The Happy Return. C. S. Forester

Chapter V

Those doubts and fears which encompassed Hornblower while he was trying to go to sleep the night before vanished with the day. Hornblower felt a new strength running through his veins when he awoke. His mind was teeming with plans as he drank the coffee which Polwheal brought him at dawn, and for the first time for weeks he dispensed with his morning walk on the quarterdeck. He had decided as he stepped on the deck that at least he could fill the watercasks and restock with fuel, and his first orders sent parties of men hurriedly to the tackles to hoist out the launch and lower the quarter boats. Soon they were off for the shore, charged with the empty casks and manned by crews of excited chattering men; in the bows of each boat sat two marines in their red coats with their muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, and in their ears echoing their final orders from their sergeant, to the effect that if a single sailor succeeded in deserting while on shore every man among them would have his back well scratched with the cat.

An hour later the launch came back under sail, deep laden with her watercasks full, and while the casks were being swayed out of her and lowered into the hold Mr Midshipman Hooker came running up to Hornblower and touched his hat.

“The beef cattle are coming down to the shore, sir,” he said.

Hornblower had to struggle hard to keep his face immobile and to receive the news as if he expected it.

“How many?” he snapped; it seemed a useful question to ask in order to waste time, but the answer was more surprising still.

“Hundreds, sir. There’s a Dago in charge with a lot to say, but there’s no one ashore who can speak his lingo.”

“Send him out to me when you go ashore again,” said Hornblower.

Hornblower spent the interval granted him in making up his mind. He hailed the lookout at the main royal masthead to ensure that a careful watch was kept to seaward. On the one hand there was the chance that the Natividad might come sailing in from the Pacific, in which case the Lydia, caught with half her crew ashore, would have no time to clear from the bay and would have to fight in confined waters and with the odds necessarily against her. On the other hand there was the opportunity of filling up completely with stores and regaining entire independence of the shore. From what Hornblower had seen of conditions prevailing there he judged that to postpone regaining that independence would be dangerous in the extreme; at any moment Don Julian Alvarado’s rebellion might come to a hurried and bloody ending.

It was Hernandez who came out to him, in the same boat with the two tiny lateen sails in which Hornblower had been ferried across last night. They exchanged salutes on the quarterdeck.

“There are four hundred cattle awaiting your orders, Captain,” said Hernandez. “My men are driving them down to the beach.”

“Good,” said Hornblower, his mind still not made up.

“I am afraid it will take longer to assemble the pigs,” went on Hernandez. “My men are sweeping the country for them, but pigs are slow animals to drive.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

“With regard to the salt, it will not be easy to collect the hundred quintals you asked for. Until our lord declared his divinity salt was a royal monopoly and scarce in consequence, but I have sent a party to the salt pans at Jiquilisio and hope to find sufficient there.”

“Yes,” said Hornblower. He remembered demanding salt, but he had no distinct recollection of the quantity he had asked for.

“The women are out collecting the lemons, oranges, and limes which you ordered,” continued Hernandez, “but I am afraid it will be two days before we shall have them all ready.”

“Ha‑h’m,” said Hornblower.

“The sugar is ready at el Supremo’s mill, however. And with regard to the tobacco, señor, there is a good deal in store. What special kind do you prefer? For some time we have only been rolling cigars for our own consumption, but I can set the women to work again after the fruit has been collected.”

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