The Happy Return hh-7

by Cecil Scott Forester

  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.”

  “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.

  He felt oddly disturbed and ill at ease and not merely because of the upsetting of all his habits. It was annoying that his own private water closet was barred to him now so that he had to use the wardroom one, but it was not just because of this. Not even was it merely because he was on his way to fight the Natividad again in the certain knowledge that with Vice-Admiral Cristobal de Crespo in command it would be a hard battle. That was part of what was troubling him—and then he realised with a shock that his disquiet was due to the added responsibility of Lady Barbara’s presence on board.

  He knew quite well what would be the fate of himself and his crew if the Lydia were beaten by the Natividad. They would be hanged or drowned or tortured to death—el Supremo would show no mercy to the Englishman who had turned against him. That possibility left him unmoved at present, because it was so entirely inevitable that he should fight the Natividad. But it was far different in Lady Barbara’s case. He would have to see that she did not fall alive into Crespo’s hands.

  This brief wording of his difficulty brought him a sudden spasm of irritation. He cursed the yellow fever which had driven her on board; he cursed his own slavish obedience to orders which had resulted in the Natividad’s fighting on the rebels’ side. He found himself clenching his hands and gritting his teeth with rage. If he won his fight public opinion would censure him (with all public opinion’s usual ignorance of circumstances) for risking the life of a lady—of a Wellesley. If he lost it—but he could not bear to think about that. He cursed his own weakness for allowing her to come on board; for a moment he even dallied with the notion of putting back to Panama and setting her on shore. But he put that notion aside. The Natividad might take the Manila galleon. His crew, already discomposed by all
the recent changes of plan, would fret still more if he went back and then went to sea again. And Lady Barbara might refuse—and with yellow fever raging in Panama she would be justified in refusing. He could not exercise his authority so brutally as to force a woman to land in a fever-stricken town. He swore to himself again, senselessly, making use of all the filthy oaths and frantic blasphemies acquired during his sea experience.

  From the deck came a shrilling of pipes and a shouting of orders and a clatter of feet; apparently the wind had backed round now with the fall of night. As the sound died away the feeling of oppression in the tiny cabin overcame him. It was hot and stuffy; the oil lamp swinging over his head stank horribly. He plunged up on deck again. Aft from the taffrail he heard a merry laugh from Lady Barbara, instantly followed by a chorus of guffaws. The dark mass there must be at least half a dozen officers, all grouped round Lady Barbara’s chair. It was only to be expected that after seven months—eight, nearly, now—without seeing an English woman they would cluster round her like bees round a hive.

  His first instinct was to drive them away, but he checked himself. He could not dictate to his officers how they spent their watch below, and they would attribute his action to his desire to monopolise her society to himself—and that was not in the least the case. He went down again, unobserved by the group, to a stuffy cabin and the stinking lamp. It was the beginning of a sleepless and restless night.

  Chapter XII

  Morning found the Lydia heaving and swooping lightly over a quartering sea. On the starboard beam, just jutting over the horizon, were the greyish-pink summits of the volcanoes of that tormented country; by ranging along just in sight of the coast the Lydia stood her best chance of discovering the Natividad. The captain was already afoot—indeed, his coxswain Brown had had apologetically to sand the captain’s portion of the quarterdeck while he paced up and down it.

  Far away on the port side the black shape of a whale broke the surface in a flurry of foam—dazzling white against the blue sea—and a thin plume of white smoke was visible as the whale emptied its lungs. Hornblower liked whales for some reason or other; the sight of this one, in fact, led him on his first step back towards good temper. With the imminent prospect of his cold shower bath before him the prickle of sweat under his shirt was gratifying now instead of irritating. Two hours ago he had been telling himself that he loathed this Pacific coast, its blue sea and its hideous volcanoes—even its freedom from navigational difficulties. He had felt himself homesick for the rocks and shoals and fogs and tides of the Channel, but now, bathed in sunshine, his opinion changed once more. There was something to be said in favour of the Pacific after all. Perhaps this new alliance between Spain and England would induce the Dons to relax some of their selfish laws prohibiting trade with America; they might even go so far as to try to exploit the possibility of that canal across Nicaragua which the British Admiralty had in mind, and in that case this blue Pacific could come into its own. El Supremo would have to be suppressed first, of course, but on this pleasant morning Hornblower foresaw less difficulty in that.

  Gray the master’s mate had come aft to heave the log. Hornblower checked in his walk to watch the operation. Gray tossed the little triangle of wood over the stern, and, log line in hand, he gazed fixedly with his boyish blue eyes at the dancing bit of wood.

  “Turn!” he cried sharply to the hand with the sand glass, while the line ran out freely over the rail.

  “Stop!” called the man with the glass.

  Gray nipped the line with his fingers and checked it progress, and then read off the length run out. A sharp jerk at the thin cord which had run out with the line freed the peg so that the log now floated with its edge towards the ship, enabling Gray to pull the log in hand over hand.

  “How much?” called Hornblower to Gray.

  “Seven an’ nigh on a half, sir.”

  The Lydia was a good ship to reel off seven and a half knots in that breeze, even though her best point of sailing was with the wind on her quarter. It would not take long if the wind held to reach waters where the Natividad might be expected to be found. The Natividad was a slow sailer, as nearly all those two-decker fifty-gun ships were, and as Hornblower had noticed when he had sailed in her company ten days back—it might as well be ten years, so long did it seem—from the Gulf of Fonseca to La Libertad.

  If he met her in the open sea he could trust to the handiness of his ship and the experience of his crew to out-manoeuvre her and discount her superior weight of metal. If the ships once closed and the rebels boarded their superior numbers would overwhelm his crew. He must keep clear, slip across her stern and rake her half a dozen times. Hornblower’s busy mind, as he paced up and down the deck, began to visualise the battle, and to make plans for the possible eventualities—whether or not he might hold the weather gauge, whether or not there might be a high sea running, whether or not the battle began close inshore.

  The little negress Hebe came picking her way across the deck, her red handkerchief brilliant in the sunshine, and before the scandalised crew could prevent her she had interrupted the captain in his sacred morning walk.

  “Milady says would the captain breakfast with her,” she lisped.

  “Eh—what’s that?” asked Hornblower, taken by surprise and coming out of his day dream with a jerk, and then, as he realised the triviality for which he had been interrupted, “No no no! Tell her ladyship I will not breakfast with her. Tell her that I will never breakfast with her. Tell her that on no account am I to be sent messages during the morning. Tell her you are not allowed and neither is she on this deck before eight bells. Get below!”

  Even then the little negress did not seem to realise how enormous had been her offence. She nodded and smiled as she backed away without a sign of contrition. Apparently she was used to white gentlemen who were irascible before breakfast and attributed little importance to the symptoms. The open skylight of the after cabin was close beside him as he walked, and through it he could hear, now that his reverie had been broken into, the clatter of crockery, and then first Hebe’s and then Lady Barbara’s voice.

  The sound of the men scrubbing the decks, the harping of the rigging and the creaking of the timbers were noises to which he was used. From forward came the thunderous beat of a sledgehammer as the armourer and his mate worked upon the fluke of the anchor which had been bent in yesterday’s misadventure. He could tolerate all the ship’s noises, but this clack-clack-clack of women’s tongues through the open skylight would drive him mad. He stamped off the deck in a rage again. He did not enjoy his bath after all, and he cursed Polwheal for clumsiness in handing him his dressing gown, and he tore the threadbare suit which Polwheal had put out for him and cursed again. It was intolerable that he should be driven in this fashion off his own deck. Even the excellent coffee, sweetened (as he liked it) to a syrup with sugar, did not relieve his fresh ill-temper. Nor, most assuredly, did the necessity of having to explain to Bush that the Lydia was now sailing to seek out and to capture the Natividad, having already been to enormous pains to capture her and hand her over to the rebels who were now their foes.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Bush gravely, having heard the new development. He was being so obviously tactful, and he so pointedly refrained from comment, that Hornblower swore at him.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Bush again, knowing perfectly well why he was being sworn at, and also knowing that he would be sworn at far worse if he said anything beyond “aye aye, sir.” Really what he wanted to say was some expression of sympathy for Hornblower in his present situation, but he knew he dared not sympathise with his queer-tempered captain.

  As the day wore on Hornblower came to repent of his ill-humour. The saw-edged volcanic coast was slipping past them steadily, and ahead of them somewhere lay the Natividad. There was a desperate battle awaiting them, and before they should fight it it would be tactful for him to entertain his officers to dinner. And he knew that any captain with an eye to his professional advan
cement would be careful not to treat a Wellesley in the cavalier fashion he had employed up to the present. And ordinary politeness dictated that he should at this, the earliest opportunity, arrange that his guest should meet his officers formally at dinner, even though he knew full well that she had already, in her emancipated manner, conversed with half of them in the darkness of the quarterdeck.

  He sent Polwheal across to Lady Barbara with a politely worded request that Lady Barbara would be so kind as to allow Captain Hornblower and his officers to dine with her in the after cabin and Polwheal returned with a politely worded message to the effect that Lady Barbara would be delighted. Six was the maximum number that could sit round the after cabin table; and superstitiously Hornblower remembered that on the eve of his last encounter with the Natividad Galbraith, Clay, and Savage had been his guests. He would never have admitted to himself that it was for this reason that he invited them again in the hope of encountering similar good fortune, but it was the case nevertheless. He invited Bush as the sixth—the other possible choice was Gerard, and Gerard was so handsome and had acquired somehow such a knowledge of the world that Hornblower did not want to bring him into too frequent contact with Lady Barbara—solely, he hastened to assure himself, for the sake of peace and quiet in his ship. And when that was all settled he could go on deck again to take his noon sights and pace his quarterdeck in his consuming restlessness, feeling that he could (after this exchange of polite messages) meet Lady Barbara’s eyes without the embarrassment that would previously have prevented him, unreasoningly.

  The dinner at three o’clock was a success. Clay and Savage passed through the stages of behaviour that might have been expected of boys their age. At first they were brusque and shy in Lady Barbara’s presence, and then, when the novelty had worn off and they had a glass of wine inside them they moved towards the other extreme of over-familiarity. Even the hard-bitten Bush, surprisingly, showed the same symptoms in the same order, while poor Galbraith was of course shy all the time.