The Happy Return

Chapter VIII

The voyage up the coast was completed. La Libertad had fallen, and el Supremo and his men had vanished into the tangle of volcanoes surrounding the city of the Holy Saviour. Once again in the early morning Captain Hornblower was pacing the quarterdeck of His Britannic Majesty’s 36-gun frigate Lydia, and Lieutenant Bush as officer of the watch was standing by the wheel rigidly taking no notice of him.

Hornblower was gazing round him, and filling his lungs deep with air at every respiration as he walked. He noticed that he was doing this, and grinned to himself at the realisation that what he was doing was to savour the sweet air of liberty. For a space he was free from the nightmare influence of el Supremo and his cut-throat methods, and the feeling of relief was inexpressible. He was his own master again, free to walk his quarterdeck undisturbed. The sky was blue, the sea was blue and silver—Hornblower caught himself making the old comparison with heraldic argent and azure, and knew that he was himself again; he smiled once more out of sheer high spirits, looking out to sea, nevertheless, so that his subordinates should not see that their captain was walking the deck grinning like a Cheshire cat.

There was just the gentlest wind abeam pushing the Lydia along at three or four knots; peeping over the horizon on the port side were the tops of the interminable volcanoes which formed the backbone of this benighted country. Perhaps after all el Supremo might accomplish his wild dream of conquering Central America; perhaps after all there might be some solid foundation in the hope that good communications might be opened across the Isthmus—by Panama if the Nicaraguan scheme proved impracticable. That would make a profound difference to the world. It would bring Van Diemen’s Land and the Moluccas into closer relation to the civilised world. It would open the Pacific to England by evading the difficulties of the journey round the Horn or by the Cape of Good Hope and India, and in that case the Pacific might see squadrons of ships of the line cruising where hardly a frigate had penetrated up to that moment. The Spanish Empire of Mexico and California might acquire a new importance.

Hornblower told himself hastily that all this was only a wild dream at present. As a kind of punishment for dreaming he began to take himself to task regarding his present movements, and to subject himself to a severe examination regarding the motives which had brought him southwards towards Panama. He knew full well that the main one was to shake himself free from el Supremo, but he tried to justify his action in the face of his self-accusation.

If el Supremo’s attempt upon San Salvador should fail, the Natividad would suffice to bring off what few might survive of his army. The presence of the Lydia could in no way influence the land operations. If el Supremo should succeed it might be as well that while he was conquering Nicaragua there should be a diversion in Panama to distract the Spaniards and to prevent them from concentrating their whole strength upon him. It was only right that the Lydia’s crew should be given a chance of winning some prize money among the pearl fishers of the Gulf of Panama; that would compensate them for their probable loss of the prize money already gained—there would be no screwing money out of the Admiralty for the Natividad. The presence of the Lydia in the Gulf would hamper the transport of Spanish forces from Peru. Besides, the Admiralty would be glad of a survey of the Gulf and the Pearl Islands; Anson’s charts were wanting in this respect. Yet for all these plausible arguments Hornblower knew quite well that why he had come this way was to get away from el Supremo.

A large flat ray, the size of a table top, suddenly leaped clear of the water close overside and fell flat upon the surface again with a loud smack, leaped clear again, and then vanished below, its pinky brown gleaming wet for a moment as the blue water closed over it. There were flying fish skimming the water in all directions, each leaving behind it a momentary dark furrow. Hornblower watched it all, carefree, delighted that he could allow his thoughts to wander and not feel constrained to keep them concentrated on a single subject. With a ship full of stores and a crew contented by their recent adventures he had no real care in the world. The Spanish prisoners whose lives he had saved from el Supremo were sunning themselves lazily on the forecastle.

“Sail ho!” came echoing down from the masthead.

The idlers thronged the bulwark, gazing over the hammock nettings; the seamen holystoning the deck surreptitiously worked more slowly in order to hear what was going on.

“Where away?” called Hornblower.

“On the port bow, sir. Lugger, sir, I think, an’ standing straight for us, but she’s right in the eye of the sun—”

“Yes, a lugger, sir,” squeaked midshipman Hooker from the fore top gallant masthead. “Two masted. She’s right to windward, running down to us, under all sail, sir.”

“Running down to us?” said Hornblower, mystified. He jumped up on the slide of the quarterdeck carronade nearest him, and stared into the sun and the wind under his hand, but at present there was still nothing to be seen from that low altitude.

“She’s still holding her course, sir,” squeaked Hooker.

“Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower. “Back the mizzen tops’l.”

A pearling lugger from the Gulf of Panama, perhaps, and still ignorant of the presence of a British frigate in those waters; on the other hand she might be bearing a message from el Supremo—her course made that unlikely, but that might be explained. Then as the ship lifted, Hornblower saw a gleaming square of white rise for a second over the distant horizon and vanish again. As the minutes passed by the sails were more and more frequently to be seen, until at last from the deck the lugger was in plain view, nearly hull up, running goose-winged before the wind with her bow pointed straight at the Lydia.

“She’s flying Spanish colours at the main, sir,” said Bush from behind his levelled telescope. Hornblower had suspected so for some time back, but had not been able to trust his eyesight.

“She’s hauling ‘em down, all the same,” he retorted, glad to be the first to notice it.

“So she is, sir,” said Bush, a little puzzled, and then—“There they go again, sir. No! What do you make of that, sir?”

“White flag over Spanish colours now,” said Hornblower. “That’ll mean a parley. No, I don’t trust ‘em. Hoist the colours, Mr. Bush, and send the hands to quarters. Run out the guns and send the prisoners below under guard again.”

He was not going to be caught unaware by any Spanish tricks. That lugger might be as full of men as an egg is of meat, and might spew up a host of boarders over the side of an unprepared ship. As the Lydia’s gun ports opened and she showed her teeth the lugger rounded-to just out of gunshot, and lay wallowing, hove-to.

“She’s sending a boat, sir,” said Bush.

“So I see,” snapped Hornblower.

Two oars rowed a dinghy jerkily across the dancing water, and a man came scrambling up the ladder to the gangway—so many strange figures had mounted that ladder lately. This new arrival, Hornblower saw, wore the full dress of the Spanish royal navy, his epaulette gleaming in the sun. He bowed and came forward.

“Captain Hornblower?” he asked.

“I am Captain Hornblower.”

“I have to welcome you as the new ally of Spain.”

Hornblower swallowed hard. This might be a ruse, but the moment he heard the words he felt instinctively that the man was speaking the truth. The whole happy world by which he had been encompassed up to that moment suddenly became dark with trouble. He could foresee endless worries piled upon him by some heedless action of the politicians.

“We have had the news for the last four days,” went on the Spanish officer. “Last month Bonaparte stole our King Ferdinand from us and has named his brother Joseph King of Spain. The Junta of Government has signed a treaty of perpetual alliance and friendship with His Majesty of England. It is with great pleasure. Captain, that I have to inform you that all ports in the dominions of His Most Catholic Majesty are open to you after your most arduous voyage.”

Hornblower still stood dumb. It might all be lies, a ruse to lure the Lydia under the guns of Spanish shore batteries. Hornblower almost hoped it might be—better that than all the complications which would hem him in if it were the truth. The Spaniard interpreted his expression as implying disbelief.

“I have letters here,” he said, producing them from his breast. “One from your admiral in the Leeward Islands, sent overland from Porto Bello, one from His Excellency the Viceroy of Peru, and one from the English lady in Panama.”

He tendered them with a further bow, and Hornblower, muttered an apology—his fluent Spanish had deserted him along with his wits—began to open them. Then he pulled himself up; on deck under the eye of the Spanish officer was no place to study these documents. With another muttered apology he fled below to the privacy of his cabin.

The stout canvas wrapper of the naval orders was genuine enough. He scrutinised the two seals carefully, and they showed no signs of having been tampered with; and the wrapper was correctly addressed in English script. He cut the wrapper open carefully and read the orders enclosed. They could leave him in no doubt. There was the signature—Thomas Troubridge, Rear Admiral, Bart. Hornblower had seen Troubridge’s signature before, and recognised it. The orders were brief, as one would expect from Troubridge—an alliance having been concluded between His Majesty’s Government and that of Spain Captain Hornblower was directed and required to refrain from hostilities towards the Spanish possessions, and, having drawn upon the Spanish authorities for necessary stores, to proceed with all dispatch to England for further orders. It was a genuine document without any doubts at all. It was marked ‘Copy No. 2’; presumably other copies had been distributed to other parts of the Spanish possessions to ensure that he received one.

The next letter was flamboyantly sealed and addressed—it was a letter of welcome from the Viceroy of Peru assuring him that all Spanish America was at his disposal, and hoping that he would make full use of all facilities so that he would speedily be ready to help the Spanish nation in its sacred mission of sweeping the French usurper back to his kennel.

“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower—the Spanish viceroy did not know yet about the fate of the Natividad, nor about the new enterprise of el Supremo. He might not be so cordial when he heard about the Lydia’s part in these occurrences.

The third letter was sealed merely with a wafer and was addressed in a feminine hand. The Spanish officer had spoken about a letter from the English lady in Panama—what in the world was an English lady doing there? Hornblower slit open the letter and read it.

Hornblower folded the letter and tapped it on his thumb nail in meditation. The woman was asking an impossibility, of course. A crowded frigate sailing round the Horn was no place for females. She seemed to have no doubt about it, all the same; on the contrary, she seemed to assume that her request would be instantly granted. That name Wellesley, of course, gave the clue to that. It had been much before the public of late. Presumably the lady was a sister or an aunt to the two well-known Wellesleys—the Most Hon. the Marquis Wellesley, K.P., late Governor General of India and now a member of the Cabinet, and General the Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley, K.B., the victor of Assaye and now pointed at as England’s greatest soldier after Sir John Moore. Hornblower had seen him once, and had noticed the high arched arrogant nose and the imperious eye. If the woman had that blood in her she would be the sort to take things for granted. So she might, too. An impecunious frigate captain with no influence at all would be glad to render a service to a member of that family. Maria would be pleased as well as suspicious when she heard that he had been in correspondence with the daughter of an Earl, the sister of a Marquis.

But this was no time to stop and think about women. Hornblower locked the letters in his desk and ran up on deck; forcing a smile as he approached the Spanish captain.

“Greeting to the new allies,” he said. “Señor, I am proud to be serving with Spain against the Corsican tyrant.”

The Spaniard bowed.

“We were very much afraid, Captain,” he said, “lest you should fall in with the Natividad before you heard the news, because she has not heard it either. In that case your fine frigate would have come to serious harm.”

“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower. This was more embarrassing than ever; he turned and snapped out an order to the midshipman of the watch. “Bring the prisoners up from the cable tier. Quickly!”

The boy ran, and Hornblower turned back again to the Spanish officer.

“I regret to have to tell you, señor, that by evil chance the Lydia met the Natividad a week ago.”

The Spanish captain looked his surprise. He stared round the ship, at the meticulous good order, the well set up rigging. Even a Spaniard frigate captain could see that the frigate had not been engaged in a desperate action lately.

“But you did not fight her, Captain?” he said. “Perhaps—”

The words died away on his lips as he caught sight of a melancholy procession approaching them along the gangway. He recognised the captain and the lieutenants of the Natividad. Hornblower plunged feverishly into an explanation of their presence; but it was not easy to tell a Spanish captain that the Lydia had captured a Spanish ship of twice her force without receiving a shot or a casualty—it was harder still to go on and explain that the ship was now sailing under the flag of rebels who had determined to destroy the Spanish power in the new world. The Spaniard turned white with rage and injured pride. He turned upon the captain of the Natividad and received confirmation of Hornblower’s story from that wretched man’s lips; his shoulders were bowed with sorrow as he told the story which would lead inevitably to his courtmartial and his ruin.

Bit by bit the newcomer from the lugger heard the truth about recent events, about the capture of the Natividad, and the success of el Supremo’s rebellion. He realised that the whole of the Spanish overlordship of the Americas was in jeopardy, and as he realised that, a fresh and harassing aspect of the situation broke in upon him.

“The Manila galleon is at sea!” he exclaimed. “She is due to arrive at Acapulco next month. The Natividad will intercept her.”

One ship a year crossed the wide Pacific from the Philippines, never bearing less than a million sterling in treasure. Her loss would cripple the bankrupt Spanish government hopelessly. The three captains exchanged glances—Hornblower was telling himself that this was why el Supremo had agreed so readily to the Lydia sailing south westward; he had doubtless been pleased at the thought of the Natividad to the north eastward acquiring this wealth for him. It would take the Spaniards months to bring round the Horn a ship capable of dealing with the Natividad, and in the interval el Supremo would enjoy all those advantages of sea power which Hornblower had foreseen for the Lydia. The rebellion would be so firmly rooted that nothing would put it down, especially as, apparently, the Spaniards of Spain were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Bonaparte and would have neither ships nor men to spare for America. Hornblower could see where lay his duty.

“Very well,” he announced abruptly. “I will take my ship back to fight the Natividad.”

All the Spanish officers looked their relief at that.

“Thank you, Captain,” said the officer of the lugger. “You will call in at Panama to consult the Viceroy first?”

“Yes,” snapped Hornblower.

In a world where news took months to travel, and where complete upheavals of international relationships were not merely possible but likely, he had learned now by bitter experience to keep in the closest contact with the shore; his misery was in no way allayed by the knowledge that the present difficulties were occasioned merely by his strict obedience to orders—and he knew, too, that the Lords of the Admiralty would not allow that point to influence them in their opinion of a captain who could cause such terrible trouble.

“Then,” said the captain of the lugger. “I will bid you good-bye for the time. If I reach Panama first, I will be able to arrange a welcome for you. Perhaps you will allow my compatriots to accompany me?”

“No I won’t,” rasped Hornblower. “And you, sir, will keep under my lee until we drop anchor.”

The Spaniard shrugged and yielded. At sea one can hardly argue with a captain whose guns are run out and whose broadside could blow one’s ship out of the water, especially as all Englishmen were as mad and as domineering as el Supremo. The Spaniard had not enough intuition to enable him to guess that Hornblower still had a lurking fear that the whole business might be a ruse to inveigle the Lydia helpless under the guns of Panama.