Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  ‘We shall be at sea before nightfall,’ he said, ecstatically.

  She could not be dignified with him, any more than she could have been dignified with a baby; she knew enough of men and affairs not to resent his previous preoccupation. Truth to tell, she was a trifle fond of him because of it.

  ‘You are a very fine sailor, sir,’ she said to him suddenly. ‘I doubt if there is another officer in the King’s service who could have done all you have done on this voyage.’

  ‘I am glad you think so, ma’am,’ he said, but the spell was broken. He had been reminded of himself, and his cursed self-consciousness closed in upon him again. He dropped her hands, awkwardly, and there was a hint of a blush in his tanned cheeks.

  ‘I have only done my duty,’ he mumbled, looking away.

  ‘Many men can do that,’ said Lady Barbara, ‘but few can do it well. The country is your debtor – my sincerest hope is that England will acknowledge the debt.’

  The words started a sudden train of thought in Hornblower’s mind; it was a train he had followed up often before. England would only remember that his battle with the Natividad had been unnecessary; that a more fortunate captain would have heard of the new alliance between Spain and England before he had handed the Natividad over to the rebels, and would have saved all the trouble and friction and loss which had resulted. A frigate action with a hundred casualties might be glorious, but an unnecessary action with a hundred casualties was quite inglorious. No one would stop to think that it was his careful obedience to orders and skill in carrying them out which had been the reason of it. He would be blamed for his own merits, and life was suddenly full of bitterness again.

  ‘Your pardon, ma’am,’ he said, and he turned away from her and walked forward to bawl orders at the men engaged in swaying an eighteen pounder up from the launch.

  Lady Barbara shook her head at his back.

  ‘Bless the man!’ she said to herself, softly. ‘He was almost human for a while.’

  Lady Barbara was fast acquiring, in her forced loneliness, the habit of talking to herself like the sole inhabitant of a desert island. She checked herself as soon as she found herself doing so, and went below and rated Hebe soundly for some minor sin of omission in the unpacking of her wardrobe.

  XXI

  The rumour had gone round the crew that the Lydia was at last homeward bound. The men had fought and worked, first on the one side and then on the other, without understanding the trend of high politics which had decided whom they should fight and for whom they should work. That Spaniards should be first enemies, and then friends, and then almost hostile neutrals, had hardly caused one of them a single thought. They had been content to obey orders unthinkingly; but now, it seemed certain, so solidly based was the rumour, that the Lydia was on her way home. To the scatter-brained crew it seemed as if England was just over the horizon. They gave no thought to the five thousand stormy miles of sea that lay before them. Their heads were full of England. The pressed men thought of their wives; the volunteers thought of the women of the ports and of the joys of paying off. The sun of their rapture was not even overcast by any cloud of doubt as to the chances of their being turned over to another ship and sent off half round the world again before ever they could set foot on English soil.

  They had flung themselves with a will into the labour of warping out of the bay, and not one of them looked back with regret to the refuge which alone had made their homeward voyage possible. They had chattered and played antics like a crew of monkeys when they dashed aloft to set sail, and the watch below had danced and set to partners through the warm evening while the Lydia bowled along with a favourable breeze over the blue Pacific. Then during the night the wind died away with its usual tropical freakishness, from a good breeze to a faint air, and from a faint air to a slow succession of fluky puffs which set the sails slatting and the rigging creaking and kept the watch continually at work at the braces trimming the sails.

  Hornblower awoke in his cot in the cool hour before dawn. It was still too dark to see the tell-tale compass in the deck over his head, but he could guess from the long roll of the ship and the intermittent noises overhead that calm weather had overtaken them. It was almost time for him to start his morning walk on the quarterdeck, and he rested, blissfully free of all feeling of responsibility, until Polwheal came in to get out his clothes. He was putting on his trousers when a hail from the masthead lookout came echoing down through the scuttle.

  ‘Sail ho! Broad on the larboard beam. It’s that there lugger again, sir.’

  That feeling of freedom from worry vanished on the instant. Twice had that ill-omened lugger been seen in this very Gulf of Panama, and twice she had been the bearer of bad news. Hornblower wondered, with a twinge of superstition, what this third encounter would bring forth. He snatched his coat from Polwheal’s hands and put it on as he dashed up the companionway.

  The lugger was there, sure enough, lying becalmed some two miles away; there were half a dozen glasses trained on her – apparently Hornblower’s officers shared his superstition.

  ‘There’s something about that craft’s rig which gives me the horrors,’ grumbled Gerard.

  ‘She’s just a plain Spanish guarda-costa,’ said Crystal. ‘I’ve seen ’em in dozens. I remember off Havana—’

  ‘Who hasn’t seen ’em?’ snapped Gerard. ‘I was saying – hullo! Theres a boat putting off.’

  He glanced round and saw his captain appearing on the deck.

  ‘Lugger’s sending a boat, sir.’

  Hornblower did his best to make his expression one of sturdy indifference. He told himself that commanding, as he did, the fastest and most powerful ship on the Pacific coast, he need fear nothing. He was equipped and ready to sail half round the world, to fight any ship up to fifty guns. The sight of the lugger ought to cause him no uneasiness, but it did.

  For long minutes they watched the boat come bobbing towards them over the swell. At first it was only a black speck showing occasionally on the crests Then the flash of the oar blades could be seen, as they reflected the rays of the nearly level sun, and then the oars themselves, as the boat grew like some great black water beetle creeping over the surface, and at last she was within hail, and a few minutes after for the third time the young Spanish officer in his brilliant uniform mounted to the Lydia’s deck and received Hornblower’s bow.

  He made no attempt to conceal his curiosity, nor the admiration which blended with it. He saw that the jury mizzen mast had disappeared and had been replaced by a new spar as trim and as efficient as any set up in a navy yard; he saw that the shot holes had been expertly patched; he noticed that the pumps were no longer at work – that in fact during the sixteen days since he last saw her the ship had been entirely refitted, and, to his certain knowledge, without any aid from the shore and in no harbour save perhaps for some deserted inlet.

  ‘It surprises me to see you here again, sir,’ he said.

  ‘To me,’ said Hornblower, with perfect courtesy, ‘it is a pleasure as well as a surprise.’

  ‘To me also it is a pleasure,’ said the Spaniard quickly, ‘but I had thought you were far on your way home by now.’

  ‘I am on my way home,’ said Hornblower, determined to give no cause for offence if possible, ‘but as you see, sir, I have not progressed far as yet. However, I have effected, as perhaps you may notice, the repairs that were necessary, and now nothing will delay me from proceeding to England with the utmost despatch – unless, sir, there is some new development which makes it advisable, for the sake of the common cause of our two countries, for me to remain longer in these waters.’

  Hornblower said these last words anxiously, and he was already devising in his mind excuses to free himself from the consequences of this offer if it were accepted. But the Spaniard’s reply reassured him.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, ‘but there is no need for me to take advantage of your kindness. His Most Catholic Majesty’s dominions are well able to g
uard themselves. I am sure that His Britannic Majesty will be glad to see such a fine frigate returning to forward his cause.’

  The two captains bowed to each other profoundly at this exchange of compliments before the Spaniard resumed his speech.

  ‘I was thinking, sir,’ he went on, ‘that perhaps if you would do me the great honour of visiting my ship for a moment, taking advantage of this prevailing calm, I should be able to show Your Excellency something which would be of interest and which would demonstrate our ability to continue without your kind assistance.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Hornblower, suspiciously.

  The Spaniard smiled.

  ‘It would give me pleasure if I could show it to you as a surprise. Please, sir, would you not oblige me?’

  Hornblower looked automatically round the horizon. He studied the Spaniard’s face. The Spaniard was no fool; and only a fool could meditate treachery when almost within range of a frigate which could sink his ship in a single broadside. And mad though most Spaniards were, they were not mad enough to offer violence to a British captain. Besides, he was pleased with the thought of how his officers would receive his announcement that he was going on board the lugger.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘It will give me great pleasure to accompany you.’

  The Spaniard bowed again, and Hornblower turned to his first lieutenant.

  ‘I am going to visit the lugger, Mr Bush,’ he said. ‘I shall only be gone a short time. Call away the cutter and send her after me to bring me back.’

  Hornblower was delighted to see how Bush struggled to conceal his consternation at the news.

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ he said. He opened his mouth and shut it again; he wanted to expostulate and yet did not dare, and finally repeated feebly ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  In the small boat rowing back to the lugger the Spaniard was the mirror of courtesy. He chatted politely about weather conditions. He mentioned the latest news of the war in Spain – it was quite undoubted that a French army had surrendered to the Spaniards in Andalusia, and that Spanish and British armies were assembling for a march into France. He described the ravages of yellow fever on the mainland. He contrived, all the same, to allow no single hint to drop as to the nature of the surprise which he was going to show Hornblower in the lugger.

  The two captains were received with Spanish ceremony as they swung themselves up into the lugger’s waist. There was a great deal of bustle and parade, and two bugles and two drums sounded a resounding march horribly out of tune.

  ‘All in this ship is yours, sir,’ said the Spaniard with Castilian courtesy, and seeing no incongruity in his next sentence. ‘Your Excellency will take some refreshment? A cup of chocolate?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hornblower. He was not going to imperil his dignity by asking what was the nature of the surprise in store for him. He could wait – especially as he could see the launch already half-way towards the lugger.

  The Spaniard was in no hurry to make the revelation. He was evidently savouring in anticipation the Englishman’s certain astonishment. He pointed out certain peculiarities in the lugger’s rig; he called up his officers to present to Hornblower; he discussed the merits of his crew – nearly all native Indians as on board the Natividad. In the end Hornblower won; the Spaniard could wait no longer to be asked.

  ‘Would you please to come this way, sir?’ he said. He led the way on to the foredeck, and there, chained by the waist to a ring bolt, with irons on his wrist and ankles, was el Supremo.

  He was in rags – half naked in fact, and his beard and hair were matted and tangled, and his own filth lay on the deck about him.

  ‘I think,’ said the Spanish captain, ‘that you have already had the pleasure, sir, of meeting His Excellency Don Julian Maria de Jesus de Alvarado y Moctezuma, who calls himself the Almighty?’

  El Supremo showed no signs of being disconcerted by the gibe.

  ‘Captain Hornblower has indeed been presented to me already,’ he said loftily. ‘He has worked for me long and devotedly. I trust you are enjoying the best of health, Captain?’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hornblower.

  Despite his rags, and his filth, and his chains, el Supremo bore himself with the same elaborate dignity as Hornblower remembered so well those many weeks ago.

  ‘I too,’ he said, ‘am as well as the world could desire. It is a source of continual satisfaction to me to see my affairs progressing so well.’

  A negro servant appeared on the deck at that moment with a tray of chocolate; another followed him with a couple of chairs. Hornblower, at the invitation of his host, sat down. He was glad to do so, as his knees seemed suddenly weak under him, but he had no desire at all for his chocolate. The Spanish captain drank noisily, and el Supremo eyed him as he did so. There came a gleam of appetite in his face. His lips moistened and smacked softly together, his eyes brightened, his hand came out, and then next moment he was calm and indifferent again.

  ‘I trust that the chocolate is to your liking, sirs,’ he said. ‘I ordered it specially for you. My own appetite for chocolate has long since disappeared.’

  ‘That is just as well,’ said the Spanish captain. He laughed loudly and drank again, smacking his lips.

  El Supremo ignored him, and turned to Hornblower.

  ‘You see I wear these chains,’ he said. ‘It is a strange whim on the part of myself and my servants that I should do so. I hope you agree with me that they set off my figure quite admirably?’

  ‘Y-yes, sir,’ stammered Hornblower.

  ‘We are on our way to Panama, where I shall mount the throne of the world. They talk of hanging; these fellows here say that there is a gallows awaiting us on the bastion of the Citadel. That will be the framework of my golden throne. Golden, it will be, with diamond stars and a great turquoise moon. It will be from there that I shall issue my next decrees to the world.’

  The Spanish captain guffawed again, but el Supremo still stood in quiet dignity, hugging his chains, with the sun blazing down on his tangled head.

  ‘He will not last long in this mood,’ said the Spanish captain to Hornblower behind his hand. ‘I can see signs of the change coming. It gives me great felicity that you have had the opportunity of seeing him in both his moods.’

  ‘The sun grows in his splendour every day,’ said el Supremo. ‘He is magnificent and terrible, as I am. He can kill – kill – kill, as he killed the men I exposed to him – when was it? And Moctezuma is dead, and all his line save me, in the hundreds of years ago. I alone remain. And Hernandez is dead, but it was not the sun that killed him. They hanged Hernandez even while the blood dripped from his wounds. They hanged him in my city of San Salvador, and as they hanged him he still called upon the name of el Supremo. They hanged the men and they hanged the women, in long rows at San Salvador. Only el Supremo is left, to govern from his golden throne. His throne! His throne!’

  El Supremo was staring about him now. There was a hint of bewildered realisation in his face as he jangled his chains. He peered at them stupidly.

  ‘Chains! These are chains!’

  He was bawling and shouting. He laughed madly, and then he wept and he cursed, flinging himself about on the deck, biting at his chains. His words were no longer articulate as he slobbered and writhed.

  ‘It is interesting, is it not?’ said the Spanish captain. ‘He will struggle and shout sometimes for twenty-four hours without a stop.’

  ‘Bah!’ said Hornblower, and his chair fell with a clatter to the deck as he got to his feet. He was on the verge of vomiting. The Spaniard saw his white face and trembling lips, and was faintly amused, and made no attempt to conceal it.

  But Hornblower could give no vent to the flood of protest which was welling up within him. His cautious mind told him that a madman in a ship as small as the lugger must of necessity be chained to the deck, and his conscience reminded him uneasily of the torments he had seen el Supremo inflict without expostulation. This Spanish way of making a s
how out of insanity and greatness was repulsive enough, but could be paralleled often enough in English history. One of the greatest writers of the English language, and a dignitary of the Church to boot, had once been shown in his dotage for a fee. There was only one line of argument which he could adopt.

  ‘You are going to hang him, mad as he is?’ he asked. ‘With no chance of making his peace with God?’

  The Spaniard shrugged.

  ‘Mad or sane, rebels must hang. Your Excellency must know that as well as I do.’

  Hornblower did know it. He was left without any argument at all, and was reduced to stammering inarticulation, even while he boiled with contempt for himself on that account. All that was left for him to do, having lost all his dignity in his own eyes, was to try and retain some few shreds of it in the eyes of his audience. He braced himself up, conscious of the hollowness of the fraud.

  ‘I must thank you very much, sir,’ he said, ‘for having given me the opportunity of witnessing a most interesting spectacle. And now, repeating my thanks, I fear that I must regretfully take my departure. There seems to be a breath of wind blowing.’

  He went down the side of the lugger as stiffly as he might, and took his seat in the sternsheets of the launch. He had to brace himself again to give the word to cast off, and then he sat silent and gloomy as he was rowed back to the Lydia. Bush and Gerard and Lady Barbara watched him as he came on deck. It was as if there was death in his face. He looked round him, unseeing and unhearing, and then hurried below to hide his misery. He even sobbed, with his face in his cot, for a second, before he was able to take hold of himself and curse himself for a weak fool. But it was days before he lost that deathly look, and during that time he kept himself solitary in his cabin, unable to bring himself to join the merry parties on the quarterdeck whose gay chatter drifted down to him through the skylight. To him it was a further proof of his weakness and folly that he should allow himself to be so upset by the sight of a criminal madman going to meet the fate he richly deserved.