But Hornblower was astonished at the ease with which Lady Barbara handled them. His own Maria would have been too gauche ever to have pulled that party together, and in a world where he knew few women Hornblower was prone to measure the ones he met by Maria’s standard. Lady Barbara laughed away Clay’s bumptiousness, listened appreciatively to Bush’s account of Trafalgar (when he had been a junior lieutenant in the Téméraire) and then won Galbraith’s heart completely by displaying a close knowledge of a remarkable poem called ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ by an Edinburgh lawyer—every line of which Galbraith knew by heart, and which Galbraith thought was the greatest poem in the English language. His cheeks glowed with pleasure as they discussed it.
Hornblower kept his opinion of the work to himself. His model author was Gibbon, whose ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ was to be found in the very locker on which he sat, and he was surprised that a woman who could quote Juvenal with ease should be so interested in a barbaric romantic poem with no polish about it whatever. He contented himself with sitting back and watching the faces round the table—Galbraith tense and pleased, Clay and Savage and Bush a little out of their depth but interested in spite of themselves, and Lady Barbara completely at ease, conversing with a fearless self-confidence which nevertheless (as Hornblower grudgingly admitted to himself) seemed to owe nothing to her great position.
She made no use of her sex, either, Hornblower realised, and yet she was, marvellously, neither cold nor masculine. She might have been Savage’s aunt, or Galbraith’s sister. She could talk to men as an equal, and yet could keep from her manner both invitation and hostility. She was very different from Maria. And when dinner was over and the officers rose to drink the health of the King, stooping under the deck beams (not until twenty-five more years had passed would a King who had been a sailor himself give permission to the Navy to drink his health sitting) she echoed “God bless him!” and finished her single glass of wine with exactly the right touch of light-hearted solemnity which befitted the occasion. Hornblower suddenly realised that he was passionately anxious for the evening not to end.
“Do you play whist, Lady Barbara?” he asked.
“Why, yes,” she said, “are there whist players on board this ship?”
“There are some who are not too enthusiastic,” replied Hornblower, grinning at his juniors.
But nobody had nearly as much objection to playing in a four with Lady Barbara, the more so as her presence might moderate the captain’s dry strictness. The cut allotted Lady Barbara as the captain’s partner against Clay and Galbraith. Clay dealt and turned up a heart as trump; it was Lady Barbara’s lead. She led the king of hearts, and Hornblower writhed uneasily in his seat. This might well be the play of a mere tyro, and somehow it hurt him to think that Lady Barbara was a bad whist player. But the king of hearts was followed by the king of diamonds, which also took the trick, and that by the ace of hearts, followed by the seven. Hornblower took the trick with the queen—his last heart, making a total of eleven played, and returned a diamond. Down came Lady Barbara’s queen. Next came the ace of diamonds, and then two small ones to follow. At his first discard Hornblower dropped the seven from his suit of four clubs headed by king and knave. His opponents each discarded small spades on that remorseless string of diamonds. From doubt Hornblower changed instantly to complete confidence in his partner, which was entirely justified. She led the ace of clubs followed by the three, Hornblower finessed his knave, played his king, on which his partner discarded her singleton spade and then claimed the last two tricks with her remaining trumps. They had made a slam even though their opponents held every trick in spades.
Lady Barbara had shown that she could play a good hand well, later she proved that she could fight out a losing hand with equal brilliance. She watched every discard, noted every signal, finessed boldly when there was a chance of profit, returned her partner’s leads and yet resolutely ignored them if her hand justified the risk; she played low from a sequence and led high. Not since the Lydia left England had Hornblower had such a good partner. In his pleasure at this discovery Hornblower quite forgot to have any qualms at the fact that here was a woman who could do something well.
And the next evening she displayed another accomplishment, when she brought out a guitar on to the quarterdeck and accompanied herself in the songs which she sang in a sweet soprano—so sweet that the crew came creeping aft and crouched to listen under the gangways and coughed and fidgeted sentimentally at the close of each song. Galbraith was her slave, and she could play on his musical heartstrings as on her guitar. The midshipmen loved her. Even the barnacle-encrusted officers like Bush and Crystal softened towards her, and Gerard flashed his brilliant smile at her and made play with his good looks and told her stories of his privateering days and of his slaving adventures up the African rivers. Hornblower watched Gerard anxiously during that voyage up the Nicaraguan coast, and cursed his own tone deafness which made Lady Barbara’s singing not merely indifferent to him but almost painful.
Chapter XIII
The long volcanic coast line slid past them day after day. Every day brought its eternal panorama of blue sea and blue sky, of slaty-pink volcanic peaks and a fringing coast line of vivid green. With decks cleared for action and every man at his post they ran once more into the Gulf of Fonseca and sailed round the island of Manguera in search of the Natividad, but they did not find her. They saw no sign of life on the shores of the bay, either. Someone fired a musket at the ship from the cliffs of Manguera—the spent bullet thudded into the mainchains—but they did not see the man who fired it. Bush steered the Lydia out of the gulf again and north eastward in his search for the Natividad.
The Natividad was not to be found in the roadstead of La Libertad, nor in any of the little ports farther along. There was much smoke to be seen at Champerico, and Hornblower, training his glass upon it, could see that for once it was not volcanic. Champerico was in flames, so that presumably el Supremo’s men had come there spreading enlightenment, but there was no sign of the Natividad.
Storms awaited them in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, for that corner of the Pacific is always stormy, lashed by the wind which blows hither from the Gulf of Mexico through a gap in the sierras. Hornblower was made aware of the change by an increase in the motion of the ship. She was rising and swooping more violently than usual and a gusty wind was heeling her sharply over. It was just eight bells, and the watch was being called; he could hear the bellowings of the master’s mates—“Show a leg! Show a leg! Lash up and stow! Lash up and stow!”—as he ran up to the quarterdeck. The sky was still blue overhead and the sun was hot, but the sea was grey, now, and running high, and the Lydia was beginning to labour under her press of sail.
“I was just sending down to you, sir, for permission to shorten sail,” said Bush.
Hornblower glanced up at the canvas, and over towards the clouds towards the coast.
“Yes. Get the courses and t’gallants off her,” he said.
The Lydia plunged heavily as he spoke, and then rose again, labouring, the water creaming under her bows. The whole ship was alive with the creaking of timber and the harping of the rigging. Under shortened sail she rode more easily, but the wind of her beam was growing stronger, and she was bowing down to it as she crashed over the waves. Looking round, Hornblower saw Lady Barbara standing with one hand on the taffrail. The wind was whipping her skirts about her, and with her other hand she was trying to restrain the curls that streamed round her head. Her cheeks were pink under their tan, and her eyes sparkled.
“You ought to be below, Lady Barbara,” he said.
“Oh no, Captain. This is too delicious after the heat we have been enduring.”
A shower of spray came rattling over the bulwarks and wetted them both.
“It is your health, ma’am, about which I am anxious.”
“If salt water was harmful sailors would die young.”
Her cheeks were bright as if she had been using co
smetics. Hornblower could refuse her nothing, even though he bitterly remembered how last evening she had sat in the shadow of the mizzen rigging talking so animatedly to Gerard that no one else had been able to profit by her society.
“Then you can stay on deck, ma’am, since you wish it, unless this gale increases—and I fancy it will.”
“Thank you, Captain,” she replied. There was a look in her eye which seemed to indicate that the question as to what would happen if the gale increased was not nearly as decided as the captain appeared to think—but like her great brother she crossed no bridges until she came to them.
Hornblower turned away; he would clearly have liked to have stayed there talking, with the spray pattering about them, but his duty was with his ship. As he reached the wheel there came a hail from the masthead.
“Sail ho! Deck, there, a sail right ahead. Looks like Natividad, sir.”
Hornblower gazed up. The lookout was clinging to his perch, being swung round and round in dizzy circles as the ship pitched and swooped over the waves.
“Up you go, Knyvett,” he snapped to the midshipman beside him. “Take a glass with you and tell me what you can see.” He knew that he himself would be of no use as a lookout in that wild weather—he was ashamed of it, but he had to admit it to himself. Soon Knyvett’s boyish voice came calling down to him through the gale.
“She’s the Natividad, sir. I can see the cut of her tops’ls.”
“How’s she heading?”
“On the starboard tack, sir, same course as us. Her masts are in one line. Now she’s altering course, sir. She’s wearing round. She must have seen us, sir. Now she’s on the port tack, sir, heading up to wind’ard of us, close hauled, sir.”
“Oh, is she,” said Hornblower to himself, grimly. It was an unusual experience to have a Spanish ship face about and challenge action—but he remembered that she was a Spanish ship no longer. He would not allow her to get the weather gauge of him, come what might.
“Man the braces, there!” he shouted, and then to the man at the wheel: “Port your helm. And mark ye, fellow, keep her as near the wind as she’ll lie. Mr. Bush, beat to quarters, if you please, and clear for action.”
As the drum rolled and the hands came pouring up he remembered the woman aft by the taffrail, and his stolid fatalism changed to anxiety.
“Your place is below, Lady Barbara,” he said. “Take your maid with you. You must stay in the cockpit until the action is over—no, not the cockpit. Go to the cable tier.”
“Captain—,” she began, but Hornblower was not in the mood for argument—if indeed she had argument in mind.
“Mr. Clay!” he rasped. “Conduct her ladyship and her maid to the cable tier. See that she is safe before you leave her. Those are my orders, Mr. Clay. Ha-h’m.”
A cowardly way out, perhaps, to throw on Clay the responsibility of seeing his orders carried out. He knew it, but he was angry with the woman because of the sick feeling of worry which she was occasioning him. She left him, nevertheless, with a smile and a wave of the hand, Clay trotting before her.
For several minutes the ship was a turmoil of industry as the men went through the well-learned drill. The guns were run out, the decks sanded, the horses rigged to the pumps, the fires extinguished, the bulkheads torn down. The Natividad could be seen from the deck now, sailing on the opposite tack towards her, obviously clawing her hardest up to windward to get the weather gauge. Hornblower looked up at the sails to mark the least shiver.
“Steer small, blast you,” he growled at the quartermaster.
The Lydia lay over before the gale, the waves crashing and hissing overside, the rigging playing a wild symphony. Last night she had been stealing peacefully over a calm and moonlit sea, and now here she was twelve hours later thrashing through a storm with a battle awaiting her. The wind was undoubtedly increasing, a wilder puff almost took her aback, and she staggered and rolled until the helmsman allowed her to pay off.
“Natividad won’t be able to open her lower deck ports!” gloated Bush beside him. Hornblower stared across the grey sea at the enemy. He saw a cloud of spray break over her bows.
“No,” he said heavily. He would not discuss the possibilities of the approaching action for fear lest he might be too talkative. “I’ll trouble you, Mr. Bush, to have two reefs taken in those tops’ls.”
On opposite tacks the ships were nearing each other along the sides of an obtuse angle. Look as closely as he would, he could not decide which ship would be to windward when they met at the apex.
“Mr. Gerard,” he called down to the lieutenant in charge of the port side maindeck battery. “See that the matches in your tubs are alight.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
With all this spray breaking aboard the flint lock trigger mechanism could not be relied upon until the guns grew hot and the old-fashioned method of ignition might have to be used—in the tubs on deck were coils of slow-match to meet this emergency. He stared across again at the Natividad. She, too, had reefed her topsail now, and was staggering along, closehauled, under storm canvas. She was flying the blue flag with the yellow star; Hornblower glanced up overhead to where the dingy white ensign fluttered from the peak.
“She’s opened fire, sir,” said Bush beside him.
Hornblower looked back at the Natividad just in time to see the last of a puff of smoke blown to shreds by the wind. The sound of the shot did not reach them, and where the ball went no one could say—the jet of water which it struck up somewhere was hidden in the tossing waves.
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower.
It was bad policy, even with a well-drilled crew, to open fire at long range. That first broadside, discharged from guns loaded carefully and at leisure, and aimed by crews with time to think, was too precious a thing to be dissipated lightly. It should be saved up for use at the moment when it would do maximum harm, however great might be the strain of waiting inactive.
“We’ll be passing mighty close, sir,” said Bush.
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower.
Still there was no means of telling which ship would hold the weather gauge when they met. It appeared as if they would meet bow to bow in collision if both captains held rigidly to their present courses. Hornblower had to exert all his willpower to keep himself standing still and apparently unemotional as the tension increased.
Another puff of smoke from the Natividad’s starboard bow, and this time they heard the sound of the shot as it passed overhead between the masts.
“Closer!” said Bush.
Another puff, and simultaneously a crash from the waist told where the shot had struck.
“Two men down at number four gun,” said Bush, stooping to look forward under the gangway, and then, eyeing the distance between the two ships: “Christ! It’s going to be a near thing.”
It was a situation which Hornblower had visualised several times in his solitary walks on the quarterdeck. He took a last glance up at the weathervane, and at the topsails on the point of shivering as the ship tossed on the heaving sea.
“Stand by, Mr. Rayner. Fire as your guns bear,” he called. Rayner was in command of the starboard side maindeck battery. Then, from the corner of his mouth to the men at the wheel—“Put your helm a-weather. Catch her! Hold her so!”
The Lydia spun round and shot down the lee side of the Natividad and her starboard side guns went off almost simultaneously in a rolling crash that shook the ship to her keel. The billow of smoke that enveloped her momentarily was blown away instantly by the gale. Every shot crashed into the Natividad’s side; the wind brought to their ears the screams of the wounded. So unexpected had the manoeuvre been that only one single shot was fired from the Natividad, and that did no damage—her lower deck ports on this, her lee side, were closed because of the high sea.
“Grand! Oh, grand!” said Bush. He sniffed at the bitter powder smoke eddying round him as if it had been sweet incense.
“Stand by to go about,” rasped Hornblower.<
br />
A well-drilled crew, trained in months of storms under Bush’s eagle eye, was ready at sheets and braces. The Lydia tacked about, turning like a machine, before Natividad could offer any counter to this unexpected attack, and Gerard fired his battery into her helpless stern. The ship’s boys were cheering aimlessly in high piping trebles as they came running up from below with new charges for the guns. On the starboard side the guns were already loaded; on the port side the guns’ crews were thrusting wet swabs down the bore to extinguish any residual fragments of smouldering cartridge, ramming in the charges and shot, and heaving the guns up into firing position again. Hornblower stared across the tossing water at the Natividad. He could see Crespo up on her poop; the fellow actually had the insolence to wave his hand to him, airily, while in the midst of bellowing orders at his unhandy crew.
The Lydia had wrung the utmost advantage out of her manoeuvre; she had fired her two broadsides at close range and had only received a single shot in reply, but now she had to pay for it. By her possession of the weather gauge the Natividad could force close action for a space if resolutely handled. Hornblower could just see her rudder from where he stood. He saw it kick over, and next moment the two-decker had swung round and was hurtling down upon them. Gerard stood in the midst of his battery gazing with narrowed eyes into the wind at the impressive bulk close overside. His swarthy beauty was accentuated by the tenseness of the moment and the fierce concentration of his expression, but for once he was quite unconscious of his good looks.
“Cock your locks!” he ordered. “Take your aim! Fire!”
The roar of the broadside coincided exactly with that of the Natividad’s. The ship was enveloped in smoke, through which could be heard the rattling of splinters, the sound of cut rigging tumbling to the deck, and through it all Gerard’s voice continuing with his drill—“Stop your vents!” The quicker the touch holes of the muzzle loaders were plugged after firing the less would be the wear caused by the rush of the acid gases through them.
The Happy Return hh-7 Page 12