The Happy Return

Chapter 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.”

“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.