‘Why, sir, did you ever eat them yourself?’ asked Savage, amazed.
In reply to this direct question Hornblower could only lie.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Midshipmen’s berths were much the same twenty years ago as now. I always maintained that a rat who had had the run of the bread-locker all his life made a dish fit for a king, let alone a midshipman.’
‘God bless my soul!’ gasped Clay, laying down his knife and fork. He had never thought for a moment that this stern and inflexible captain of his had once been a rat-eating midshipman.
The two boys blinked at their captain with admiration. This little human touch had won their hearts completely, as Hornblower had known it would. At the end of the table Galbraith sighed audibly. He had been eating rats himself only three days ago, but he knew full well that to admit it would not increase the boys’ respect for him, but would rather diminish it, for he was that sort of officer. Hornblower had to make Galbraith feel at home, too.
‘A glass of wine with you, Mr Galbraith,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘I must apologise because this is not my best Madeira, but I am keeping the last two bottles for when I entertain the Spanish captain as our prisoner tomorrow. To our victories of the future!’
The glasses were drained, and constraint dwindled. Hornblower had spoken of ‘our prisoner’ when most captains would have said ‘my prisoner.’ And he had said ‘our victories.’ The strict cold captain, the stern disciplinarian, had for a moment revealed human characteristics and had admitted his inferiors to his fellowship. Any one of the three junior officers would at that moment have laid down his life for his captain – and Hornblower, looking round at their flushed faces, was aware of it. It gratified him at the same moment as it irritated him; but with a battle in the immediate future which might well be an affair of the utmost desperation, he knew that he must have behind him a crew not merely loyal but enthusiastic.
Another midshipman, young Knyvett, came into the cabin.
‘Mr Bush’s compliments, sir, and the enemy is hull up from the masthead now, sir.’
‘Is she holding her course for the bay?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Bush says two hours ought to see her within range.’
‘Thank you, Mr Knyvett,’ said Hornblower, dismissing him. The reminder that in two hours he would be at grips with a fifty-gun ship set his heart beating faster again. It took a convulsive effort to maintain an unmoved countenance.
‘We still have ample time for our rubber, gentlemen,’ said Hornblower.
The weekly evening of whist which Captain Hornblower played with his officers was for these latter – especially the midshipmen – a sore trial. Hornblower himself was a keen good player; his close observation and his acute study of the psychology of his juniors were of great help to him. But to some of his officers, without card sense, and floundering helplessly with no memory for the cards that had been played, Hornblower’s card evenings were periods of torment.
Polwheal cleared the table, spread the green tablecloth and brought the cards. When play began Hornblower found it easier to forget about the approaching battle. Whist was enough of a passion with him to claim most of his attention whatever the distraction. It was only during the intervals of play, during the deals and while making the score, that he found his heart beating faster again and felt the blood surging up in his throat. He marked the fall of the cards with close attention, making allowances for Savage’s schoolboy tendency to dash out his aces, and for the fact that Galbraith invariably forgot, until it was too late, to signal a short suit. One rubber ended quickly; there was almost dismay on the faces of the other three as Hornblower proffered the cards for cutting for a second one. He kept his face expressionless.
‘You really must remember, Clay,’ he said ‘to lead the king from a sequence of king, queen, knave. The whole art of leading is based upon that principle.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Clay, rolling his eyes drolly at Savage, but Hornblower looked up sharply and Clay hurriedly composed his expression. Play continued – and to all of them seemed interminable. It came to an end at last, however.
‘Rubber,’ announced Hornblower, marking up the score. ‘I think, gentlemen, that it is almost time that we went on deck.’
There was a general sigh of relief and a scraping of feet on the deck. But at all costs Hornblower felt that he must consolidate his reputation for imperturbability.
‘The rubber would not be over,’ he said dryly ‘if Mr Savage had paid attention to the score. It being nine, Mr Savage and Mr Galbraith had only to win the odd trick to secure the rubber. Hence Mr Savage, at the eighth trick, should have played his ace of hearts instead of risking the finesse. I grant that if the finesse had been successful he would have won two more tricks, but—’
Hornblower droned on, while the other three writhed in their chairs. Yet they glanced at each other with admiration for him in their eyes as he preceded them up the companion ladder.
Up on deck everything was deathly still as the crew lay at their posts. The moon was setting fast, but there was ample light still as soon as the eye grew accustomed to it. Bush touched his hat to the captain.
‘The enemy is still heading for the bay, sir,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Send the crews into the launch and cutter again,’ replied Hornblower. He climbed the mizzen rigging to the mizzen top gallant yard. From here he could just see over the island; a mile away, with the setting moon behind her, he could see the white canvas of the Natividad as she stood in, close hauled, across the entrance. He struggled with his agitation as he endeavoured to predict her movements. There was small chance of her noticing, against the dark sky, the top gallant masts of the Lydia; and it was on the assumption that she would not that all his plans were based. She must go about soon, and her new course would bring her directly to the island. Perhaps she would weather it, but not likely. She would have to go about again to enter the bay, and that would be his opportunity. As he watched, he saw her canvas gleam brighter for a space and then darken again as she came round. She was heading for the middle of the entrance, but her leeway and the beginning of the ebb tide would carry her back to the island. He went down again to the deck.
‘Mr Bush,’ he said, ‘send the hands aloft ready to set sail.’
The ship was filled with gentle noises as bare feet padded over the deck and up the rigging. Hornblower brought the silver whistle out of his pocket. He did not trouble to ask whether everyone was ready for the signal and properly instructed in the part he had to play; Bush and Gerard were efficient officers.
‘I am going for’rard, now, Mr Bush,’ he said. ‘I shall try and get back to the quarterdeck in time, but you know my orders if I do not.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Hornblower hurried forward along the gangway, past the forecastle carronades with their crews crouching round them, and swung himself over on to the bowsprit. From the sprit sail yard he could see round the corner of the island; the Natividad was heading straight for him. He could see the glimmer of phosphorescent foam about her cutwater. He could almost hear the sound of her passage through the water. He swallowed hard, and then all his excitement vanished and he was left deadly cool. He had forgotten about himself, and his mind was making calculations of time and space like a machine. Now he could hear the voice of a man at the lead on board the Natividad, although he could distinguish no word. The Spaniard was coming very close. By now he could hear the babble of the Spanish crew, every one busy talking like every Spaniard, and no one looking out sufficiently well to catch sight of the Lydia’s bare spars. Then he heard orders being shouted from the Natividad’s deck; she was going about. At the very first sound he put the whistle to his lips and blew, and the whole of the Lydia sprang into activity. Sail was loosed from every yard simultaneously. The cable was slipped, the boats were cast off. Hornblower, racing aft again, collided with the hands at the braces as the ship paid off. He picked himself off the deck and ran on, while the Lydia gathered way and
surged forward. He reached the wheel in time.
‘Steady!’ he called to the quartermaster. ‘Port a little! A little more! Now, hard-a-starboard!’
So quickly had it all happened that the Spaniard had only just gone about and had gathered no way on her new course when the Lydia came leaping upon her out of the blackness behind the island and rasped alongside. Months of drill bore their fruit in the English ship. The guns crashed out in a single shattering broadside as the ships touched, sweeping the deck of the Natividad with grape. Overhead the topmen ran out along the yards and lashed the ships together. On deck the cheering boarders came rushing to the portside gangway.
On board the Spaniard there was utter surprise. One moment all hands had been engrossed with the work of the ship, and the next, seemingly, an unknown enemy had come crashing alongside; the night had been torn to shreds with the flare of hostile guns; on every hand men had been struck down by the hurtling shot, and now an armed host, yelling like fiends from the pit, came pouring on to the deck. Not the most disciplined and experienced crew could have withstood the shock of that surprise. During the twenty years the Natividad had sailed the Pacific coast no enemy had been nearer to her than four thousand miles of sea.
Yet even then there were some stout hearts who attempted resistance. These were officers who drew their swords; on the high quarterdeck there was an armed detachment who had been served out with weapons in consequence of the rumours of rebellion on shore; there were a few men who grasped capstan bars and belaying pins; but the upper deck was swept clear immediately by the wave of boarders with their pikes and cutlasses. A single pistol flashed and exploded. The Spaniards who offered resistance were struck down or chased below; the others were herded together under guard.
And on the lower deck the men sought blindly round for leaders, for means of resistance. They were gathering together in the darkness ready to oppose the enemy above them, and to defend the hatchways, when suddenly a new yelling burst out behind them. Gerard’s two boats’ crews had reached the Natividad’s port side, and prising open the lower deck ports, came swarming in, yelling like fiends as their orders bid them do – Hornblower had foreseen that the moral effect of a surprise attack would be intensified, especially against undisciplined Spaniards, if the attackers made as much noise as possible. At this new surprise the resistance of the lower deck broke down completely, and Hornblower’s prescience in detaching the two boats’ crews to make this diversion was justified.
VII
The Captain of the Lydia was taking his usual morning walk on the quarterdeck of his ship. Half a dozen Spanish officers had attempted, on his first appearance, to greet him with formal courtesy, but they had been hustled away by the Lydia’s crew, indignant that their captain’s walk, sacrosanct after so many months, should be disturbed by mere prisoners.
The captain had a good deal to think about, too – so much, in fact, that he could spare no time to rejoice in the knowledge that his frigate last night, in capturing a two-decker without losing a man, had accomplished a feat without precedent in the long annals of British naval history. He wanted instead to think about his next move. With the capture of the Natividad he was lord of the South Sea. He knew well enough that the communications by land were so difficult that the whole trade – the whole life, it might he said – of the country depended upon the coastwise traffic; and now not a boat could move without his licence. In fifteen years of warfare he had learned the lessons of sea power. There was at least a chance now that with Alvarado’s aid he might set the whole of Central America into such a flame that the Spanish Government would rue the day when they had decided to throw in their lot with Bonaparte.
Hornblower paced up and down the sanded deck. There were other possibilities, too. North westward along the coast lay Acapulco, whither came and whence departed yearly galleons bearing a million sterling in treasure. The capture of a galleon would at a stroke make him a wealthy man – he could buy an estate in England then; could buy a whole village and be a squire, with the country folk touching their hats to him as he drove by in his coach. Maria would like that, although he could not imagine Maria playing the part of a great lady with any grace.
Hornblower tore his mind away from the contemplation of Maria snatched from her Southsea lodgings and settled in a country home. To the east was Panama, with its stored silver from Peru, its pearling fleet, its whitewashed golden altar which had escaped Morgan but would not escape him. A blow there, at the central knot of the transcontinental communications, would be the best strategy perhaps, as well as being potentially profitable. He tried to think about Panama.
Forward Sullivan, the red-haired Irish vagabond, was perched on a carronade slide with his fiddle, and round him a dozen sailors, their horny feet flapping on the deck, were setting to partners. Twenty-five guineas apiece, at least, the men would get as prize money for the capture of Natividad, and they were already spending it in imagination. He looked across to where the Natividad swung at anchor. Her waist was black with her crew, crammed on her upper deck. On her old-fashioned poop and quarterdeck he could see the red coats and shakoes of his marines, and he could see, too, the carronades pointing down into the waist and the men posted beside them with lighted matches. Gerard, whom he had left on board as prizemaster, had served in a Liverpool slaver in his day and knew well how to keep a ship full of hostile humanity in subjection – although, parted from their officers, Hornblower for one did not anticipate trouble from the crew.
Hornblower knew that he must make up his mind about what to do with the Natividad, and more especially with his prisoners. He could not hand them over to the tender mercies of el Supremo; his own crew would hardly permit that. He tried to think about the problem. A long line of pelicans came flying by, more rigid in their formation that the Channel fleet at drill. A frigate bird, superb with its forked tail, came wheeling above them with motionless wings, and having obviously decided that they were not worth plundering, swooped away again towards the island where the cormorants were fishing industriously. The sun was already hot and the water of the bay was as blue as the sky above.
Hornblower cursed sun and pelicans and frigate birds as he tried to concentrate on the problems before him. He paced moodily up and down the deck another half dozen times. Then Midshipman Knyvett barred his way, touching his hat.
‘What the devil is it now?’ snapped Hornblower.
‘Boat coming alongside, sir. Mr – Mr Hernandez on board.’
That was only to be expected.
‘Very good,’ said Hornblower, and went down the gangway to greet Hernandez as he came up the side. Hernandez wasted no time on felicitations for the late victory. In the service of el Supremo apparently even Spanish-Americans grew abrupt and businesslike.
‘El Supremo wishes to see you at once, Captain,’ said Hernandez. ‘My boat is waiting.’
‘Indeed,’ said Hornblower. He knew well that dozens of his brother captains in the British service would be infuriated at such a cavalier message. He toyed with the idea of sending back to tell el Supremo to come out to the ship himself if he wanted to interview her captain. But he knew that it would be foolish to imperil his cordial relations with the shore, upon which so much of his success depended, upon a mere question of dignity. The captain of the Natividad could afford to overlook the presumption of others.
A compromise suggested itself to him; he could keep Hernandez waiting for an hour or two so as to bolster up his own dignity. But his commonsense rejected the notion. Hornblower hated compromises, and this one would only (like most compromises) irritate one side and do no good to the other. Far better to put his pride in his pocket and to come at once.
‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘My duties leave me free at the moment.’
But this time, at least there was no need to dress up for the occasion. There was no call to put on his best silk stockings and his buckled shoes. The capture of the Natividad was a clearer proof of his bona fides than any gold-hilted sword.
> It was only while giving final orders to Bush that Hornblower remembered that last night’s success gave him adequate grounds for not flogging the erring Jenkins and Poole, and for not reprimanding Galbraith. That was an enormous relief, anyway. It helped to clear away the clouds of depression which always tended to settle on him after every success. It cheered him up as he mounted the minute horse which awaited him on shore, and rode past the mountain of stinking animal intestines, and along the avenue of dead men, up to el Supremo’s house.
The appearance of el Supremo, sitting in his canopied chair on his dais, seemed for all the world to indicate that he had been sitting there, immobile, since the occasion four days ago (it seemed more like a month) when Hornblower had left him.
‘So you have already done what I wished you to do, Captain?’ were his opening words.
‘I captured the Natividad last night,’ said Hornblower.
‘And the provisioning of your ship is, I understand, complete?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then,’ said el Supremo, ‘you have done what I wanted. That is what I said before.’
In the face of such sublime self-assurance there was no point in arguing.
‘This afternoon,’ said el Supremo, ‘I shall proceed with my plan for the capture of the city of El Salvador and the man who calls himself Captain General of Nicaragua.’
‘Yes?’ said Hornblower.
‘There are fewer difficulties before me now, Captain. You may not be aware that the roads between here and El Salvador are not as good as roads might be. At one place the path goes up one hundred and twenty seven steps cut in the lava between two precipices. It is difficult for a mule, to say nothing of a horse, to make the journey, and an evilly diposed person armed with a musket could cause much trouble.’
‘I expect he could,’ said Hornblower.
‘However,’ said el Supremo, ‘El Salvador lies less than ten miles from the sea, and there is a good road from the city to its port of La Libertad. This afternoon I shall sail with five hundred men in the two ships to La Libertad. As this town is no more than a hundred miles away I shall reach there at dawn tomorrow. Tomorrow evening I shall dine in El Salvador.’