The Happy Return hh-7

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “Soon, Captain,” she said, “I will come to think that I shall be unwelcome on board. I can hardly imagine that a gentleman holding the King’s commission would be discourteous to a woman, especially to a woman with my name.”

  That was just the difficulty. No captain of small influence could afford to offend a Wellesley. Hornblower knew that if he did he might never command a ship again, and that he and Maria would rot on the beach on half pay for the rest of their lives. At thirty-seven he still was not more than one-eighth the way up the captain’s list—and the goodwill of the Wellesleys could easily keep him in employment until he attained flag rank. There was nothing for it but to swallow his resentment and to do all he could to earn that goodwill, diplomatically wringing advantage from his difficulties. He groped for a suitable speech.

  “I was only doing my duty, ma’am,” he said, “in pointing out the dangers to which you might be exposed. For myself there would be nothing that would give me greater pleasure than your presence on board my ship.”

  Lady Barbara went down in a curtsy far deeper than her first, and at this moment Gray came up and touched his cap.

  “Your baggage is all on board, ma’am,” he said.

  They had hove the stuff up with a whip from the main yardarm, and now it littered the gangway—leather cases, ironbound wooden boxes, dome-topped trunks.

  “Thank you, sir.” Lady Barbara brought out a flat leather purse from her pocket, and took from it a gold coin. “Would you be so kind as to give this to the boat’s crew?”

  “Lord love you, ma’am, you don’t need to give those Dago niggers gold. Silver’s all they deserve.”

  “Give them this, then, and thank you for your kindness.”

  Gray hurried off, and Hornblower heard him bargaining in English with a boat’s crew who knew no tongue but Spanish. The threat of having a cold shot hove down into the boat compelled it at length to shove off still spattering expostulation. A new little wave of irritation rose in Hornblower’s mind. He disliked seeing his warrant officers running to do a woman’s bidding, and his responsibilities were heavy, and he had been standing in a hot sun for half an hour.

  “There will be no room in your cabin for a tenth of that baggage, ma’am,” he snapped.

  Lady Barbara nodded gravely.

  “I have dwelt in a cabin before this, sir. That sea chest there holds everything I shall need on board. The rest can be put where you will—until we reach England.”

  Hornblower almost stamped on the deck with rage. He was unused to a woman who could display practical common-sense like this. It was infuriating that he could find no way of discomposing her—and then he saw her smiling, guessed that she was smiling at the evident struggle on his face, and blushed hotly again. He turned on his heel and led the way below without a word.

  Lady Barbara looked round the captain’s cabin with a whimsical smile, but she made no comment, not even when she surveyed the grim discomfort of the after-cabin.

  “A frigate has few of the luxuries of an Indiaman you see, ma’am,” said Hornblower, bitterly. He was bitter because his poverty at the time when he commissioned the Lydia had allowed him to purchase none of the minor comforts which many frigate-captains could afford.

  “I was just thinking when you spoke,” said Lady Barbara, gently, “that it was scandalous that a King’s officer should be treated worse than a fat John Company man. But I have only one thing to ask for which I do not see.”

  “And that is, ma’am—?”

  “A key for the lock on the cabin door.”

  “I will have the armourer make you a key, ma’am. But there will be a sentry at this door night and day.”

  The implications which Hornblower read into this request of Lady Barbara’s angered him again. She was slandering both him and his ship.

  “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” said Lady Barbara. “It is not on my account, Captain, that I need a key. It is Hebe here whom I have to lock in unless she is directly under eye. She can no more keep from the men than a moth from a candle.”

  The little negress grinned widely at this last speech, showing no resentment and a good deal of pride. She rolled her eyes at Polwheal, who was standing silently by.

  “Where will she sleep, then?” asked Hornblower, disconcerted once more.

  “On the floor of my cabin. And mark my words, Hebe, the first time I find you not there during the night I’ll lace you so that you will have to sleep on your face.”

  Hebe still grinned, although it was evident that she knew her mistress would carry out her threat. What mollified Hornblower was Lady Barbara’s little slip in speaking of the ‘floor’ of her cabin instead of the deck. It showed that she was only a feeble woman after all.

  “Very good,” he said. “Polwheal, take my things into Mr. Bush’s cabin. Give Mr. Bush my apologies and tell him he will have to berth in the wardroom. See that Lady Barbara has all that she wants, and ask Mr. Gray with my compliments to attend to putting the baggage in my storeroom. You will forgive me, Lady Barbara, but I am already late in paying my call upon the Viceroy.”

  Chapter X

  The captain of the Lydia came on board again to the accompaniment of the usual twitterings of the pipes and the presenting of arms by the marine guard. He walked very carefully, for good news just arrived from Europe had made the Viceroy pressingly hospitable while the notification of the first case of yellow fever in Panama had made him apprehensive so that Hornblower had been compelled to drink one glass of wine too much. A naturally abstemious man, he hated the feeling of not being quite master of himself.

  As always, he looked sharply round the deck as soon as his feet were on it. Lady Barbara was sitting in a hammock chair on the quarterdeck—someone must have had that chair made for her during the day; and someone had rigged for her a scrap of awning in the mizzen rigging so that she sat in the shade with Hebe crouching at her feet. She looked cool and comfortable, and smiled readily at him as he approached, but he looked away from her. He would not speak to her until his head was clearer.

  “Call all hands to weigh anchor and make sail,” he said to Bush. “We leave at once.”

  He went below, checked himself with a gesture of annoyance at finding that habit had led him to the wrong cabin, and as he turned on his heel he hit his head a shattering crash on a deck beam. His new cabin, from which Bush had been evicted, was even smaller than the old one. Polwheal was waiting to help him change his clothes, and the sight of him reminded Hornblower of fresh troubles. He had been wearing his best gold laced coat and white breeches when Lady Barbara came on board, but he could not afford to continue to wear them lest they should grow too shabby for use on ceremonial occasions. He would have to appear before this woman in future in his old patched coats and cheap duck trousers. She would sneer at his shabbiness and poverty.

  He cursed the woman as he stripped off his clothes, all wet with sweat. Then a new trouble came into his mind. He had to leave Polwheal to keep watch while he had his shower bath under the pump lest she should surprise him there naked. He would have to issue orders to the crew so as to make sure that her fastidious eyes would not be offended by the state of undress which they habitually affected in the tropics. He combed his hair and cursed its curliness as drawing additional attention to the way his hair was receding from his forehead.

  Then he hurried on deck; he was glad that the need for looking after the ship saved him from meeting Lady Barbara’s eyes and seeing her reaction to his shabby clothes. He felt her gaze upon him, all the same, as he stood with his back to her attending to the business of getting under weigh. Half of one watch were at the capstan with all their weight upon the bars, their bare feet seeking holds on the smooth deck while Harrison bellowed encouragement and threats, and stimulated the laggards with cuts from his cane. Sullivan the mad fiddler, the two Marine fifers and the two drummers were playing some lively tune—to Hornblower one tune was much the same as another—on the forecastle.

  The cable came
steadily in, the ship’s boys with their nippers following it to the hatch-coamings and scuttling back immediately to take a fresh hold on cable and messenger. But the measured clank-clank of the capstan grew slower and slower and then came to a dead stop.

  “Heave, you bastards! Heave!” bellowed Harrison. “Here, you fo’c’sle men, bear a hand! Now, heave!”

  There were twenty more men thrusting at the bars now. Their added strength brought one more solemn clank from the capstan.

  “Heave! Christ damn you, heave!”

  Harrison’s cane was falling briskly first here and then there.

  “Heave!”

  A shudder ran through the ship, the capstan swung round so sharply that the hands at the bars fell in a tumbling heap to the deck.

  “Messenger’s parted, sir,” hailed Gerard from the forecastle. “The anchor’s foul, I think, sir.”

  “Hell fire!” said Hornblower to himself. He was certain that the woman in the hammock chair behind him was laughing at his predicament, with a foul anchor and the eyes of all Spanish America on him. But he was not going to abandon an anchor and cable to the Spaniards.

  “Pass the small bower cable for a messenger,” he shouted.

  That meant unbearably hot and unpleasant work for a score of men down in the cable tier rousing out the small bower cable and manhandling it up to the capstan. The calls and curses of the boatswain’s mates came echoing back to the quarterdeck—the warrant officers were as acutely conscious of the indignity of the ship’s position as was their captain. Hornblower could not pace the deck as he wished to do, for fear of meeting Lady Barbara’s eyes. He could only stand and fume, wiping the sweat with his handkerchief from his face and neck.

  “Messenger’s ready, sir!” hailed Gerard.

  “Put every man to the bars that there’s place for. Mr. Harrison, see that they heave!”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  Br-r-r-rm. Boom! Br-r-r-m. Boom! The drum rolled.

  “Heave, you sons of bitches,” said Harrison, his cane going crack-crack-crack on the straining backs.

  Clank! went the capstan. Clank-clank-clank. Hornblower felt the deck inclining a trifle under his feet. The strain was dragging down the ship’s bows, not bringing home the anchor.

  “God—,” began Hornblower to himself, and then left the sentence uncompleted. Of the fifty-five oaths he had ready to employ not one was adequate to the occasion.

  ’Avast heaving!’ he roared, and the sweating seamen eased their aching backs.

  Hornblower tugged at his chin as though he wanted to pull it off. He would have to sail the anchor out of the ground—a delicate manoeuvre involving peril to masts and rigging, and which might end in a ridiculous fiasco. Up to the moment only a few knowing people in Panama could have gussed the ship’s predicament, but the moment sail was set telescopes would be trained upon her from the city walls and if the operation failed everyone would know and would be amused—and the Lydia might be delayed for hours repairing damage. But he was not going to abandon that anchor and cable.

  He looked up at the vane at the masthead, and overside at the water; the wind was across the tide, which gave them a chance, at least. He issued his orders quietly, taking the utmost precaution to conceal his trepidation, and steadily keeping his back to Lady Barbara. The top-men raced aloft to set the fore topsail; with that and the driver he could get sternway upon the ship. Harrison stood by the capstan ready first to let the cable go with a run and then second to have it hove in like lightning when the ship came forward again. Bush had his men ready at the braces, and every idle hand was gathered round the capstan.

  The cable roared out as the ship gathered sternway; Hornblower stood rooted to the quarterdeck feeling that he would give a week of his life for the chance to pace up and down without meeting Lady Barbara’s eyes. With narrowed eyes he watched the progress of the ship, his mind juggling with a dozen factors at once—the drag of the cable on the bows, the pressure of the wind on the driver and the backed fore topsail, the set of the tide, the increasing sternway, the amount of cable still to run out. He picked his moment.

  “Hard-a-starboard,” he rasped at the quartermaster at the wheel, and then to the hands forward “Smartly with the braces now!”

  With the rudder hard across the ship came round a trifle. The fore topsail came round. The jibs and fore staysails were set like lightning. There was a shuddering moment before the ship paid off. Her sternway checked, the ship hesitated, and then, joyfully, began slowly to move forward close hauled. Up aloft every sail that could draw was being set as Hornblower barked his orders. The capstan clanked ecstatically as Harrison’s men raced round with the bars gathering the cable again.

  Hornblower had a moment to think now, with the ship gathering forward way. The drag of the cable would throw her all aback if he gave her the least chance. He was conscious of the rapid beating of his heart as he watched the main topsail for the first signs of flapping. It took all his force of will to keep his voice from shaking as he gave his orders to the helmsman. The cable was coming in fast; the next crisis was at hand, which would see the anchor out of the ground or the Lydia dismasted. He nerved himself for it, judged his moment, and then shouted for all sail to be got in.

  All the long and painful drill to which Bush had subjected the crew bore its fruit now. Courses, topsails and top gallants were got in during the few seconds which were left, and as the last shred of canvas disappeared a fresh order from Hornblower brought the ship round, pointing straight into the wind and towards the hidden anchor, the way she had gathered carrying her slowly forward. Hornblower strained his ears to listen to the capstan.

  Clank-clank-clank-clank.

  Harrison was driving his men round and round the capstan like madmen.

  Clank-clank-clank.

  The ship was moving perceptibly slower. He could not tell yet if all his effort was to end ignominiously in failure.

  Clank-clank.

  There came a wild yell from Harrison.

  “Anchor’s free, sir!”

  “Set all sail, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower; Bush was making no attempt to conceal his admiration for a brilliant piece of seamanship, and Hornblower had to struggle hard to keep his voice at the hard mechanical pitch which would hide his elation and convince everyone that he had had no doubt from the very start of the success of his manoeuvre.

  He set a compass course, and as the ship came round and steadied upon it he gave one final glance of inspection round the deck.

  “Ha-h’m,” he rasped, and dived below, to where he could relax and recover, out of Bush’s sight—and out of Lady Barbara’s, too.

  Chapter XI

  Stretched flat on his back in his cabin, blowing thick greasy wreaths of smoke from one of General Hernandez’ cigars towards the deck above him where sat Lady Barbara, Hornblower began slowly to recover from the strain of a very trying day. It had begun with the approach to Panama, with every nerve keyed up lest an ambush had been laid, and it had ended so far with this trying business of the fouled anchor. Between the two had come Lady Barbara’s arrival and the interview with the Viceroy of New Granada.

  The Viceroy had been a typical Spanish gentleman of the old school—Hornblower decided that he would rather have dealings with el Supremo any day of the week. El Supremo might have an unpleasant habit of barbarously putting men to death, but he found no difficulty in making up his mind and one could be confident that orders issued by him would be obeyed with equal promptitude. The Viceroy, on the other hand, while full of approval of Hornblower’s suggestion that instant action against the rebels was necessary, had not been ready to act on it. He was obviously surprised at Hornblower’s decision to sail from Panama on the same day as his arrival—he had expected the Lydia to stay for at least a week of fêtings and junketings and idleness. He had agreed that at least a thousand soldiers must be transported to the Nicaraguan coast—although a thousand soldiers constituted practically the whole of his command—but he had clearly
intended to postpone until the morrow the issuing of the orders for that concentration.

  Hornblower had had to use all his tact to persuade him to do it at once, to give his instructions from his very banqueting table, and to put his favourite aides de camp to the pain of riding with messages under a hot sun during the sacred hours of the siesta. The banquet had in itself been trying; Hornblower felt as if there was no skin left on his palate, so highly peppered had been every dish. Both because of the spiciness of the food and the pressing hospitality of the Viceroy it had been hard to avoid drinking too much; in an age of hard drinking Hornblower stood almost alone in his abstemiousness, from no conscientious motive but solely because he actively disliked the feeling of not having complete control of his judgment.

  But he could not refuse that last glass of wine, seeing what news had just come in. He sat up on his cot with a jerk. That business with the anchor had driven the recollection out of his mind. Good manners compelled him to go and communicate the news to Lady Barbara, seeing how closely it concerned her. He ran up on deck, pitched his cigar overboard, and went towards her. Gerard, the officer of the watch, was in close conversation with her; Hornblower smiled grimly to himself when he saw Gerard hurriedly break off the conversation and move away.

  She was still seated aft by the taffrail in her hammock chair, the negress at her feet. She seemed to be drinking in the cool wind against which the Lydia was standing out of the gulf close hauled. On the starboard beam the sun was ready at the horizon, a disc of orange fire in the clear blue of the sky, and she was exposing her face to its level beams with a total disregard for her complexion which accounted for her sunburn and, presumably, for the fact that she was now twenty-seven and still unmarried despite a trip to India. Yet there was a serenity in her expression which seemed to show that at the moment at least she was not worrying about being an old maid.