The hands were skylarking and laughing as they washed the decks; it was comforting to see their high spirits, and peculiarly comforting to allow oneself to think that those high spirits were due to the recent successes. Hornblower felt a glow of achievement as he looked forward, and then, as was typical of him, began to feel doubts as to whether he could continue to keep his men in such good order. A long, dreary cruise on blockade service might soon wear down their spirits. Then he spurned away his doubts with determined optimism. Everything had gone so well at present; it would continue to go well. This very day, even though the chances were a hundred to one against, something was certain to happen. He told himself defiantly that the vein of good fortune was not yet exhausted. A hundred to one against or a thousand to one, something was going to happen again today, some further chance of distinction.
On the shore over there was a little cluster of white cottages above a golden beach. And drawn up on the beach were a few boats—Spanish fishing boats, presumably. There would be no sense in risking a landing party, for there was always the chance that the village would have a French garrison. Those fishing boats would be used to supply fish to the French army, too, but he could do nothing against them, despite that. The poor devils of fishermen had to live; if he were to capture or burn those boats he would set the people against the alliance with England—and it was only in the Peninsula, out of the whole world, that England had any allies.
There were black dots running on the beach now. One of the fishing boats was being run out into the sea. Perhaps this was the beginning of today’s adventure; he felt hope, even certainty, springing up with him. He put his glass under his arm and turned away, walking the deck apparently deep in thought, his head bent and his hands clasped behind him.
“Boat putting off from the shore, sir, said Bush, touching his hat.
“Yes,” said Hornblower carelessly.
He was endeavouring to show no excitement at all. He hoped that his officers believed that he had not yet seen the boat and was so strong-minded as not to step out of his way to look at her.
“She’s pulling for us, sir,” added Bush.
“Yes,” said Hornblower, still apparently unconcerned. It would be at least ten minutes before the boat could near the ship—and the boat must be intending to approach the Sutherland, or else why should she put off so hurriedly as soon as the Sutherland came in sight? The other officers could train their glasses on the boat, could chatter in loud speculation as to why she was approaching. Captain Hornblower could walk his deck in lofty indifference, awaiting the inevitable hail. No one save himself knew that his heart was beating faster. Now the hail came, high pitched, across the glittering water.
“Heave to, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, and stepped with elaborate calm to the other side to hail back.
It was Catalan which was being shouted to him; his wide and exact knowledge of Spanish—during his two years as a prisoner on parole when a young man he had learned the language thoroughly to keep himself from fretting into insanity—and his rough and ready French enabled him to understand what was being spoken, but he could not speak Catalan. He hailed back in Spanish.
“Yes,” he said. “This is a British ship.”
At the sound of his voice someone else stood up in the boat. The men at the oars were Catalans in ragged civilian dress; this man wore a brilliant yellow uniform and a lofty hat with a plume.
“May I be permitted to come on board?” he shouted in Spanish. “I have important news.”
“You will be very welcome,” said Hornblower, and then, turning to Bush. “A Spanish officer is coming on board, Mr. Bush. See that he is received with honours.”
The man who stepped on to the deck and looked curiously about him, as the marines saluted and the pipes twittered, was obviously a hussar. He wore a yellow tunic elaborately frogged in black, and yellow breeches with broad stripes of gold braid. Up to his knees he wore shiny riding boots with dangling gold tassels in front and jingling spurs on the heels; a silver grey coat trimmed with black astrakhan, its sleeves empty, was slung across his shoulders. On his head was a hussar busby, of black astrakhan with a silver grey bag hanging out of the top behind an ostrich plume, and gold cords from the back of it round his neck, and he trailed a broad curved sabre along the deck as he advanced to where Hornblower awaited him.
“Good day, sir,” he said, smiling. “I am Colonel José Gonzales de Villena y Danvila, of His Most Catholic Majesty’s Olivenza Hussars.”
“I am delighted to meet you,” said Hornblower. “And I am Captain Horatio Hornblower, of His Britannic Majesty’s ship Sutherland.”
“How fluently your Excellency speaks Spanish!”
“Your Excellency is too kind. I am fortunate in my ability to speak Spanish, since it enables me to make you welcome on board my ship.”
“Thank you. It was only with difficulty that I was able to reach you. I had to exert all my authority to make those fishermen row me out. They were afraid lest the French should discover that they had been communicating with an English ship. Look! They are rowing home already for dear life.”
“There is no French garrison in that village at present, then?”
“No, sir, none.”
A peculiar expression played over Villena’s face as he said this. He was a youngish man of fair complexion, though much sunburned, with a Hapsburg lip (which seemed to indicate that he might owe his high position in the Spanish army to some indiscretion on the part of his female ancestors) and hazel eyes with drooping lids. Those eyes met Hornblower’s with a hint of shiftiness. They merely seemed to be pleading with him not to continue his questioning, but Hornblower ignored the appeal—he was far too anxious for data.
“There are Spanish troops there?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“But your regiment, Colonel?”
“It is not there, Captain,” said Villena, and continued hastily. “The news I have to give you is that a French army—Italian, I should say—is marching along the coast road there, three leagues to the north of us.”
“Ha!” said Hornblower. That was the news he wanted.
“They were at Malgret last night, on their way to Barcelona. Ten thousand of them—Pino’s and Lecchi’s divisions of the Italian army.”
“How do you know this?”
“It is my duty to know it, as an officer of light cavalry,” said Villena with dignity.
Hornblower looked at Villena and pondered. For three years now, he knew, Bonaparte’s armies had been marching up and down the length and breadth of Catalonia. They had beaten the Spaniards in innumerable battles, had captured their fortresses after desperate sieges, and yet were no nearer subjecting the country than when they had first treacherously invaded the province. The Catalans had not been able to overcome in the field even the motley hordes Bonaparte had used on this side of Spain—Italians, Germans, Swiss, Poles, all the sweepings of his army—but at the same time they had fought on nobly, raising fresh forces in every unoccupied scrap of territory, and wearing out their opponents by the incessant marches and countermarches they imposed on them. Yet that did not explain how a Spanish colonel of hussars found himself quite alone near the heart of the Barcelona district where the French were supposed to be in full control.
“How did you come to be there?” he demanded, sharply.
“In accordance with my duty, sir,” said Villena, with lofty dignity.
“I regret very much that I still do not understand, Don José. Where is your regiment?”
“Captain—”
“Where is it?”
“I do not know, sir.”
All the jauntiness was gone from the young hussar now. He looked at Hornblower with big pleading eyes as he was made to confess his shame.
“Where did you see it last?”
“At Tordera. We—we fought Pino there.”
“And you were beaten?”
“Yes. Yesterday. They were on the march back from Gerona and we came dow
n from the mountains to cut them off. Their cuirassiers broke us, and we were scattered. My—my horse died at Arens de Mar there.”
The pitiful words enabled Hornblower to understand the whole story in a wave of intuition. Hornblower could visualise it all—the undisciplined hordes drawn up on some hillside, the mad charges which dashed them into fragments, and the helter-skelter flight. In every village for miles round there would be lurking fugitives today. Everyone had fled in panic. Villena had ridden his horse until it dropped, and being the best mounted, had come farther than anyone else—if his horse had not died he might have been riding now. The concentration of the French forces to put ten thousand men in the field had led to their evacuation of the smaller villages, so that Villena had been able to avoid capture, even though he was between the French field army and its base at Barcelona.
Now that he knew what had happened there was no advantage to be gained from dwelling on Villena’s misfortunes; indeed it was better to hearten him up, as he would be more useful that way.
“Defeat,” said Hornblower, “is a misfortune which every fighting man encounters sooner or later. Let us hope we shall gain our revenge for yesterday today.”
“There is more than yesterday to be revenged,” said Villena. He put his hand in the breast of his tunic and brought out a folded wad of paper; unfolded it was a printed poster, which he handed over to Hornblower who glanced at it and took in as much of the sense as a brief perusal of the Catalan in which it was printed permitted. It began, ‘We, Luciano Gaetano Pino, Knight of the Legion of Honour, Knight of the Order of the Iron Crown of Lombardy, General of Division, commanding the forces of His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon, Emperor of the French and King of Italy in the district of Gerona hereby decree—’ There were numbered paragraphs after that, dealing with all the offences anyone could imagine against His Imperial and Royal Majesty. And each paragraph ended—Hornblower ran his eye down them—‘will be shot’; ‘penalty of death’; ‘will be hanged’; ‘will be burned’—it was a momentary relief to discover that this last referred to villages sheltering rebels.
“They have burned every village in the uplands,” said Villena.
“The road from Figueras to Gerona—ten leagues long, sir—is lined with gallows, and upon every gallows is a corpse.”
“Horrible!” said Hornblower, but he did not encourage the conversation. He fancied that if any Spaniard began to talk about the woes of Spain he would never stop. “And this Pino is marching back along the coast road, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Is there deep water close into the shore at any spot?”
The Spaniard raised his eyebrows in protest at that question, and Hornblower realised that it was hardly fair to ask a colonel of hussars about soundings.
“Are there batteries protecting the road from the sea?” he asked, instead.
“Oh yes,” said Villena. “Yes, I have heard so.”
“Where?”
“I do not know exactly, sir.”
Hornblower realised that Villena was probably incapable of giving exact topographical information about anywhere, which was what he would expect of a Spanish colonel of light cavalry.
“Well, we shall go and see,” he said.
Chapter XIV
Hornblower had shaken himself free from the company of Colonel Villena, who showed, now that he had told of his defeat, a hysterical loquacity and a pathetic unwillingness to allow him out of his sight. He had established him in a chair by the taffrail out of the way, and escaped below to the security of his cabin, to pore once more over the charts. There were batteries marked there—most of them apparently dated from the time, not so long ago, when Spain had been at war with England, and they had been erected to protect coasting vessels which crept along the shore from battery to battery. In consequence they were established at points where there was not merely deep water close in, but also a bit of shelter given by projecting points of land in which the fugitives could anchor. There had never been any thought in men’s minds then that marching columns might in the future be attacked from the sea, and exposed sections of the coast—like this twenty miles between Malgret and Arens de Mar—which offered no anchorage might surely be neglected. Since Cochrane was here a year ago in the Imperieuse no British ship had been spared to harass the French in this quarter.
The French since then had had too many troubles on their hands to have time to think of mere possibilities. The chances were that they had neglected to take precautions—and in any case they could not have enough heavy guns and trained gunners to guard the whole coast. The Sutherland was seeking a spot a mile and a half at least from any battery, where the water was deep enough close in for her to sweep the road with her guns. She had already hauled out of range of one battery, and that was marked on his chart and, moreover, was the only one marked along the stretch. It was most unlikely that the French had constructed others since the chart was last brought up to date. If Pino’s column had left Malgret at dawn the Sutherland must be nearly level with it now. Hornblower marked the spot which his instinct told him would be the most suitable, and ran up on deck to give the orders which would head the Sutherland in towards it.
Villena climbed hastily out of his chair at sight of him, and clinked loudly across the deck towards him, but Hornblower contrived to ignore him politely by acting as if his whole attention was taken up by giving instructions to Bush.
“I’ll have the guns loaded and run out, too, if you please, Mr. Bush,” he concluded.
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush.
Bush looked at him pleadingly. This last order, with its hint of immediate action, set the pinnacle on his curiosity. All he knew was that a Dago colonel had come on board. What they were here for, what Hornblower had in mind, he had no means of guessing. Hornblower always kept his projected plans to himself, because then if he should fail his subordinates would not be able to guess the extent of the failure. But Bush felt sometimes that his life was being shortened by his captain’s reticence. He was pleasantry surprised this time when Hornblower condescended to make explanations, and he was never to know that Hornblower’s unusual loquaciousness was the result of a desire to be saved from having to make polite conversation with Villena.
“There’s a French column expected along the road over there,” he said. “I want to see if we can get in a few shots at them.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Put a good man in the chains with the lead.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Now that Hornblower actually wanted to be conversational he found it impossible—for nearly three years he had checked every impulse to say an unnecessary word to his second in command; and Bush’s stolid ‘Aye aye, sirs’, were not much help. Hornblower took refuge from Villena by gluing his eye to his telescope and scanning the nearing shore with the utmost diligence. Here there were bold grey-green hills running almost to the water’s edge, and looping along the foot of them, now ten feet up, and now a hundred feet, ran the road.
As Hornblower looked at it his glass revealed a dark tiny speck on the road far ahead. He looked away, rested his eye, and looked again. It was a horseman, riding towards them. A moment later he saw a moving smudge behind, which fixed his attention by an occasional sparkle and flash from the midst of it. That was a body of horsemen; presumably the advanced guard of Pino’s army. It would not be long before the Sutherland was up opposite to them. Hornblower gauged the distance of the ship from the road. Half a mile, or a little more—easy cannon shot, though not as easy as he would like.
“By the deep nine!” chanted the man at the lead. He could edge in a good deal closer at this point if, when he turned the ship about and followed Pino along the shore, they came as far as here. It was worth remembering. As the Sutherland proceeded to meet the advancing army, Hornblower’s brain was busy noting landmarks on the shore and the corresponding soundings opposite them. The leading squadron of cavalry could be seen distinctly now—men riding cautiously, their
sabres drawn, looking searchingly on all sides as they rode; in a war where every rock and hedge might conceal a musketeer determined on killing one enemy at least their caution was understandable.
Some distance behind the leading squadron Hornblower could make out a longer column of cavalry, and beyond that again a long, long line of white dots, which puzzled him for a moment with its odd resemblance to the legs of a caterpillar all moving together. Then he smiled. They were the white breeches of a column of infantry marching in unison; by some trick of optics their blue coats as yet showed up not at all against their grey background. “And a half ten!” called the leadsman.
He could take the Sutherland much closer in here when he wanted to. But at present it was better to stay out at half gunshot. His ship would not appear nearly as menacing to the enemy at that distance. Hornblower’s mind was hard at work analysing the reactions of the enemy to the appearance of the Sutherland–friendly hat-waving by the cavalry of the advanced guard, now opposite him, gave him valuable additional data. Pino and his men had never yet been cannonaded from the sea, and had had no experience so far of the destructive effect of a ship’s heavy broadside against a suitable target. The graceful two-decker, with her pyramids of white sails, would be something outside their experience. Put an army in the field against them, and they could estimate its potentialities, but they had never encountered ships before. His reading told him that Bonaparte’s generals tended to be careless of the lives of their men; and any steps taken to avoid the Sutherland’s fire would involve grave inconvenience—marching back to Malgret to take the inland road, or crossing the pathless hills to it direct. Hornblower guessed that Pino, somewhere back in that long column and studying the Sutherland through his glass, would make up his mind to chance the Sutherland’s fire and would march on hoping to get through without serious loss. Pino would be disappointed, thought Hornblower.
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