The Happy Return

“An’ ‘er la’ships’s compliments, sir, an’ please may she stay where she is in the orlop when the action is renooed.”

“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower, staring at him, thrown out of his stride by this unexpected question. All through the night he had been trying to forget the problem of Lady Barbara, as a man tries to forget an aching tooth. The orlop meant that Lady Barbara would be next to the wounded, separated from them only by a canvas screen—no place for a woman. But for that matter neither was the cable tier. The obvious truth was that there was no place for a woman in a frigate about to fight a battle.

“Put her wherever you like as long as she is not in reach of shot,” he said, irritably.

“Aye aye, sir. An’ ‘er la’ship told me to say that she wished you the best of good fortune today, sir, an’—an’—she was confident that you would meet with the success you—you deserve, sir.”

Polwheal stumbled over this long speech in a ma

“Thank you, Polwheal,” said Hornblower, gravely. He remembered Lady Barbara’s face as she looked up at him from the main deck yesterday. It was clean cut and eager—like a sword, was the absurd simile which came up in his mind.

“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower angrily. He was aware that his expression had softened, and he feared lest Polwheal should have noticed it, at a moment when he knew about whom he was thinking. “Get below and see that her ladyship is comfortable.”

The hands were pouring up from breakfast now; the pumps were clanking with a faster rhythm now that a fresh crew was at work upon them. The guns’ crews were gathered about their guns, and the few idlers were crowded on the forecastle eagerly watching the progress of the chase.

“Do you think the wind’s going to hold, sir?” asked Bush, coming on to the quarterdeck like a bird of ill omen. “Seems to me as if the sun’s swallowing it.”

There was no doubting the fact that as the sun climbed higher in the sky the wind was diminishing in force. The sea was still short, steep, and rough, but the Lydia’s motion over it was no longer light and graceful. She was pitching and jerking inelegantly deprived of the steady pressure of a good sailing wind. The sky overhead was fast becoming of a hard metallic blue.

“We’re overhauling ‘em fast,” said Hornblower, staring fixedly at the chase so as to ignore these portents of the elements.

“Three hours and we’re up to ‘em,” said Bush. “If the wind only holds.”

It was fast growing hot. The heat which the sun was pouring down on them was intensified by its contrast with the comparative coolness of the night before. The crew had begun to seek the strips of shade under the gangways, and were lying there wearily. The steady clanking of the pumps seemed to sound louder now that the wind was losing its force. Hornblower suddenly realised that he would feel intensely weary if he permitted himself to think about it. He stood stubborn on the quarterdeck with the sun beating on his back, every few moments raising his telescope to stare at the Natividad while Bush fussed about the trimming of the sails as the breeze began to waver.

“Steer small, blast you,” he growled at the quartermaster at the wheel as the ship’s head fell away in the trough of a wave.

“I can’t, sir, begging your pardon,” was the reply. “There aren’t enough wind.”

It was true enough. The wind had died away so that the Lydia could not maintain the two knot speed which was sufficient to give her rudder power to act.

“We’ll have to wet the sails. Mr. Bush, see to it, if you please,” said Hornblower.

One division of one watch was roused up to this duty. A soaking wet sail will hold air which would escape if it were dry. Whips were rove through the blocks on the yards, and sea water hoisted up and poured over the canvas. So hot was the sun and so rapid the evaporation that the buckets had to be kept continually in action. To the clanging of the pumps was now added the shrilling of the sheaves in the blocks. The Lydia crept, still plunging madly, over the tossing sea and under the glaring sky.

“She’s boxing the compass now,” said Bush with a jerk of his thumb at the distant Natividad. “She can’t compare with this beauty. She won’t find the new rig of hers any help, neither.”

The Natividad was turning idly backwards and forwards on the waves, showing sometimes her broadside and sometimes her three masts in line, unable to steer any course in the light air prevailing. Bush looked complacently up at his new mizzen mast, a pyramid of canvas, and then across at the swaying Natividad, less than five miles away. The minutes crept by, their passage marked only by the monotonous noises of the ship. Hornblower stood in the scorching sunlight, fingering his telescope.

“Here comes the wind again, by God!” said Bush, suddenly. It was sufficient wind to make the ship heel a little, and to summon a faint harping from the rigging. “’Vast heaving with those buckets, there.”

The Lydia crept steadily forward, heaving and plunging to the music of the water under her bows, while the Natividad grew perceptibly nearer.

“It will reach him quickly enough. There! What did I say?”

The Natividad’s sails filled as the breeze came down to her. She straightened upon her course.

“’Twon’t help him as much as it helps us. God, if it only holds,” commented Bush.

The breeze wavered and then renewed itself. The Natividad was hull-up now across the water when a wave lifted her. Another hour—less than an hour—and she would be in range.

“We’ll be trying long shots at her soon,” said Bush.

“Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower, spitefully, “I can judge of the situation without the assistance of your comments, profound though they be.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Bush, hurt. He flushed angrily for a moment until he noticed the anxiety in Hornblower’s tired eyes, and then stumped away to the opposite rail to forget his rage.

As if by way of comment the big main-course flapped loudly, once, like a gun. The breeze was dying away as motivelessly as it had begun. And the Natividad still held it; she was holding her course steadily, drawing away once more, helped by the fluky wind. Here in the tropical Pacific one ship can have a fair wind while another two miles away lies becalmed, just as the heavy sea in which they were rolling indicated that last night’s gale was still blowing, over the horizon, at the farther side of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Hornblower stirred uneasily in the blazing sun. He feared lest he should see the Natividad sail clean away from him; the wind had died away so much that there was no point in wetting the sails, and the Lydia was rolling and sagging about aimlessly now to the send of the waves. Ten minutes passed before he was reassured by the sight of the Natividad’s similar behaviour.

There was not a breath of wind now. The Lydia rolled wildly, to the accompaniment of a spasmodic creaking of woodwork, flapping of sails, and clattering of blocks. Only the clangour of the pumps sounded steadily through the hot air. The Natividad was four miles away now—a mile and a half beyond the farthest range of any of the Lydia’s guns.

“Mr. Bush,” said Hornblower. “We will tow with the boats. Have the launch and the cutter hoisted out.”

Bush looked doubtful for a moment. He feared that two could play at that game. But he realised—as Hornblower had realised before him—that the Lydia’s graceful hull would be more amenable to towing than the Natividad’s ungainly bulk, even without counting the possibility that yesterday’s action might have left her with no boat left that would swim. It was Hornblower’s duty to try every course that might bring his ship into action with the enemy.