The sergeant could say nothing; he could only stand rigidly at attention in face of this incontrovertible proof of his being found wanting.
“Mr Simmonds will speak to you in the morning,” went on Hornblower. “I don’t expect you’ll keep those stripes on your arm much longer.”
Hornblower glowered round at the landing party. His fierce rebukes had them all cowed and subservient now, and he felt his anger ebbing away as he realised that he had managed this without having to say a word in extenuation of Spanish-American justice. He turned to greet Hernandez, who had come riding up as fast as his little horse would gallop, reining up on his haunches in a shower of sand.
“Did el Supreme give orders for this attack on my men?” asked Hornblower, getting in the first broadside.
“No, Captain,” said Hernandez, and Hornblower rejoiced to see how he winced at the mention of el Supremo’s name.
“I think he will not be too pleased with you when I tell him about this,” went on Hornblower.
“Your men tried to release a man condemned to death,” said Hernandez, half sullenly, half apologetically. He was clearly not too sure of his ground, and was nervous about what would be Alvarado’s attitude towards this incident. Hornblower kept a rasp in his voice as he went on speaking. None of the Englishmen round him, as far as he knew, could speak Spanish, but he was anxious for his crew to believe (now that discipline was restored) that he was wholeheartedly on their side.
“That does not permit your men to kill mine,” he said.
“They are angry and discontented,” said Hernandez. “The whole country has been swept to find food for you. The man your men tried to save was condemned for driving his pigs into the bush to keep them from being taken and given to you.”
Hernandez made this last speech reproachfully and with a hint of anger; Hornblower was anxious to be conciliatory if that were possible without exasperating his own men. Hornblower had in mind the plan of leading Hernandez out of earshot of the Englishmen, and then softening his tone, but before he could act upon it his attention was caught by the sight of a horseman galloping down the beach at full speed, waving his wide straw hat. Every eye turned towards this new arrival — a peon of the ordinary Indian type. Breathlessly he announced his news.
“A ship — a ship coming!”
He was so excited that he lapsed into the Indian speech, and Hornblower could not understand his further explanations. Hernandez had to interpret for him.
“This man has been keeping watch on the top of the mountain up there,” he said. “He says that from there he could see the sails of a ship coming towards the bay.”
He addressed several more questions rapidly, one after the other, to the lookout, and was answered with nods and gesticulations and a torrent of Indian speech.
“He says,” went on Hernandez, “that he has often seen the Natividad before, and he is sure this is the same ship, and she is undoubtedly coming in here.”
“How far off is she?” asked Hornblower and Hernandez translated the answer.
“A long way, seven leagues or more,” he said. “She is coming from the south eastward — from Panama.”
Hornblower pulled at his chin, deep in thought.
“She’ll carry the sea breeze down with her until sunset,” he muttered to himself, and glanced up at the sun. “That will be another hour. An hour after that she’ll get the land breeze. She’ll be able to hold her course, close hauled. She could be here in the bay by midnight.”
A stream of plans and ideas was flooding into his mind. Against the possibility of the ship’s arrival in the dark must be balanced what he knew of the Spanish habit at sea of snugging down for the night, and of attempting no piece of seamanship at all complicated save under the best possible conditions. He wished he knew more about the Spanish captain.
“Has this ship, the Natividad, often come into this bay?” he asked.
“Yes, Captain, often.”
“Is her captain a good seaman?”
“Oh yes, Captain, very good.”
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower. A landsman’s opinion of the seamanship of a frigate captain might not be worth much, but still it was an indication.
Hornblower tugged at his chin again. He had fought in ten single ship actions. If he took the Lydia to sea and engaged the Natividad on open water the two ships might well batter each other into wrecks. Rigging and spars and hulls and sails would be shot to pieces. The Lydia would have a good many casualties which would be quite irreplaceable here in the Pacific. She would expend her priceless ammunition. On the other hand, if he stayed in the bay and yet the plan he had in mind did not succeed — if the Natividad waited off shore until the morning — he would have to beat his way out of the bay against the sea breeze, presenting the Spaniards with every possible advantage as he came out to fight them. The Natividad’s superiority of force was already such that it was rash to oppose the Lydia to her. Could he dare to risk increasing the odds? But the possible gains were so enormous that he made up his mind to run the risk.
Chapter VI
Ghostlike in the moonlight, with the first puffs of the land breeze, the Lydia glided across the bay. Hornblower had not ventured to hoist sail, lest a gleam of canvas might be visible to the distant ship at sea. The launch and the clutter towed the ship, sounding as they went, into the deep water at the foot of the island at the entrance of the bay — Manguera Island, Hernandez called it when Hornblower had cautiously sketched out his plan to him. For an hour the men laboured at the oars, although Hornblower did his best to aid them, standing by the wheel and making as much use as possible of the leeway acquired by the ship through the force of the puffs of wind on the Lydia’s rigging. They reached the new anchorage at last, and the anchor splashed into the water.
“Have that cable buoyed and ready to slip, Mr Bush,” said Hornblower.
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Call the boats alongside. I want the men to rest.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Mr Gerard, you have charge of the deck See that the lookouts keep awake. I want Mr Bush and Mr Galbraith to come below with me.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The ship was seething quietly with excitement. Everyone on board had guessed the captain’s plan, even though the details of its execution, which he was now explaining to his lieutenants, were still unknown. In the two hours which had elapsed since the arrival of the news of the Natividad’s approach Hornblower’s mind had worked busily at the perfection of his plan. Nothing must go wrong. Everything that could possibly contribute to success must be done.
“That is all understood?” he asked finally; he stood stooping under the deck beams in his screened off cabin while his lieutenants fiddled awkwardly with their hats.
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Very good,” said Hornblower, dismissing them.
But within five minutes impatience and anxiety drove him up on deck again.
“Masthead, there? What can you see of the enemy?”
“She’s just come up over the island, sir. She’s more than hull down. I can only see her torps’ls, sir, below her t’garns.”
“What’s her course?”
“She’s holding her wind, sir. She ought to make the bay on this tack.”
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower, and went below again.
It would be four hours at least before the Natividad reached the entrance, and before he could take any further action. He found himself pacing, stoopshouldered, up and down the tiny limits of his cabin, and checked himself furiously. The iron-nerved captain of his dreams would not allow himself to work himself into this sort of fever, even though his professional reputation was to be at stake in four hours’ time. He must show the ship that he, too, could face uncertainty with indifference.
“Pass the word for Polwheal!” he snapped, coming out through the screen and addressing a group by a maindeck gun; and when Polwheal appeared he went on: “My compliments to Mr Bush, and tell him that if he can spare Mr Galbraith and Mr Clay and Mr Savage from their duties I would be glad if they would sup with me and have a hand of a whist.”