The Happy Return

Hornblower lay considering the matter, balancing his estimate of Crespo’s character against what he knew of el Supremo. He remembered Crespo’s glibness of tongue; that man would be able to convince even el Supremo that his return to his base with the Lydia undefeated was all part of a cu

Eight bells sounded; the watch was called; he heard Gerard come to take over the deck from Bush. The wind was dropping fast, although the sea showed no sign of moderating as yet. The sky as he looked up at it was perceptibly lighter—here and there he could see stars between the clouds. Crespo would certainly be able to make sail now and attempt his escape. It was time for Hornblower to come to a decision. He climbed out of the hammock chair and walked across to the wheel.

“We will make sail, if you please, Mr. Bush.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Hornblower gave the course, and he knew as he gave it that it might be quite the wrong one. He might have completely miscalculated. Every yard that the Lydia was sailing now might be in a direction away from the Natividad. Crespo might at this very moment be heading past him to safety. He might never destroy the Natividad at all if she fortified herself in the Gulf of Fonseca. There would be some who would attribute his failure to incompetence, and there would be not a few who would call it cowardice.

Chapter XVII

From the Lydia’s masthead, in the clear daylight of the Pacific, a ship might be seen at a distance of as much as twenty miles, perhaps. A circle of twenty miles’ radius, therefore, covered the extent of sea over which she had observation. It kept Hornblower occupied, during the remaining hours of darkness, to calculate the size of the circle in which the Natividad would necessarily be found next morning. She might be close at hand; she might be as much as a hundred and fifty miles away. That meant that if pure chance dictated the positions of the ships at dawn, it was almost exactly fifty to one against the Natividad being in sight; fifty to one on the ruin of Hornblower’s professional reputation and only his professional abilities to counterbalance those odds. Only if he had guessed his enemy’s plans correctly would he stand justified, and his officers knew it as well as he. Hornblower was conscious that Gerard was looking at him with interest through the darkness, and the consciousness caused him to hold himself rigid and immobile on the deck, neither walking up and down nor fidgeting, even though he could feel his heart beating faster each time he realised that dawn was approaching.

The blackness turned to grey. Now the outlines of the ship could be ascertained. The main topsail could be seen clearly. So could the fore topsail. Astern of them now the faintest hint of pink began to show in the greyness of the sky. Now the bulk of the grey waves overside could be seen as well as their white edges. Overhead by now the stars were invisible. The accustomed eye could pierce the greyness for a mile about the ship. And then astern, to the eastward, as the Lydia lifted on a wave, a grain of gold showed over the horizon, vanished, returned, and grew. Soon it became a great slice of the sun, sucking up greedily the faint mist which hung over the sea. Then the whole disk lifted clear, and the miracle of the dawn was accomplished.

“Sail ho!” came pealing down from the masthead; Hornblower had calculated aright.

Dead ahead, and ten miles distant, she was wallowing along, her appearance oddly at contrast with the one she had presented yesterday morning. Something had been done to give her a jury rig. A stumpy topmast had been erected where her foremast had stood, raked far back in clumsy fashion; her main topmast had been replaced by a slight spar—a royal mast, presumably—and on this jury rig she carried a queer collection of jibs and foresails and spritsails all badly set—“Like old Mother Brown’s washing on the line,” said Bush—to enable her to keep away from the wind with main course and mizzen topsail and driver set.

At sight of the Lydia she put her helm over and came round until her masts were in line, heading away from the frigate.

“Making a stern chase of it,” said Gerard, his glass to his eye. “He had enough yesterday, I fancy.”

Hornblower heard the remark. He could understand Crespo’s psychology better than that. If it were profitable to him to postpone action, and it undoubtably was, he was quite right to continue doing so, even at the eleventh hour. At sea nothing was certain. Something might prevent the Lydia’s coming into action; a squall of wind, the accidental carrying away of a spar, an opportune descent of mist—any one of the myriad things which might happen at sea. There was still a chance that the Natividad might get clear away, and Crespo was exploiting that chance to the last of his ability. That was logical though unheroic, exactly as one might expect of Crespo.

It was Hornblower’s duty to see that the chance did not occur. He examined the Natividad closely, ran his eyes over the Lydia’s sails to see that every one was drawing, and bethought himself of his crew.

“Send the hands to breakfast,” he said—every captain of a king’s ship took his men into action with full bellies if possible.

He remained, pacing up and down the quarterdeck, unable to keep himself still any longer. The Natividad might be ru

Polwheal suddenly appeared beside him on the quarterdeck, a tray in his hand.

“Your breakfast, sir,” he said, “seeing as how we’ll be in action when your usual time comes.”

As he proffered the tray Hornblower suddenly realised how much he wanted that steaming cup of coffee. He took it eagerly and drank thirstily before he remembered that he must not display human weakness of appetite before his servant.

“Thank you, Polwheal,” he said, sipping discreetly.