A Ship of the Line

Chapter XIII

The Sutherland had seen nothing of the Caligula during her long sweep south-westward. Hornblower had not wanted to, and, more, had been anxious not to. For it was just possible that the Pluto had reached the rendezvous, and in that case the admiral’s orders would override Captain Bolton’s, and he would be deprived of this further opportunity before his time limit had elapsed. It was during the hours of darkness that the Sutherland had crossed the latitude of Cape Bugar—the Palamos Point of the rendezvous—and morning found the Sutherland far to the south-westward, with the mountains of Catalonia a blue streak on the horizon over the starboard bow.

Hornblower had been on deck since dawn, a full hour before the land was sighted; at his orders the ship wore round and stood close-hauled to the north-eastward again, edging in to the shore as she did so until the details of the hilly country were plainly visible. Bush was on deck, standing with a group of other officers; Hornblower, pacing up and down, was conscious of the glances they were darting at him, but he did his best not to notice them, as he kept his telescope steadily directed at the land. He knew that Bush and all the others thought he had come hither with a set purpose in mind, and that they were awaiting the orders which would plunge the ship again into the same kind of adventures which had punctuated the last two days. They credited him with diabolical foresight and ingenuity; he was not going to admit to them how great a part good fortune had played, nor was he going to admit that he had brought the Sutherland down here, close in to Barcelona, merely on general principles and in the hope that something might turn up.

It was stifling hot already; the blue sky glared with a brassy tint to the eastward, and the easterly breeze seemed not to have been cooled at all by its passage across four hundred miles of the Mediterranean from Italy. It was like breathing the air of a brick kiln; Hornblower found himself running with sweat within a quarter of an hour of cooling himself off under the washdeck pump. The land slipping by along their larboard beam seemed to be devoid of all life. There were lofty grey-green hills, many of them capped with a flat table-top of stone with precipitous rocky slopes; there were grey cliffs and brown cliffs, and occasional dazzling beaches of golden sand. Between the sea and those hills ran the most important high road in Catalonia, that connecting Barcelona with France. Surely, thought Hornblower, something ought to show up somewhere along here. He knew there was a bad mountain road running parallel ten miles inland, but the French would hardly use it of their own free will. One of the reasons why he had come here was to force them to abandon the high road in favour of the bye road where the Spanish partisans would have a better chance of cutting up their convoys; he might achieve that merely by flaunting the British flag here within gunshot of the beach, but he would rather bring it about by administering a sharp lesson. He did not want this blow of his against the French right flank to be merely a blow in the air.

The hands were skylarking and laughing as they washed the decks; it was comforting to see their high spirits, and peculiarly comforting to allow oneself to think that those high spirits were due to the recent successes. Hornblower felt a glow of achievement as he looked forward, and then, as was typical of him, began to feel doubts as to whether he could continue to keep his men in such good order. A long, dreary cruise on blockade service might soon wear down their spirits. Then he spurned away his doubts with determined optimism. Everything had gone so well at present; it would continue to go well. This very day, even though the chances were a hundred to one against, something was certain to happen. He told himself defiantly that the vein of good fortune was not yet exhausted. A hundred to one against or a thousand to one, something was going to happen again today, some further chance of distinction.

On the shore over there was a little cluster of white cottages above a golden beach. And drawn up on the beach were a few boats—Spanish fishing boats, presumably. There would be no sense in risking a landing party, for there was always the chance that the village would have a French garrison. Those fishing boats would be used to supply fish to the French army, too, but he could do nothing against them, despite that. The poor devils of fishermen had to live; if he were to capture or burn those boats he would set the people against the alliance with England—and it was only in the Peninsula, out of the whole world, that England had any allies.

There were black dots running on the beach now. One of the fishing boats was being run out into the sea. Perhaps this was the beginning of today’s adventure; he felt hope, even certainty, springing up with him. He put his glass under his arm and turned away, walking the deck apparently deep in thought, his head bent and his hands clasped behind him.

“Boat putting off from the shore, sir, said Bush, touching his hat.

“Yes,” said Hornblower carelessly.

He was endeavouring to show no excitement at all. He hoped that his officers believed that he had not yet seen the boat and was so strong-minded as not to step out of his way to look at her.

“She’s pulling for us, sir,” added Bush.

“Yes,” said Hornblower, still apparently unconcerned. It would be at least ten minutes before the boat could near the ship—and the boat must be intending to approach the Sutherland, or else why should she put off so hurriedly as soon as the Sutherland came in sight? The other officers could train their glasses on the boat, could chatter in loud speculation as to why she was approaching. Captain Hornblower could walk his deck in lofty indifference, awaiting the inevitable hail. No one save himself knew that his heart was beating faster. Now the hail came, high pitched, across the glittering water.

“Heave to, Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, and stepped with elaborate calm to the other side to hail back.

It was Catalan which was being shouted to him; his wide and exact knowledge of Spanish—during his two years as a prisoner on parole when a young man he had learned the language thoroughly to keep himself from fretting into insanity—and his rough and ready French enabled him to understand what was being spoken, but he could not speak Catalan. He hailed back in Spanish.

“Yes,” he said. “This is a British ship.”

At the sound of his voice someone else stood up in the boat. The men at the oars were Catalans in ragged civilian dress; this man wore a brilliant yellow uniform and a lofty hat with a plume.

“May I be permitted to come on board?” he shouted in Spanish. “I have important news.”

“You will be very welcome,” said Hornblower, and then, turning to Bush. “A Spanish officer is coming on board, Mr. Bush. See that he is received with honours.”

The man who stepped on to the deck and looked curiously about him, as the marines saluted and the pipes twittered, was obviously a hussar. He wore a yellow tunic elaborately frogged in black, and yellow breeches with broad stripes of gold braid. Up to his knees he wore shiny riding boots with dangling gold tassels in front and jingling spurs on the heels; a silver grey coat trimmed with black astrakhan, its sleeves empty, was slung across his shoulders. On his head was a hussar busby, of black astrakhan with a silver grey bag hanging out of the top behind an ostrich plume, and gold cords from the back of it round his neck, and he trailed a broad curved sabre along the deck as he advanced to where Hornblower awaited him.

“Good day, sir,” he said, smiling. “I am Colonel José Gonzales de Villena y Danvila, of His Most Catholic Majesty’s Olivenza Hussars.”

“I am delighted to meet you,” said Hornblower. “And I am Captain Horatio Hornblower, of His Britannic Majesty’s ship Sutherland.”

“How fluently your Excellency speaks Spanish!”

“Your Excellency is too kind. I am fortunate in my ability to speak Spanish, since it enables me to make you welcome on board my ship.”

“Thank you. It was only with difficulty that I was able to reach you. I had to exert all my authority to make those fishermen row me out. They were afraid lest the French should discover that they had been communicating with an English ship. Look! They are rowing home already for dear life.”

“There is no French garrison in that village at present, then?”

“No, sir, none.”

A peculiar expression played over Villena’s face as he said this. He was a youngish man of fair complexion, though much sunburned, with a Hapsburg lip (which seemed to indicate that he might owe his high position in the Spanish army to some indiscretion on the part of his female ancestors) and hazel eyes with drooping lids. Those eyes met Hornblower’s with a hint of shiftiness. They merely seemed to be pleading with him not to continue his questioning, but Hornblower ignored the appeal—he was far too anxious for data.

“There are Spanish troops there?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“But your regiment, Colonel?”

“It is not there, Captain,” said Villena, and continued hastily. “The news I have to give you is that a French army—Italian, I should say—is marching along the coast road there, three leagues to the north of us.”

“Ha!” said Hornblower. That was the news he wanted.

“They were at Malgret last night, on their way to Barcelona. Ten thousand of them—Pino’s and Lecchi’s divisions of the Italian army.”

“How do you know this?”

“It is my duty to know it, as an officer of light cavalry,” said Villena with dignity.

Hornblower looked at Villena and pondered. For three years now, he knew, Bonaparte’s armies had been marching up and down the length and breadth of Catalonia. They had beaten the Spaniards in innumerable battles, had captured their fortresses after desperate sieges, and yet were no nearer subjecting the country than when they had first treacherously invaded the province. The Catalans had not been able to overcome in the field even the motley hordes Bonaparte had used on this side of Spain—Italians, Germans, Swiss, Poles, all the sweepings of his army—but at the same time they had fought on nobly, raising fresh forces in every unoccupied scrap of territory, and wearing out their opponents by the incessant marches and countermarches they imposed on them. Yet that did not explain how a Spanish colonel of hussars found himself quite alone near the heart of the Barcelona district where the French were supposed to be in full control.

“How did you come to be there?” he demanded, sharply.

“In accordance with my duty, sir,” said Villena, with lofty dignity.

“I regret very much that I still do not understand, Don José. Where is your regiment?”

“Captain—”

“Where is it?”

“I do not know, sir.”

All the jauntiness was gone from the young hussar now. He looked at Hornblower with big pleading eyes as he was made to confess his shame.

“Where did you see it last?”

“At Tordera. We—we fought Pino there.”

“And you were beaten?”

“Yes. Yesterday. They were on the march back from Gerona and we came down from the mountains to cut them off. Their cuirassiers broke us, and we were scattered. My—my horse died at Arens de Mar there.”

The pitiful words enabled Hornblower to understand the whole story in a wave of intuition. Hornblower could visualise it all—the undisciplined hordes drawn up on some hillside, the mad charges which dashed them into fragments, and the helter-skelter flight. In every village for miles round there would be lurking fugitives today. Everyone had fled in panic. Villena had ridden his horse until it dropped, and being the best mounted, had come farther than anyone else—if his horse had not died he might have been riding now. The concentration of the French forces to put ten thousand men in the field had led to their evacuation of the smaller villages, so that Villena had been able to avoid capture, even though he was between the French field army and its base at Barcelona.

Now that he knew what had happened there was no advantage to be gained from dwelling on Villena’s misfortunes; indeed it was better to hearten him up, as he would be more useful that way.

“Defeat,” said Hornblower, “is a misfortune which every fighting man encounters sooner or later. Let us hope we shall gain our revenge for yesterday today.”

“There is more than yesterday to be revenged,” said Villena. He put his hand in the breast of his tunic and brought out a folded wad of paper; unfolded it was a printed poster, which he handed over to Hornblower who glanced at it and took in as much of the sense as a brief perusal of the Catalan in which it was printed permitted. It began, ‘We, Luciano Gaetano Pino, Knight of the Legion of Honour, Knight of the Order of the Iron Crown of Lombardy, General of Division, commanding the forces of His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon, Emperor of the French and King of Italy in the district of Gerona hereby decree—’ There were numbered paragraphs after that, dealing with all the offences anyone could imagine against His Imperial and Royal Majesty. And each paragraph ended—Hornblower ran his eye down them—‘will be shot’; ‘penalty of death’; ‘will be hanged’; ‘will be burned’—it was a momentary relief to discover that this last referred to villages sheltering rebels.

“They have burned every village in the uplands,” said Villena.

“The road from Figueras to Gerona—ten leagues long, sir—is lined with gallows, and upon every gallows is a corpse.”

“Horrible!” said Hornblower, but he did not encourage the conversation. He fancied that if any Spaniard began to talk about the woes of Spain he would never stop. “And this Pino is marching back along the coast road, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Is there deep water close into the shore at any spot?”

The Spaniard raised his eyebrows in protest at that question, and Hornblower realised that it was hardly fair to ask a colonel of hussars about soundings.

“Are there batteries protecting the road from the sea?” he asked, instead.

“Oh yes,” said Villena. “Yes, I have heard so.”

“Where?”

“I do not know exactly, sir.”

Hornblower realised that Villena was probably incapable of giving exact topographical information about anywhere, which was what he would expect of a Spanish colonel of light cavalry.

“Well, we shall go and see,” he said.