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 could 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 medium-sized 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.
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 muskets and bayonets, the five hundred pouch-belts, 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 offence 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 two-decked 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.
Lastly, Captain Hornblower was ordered to open communications as soon as might be convenient with the Rear Admiral commanding the Leeward Islands station for the purpose of receiving further orders.
Captain Hornblower folded up the crackling paper again and fell into contemplation. Those orders were the usual combination of the barely-possible and the quite Quixotic, which a captain on detached service might expect to receive. Only a landsman would have given those opening orders to sail to the Gulf of Fonseca without sighting other land in the Pacific – only a succession of miracles (Hornblower gave himself no credit for sound judgment and good seamanship) had permitted of their being carried out.
Starting a rebellion in the Spanish American colonies had long been a dream of the British government – a dream which had been a nightmare to the British officers ordered to make it a reality. Admiral Popham and Admiral Stirling, General Beresford and General White-locke, had, during the last three years, all lost in honour and reputation in repeated efforts to raise rebellion on the River Plate.
Opening up a channel to British trade across the Isthmus of Darien had long been a similar dream cherished by Admiralty clerks with small scale maps before them and no practical experience. Thirty years ago Nelson himself, as a young captain, had nearly lost his life in command of an expedition up that very river San Juan which Hornblower was ordered to clear from its source.
And to crown it all was the casual mention of the presence of a fifty-gun ship of the enemy. It was typical of Whitehall to send a thirty-six gun frigate so lightly to attack an enemy of nearly double that force. The British navy had been so successful in single ship duels during these wars that by now victory was expected of its ships against any odds. If by any chance the Natividad should overwhelm the Lydia no excuse would be accepted. Hornblower’s career would be wrecked. Even if the inevitable courtmartial did not break him, he would be left to languish on half pay for the rest of his life. Failure to capture the Natividad, failure to start a successful rebellion, failure to open the isthmus to trade – any one of these quite probable failures would mean a loss of reputation, of employment, of having to face his wife on his return condemned as a man inferior to his fellows.
Having contemplated all these gloomy possibilities Hornblower thrust them aside with determined optimism. First and foremost he must make contact with this Don Julian Alvarado, which seemed to be a duty involving some little interest and only small difficulty. Later there would be treasure-ships to capture and prize money to be won. He would not allow himself to worry about the rest of the future. He heaved himself off the locker and strode back to his sleeping-cabin.
Ten minutes later he stepped up on the quarterdeck; he noted with sardonic amusement how his officers tried without success to appear not to notice his splendid best coat with the epaulettes, his silk stockings, his shoes with the cut steel buckles, his cocked hat and his gold-hilted sword. Hornblower cast a glance at the fast-nearing shore.
‘Beat to quarters, Mr Bush,’ he said. ‘Clear for action.’
The roll of the drum set the ship into a wild fury as the watch below came tumbling up. Urged on by the cries and blows of the petty officers the crew flung themselves into the business of getting the ship ready for action. The decks were soused with water and strewn with sand; the bulkheads were knocked away; the fire parties took their places at the pumps; the boys ran breathless with cartridges for the guns; down below the purser’s steward who had been appointed acting surgeon was dragging together the midshipmen’s chests in the cockpit to make an operating table.
‘We’ll have the guns loaded and run out, if you please, Mr Bush,’ said Hornblower.
That was only a sensible precaution to take, seeing that the ship was about to sail before the wind straight into Spanish territory. The guns’ crews cast off the frappings of the breeches, tugged desperately at the train tackles to draw the guns inboard, rammed home the powder and the shot, depressed the gun muzzles, strained madly at the gun tackles, and ran the guns out through the opened ports.
‘Ship cleared for action. Ten minutes twenty-one seconds, sir,’ said Bush as the last rumble died away. For the life of him he still could not tell whether this was an exercise or in earnest, and it gratified Hornblower’s vanity to leave him in doubt.
‘Very good, Mr Bush. Send a good man with the lead into the main chains, and make ready to anchor.’
The breeze off the sea was strengthening every minute now, and the Lydia’s speed was steadily increasing. With his glass from the quarterdeck Hornblower could s
ee every detail of the entrance to the bay, and the broad westerly channel between Conchaquita Island and the westerly mainland which the chart assured him afforded twenty fathoms for five miles inland. But there was no trusting these Spanish charts.
‘What have you in the chains, there?’ called Hornblower.
‘No ground with this line, sir.’
‘How many fathom have you out? Pass along the deep sea line.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
A dead hush descended on the ship, save for the eternal harping of the rigging and the chatter of the water under the stern.
‘No ground, sir, within a hundred fathom.’
The shore must be very steep-to, then, because they were within two miles of land now. But there was no purpose in risking running aground under full sail.
‘Get the courses in,’ said Hornblower. ‘Keep that lead going in the chains, there.’
Under topsails alone the Lydia crept in towards land. Soon a cry from the chains announced that bottom had been reached in a hundred fathoms, and the depth diminished steadily at every cast. Hornblower would have been glad to know what was the state of the tide – if he was going aground at all it would be far better to do so on the flow than on the ebb – but there was no possible means of calculating that. He went halfway up the mizzen rigging to get a better view, everyone else in the ship save for the man in the chains was standing rigid in the blinding heat. They were almost in the entrance channel now. Hornblower sighted some driftwood afloat on the the near side, and training his glass on it, he saw that it was floating in up the bay. The tide was making, then; better and better.