, sir,” said Savage, hardly able to stand still in the prevailing infection of excitement. Hornblower made himself take another sip of coffee before he spoke, and he made his words come slowly and calmly.

  “Tell Mr. Gerard I shall come on deck in a few minutes when I have finished my breakfast,” he said.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Savage bolted out of the cabin; his large clumsy feet clattered on the companion.

  “Mr. Savage! Mr. Savage!” yelled Hornblower. Savage’s large moonlike face reappeared in the doorway.

  “You forgot to close the door,” said Hornblower, coldly. “And please don’t make so much noise on the companionway.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the crestfallen Savage.

  Hornblower was pleased with himself for that. He pulled at his chin in self congratulation. He sipped again at his coffee, but found himself quite unable to eat his biscuit. He drummed with his fingers on the table in an effort to make the time pass more rapidly.

  He heard young Clay bellowing from the masthead, where presumably Gerard had sent him with a glass.

  “Looks like a burning mountain, sir. Two burning mountains. Volcanoes, sir.”

  Instantly Hornblower began to call up before his mind’s eye his memory of the chart which he had so often studied in the privacy of this cabin. There were volcanoes all along this coast; the presence of two of the larboard bow was no sure indication of the ship’s position. And yet—and yet—the entrance of the Gulf of Fonseca would undoubtedly be marked by two volcanoes to larboard. It was quite possible that he had made a perfect landfall, after eleven weeks out of sight of land. Hornblower could sit still no longer. He got up from the table, and, remembering just in time to go slowly and with an air of complete unconcern, he walked up on deck.

  Chapter II

  The quarterdeck was thronged with officers, all the four lieutenants, Crystal the master, Simmonds of the marines, Wood the purser, the midshipmen of the watch. The rigging swarmed with petty officers and ratings, and every glass in the ship appeared to be in use. Hornblower realized that a stern coldblooded disciplinarian would take exception to this perfectly natural behaviour, and so he did the same.

  “What’s all this?” he snapped. “Has no one in this ship anything to do? Mr. Wood, I’ll trouble you to send for the cooper and arrange with him for the filling of the water casks. Get the royals and stun’sails off her, Mr. Gerard.”

  The ship burst into activity again with the twittering of the pipes and Harrison’s bellowing of “All hands shorten sail” and the orders which Gerard called from the quarterdeck. Under plain sail the Lydia rolled smoothly over the quartering swell.

  “I think I can see the smoke from the deck, sir, now,” said Gerard, apologetically raising the subject of land again to his captain. He proffered his glass and pointed forward. Low on the horizon, greyish under a wisp of white cloud, Hornblower could see something through the telescope which might be smoke.

  “Hah’m,” said Hornblower, as he had trained himself to say instead of something more conversational He went forward and began to climb the weather foremast shrouds. He was nothing of an athlete, and he felt a faint dislike for this task, but it had to be done—and he was uncomfortably aware that every idle eye on board was turned on him. Because of this he was morally compelled, although he was hampered by the telescope, to refrain from going through the lubbers’ hole and instead to make the difficult outward climb up the futtock shrouds. Nor could he pause for breath—not when there were midshipmen under his command who in their followmyleader games thought nothing of running without a stop from the hold to the main royal truck.

  The climb hand over hand up the fore top gallant shrouds tried him severely; breathing heavily, he reached the fore top gallant masthead, and settled himself to point the telescope as steadily as his heaving chest and sudden nervousness would allow. Clay was sitting nonchalantly astride the yardarm fifteen feet away, but Hornblower ignored him. The slight corkscrew roll of the ship was sweeping him in a vast circle, up, forward, sideways, and down; at first he could only fix the distant mountains in snatches, but after a time he was able to keep them under fairly continuous observation. It was a strange landscape which the telescope revealed to him. There were the sharp peaks of several volcanoes; two very tall ones to larboard, a host of smaller ones both to starboard and to port. As he looked he saw a puff of grey steam emerge from one peak—not from the summit, but from a vent in the side—and ascend lazily to join the strip of white cloud which hung over it. Besides these cones there was a long mountain range of which the peaks appeared to be spurs, but the range itself seemed to be made up of a chain of old volcanoes, truncated and weathered down by the passage of centuries; that strip of coast must have been a hell’s kitchen when they were all in eruption together. The upper parts of the peaks and of the mountains were a warm grey—grey with a hint of pink—and lower he c
ould see what looked like green cataracts which must be vegetation stretching up along gullies in the mountain sides. Hornblower noted the relative heights and positions of the volcanoes, and from these data he drew a map in his mind and compared it with the section of the chart which he also carried in his mind’s eye. There was no doubting their similarity.

  “I thought I saw breakers just then, sir,” said Clay. Hornblower’s gaze changed direction from the tops of the peaks to their feet.

  Here there was a solid belt of green, unbroken save where lesser volcanoes jutted out from it. Hornblower swept his glass along it, along the very edge of the horizon, and then back again. He thought he saw a tiny flash of white, sought for the place again, experienced a moment of doubt, and then saw it again—a speck of white which appeared and disappeared as he watched.

  “Quite right. Those are breakers sure enough,” he said, and instantly regretted it. There had been no need to make any reply to Clay at all. By that much his reputation for immobility diminished.

  The Lydia held her course steadily towards the coast. Looking down, Hornblower could see the curiously foreshortened figures of the men on the forecastle a hundred and forty feet below, and round the bows a hint of a bow wave which told him the ship must be making four knots or very nearly. They would be up with the shore long before nightfall, especially as the breeze would freshen as the day went on. He eased himself out of his cramped position and stared again at the shore. As time went on he could see more breakers stretching on each side of where he had originally seen them. That must be a place where the incoming swell broke straight against a vertical wall of rock and flung its white foam upwards into sight. His belief that he had made a perfect landfall was growing stronger. On each side of the breakers was a stretch of clear water on the horizon, and beyond that again, on each side, was a mediumsized volcano. A wide bay, an island in the middle of the entrance, and two flanking volcanoes. That was exactly how the Gulf of Fonseca appeared in the chart, but Hornblower was painfully aware that no very great error in his navigation would have brought them anything up to two hundred miles from where he thought he was, and he realised that on a coast like this, littered with volcanoes, one section would appear very like another. Even the appearance of a bay and an island might be simulated by some other formation of the coast. Besides, he could not rely on his charts. They had been drawn from those Anson had captured in these very waters sixty years ago, and every one knew about Dago charts—and Dago charts submitted to the revision of useless Admiralty draughtsmen might be completely unreliable.

  But as he watched his doubts were gradually set at rest. The bay opening before him was enormous—there could be no other of that size on that coast which could have escaped even Dago cartographers. Hornblower’s eyes estimated the width of the entrance at something over ten miles including the islands. Farther up the bay was a big island of a shape typical of the landscape—a steep circular cone rising sheer from the water. He could not see the far end of the bay, not even now when the ship was ten miles nearer than when he first saw the entrance.

  “Mr. Clay,” he said, not condescending to take his eye from the telescope. “You can go down now. Give Mr. Gerard my compliments and ask him please to send all hands to dinner.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Clay.

  The ship would know now that something unusual was imminent, with dinner advanced by half an hour. In British ships the officers were always careful to see that the men had full bellies before being called upon to exert themselves more than usual.

  Hornblower resumed his watch from the mast head. There could be no possible doubt now that the Lydia was heading into the Gulf of Fonseca. He had performed a most notable feat of navigation, of which anyone might be justifiably proud, in bringing the ship straight here after eleven weeks without sighting land. But he felt no elation about it. It was Hornblower’s nature to find no pleasure in achieving things he could do; his ambition was always yearning after the impossible, to appear a strong silent capable man, unmoved by emotion.

  At present there was no sign of life in the gulf, no boats, no smoke. It might be an uninhabited shore that he was approaching, a second Columbus. He could count on at least one hour more without further action being called for. He shut his telescope, descended to the deck, and walked with self conscious slowness aft to the quarterdeck.

  Crystal and Gerard were talking animatedly beside the rail. Obviously they had moved out of earshot of the man at the wheel and had sent the midshipman as far away as possible; obviously also, as indicated by the way they looked towards Hornblower as he approached, they were talking about him. And it was only natural that they should be excited, because the Lydia was the first British ship of war to penetrate into the Pacific coast of Spanish America since Anson’s time. They were in waters furrowed by the famous Acapulco galleon which carried a million sterling in treasure on each of her annual trips, along this coast crept the coasting ships bearing the silver of Potosi to Panama. It seemed as if the fortune of every man on board might be assured if only those unknown orders of the captain permitted it. What the captain intended to do next was of intense importance to them all.

  “Send a reliable man with a good glass to the fore t’gallant masthead, Mr. Gerard,” was all Hornblower said as he went below.

  Chapter III

  Polwheal was waiting with his dinner in the cabin. Hornblower meditated for a moment upon the desirability of a dinner of fat salt pork at noontide in the tropics. He was not in the least hungry, but the desire to appear a hero in the eyes of his steward overrode his excited lack of appetite. He sat down and ate rapidly for ten minutes, forcing himself to gulp down the distasteful mouthfuls. Polwheal, too, was watching every movement he made with desperate interest. Under his avid gaze he rose and walked through, stooping his head under the low deck, to his sleeping cabin and unlocked his desk.

  “Polwheal!” he called.

  “Sir!” said Polwheal instantly appearing at the door.

  “Get out my best coat and put the new epaulettes on it. Clean white trousers—no, the breeches and the best white silk stockings. The buckled shoes, and see that the buckles shine. And the sword with the gold hilt.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Polwheal.

  Back in the main cabin Hornblower stretched himself on the locker below the stern window and once more unfolded his secret Admiralty orders. He had read them so often that he almost knew them by heart, but it was prudent to make certain that he understood every word of them. They were comprehensive enough, in all conscience. Some Admiralty clerk had given his imagination loose rein in the wording of them. The first ten paragraphs covered the voyage up to the present; firstly the need for acting with the utmost possible secrecy so that no hint could reach Spain of the approach of a British frigate to the Pacific shores of her possessions. ‘You are therefore requested and required—’ to sight land as little as possible on the voyage, and ‘you are hereby entirely prohibited—’ from coming within sight of land at all in the Pacific until the moment of his arrival at the mouth of the Gulf of Fonseca. He had obeyed these orders to the letter, although there were few enough captains in the service who could have done and who would have done. He had brought his ship here all the way from England without seeing any land save for a glimpse of Cape Horn, and if he had allowed Crystal to have his way regarding the course to be set a week ago, the ship would have gone sailing into the Gulf of Panama, completely forfeiting all possibility of secrecy.

  Hornblower wrenched his mind away from the argument regarding the amount of compass variation to be allowed for in these waters and forced himself to concentrate on a further study of his orders. ‘You are hereby requested and required—’ to form an alliance as soon as he reached the Gulf of Fonseca with Don Julian Alvarado, who was a large landowner with estates along the western shore of the bay. Don Julian intended, with the help of the British, to rise in rebellion against the Spanish monarchy. Hornblower was to hand over to him the five hundred m
uskets and bayonets, the five hundred pouchbelts, and the million rounds of small arm ammunition which were to be provided at Portsmouth, and he was to do everything which his discretion dictated to ensure the success of the rebellion. If he were to think it necessary, he could present to the rebels one or more of the guns of his ship, but the fifty thousand guineas in gold which were entrusted to him as well were only to be disbursed if the rebellion would fail without them, on pain of his being brought to a court-martial. He was to succour the rebels to the utmost of his power, even to the extent of recognising Don Julian Alvarado’s sovereignty over any territory that he might conquer, provided that in return Don Julian would enter into commercial treaties with His Britannic Majesty.

  This mention of commercial treaties apparently had acted as an inspiration to the Admiralty clerk, for the next ten paragraphs dealt in highflown detail with the pressing necessity for opening Spanish possessions to British commerce. Peruvian balsam and logwood, cochineal and gold, were awaiting exchange for British manufactures. The clerk’s quill had fairly dipped with excitement as it penned these details in a fair round hand. Furthermore, there was an arm of the bay of Fonseca, called, it was believed, the Estero Real, which approached closely to the inland lake of Managua, which was thought to communicate with the lake of Nicaragua, which drained to the Caribbean by the river San Juan. Captain Hornblower was requested and required to do his utmost to open up this route across the isthmus to British commerce, and he was to guide Don Julian’s efforts in this direction.

  It was only after Don Julian’s rebellion should be successful and all this accomplished that the orders went on to give Captain Hornblower permission to attack the treasure ships to be found in the Pacific, and moreover no shipping was to be interfered with if doing so should give offense to those inhabitants who might otherwise be favourable to the rebellion. For Captain Hornblower’s information it was noted that the Spaniards were believed to maintain in these waters a twodecked ship of fifty guns, by the name the Natividad, for the enforcement of the royal authority. Captain Hornblower was therefore requested and required to ‘take, sink, burn or destroy’ this ship at the first opportunity.