Cecil Forester - Hornblower in the West Indies

“Barbara, my dear, allow me to present Señor—Major—Mendez-Castillo, aide-de-camp to His Excellency the Captain-General.” Then he continued in Spanish. “My wife, la Baronesa Hornblower.”

Mendez-Castillo bowed deeply, his eyes still busy estimating the extent of the weakness of the new arrivals. Then he reached the very important decision.

“If Your Excellencies are agreeable, I would suggest that your formal welcome by His Excellency should be postponed until Your Excellencies are better prepared for it.”

“We are agreeable,” said Hornblower. In his exasperation he was about to burst out violently regarding Barbara’s need for rest and care, but Mendez-Castillo, now that the point of etiquette was settled, was all consideration.

“Then if Your Excellencies will give yourselves the trouble of stepping down into my boat I shall have the pleasure of escorting you to make your informal entrance into the Palace of Santa Catalina. Their Excellencies will receive you, but formal etiquette need not be observed, and Your Excellencies will be able to recover from the dreadful experiences I fear Your Excellencies have undergone. Would Your Excellencies be so kind as to come this way?”

“One moment, first, if you please, señor. The men out there in the ship. They need food and water. They may need help.”

“I will give an order for the port authorities to send out to them what they need.”

“Thank you.”

So they went down into the boat for the brief trip across the harbour; despite his mortal fatigue Hornblower was able to note that every fishing boat and coasting craft there was hurriedly getting to sea, presumably to examine the chances of salvaging or plundering the Pretty Jane; the second mate had been perfectly right in refusing to leave her. But he did not care, now. He put his arm about Barbara as she drooped beside him. Then up through the water-gate of the Palace, with attentive servants awaiting them. Here were His Excellency and a dark, beautiful woman, his wife: she took Barbara under her protection instantly. Here were cool, dark rooms, and more servants scurrying about in obedience to the orders His Excellency volleyed out. Valets and maids and body servants.

“This is Manuel, my principal valet, Your Excellency. Any orders Your Excellency may give him will be obeyed as if they came from me. My physician has been sent for and will be here at any moment. So now my wife and I will withdraw and leave Your Excellencies to rest, assuring Your Excellencies that our sincerest hope is for your rapid recovery.”

The crowd thinned away. For one more moment Hornblower had to keep his faculties alert, for the doctor came bustling in, to feel pulses and to look at tongues. He produced a case of lancets and was making preparations to draw blood from Barbara and it was only with difficulty that Hornblower stopped him, and with further difficulty prevented him from substituting leeches for venesection. He could not believe that bleeding would hasten the cure of the lacerations Barbara bore on her body. He thanked the doctor and saw him out of the room again with a sigh of relief and mental reservations regarding the medicines he promised to send in. The maids were waiting to relieve Barbara of the few rags she wore.

“Do you think you will sleep, darling? Is there anything more I can ask for?”

“I shall sleep, dearest.” Then the smile on Barbara’s weary face was replaced by something more like a grin, perfectly un-ladylike. “And as nobody else but us here can speak English I am free to tell you that I love you, dearest. I love you, I love you, more than any words that I know can tell you.”

Servants or no servants, he kissed her then before he left her to go into the adjoining room where the valets awaited him. His body was crisscrossed with angry welts still raw where, during the storm, the force of the waves had flung him against the ropes that held him to the mast. They were horribly painful as he was sponged with warm water. He knew that Barbara’s sweet, tender body must be marked in the same fashion. But Barbara was safe; she would soon be well, and she had said that she loved him.—And—and she had said more than that. What she had told him in that deckhouse had drawn out all the pain from a mental wound far, far, deeper than the physical hurts he now bore. He was a happy man as he lay down in the silk nightshirt with the elaborate heraldic embroidery which the valet had ready for him. His sleep was at first deep and untroubled, but conscience awoke him before dawn, and he went out on to the balcony in the first light, to see the Pretty Jane creeping into the harbour, escorted by a dozen small craft. It irked him that he was not on board, until he thought again of the wife sleeping in the next room.

There were happy hours still to come. That balcony was deep and shaded, looking out over harbour and sea, and there he sat in his dressing-gown an hour later, rocking idly in his chair, with Barbara opposite him, drinking sweet chocolate and eating sweet rolls.

“It is good to be alive,” said Hornblower; there was a potency, an inner meaning, about those words now—it was no hackneyed turn of speech.

“It is good to be with you,” said Barbara.

“ Pretty Jane came in this morning safely,” said Hornblower.

“I peeped out at her through my window,” said Barbara.

Mendez-Castillo was announced, presumably having been warned that His Excellency’s guests were awake and breakfasting. He made enquiries on behalf of His Excellency, to receive every assurance of a rapid recovery, and he announced that news of the recent events would be despatched at once to Jamaica.

“Most kind of His Excellency,” said Hornblower. “Now, as regards the crew of the Pretty Jane. Are they being looked after?”

“They have been received into the military hospital. The port authorities have stationed a guard on board the vessel.”

“That is very well indeed,” said Hornblower, telling himself that now he need feel no more responsibility.

The morning could be an idle one now, only broken by a visit from the doctor, to be dismissed, after a new feeling of pulses and looking at tongues, with grateful thanks for his un-tasted medicines. There was dinner at two o’clock, a vast meal served ceremoniously but only sampled. A siesta, and then supper eaten with more appetite, and a peaceful night.

Next morning was busier, for there was now the question of clothes to be dealt with. Dressmakers were sent in to Barbara by Her Excellency, so that Hornblower found all the mental exercise he needed in acting as interpreter over matters demanding a vocabulary he did not possess, and shirt-makers and tailors sent in to him by His Excellency. The tailor was somewhat disappointed on being told that Hornblower did not wish him to make a complete uniform for a British Rear Admiral, gold lace and all. As a half-pay officer, with no appointment, Hornblower did not need anything of the sort.

After the tailor came a deputation, the mate and two members of the crew of Pretty Jane.

“We’ve come to enquire after Your Lordship’s health, and Her Ladyship’s,” said the mate.

“Thank you. You can see Her Ladyship and I are quite recovered,” said Hornblower. “And you? Are you being well looked after?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“You’re master of the Pretty Jane now,” commented Hornblower.

“Yes, My Lord.”

It was a strange first command for a man to have.

“What are you going to do with her?”

“I’m having her hauled out today, My Lord. Maybe she can be patched up. But she’ll have lost all her copper.”

“Very likely.”

“I expect I’ll have to sell her for what she’ll fetch, hull and cargo,” said the mate, with a note of bitterness in his voice—that was to be expected in a man who had received his first command only to face losing it instantly.