The Happy Return

“Three cheers for her leddyship,” he croaked. “Hip hip, hurrah!”

Some of the shattered invalids joined him in his cheers—a melancholy chorus, blended with the wheezing and groaning of the delirious men around them. Lady Barbara waved a deprecating hand and turned back to the captain.

“We must have air down here,” she said. “Can that be arranged? I remember my brother telling me how the mortality in the hospital at Bombay declined as soon as they began to give the patients air. Perhaps those men who can be moved can be brought on deck?”

“I will arrange it, ma’am,” said Hornblower.

Lady Barbara’s request was strongly accented by the contrast which Hornblower noticed when he went on deck—the fresh Pacific air, despite the scorching sunshine, was like champagne after the solid stink of the orlop. He gave orders for the immediate re-establishment of the canvas ventilating shafts which had been removed when the decks were cleared for action.

“And there are certain of the wounded, Mr. Rayner,” he went on, “who would do better if brought up on deck. You must find Lady Barbara Wellesley and ask her which men are to be moved.”

“Lady Barbara Wellesley, sir?” said Rayner, surprised and tactless, because he knew nothing of the last development.

“You heard what I said,” snapped Hornblower.

“Aye aye, sir,” said Rayner hurriedly, and dived away below in fear lest he should say anything further to a

So that on board H.M.S. Lydia that morning divisions were held and divine service conducted a little late, after the burial of the dead, with a row of wounded swaying in hammocks on each side of the maindeck, and with the faint echo of the horrible sounds below floating up through the air shafts.

Chapter XIX

Once more the Lydia held her course along the Pacific coast of Central America. The grey volcanic peaks, tinged with pink, slid past her to the eastward, with the lush green of the coastal strip sometimes just visible at their feet. The sea was blue and the sky was blue; the flying-fish skimmed the surface, leaving their fleeting furrows behind them. But every minute of the day and night twenty men toiled at the pumps to keep her from sinking, and the rest of the able bodied crew worked all their waking hours at the task of refitting.

The fortnight which elapsed before she rounded Cape Mala went far to reduce her list of wounded. Some of the men were by then already convalescent—the hard physical condition which they had enjoyed, thanks to months of heavy work at sea, enabled them to make light of wounds which would have been fatal to men of soft physique. Shock and exhaustion had relieved the ship of others, and now gangrene, the grim Nemesis which awaited so many men with open wounds in those pre-antiseptic days, was relieving her of still more. Every morning there was the same ceremony at the ship’s side, when two or three or six hammock-wrapped bundles were slid over into the blue Pacific.

Galbraith went that way. He had borne the shock of his wound, he had even survived the torture to which Laurie submitted him when, goaded by Lady Barbara’s urgent representations, he had set to work with knife and saw upon the smashed tangle of flesh and bone which had been his legs. He had bade fair to make a good recovery, lying blanched and feeble in his cot, so that Laurie had been heard to boast of his surgical skill and of the fine stumps he had made and of the neatness with which he had tied the arteries. Then, suddenly, the fatal symptoms had shown themselves, and Galbraith had died five days later after a fortunate delirium.

Hornblower and Lady Barbara drew nearer to each other during those days. Lady Barbara had fought a losing battle for Galbraith’s life to the very end, had fought hard and without sparing herself, and yet seemingly without emotion as if she were merely applying herself to a job which had to be done. Hornblower would have thought this was the case if had not seen her face on the occasion when Galbraith was holding her hands and talking to her under the impression that she was his mother. The dying boy was babbling feverishly in the broad Scots into which he had lapsed as soon as delirium overcame him, clutching her hands and refusing to let her go, while she sat with him talking calmly and quietly in an effort to soothe him. So still was her voice, so calm and unmoved was her attitude, that Hornblower would have been deceived had he not seen the torment in her face.

And for Hornblower it was unexpectedly painful when Galbraith died. Hornblower always looked upon himself as a man content to make use of others, pleasingly devoid of human weaknesses. It was a surprise to him to find how hurt and sorry he was at Galbraith’s death, and to find his voice trembling and tears in his eyes as he read the service, and to feel a shudder of distress at the thought of what the sharks were doing to Galbraith’s body, down there below the blue surface of the Pacific. He told himself that he was being weak, and then hastened to assure himself that he was merely a

Hornblower saw little enough of Lady Barbara. They dined together on some occasions, always with at least one other officer present, but for the most part he was busy with his professional duties and she with her care of the sick. They neither of them had the time, and he at least had not the superfluous energy to spare for the flirtations that those mild tropic nights should have brought in their train. And Hornblower, as soon as they entered the Gulf of Panama, had sufficient additional worries for the moment to drive away all possibility of a flirtation.

The Pearl Islands were just in view over the port bow, and the Lydia, close hauled, was heading for Panama one day’s sail ahead when the guarda-costa lugger which had encountered them before hove up over the horizon to windward. At sight of the Lydia she altered course and came ru

The lugger hove-to a couple of cables’ lengths away, and a few minutes later the same smart officer in the brilliant uniform came clambering on to the Lydia’s deck as had boarded from her once before.

“Good morning, Captain,” he said, bowing profoundly. “I trust Your Excellency is enjoying the best of health?”

“Thank you,” said Hornblower.

The Spanish officer was looking curiously about him; the Lydia still bore many marks of her recent battle—the row of wounded in hammocks told a good part of the story. Hornblower saw that the Spaniard seemed to be on his guard, as though determined to be noncommittal at present until something unknown had revealed itself.

“I see,” said the Spaniard, “that your fine ship has been recently in action. I hope that Your Excellency had good fortune in the encounter?”

“We sank the Natividad if that is what you mean,” said Hornblower brutally.

“You sank her, Captain?”

“I did.”

“She is destroyed?”

“She is.”

The Spaniard’s expression hardened—Hornblower was led for a moment to think that it was a bitter blow to him to hear that for a second time the Spanish ship had been beaten by an English ship of half her force.