Hornblower in the West Indies. C. S. Forester

It never failed to raise a wry smile on his face when he looked about him at ‘His Majesty’s ships and vessels in the West Indies’ under his command. In wartime he would have had a powerful fleet; now he had three small frigates and a motley collection of brigs and schooners. But they would serve his purpose; in his scheme the frigates became three-deckers and the brigs seventy-fours and the schooners frigates. He had a van, a centre, and a rear; he cruised in formation ready to meet the enemy, with rasping reprimands soaring up his signal halliards when any ship failed to keep station; he cleared for action and he turned by divisions into fighting line ahead; he tacked to double on the imaginary enemy’s line. In pitch darkness he would burn blue lights with the signal ‘Enemy in sight’, so that a score of captains and a thousand seamen came tumbling from their beds to deal with the non-existent foe.

Without warning he would hang out a signal putting the most junior lieutenants in command of their respective ships, and then he would plunge into intricate manoeuvres calculated to turn the anxious substantive captains, looking helplessly on, grey with anxiety – but those junior lieutenants might some day be commanding ships of the line in a battle on which the destiny of England might depend, and it was necessary to steel their nerves and accustom them to handle ships in dangerous situations. In the middle of sail drill he would signal ‘Flagship on fire. All boats away.’ He called for landing parties to storm non-existent batteries on some harmless, uninhabited cay, and he inspected those landing parties once they were on shore, to the last flint in the last pistol, with a rigid disregard for excuses that made men grind their teeth in exasperation. He set his captains to plan and execute cutting-out expeditions, and he commented mordantly on the arrangements for defence and the methods of attack. He paired off his ships to fight single-ship duels, sighting each other on the horizon and approaching ready to fire the vital opening broadside; he took advantage of calms to set his men to work towing and sweeping in desperate attempts to overtake the ship ahead. He worked his crews until they were ready to drop, and then he devised further tasks for them to prove to them that they still had one more effort left in them, so that it was doubtful whether ‘Old Horny’ was mentioned more often with curses or with admiration.

It was a toughened squadron that Hornblower led back to Kingston; but while Clorinda was still working up into the harbour a shore boat came pulling out to her, with on board an aide-de-camp of the Governor’s with a note for Hornblower.

“Sir Thomas, would you have the kindness to call away my barge?” asked Hornblower.

There was much apparent need for haste, for the note from Government House said, briefly:

My Lord,

It is necessary that Your Lordship should attend here at the earliest possible moment to offer an explanation regarding the situation in Venezuela. Your Lordship is therefore requested and required to report to me immediately.

Augustus Hooper, Governor.

Hornblower naturally had no idea of what had happened in Venezuela for the last two weeks and more. He made no guess while the carriage took him up to Government House at its best pace, and in any case if he had tried he would never have succeeded in coming near to the truth.

“What is all this, Hornblower?” were the Governor’s opening words to him. “What authority have you for blockading the Venezuelan coast? Why was I not informed?”

“I’ve done nothing of the sort,” replied Hornblower, indignantly.

“But – Damn it, man, I’ve the proof here. I’ve Dutchmen and Spaniards and half the nations of the earth here all protesting about it.”

“I assure you, sir, I have taken no action on the Venezuelan coast. I have not been within five hundred miles of it.”

“Then what does this mean?” shouted the Governor. “Look here at this!”

He held some papers up with one hand and slapped wildly at them with the other, so that Hornblower had some difficulty in taking them from him. Hornblower was bewildered already; he was more bewildered still as he read. One paper was an official dispatch in French, from the Dutch Governor of Curaçao; the other was larger and clearer, and he read it first. It was a big sheet of paper with bold writing.