The Happy Return hh-7

by Cecil Scott Forester

  “And there are certain of the wounded, Mr. Rayner,” he went on, “who would do better if brought up on deck. You must find Lady Barbara Wellesley and ask her which men are to be moved.”

  “Lady Barbara Wellesley, sir?” said Rayner, surprised and tactless, because he knew nothing of the last development.

  “You heard what I said,” snapped Hornblower.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Rayner hurriedly, and dived away below in fear lest he should say anything further to annoy his captain.

  So that on board H.M.S. Lydia that morning divisions were held and divine service conducted a little late, after the burial of the dead, with a row of wounded swaying in hammocks on each side of the maindeck, and with the faint echo of the horrible sounds below floating up through the air shafts.

  Chapter XIX

  Once more the Lydia held her course along the Pacific coast of Central America. The grey volcanic peaks, tinged with pink, slid past her to the eastward, with the lush green of the coastal strip sometimes just visible at their feet. The sea was blue and the sky was blue; the flying-fish skimmed the surface, leaving their fleeting furrows behind them. But every minute of the day and night twenty men toiled at the pumps to keep her from sinking, and the rest of the able bodied crew worked all their waking hours at the task of refitting.

  The fortnight which elapsed before she rounded Cape Mala went far to reduce her list of wounded. Some of the men were by then already convalescent—the hard physical condition which they had enjoyed, thanks to months of heavy work at sea, enabled them to make light of wounds which would have been fatal to men of soft physique. Shock and exhaustion had relieved the ship of others, and now gangrene, the grim Nemesis which awaited so many men with open wounds in those pre-antiseptic days, was relieving her of still more. Every morning there was the same ceremony at the ship’s side, when two or three or six hammock-wrapped bundles were slid over into the blue Pacific.

  Galbraith went that way. He had borne the shock of his wound, he had even survived the torture to which Laurie submitted him when, goaded by Lady Barbara’s urgent representations, he had set to work with knife and saw upon the smashed tangle of flesh and bone which had been his legs. He had bade fair to make a good recovery, lying blanched and feeble in his cot, so that Laurie had been heard to boast of his surgical skill and of the fine stumps he had made and of the neatness with which he had tied the arteries. Then, suddenly, the fatal symptoms had shown themselves, and Galbraith had died five days later after a fortunate delirium.

  Hornblower and Lady Barbara drew nearer to each other during those days. Lady Barbara had fought a losing battle for Galbraith’s life to the very end, had fought hard and without sparing herself, and yet seemingly without emotion as if she were merely applying herself to a job which had to be done. Hornblower would have thought this was the case if had not seen her face on the occasion when Galbraith was holding her hands and talking to her under the impression that she was his mother. The dying boy was babbling feverishly in the broad Scots into which he had lapsed as soon as delirium overcame him, clutching her hands and refusing to let her go, while she sat with him talking calmly and quietly in an effort to soothe him. So still was her voice, so calm and unmoved was her attitude, that Hornblower would have been deceived had he not seen the torment in her face.

  And for Hornblower it was unexpectedly painful when Galbraith died. Hornblower always looked upon himself as a man content to make use of others, pleasingly devoid of human weaknesses. It was a surprise to him to find how hurt and sorry he was at Galbraith’s death, and to find his voice trembling and tears in his eyes as he read the service, and to feel a shudder of distress at the thought of what the sharks were doing to Galbraith’s body, down there below the blue surface of the Pacific. He told himself that he was being weak, and then hastened to assure himself that he was merely annoyed at the loss of a useful subordinate, but he could not convince himself. In a fury of reaction he flung himself into the business of driving his men harder in their task of refitting the Lydia, and yet now when his eyes met Lady Barbara’s on deck or across the dinner table, it was not with the complete lack of sympathy which had previously prevailed. There was a hint of understanding between them now.

  Hornblower saw little enough of Lady Barbara. They dined together on some occasions, always with at least one other officer present, but for the most part he was busy with his professional duties and she with her care of the sick. They neither of them had the time, and he at least had not the superfluous energy to spare for the flirtations that those mild tropic nights should have brought in their train. And Hornblower, as soon as they entered the Gulf of Panama, had sufficient additional worries for the moment to drive away all possibility of a flirtation.

  The Pearl Islands were just in view over the port bow, and the Lydia, close hauled, was heading for Panama one day’s sail ahead when the guarda-costa lugger which had encountered them before hove up over the horizon to windward. At sight of the Lydia she altered course and came running down wind towards her, while Hornblower kept steadily on his course. He was a little elated with the prospect of making even such a fever-ridden port as badly equipped as Panama, because the strain of keeping the Lydia afloat was beginning to tell on him.

  The lugger hove-to a couple of cables’ lengths away, and a few minutes later the same smart officer in the brilliant uniform came clambering on to the Lydia’s deck as had boarded from her once before.

  “Good morning, Captain,” he said, bowing profoundly. “I trust Your Excellency is enjoying the best of health?”

  “Thank you,” said Hornblower.

  The Spanish officer was looking curiously about him; the Lydia still bore many marks of her recent battle—the row of wounded in hammocks told a good part of the story. Hornblower saw that the Spaniard seemed to be on his guard, as though determined to be noncommittal at present until something unknown had revealed itself.

  “I see,” said the Spaniard, “that your fine ship has been recently in action. I hope that Your Excellency had good fortune in the encounter?”

  “We sank the Natividad if that is what you mean,” said Hornblower brutally.

  “You sank her, Captain?”

  “I did.”

  “She is destroyed?”

  “She is.”

  The Spaniard’s expression hardened—Hornblower was led for a moment to think that it was a bitter blow to him to hear that for a second time the Spanish ship had been beaten by an English ship of half her force.

  “Then, sir,” said the Spaniard, “I have a letter to give you.”

  He felt in his breast pocket, but with a curious gesture of hesitation—Hornblower realised later that he must have had two letters, one in one pocket and one in another, of different import, one to be delivered if the Natividad were destroyed and the other if she were still able to do damage. The letter which he, handed over when he was quite certain which was which was not very brief, but was worded with a terseness that implied (having regard to the ornateness of the Spanish official style) absolute rudeness, as Hornblower was quick to realise when he tore open the wrapper and read the contents.

  It was a formal prohibition from the Viceroy of Peru for the Lydia to drop anchor in, or to enter into, any port of Spanish America, in the Viceroyalty of Peru, of the Vice-royalty of Mexico, or the Captain-Generalcy of New Granada.

  Hornblower re-read the letter, and while he did so the dismal clangour of the pumps, drifting aft to his ears, made more acute the worries which instantly leaped upon him. He thought of his battered, leaking ship, his sick and wounded, his weary crew and attentuated stores, of the rounding of the Horn and the four thousand miles of Atlantic which lay between him and England. And more than that; he remembered the supplementary orders which had been given him when he left England, regarding the effort he was to make to open Spanish America to British trade and to establish an Isthmian canal.

  “You are aware of the contents of this letter, sir?” he asked.


  “Yes, sir.”

  The Spaniard was haughty, even brazen about it.

  “Can you explain this most unfriendly behaviour on the part of the Viceroy?”

  “I would not presume to explain my master’s actions, sir.”

  “And yet they are in sore need of explanation. I cannot understand how any civilised man could abandon an ally who has fought his battles for him and is in need of help solely because of those battles.”

  “You came unasked into these seas, sir. There would have been no battle for you to fight if you had stayed in those parts of the world where your King rules. The South Sea is the property of His Most Catholic Majesty, who will tolerate no intruder upon it.”

  “I understand,” said Hornblower.

  He guessed that new orders had come out to Spanish America now that the government of Spain had heard of the presence of an English frigate in the Pacific. The retention of the American monopoly was to the Spanish mind as dear as life itself. There was no length to which the Spanish government would not go to retain it, even though it meant offending an ally while in the midst of a life and death struggle with the most powerful despot in Europe. To the Spaniards in Madrid the Lydia’s presence in the Pacific hinted at the coming of a flood of British traders, at the drying up of the constant stream of gold and silver on which the Spanish government depended, at—worse still—the introduction of heresy into a part of the world which had been kept faithful to the Pope through three centuries. It did not matter if Spanish America were poor, misgoverned, disease ridden, nor if the rest of the world felt the pinch of being shut out at a time when the Continental System had ruined European trade.

  In a clear-sighted moment Hornblower foresaw that the world could not long tolerate selfishness carried to these lengths, and that soon, amid general approval, Spanish America would throw off the Spanish yoke. Later, if neither Spain nor New Granada would cut that canal, someone else would step in and do it for them. He was minded to say so, but his innate caution restrained him. However badly he had been treated, there was nothing to be gained by causing an open breach. There was a sweeter revenge in keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “Very good, sir,” he said. “My compliments to your master. I will call at no port on the Spanish Main. Please convey to His Excellency my lively sense of gratitude at the courtesy with which I have been treated, and my pleasure at this further proof of the good relations between the governments of which we have the good fortune to be subjects.”

  The Spanish officer looked at him sharply, but Hornblower kept his face immobile while bending his spine with studied courtesy.

  “And now, sir,” went on Hornblower drily, “I must, much to my regret, wish you good day and a pleasant journey. I have much to attend to.”

  It was irksome to the Spaniard to be dismissed in this cavalier fashion, but he could take no open exception to anything Hornblower had said. He could only return Hornblower’s bow and walk back to the ship’s side. No sooner was he back in his boat than Hornblower turned to Bush.

  “Keep the ship hove-to, if you please, Mr. Bush,” he said.

  The Lydia rolled heavily, hove-to, on the swell, while her captain resumed his uninterrupted pacing of the quarterdeck, eyed furtively by those officers and men who had guessed at the bad news this latest despatch contained. Up and down, up and down, walked Hornblower, between the carronade slides on the one hand and the ring bolts on the other, while the clanking of the pumps, floating drearily on the heavy air, told him at every second how urgent it was that he should form some new decision.

  First of all, however, before even the question of the condition of the ship arose, he must decide about stores and water—every ship’s captain had to consider that problem first. Six weeks back he had filled his storerooms and his water barrels. But since that time he had lost a quarter of his crew. At a pinch, even allowing for a long time to refit, there was enough food to last them back to England, therefore; especially as the easterly rounding of the Horn was never as prolonged as the westerly one, and (now that all need of secrecy had disappeared) if necessary St. Helena or Sierra Leone or Gibraltar would be open to him to replenish.

  That was intensely satisfactory. He could devote his whole mind now to his ship. Refit he must. The Lydia could not hope to survive the storms of Cape Horn in her present condition, leaking like a sieve, jury rigged, and with a sail fothered under her bottom. The work could not be done at sea, and the harbours were barred to him. He must do as old buccaneers did—as Drake and Anson and Dampier had done in these very waters—find some secluded cove where he could careen his ship. It would not be easy on the mainland, for the Spaniards had settled round every navigable bay. It would have to be an island, therefore.

  Those Pearl Islands on the horizon would not be suitable, for Hornblower knew them to be inhabited and to be frequently visited from Panama—besides, the lugger was still in sight and watching his movements. Hornblower went down below and got out his charts; there was the island of Coiba which the Lydia had passed yesterday. His charts told him nothing of it save its position, but it was clearly the place to investigate first. Hornblower laid off his course and then went on deck again.

  “We will put the ship about, if you please, Mr. Bush,” he said.

  Chapter XX

  Inch by inch His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Lydia crept into the bay. The cutter was out ahead, with Rayner sounding industriously, while with a dying breath of air behind her and a shred of sail set the Lydia felt her way between the two headlands into the tortuous channel. Those capes, one each side of the entrance, were steep rocky cliffs, and the one overlapped the other a trifle so that only an eye sharpened by necessity, and which had made the most of its recent opportunities of learning the typical rock formations of that coast could have guessed at the possibility of an expanse of water behind them.

  Hornblower took his eye from the ship’s course as she crawled round the corner to study the bay before him. There were mountains all round it, but on the farther side the slope down to the water was not nearly as steep, and on the water’s edge there, at the foot of the dazzling green which clothed the banks all round, there was a hint of golden sand which told of the sort of bottom which he sought. It would be shelving there, without a doubt, and free from rock.

  “This seems very suitable,” said Hornblower to Bush.

  “Aye aye, sir. Made for the job,” said Bush.

  “Then you may drop anchor. We shall start work at once.”

  It was terribly hot in that little bay in the island of Coiba. The lofty mountains all about cut off any wind that might be blowing, and at the same time reflected the heat to a focus in the bay. As the cable rasped out through the hawsehole Hornblower felt the heat descend upon him. He was wet with sweat even while he stood still on the quarterdeck; he longed for a bath and for a little leisure, to rest until the cool of the evening, but he could not allow himself any such luxury. Time was, as ever, of vital importance. He must make himself secure before the Spaniards could discover where he had hidden himself.

  “Call back the cutter,” he said.

  On land it was even hotter than on the water. Hornblower had himself rowed to the sandy beach, sounding as he went, and examining with care the sample of the bottom which the tallow on the bottom of the lead brought up for his inspection. It was sand without a doubt—he could beach the Lydia safely there. He landed in the breathless jungle; there was clearly no human life here, to judge by the pathlessness of the close-packed vegetation. Tall trees and scrub, creepers and parasites, were all tangled together in their silent struggle for life. Strange birds with strange cries flitted through the twilight of the branches; Hornblower’s nostrils were assailed by the reek of the decaying matter beneath his feet. With a sweating escort, musket in hand, about him, he cut his way through the forest. He emerged where the rock was too steep for vegetation ever to have gained a foothold, into the blinding sunlight at the mouth of the bay. He climbed, sweating and exha
usted, up the steep ledges. The Lydia floated idly on the dazzling blue of the little bay. The opposite headland frowned down upon him across the mouth, and he studied its soaring ledges through his glass. Then he went back to his ship, to goad his men into frantic activity.

  Before she could be beached, before the carpenter and his men could set to work upon her bottom, the Lydia must be lightened. And also, before she could be laid defenceless on her side, this bay must be made secure from all aggressors. Tackles were rigged, and the two-ton eighteen pounders were swayed up from the maindeck. With careful management and exact balancing the cutter could just carry one of these monsters. One at a time they were ferried to the headlands, where Rayner and Gerard were ready at work with parties preparing emplacements. Toiling gangs were set to work preparing rough paths up the faces of the cliffs, and no sooner were these complete than the men were turned on with tackles and ropes to drag the guns up the paths. Powder and shot for the guns followed them, and then food and water for the garrisons. At the end of thirty-six hours of exacting labour the Lydia was a hundred tons lighter, and the entrance to the bay was so defended that any vessel attempting it would have to brave the plunging fire of twenty guns.

  In the meanwhile another party had been working like furies on shore above the sandy beach. Here they cleared away a section of forest, and dragged the fallen trees into a rough breast work, and into the rude fort so delimited, among the tree stumps, another party brought up beef barrels, and flour bags, and spars, and guns, and shot, and powder barrels, until the Lydia was a mere empty shell rolling in the tiny waves of the bay. The men stretched canvas shelters for themselves as protection against the frequent tropical showers which deluged on them, and for their officers they built rude timber huts—and one for the women as well.