“Good morning, My Lord,” he said; he spoke shrilly, like someone hysterical.
Hornblower had to look twice and more to recognise him. The black beard, the feverish eyes, the shocking dead pallor upon which the tan looked like some unnatural coating, all made identification difficult.
“Ramsbottom!” exclaimed Hornblower.
“The very same but a little different,” said Ramsbottom, with a cackling laugh.
“Are you wounded?” asked Hornblower; at the moment the words passed his lips he perceived that Ramsbottom’s left arm was concealed in a roll of rags – Hornblower had been looking so intently at the face that the arm had escaped his notice until then.
“I have made my sacrifice in the cause of liberty,” said Ramsbottom, with the same laugh – it might have been a laugh of derision or a laugh of mere hysteria.
“What happened?”
“My left hand lies on the field of Carabobo,” cackled Ramsbottom. “I doubt if it has received Christian burial.”
“Good God!”
“Do you see my guns? My beautiful guns. They tore the Dons apart at Carabobo.”
“But you – what treatment have you received?”
“Field surgery, of course. Boiling pitch for the stump. Have you ever felt boiling pitch, My Lord?”
“My frigate is anchored in the roadstead. The surgeon is on board -”
“No – oh no. I must go on with my guns. I must clear El Liberador’s path to Caracas.”
The same laugh. It was not derision – it was something the opposite. A man on the edge of delirium keeping a desperate hold on his sanity so as not to be diverted from his aim. Nor was it a case of a man laughing lest he weep. He was laughing lest he should indulge in heroics.
“Oh, you can’t -”
“Sir! Sir! My Lord!”
Hornblower swung round. Here was a midshipman from the frigate touching his hat, agitated by the urgency of his message.
“What is it?”
“Message from the cap’n, My Lord. Ships-of-war in sight in the offing. A Spanish frigate an’ what looks like a Dutch frigate, My Lord. Bearing down on us.”
Desperate news indeed. He must have his flag flying in Clorinda to meet these strangers, but it was a maddening moment in which to be told about it. He turned back to Ramsbottom and back again to the midshipman, his customary quickness of thought not as apparent as usual.
“Very well,” he rasped. “Tell the captain I’m coming immediately.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.” He turned again to Ramsbottom.
“I must go,” he said. “I must -”
“My Lord,” said Ramsbottom. Some of his feverish vitality had left him. He was leaning back again on his pillows, and it took him a second or two to gather his strength to speak again, and when he did the words lagged as he uttered them. “Did you capture the Bride, My Lord?”
“Yes.” He must end this; he must get back to his ship.
“My bonny Bride. My Lord, there’s another keg of caviare in the after lazarette. Please enjoy it, My Lord.”
The cackling laugh again. Ramsbottom was still laughing as he lay back with his eyes closed, not hearing the hurried ‘goodbye’ which Hornblower uttered as he turned away. It seemed to Hornblower as if that laugh followed him while he hastened to the pier and down into the boat.
“Shove off! Put your backs into it!”
There lay Clorinda at anchor, with the Bride of Abydos close to her. And there, undoubtedly, were the topsails of two frigates heading in towards them. He scrambled up the ship’s side with hardly a moment to spare for the compliments with which he was received. He was too busy taking in the tactical situation, the trend of the shore, the position of the Bride of Abydos, the approach of the strangers.
“Hoist my flag,” he ordered, curtly, and then, recovering his poise, with the customary elaborate politeness, “Sir Thomas, I’d be obliged if you’d get springs on the cable, out of the after ports on both sides.”
“Springs, My Lord? Aye aye, My Lord.”
Cables passed through the after ports to the anchor cable; by hauling in on one or the other with the capstan he could turn the ship to bring her guns to bear in any direction. It was only one of the many exercises Hornblower had put his crews through during the recent manoeuvres. It called for heavy, closely co-ordinated labour on the part of the hands. Orders were bellowed; warrant and petty officers ran at the heads of their different parties to rouse out the cables and drag them aft.