They all would seemingly. Crespo had them all cheering wildly at the end of his speech. Crespo came back to Hornblower.
“Thank you, Captain,” he said. “I think there is no more need for the presence of your prize crew. My officers and I will be able to attend to any insubordination which may arise later.”
“I think you will be quite able to,” said Hornblower, a little bitterly.
“Some of them may not easily be enlightened when the time comes for that,” said Crespo, grinning.
Pulling back to the Lydia Hornblower thought bitterly about the murder of the Spanish master’s mate. It was a crime which he ought to have prevented — he had gone on board the Natividad expressly to prevent cruelty and he had failed. Yet he realised that that kind of cruelty would not have the bad effect on his own men that a coldblooded hanging of the officers would have done. The crew of the Natividad was being forced to serve a new master against their will — but the pressgang had done the same for three-quarters of the crew of the Lydia. Flogging and death were the punishments meted out to Englishmen who refused to obey the orders of officers who had arbitrarily assumed command over them — English sailors were not likely to fret unduly over Dagoes in the same position, even though with English lower-class lack of logic they would have been moved to protest against a formal hanging of officers.
His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a gun from the Natividad, instantly answered by another from the Lydia. He almost sprang to his feet in the sternsheets of the launch, but a glance over his shoulder reassured him. A new flag was now flying from the Natividad’s peak. Blue with a yellow star in the middle, he saw. The sound of the saluting guns rolled slowly round the bay; the salute was still being fired as he went up the Lydia’s side. Mr Marsh, the gunner, was pacing up and down the foredeck mumbling to himself — Hornblower guessed at the jargon.
“If I hadn’t been a born bloody fool I shouldn’t be here. Fire seven. I’ve left my wife; I’ve left my home and everything that’s dear. Fire eight.”
Half an hour later Hornblower was at the beach to meet el Supremo, who came riding down, punctual to the minute, a ragged retinue of a dozen riding with him. El Supremo did not condescend to present his suite to the captain, but bowed and stepped straight into the launch; his suite introduced themselves, in a string of meaningless names, in turn as they came up to Hornblower. They were all nearly pure Indians; they were all Generals save for one or two Colonels, and they were all clearly most devotedly attached to their master. Their whole bearing, every little action of theirs, indicated not merely their fear of him but their admiration — their love, it might be said.
At the gangway sideboys and boatswain’s mates and marines were ready to receive el Supremo with distinguished military formality, but el Supremo astonished Hornblower as he was about to go up the ladder, with the casual words —
“The correct salute for me, Captain, is twenty-three guns.”
That was two more guns than His Majesty King George himself would receive. Hornblower stared for a moment, thought wildly of how he could refuse, and finally salved his conscience with the notion that a salute of that number of guns would be entirely meaningless. He sent a message hurriedly to Mr Marsh ordering twenty-three guns — it was odd, the way in which the ship’s boy almost reduplicated Hornblower’s reactions, by staring, composing his features, and hurrying off comforted by the thought that it was the Captain’s re-ponsibility and not his own. And Hornblower could hardly repress a grin as he thought of Marsh’s certain astonishment, and the boiling exasperation in his voice when he reached — “If I hadn’t been a born bloody fool I shouldn’t be here. Fire twenty-three.”
El Supremo stepped on to the quarterdeck with a keen glance round him, and then, while Hornblower looked at him, the interest faded from his face and he lapsed into the condition of abstracted indifference in which Hornblower had seen him before. He seemed to listen, but he looked over the heads of Bush and Gerard and the others as Hornblower presented them. He shook his head without a word when Hornblower suggested that he might care to inspect the ship. There was a little awkward pause, which was broken by Bush addressing his captain.