Far away on the port side the black shape of a whale broke the surface in a flurry of foam — dazzling white against the blue sea — and a thin plume of white smoke was visible as the whale emptied its lungs. Hornblower liked whales for some reason or other; the sight of this one, in fact, led him on his first step back towards good temper. With the imminent prospect of his cold shower bath before him the prickle of sweat under his shirt was gratifying now instead of irritating. Two hours ago he had been telling himself that he loathed this Pacific coast, its blue sea and its hideous volcanoes — even its freedom from navigational difficulties. He had felt himself homesick for the rocks and shoals and fogs and tides of the Channel, but now, bathed in sunshine, his opinion changed once more. There was something to be said in favour of the Pacific after all. Perhaps this new alliance between Spain and England would induce the Dons to relax some of their selfish laws prohibiting trade with America; they might even go so far as to try to exploit the possibility of that canal across Nicaragua which the British Admiralty had in mind, and in that case this blue Pacific could come into its own. El Supremo would have to be suppressed first, of course, but on this pleasant morning Hornblower foresaw less difficulty in that.
Gray the master’s mate had come aft to heave the log. Hornblower checked in his walk to watch the operation. Gray tossed the little triangle of wood over the stern, and, log line in hand, he gazed fixedly with his boyish blue eyes at the dancing bit of wood.
“Turn!” he cried sharply to the hand with the sand glass, while the line ran out freely over the rail.
“Stop!” called the man with the glass.
Gray nipped the line with his fingers and checked it progress, and then read off the length run out. A sharp jerk at the thin cord which had run out with the line freed the peg so that the log now floated with its edge towards the ship, enabling Gray to pull the log in hand over hand.
“How much?” called Hornblower to Gray.
“Seven an’ nigh on a half, sir.”
The Lydia was a good ship to reel off seven and a half knots in that breeze, even though her best point of sailing was with the wind on her quarter. It would not take long if the wind held to reach waters where the Natividad might be expected to be found. The Natividad was a slow sailer, as nearly all those two-decker fifty-gun ships were, and as Hornblower had noticed when he had sailed in her company ten days back — it might as well be ten years, so long did it seem — from the Gulf of Fonseca to La Libertad.
If he met her in the open sea he could trust to the handiness of his ship and the experience of his crew to out-manoeuvre her and discount her superior weight of metal. If the ships once closed and the rebels boarded their superior numbers would overwhelm his crew. He must keep clear, slip across her stern and rake her half a dozen times. Hornblower’s busy mind, as he paced up and down the deck, began to visualise the battle, and to make plans for the possible eventualities — whether or not he might hold the weather gauge, whether or not there might be a high sea running, whether or not the battle began close inshore.
The little negress Hebe came picking her way across the deck, her red handkerchief brilliant in the sunshine, and before the scandalised crew could prevent her she had interrupted the captain in his sacred morning walk.
“Milady says would the captain breakfast with her,” she lisped.
“Eh — what’s that?” asked Hornblower, taken by surprise and coming out of his day dream with a jerk, and then, as he realised the triviality for which he had been interrupted, “No no no! Tell her ladyship I will not breakfast with her. Tell her that I will never breakfast with her. Tell her that on no account am I to be sent messages during the morning. Tell her you are not allowed and neither is she on this deck before eight bells. Get below!”