Captain Hornblower R. N.

  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-rm. 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 guessed 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 topmen 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 atte
mpt 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.

  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.

  She acknowledged his bow with a smile.

  ‘It is heavenly to be at sea again, Captain,’ she said. ‘You have given me no opportunity so far to tell you how grateful I am to you for taking me away from Panama. To be a prisoner was bad enough, but to be free and yet to be confined there by force of circumstances would have driven me out of my mind. Believe me, Captain, you have won my eternal gratitude.’

  Hornblower bowed again.

  ‘I trust the Dons treated your ladyship with all respect?’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Well enough. But Spanish manners can grow trying. I was in charge of Her Excellency – an admirable woman. But insupportably dull. In Spanish America women are treated like Mohammedans. And Spanish-American food—’

  The words recalled to Hornblower the banquet he had just endured, and the expression on his face made Lady Barbara break off her sentence to laugh so infectiously that Hornblower could not help but join in.

  ‘Will you not sit down, Captain?’

  Hornblower resented the suggestion. He had never once during this commission sat in a chair on his own deck, and he disliked innovations in his habits.

  ‘Thank you, your ladyship, but I prefer to stand if I may. I came to give you good news.’

  ‘Indeed? Then your company is doubly pleasant. I am all eagerness to hear.’

  ‘Your brother, Sir Arthur, has won a great victory in Portugal over the French. Under the terms of a convention the French are evacuating the country and are handing over Lisbon to the English army.’

  ‘That is very good news. I have always been proud of Arthur – this makes me prouder still.’

  ‘It gives me great pleasure to be the first to congratulate his sister.’

  Lady Barbara contrived miraculously to bow although seated in her hammock chair – Hornblower was conscious of the difficulty of the feat and grudgingly admitted to himself that it was well done.

  ‘How did the news come?’

  ‘It was announced to the Viceroy while I was at dinner with him. A ship had reached Porto Bello from Cadiz, and a messenger rode express by the waggon road. There was other news as well – how true is more than I can say.’

  ‘To what effect, Captain?’

  ‘The Spaniards claim a victory, too. They say a whole army of Bonaparte’s has surrendered to them in Andalusia. They are already looking forward to an invasion of France in company with the English army.’

  ‘And how true do you think it is?

  ‘I distrust it. They may have cut off a detachment by good luck. But it will need more than a Spanish army to beat Bonaparte. I can foresee no speedy end to the war.’

  Lady Barbara nodded a grave approval. She looked out to where the sun was sinking into the sea, and Hornblower looked with her. To him the disappearance of the sun each evening into those placid waters was a daily miracle of beauty. The line of the horizon cut the disc now. They watched silently as the sun sank farther and farther. Soon only a tiny edge was left; it vanished, reappeared for a second like a glint of gold as the Lydia heaved up over the swell, and then faded once more. The sky glowed red in the west, but overhead it grew perceptibly darker with the approach of night.

  ‘Beautiful! Exquisite!’ said Lady Barbara; her hands were tightly clasped together. She was silent for a moment before she spoke again, returning to the last subject of conversation. ‘Yes. One gleam of success and the Spaniards will look on the war as good as over. And in England the herd will be expecting my brother to lead the army into Paris by Christmas. And if he does not they will forget his victories and clamour for his head.’

  Hornblower resented the word ‘herd’ – by birth and by blood he was one of the herd himself – but he was aware of the profound truth of Lady Barbara’s remarks. She had summed up for him his opinion both of the Spanish national temperament and of the British mob. Along with that went her appreciation of the sunset and her opinion of Spanish-American food. He actually felt well disposed towards her.

  ‘I hope,’ he said, ponderously, ‘that your ladyship was provided to-day during my absence with everything necessary? A ship is poorly provided with comforts for women, but I hope that my officers did their best for your ladyship.’

&n
bsp; ‘Thank you, Captain, they did indeed. There is only one more thing that I wish for, which I should like to ask as a favour.’

  ‘Yes, your ladyship?’

  ‘And that is that you do not call me “your ladyship.” Call me Lady Barbara, if you will.’

  ‘Certainly, your – Lady Barbara. Ha – h’m.’

  Ghosts of dimples appeared in the thin cheeks, and the bright eyes sparkled.

  ‘And if “Lady Barbara” does not come easily to you, Captain, and you wish to attract my attention, you can always say “ha – h’m.” ’

  Hornblower stiffened with anger at this impertinence. He was about to turn on his heel, drawing a deep breath as he did so, and he was about to exhale that breath and clear this throat when he realised that he would never again, or at least until he had reached some port where he could get rid of this woman, be able to make use of that useful and noncommittal sound. But Lady Barbara checked him with outstretched hand; even at that moment he noticed her long slender fingers.

  ‘I am sorry, Captain,’ she said, all contrition, ‘please accept my apologies, although I know now that it was quite unforgivable.’

  She looked positively pretty as she pleaded. Hornblower stood hesitating, looking down at her. He realised that why he was angry was not because of the impertinence, but because this sharp-witted woman had already guessed at the use he made of this sound to hide his feelings, and with that realisation his anger changed into his usual contempt for himself.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive, ma’am,’ he said, heavily. ‘And now, if you will forgive me in your turn, I will attend to my duties in the ship.’

  He left her there in the fast falling night. A ship’s boy had just come aft and lighted the binnacle lamps, and he stopped and read on the slate and traverse board the record of the afternoon’s run. He wrote in his painstaking hand the instructions with regard to calling him – because some time that night they would round Cape Mala and have to change course to the northward – and then he went below again to his cabin.