“Captain Seymour! Send a party forward to secure the prisoners.”
He did not have to see the horrors of the cave, the mutilated dead and the screaming wounded. He could see them in his mind’s eye when Seymour made his report of what he found when he ascended the ladder. It was done, finished. The wounded could be bandaged and carried down to the beach on litters to the death that awaited them, the unwounded driven along with them with their wrists bound. A courier could be sent off to the Governor to say that the pirate horde had been wiped out, so that the patrols could be called in and the militia sent home. He did not have to set eyes on the wretched people he had conquered. The excitement of the hunt was over. He had set himself a task to do, a problem to solve, just as he might work out a longitude from lunar observations, and he had achieved success. But the measure of that success could be expressed in hangings, in dead and in wounded, in that shattered, broken-backed figure lying on the rocks, and he had undertaken the task merely on a point of pride, to re-establish his self-esteem after the indignity of being kidnapped. It was no comfort to argue with himself – as he did – that what he had done would otherwise have been done by others, at great cost in disease and in economic disturbance. That only made him sneer at himself as a hair-splitting casuist. There were few occasions when Hornblower could do what was right in Hornblower’s eyes.
Yet there was some cynical pleasure to be derived from his lofty rank, to be able to leave all this after curt orders to Sefton and Seymour to bring the landing party back to the shore with the least delay and the shortest exposure to the night air, to go back on board and eat a comfortable dinner – even if it meant Fell’s rather boring company – and to sleep in a comfortable bed. And it was pleasant to find that Fell had already dined, so that he could eat his dinner merely in the company of his flag-lieutenant and his secretary. Nevertheless, there was one more unexpected crumpled petal in his roseleaf bed, and he discovered it, contrariwise, as a result of what he intended to be a kindly action.
“I shall have to add a further line to my remarks about you to Their Lordships, Spendlove,” he said. “It was a brave deed to go forward with that flag of truce.”
“Thank you, My Lord,” said Spendlove, who bent his gaze down on the tablecloth and drummed with his fingers before continuing, eyes still lowered in unusual nervousness. “Then perhaps Your Lordship will not be averse to putting in a word for me in another quarter?”
“Of course I will,” replied Hornblower in all innocence. “Where?”
“Thank you, My Lord. It was with this in mind that I did the little you have been kind enough to approve of. I would be deeply grateful if Your Lordship would go to the trouble of speaking well of me to Miss Lucy.”
Lucy! Hornblower had forgotten all about the girl. He quite failed to conceal his surprise, which was clearly apparent to Spendlove when he lifted his glance from the tablecloth.
“We jested about a wealthy marriage, My Lord,” said Spendlove. The elaborate care with which he was choosing his words proved how deep were his emotions. “I would not care if Miss Lucy had not a penny. My Lord, my affections are deeply engaged.”
“She is a very charming young woman,” said Hornblower, temporising desperately.
“My Lord, I love her,” burst out Spendlove, casting aside all restraint. “I love her dearly. At the ball I tried to interest her in myself, and I failed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Hornblower.
“I could not but be aware of her admiration for you, My Lord. She spoke of Your Lordship repeatedly. I realised even then that one word from you would carry more weight than a long speech from me. If you would say that word, My Lord -”
“I’m sure you over-estimate my influence,” said Hornblower, choosing his words as carefully as Spendlove had done, but, he hoped, not as obviously. “But of course I will do all I can.”