The Happy Return

Lady Barbara had shown that she could play a good hand well, later she proved that she could fight out a losing hand with equal brilliance. She watched every discard, noted every signal, finessed boldly when there was a chance of profit, returned her partner’s leads and yet resolutely ignored them if her hand justified the risk; she played low from a sequence and led high. Not since the Lydia left England had Hornblower had such a good partner. In his pleasure at this discovery Hornblower quite forgot to have any qualms at the fact that here was a woman who could do something well.

And the next evening she displayed another accomplishment, when she brought out a guitar on to the quarterdeck and accompanied herself in the songs which she sang in a sweet soprano—so sweet that the crew came creeping aft and crouched to listen under the gangways and coughed and fidgeted sentimentally at the close of each song. Galbraith was her slave, and she could play on his musical heartstrings as on her guitar. The midshipmen loved her. Even the barnacle-encrusted officers like Bush and Crystal softened towards her, and Gerard flashed his brilliant smile at her and made play with his good looks and told her stories of his privateering days and of his slaving adventures up the African rivers. Hornblower watched Gerard anxiously during that voyage up the Nicaraguan coast, and cursed his own tone deafness which made Lady Barbara’s singing not merely indifferent to him but almost painful.

Chapter XIII

The long volcanic coast line slid past them day after day. Every day brought its eternal panorama of blue sea and blue sky, of slaty-pink volcanic peaks and a fringing coast line of vivid green. With decks cleared for action and every man at his post they ran once more into the Gulf of Fonseca and sailed round the island of Manguera in search of the Natividad, but they did not find her. They saw no sign of life on the shores of the bay, either. Someone fired a musket at the ship from the cliffs of Manguera—the spent bullet thudded into the mainchains—but they did not see the man who fired it. Bush steered the Lydia out of the gulf again and north eastward in his search for the Natividad.

The Natividad was not to be found in the roadstead of La Libertad, nor in any of the little ports farther along. There was much smoke to be seen at Champerico, and Hornblower, training his glass upon it, could see that for once it was not volcanic. Champerico was in flames, so that presumably el Supremo’s men had come there spreading enlightenment, but there was no sign of the Natividad.

Storms awaited them in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, for that corner of the Pacific is always stormy, lashed by the wind which blows hither from the Gulf of Mexico through a gap in the sierras. Hornblower was made aware of the change by an increase in the motion of the ship. She was rising and swooping more violently than usual and a gusty wind was heeling her sharply over. It was just eight bells, and the watch was being called; he could hear the bellowings of the master’s mates—“Show a leg! Show a leg! Lash up and stow! Lash up and stow!”—as he ran up to the quarterdeck. The sky was still blue overhead and the sun was hot, but the sea was grey, now, and ru

“I was just sending down to you, sir, for permission to shorten sail,” said Bush.

Hornblower glanced up at the canvas, and over towards the clouds towards the coast.

“Yes. Get the courses and t’gallants off her,” he said.

The Lydia plunged heavily as he spoke, and then rose again, labouring, the water creaming under her bows. The whole ship was alive with the creaking of timber and the harping of the rigging. Under shortened sail she rode more easily, but the wind of her beam was growing stronger, and she was bowing down to it as she crashed over the waves. Looking round, Hornblower saw Lady Barbara standing with one hand on the taffrail. The wind was whipping her skirts about her, and with her other hand she was trying to restrain the curls that streamed round her head. Her cheeks were pink under their tan, and her eyes sparkled.

“You ought to be below, Lady Barbara,” he said.

“Oh no, Captain. This is too delicious after the heat we have been enduring.”

A shower of spray came rattling over the bulwarks and wetted them both.

“It is your health, ma’am, about which I am anxious.”

“If salt water was harmful sailors would die young.”

Her cheeks were bright as if she had been using cosmetics. Hornblower could refuse her nothing, even though he bitterly remembered how last evening she had sat in the shadow of the mizzen rigging talking so animatedly to Gerard that no one else had been able to profit by her society.

“Then you can stay on deck, ma’am, since you wish it, unless this gale increases—and I fancy it will.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she replied. There was a look in her eye which seemed to indicate that the question as to what would happen if the gale increased was not nearly as decided as the captain appeared to think—but like her great brother she crossed no bridges until she came to them.

Hornblower turned away; he would clearly have liked to have stayed there talking, with the spray pattering about them, but his duty was with his ship. As he reached the wheel there came a hail from the masthead.

“Sail ho! Deck, there, a sail right ahead. Looks like Natividad, sir.”

Hornblower gazed up. The lookout was clinging to his perch, being swung round and round in dizzy circles as the ship pitched and swooped over the waves.

“Up you go, Knyvett,” he snapped to the midshipman beside him. “Take a glass with you and tell me what you can see.” He knew that he himself would be of no use as a lookout in that wild weather—he was ashamed of it, but he had to admit it to himself. Soon Knyvett’s boyish voice came calling down to him through the gale.

“She’s the Natividad, sir. I can see the cut of her tops’ls.”

“How’s she heading?”

“On the starboard tack, sir, same course as us. Her masts are in one line. Now she’s altering course, sir. She’s wearing round. She must have seen us, sir. Now she’s on the port tack, sir, heading up to wind’ard of us, close hauled, sir.”

“Oh, is she,” said Hornblower to himself, grimly. It was an unusual experience to have a Spanish ship face about and challenge action—but he remembered that she was a Spanish ship no longer. He would not allow her to get the weather gauge of him, come what might.

“Man the braces, there!” he shouted, and then to the man at the wheel: “Port your helm. And mark ye, fellow, keep her as near the wind as she’ll lie. Mr. Bush, beat to quarters, if you please, and clear for action.”

As the drum rolled and the hands came pouring up he remembered the woman aft by the taffrail, and his stolid fatalism changed to anxiety.

“Your place is below, Lady Barbara,” he said. “Take your maid with you. You must stay in the cockpit until the action is over—no, not the cockpit. Go to the cable tier.”

“Captain—,” she began, but Hornblower was not in the mood for argument—if indeed she had argument in mind.

“Mr. Clay!” he rasped. “Conduct her ladyship and her maid to the cable tier. See that she is safe before you leave her. Those are my orders, Mr. Clay. Ha-h’m.”

A cowardly way out, perhaps, to throw on Clay the responsibility of seeing his orders carried out. He knew it, but he was angry with the woman because of the sick feeling of worry which she was occasioning him. She left him, nevertheless, with a smile and a wave of the hand, Clay trotting before her.

For several minutes the ship was a turmoil of industry as the men went through the well-learned drill. The guns were run out, the decks sanded, the horses rigged to the pumps, the fires extinguished, the bulkheads torn down. The Natividad could be seen from the deck now, sailing on the opposite tack towards her, obviously clawing her hardest up to windward to get the weather gauge. Hornblower looked up at the sails to mark the least shiver.