“Here it comes!” exclaimed Fell. “Full and by!”
A stronger puff came, so that the rudder could bite. A lull, another puff, another lull, another puff, yet each puff was stronger yet. The next puff did not die away. It endured, heeling Clorinda over. A roller burst against her starboard bow in a dazzling rainbow. Now they had caught the trade wind; now they could thrust their way northwards close-hauled in the trail of the Estrella. With the clean, fresh wind blowing, and the sensation of successful striving with it, a new animation came over the ship. There were smiles to be seen.
“She hasn’t set her tops’ls yet, My Lord,” said Gerard, his telescope still to his eye.
“I doubt if she will while she makes her northing,” replied Hornblower.
“On a wind she can weather and headreach on us,” said Spendlove. “Just as she did yesterday.”
Yesterday? Was it only yesterday? It could have been a month ago, so much had happened since yesterday’s chase.
“Do you think that drogue ought to have any effect?” asked Fell, approaching them.
“None, sir, practically speaking,” answered Spendlove. “Not while that spun yarn keeps it tail forward.”
Fell had one huge hand clasped in the other, grinding his knuckles into his palm.
“For me,” said Hornblower, and every eye turned to him, “I am going to say farewell to gold lace. A cooler coat and a looser neckcloth.”
Let Fell display worry and nervousness; he himself was going below as if he had no interest whatever in the outcome of the affair. Down in the hot cabin it was a relief to throw off his full-dress uniform – ten pounds of broadcloth and gold – and to have Giles get out a clean shirt and white duck trousers.
“I’ll take my bath,” said Hornblower, meditatively.
He knew perfectly well that Fell thought it undignified and dangerous to discipline that an Admiral should disport himself under the washdeck pump, hosed down by grinning seamen, and he neither agreed nor cared. No miserable sponging down could take the place of his bath. The seamen pumped vigorously, and Hornblower pranced with middle-aged abandon under the stinging impact of the water. Now the clean shirt and trousers were doubly delightful; he felt a new man as he came on deck again, and his unconcern was not all pretence when Fell nervously approached him.
“She’s running clean away from us again, My Lord,” he said.
“We know she can, Sir Thomas. We can only wait until she puts her helm up and sets her tops’ls.”
“As long as we can keep her in sight -” said Fell.
Clorinda was lying right over, fighting her way to the northward.
“I can see that we’re doing all we can, Sir Thomas,” said Hornblower, soothingly.
The morning was wearing on. “Up spirits!” was piped, and Fell agreed with the sailing master that it was noon, and the hands were sent to dinner. Now it was only when Clorinda lifted to a wave that a telescope, trained over the starboard bow from the quarterdeck, could detect the gleam of Estrella’s sails over the horizon. She still had no topsails set; Gomez was acting on the knowledge that close-hauled his schooner behaved better without her square sails – unless he was merely playing with his pursuers. The hills of Puerto Rico had sunk out of sight below the horizon far, far astern. And the roast beef at dinner, roast fresh beef, had been most disappointing, tough and stringy and without any taste whatever.
“Stuart said he’d send me the best sirloin the island could produce, My Lord,” said Gerard, in answer to Hornblower’s expostulations.
“I wish I had him here,” said Hornblower. “I’d make him eat it, every bit, without salt. Sir Thomas, please accept my apologies.”
“Er – yes, My Lord,” said Fell, who had been invited to his Admiral’s table and who had been recalled from his own private thoughts by Hornblower’s apologies. “That drogue -”
Having said those words – that special word, rather – he was unable to say more. He looked across the table at Hornblower. His lantern-jawed face – the brick-red cheeks always looked odd in that conformation – showed his anxiety, which was accentuated by the look in his eyes.