“My Lord —” expostulated Gerard.
“That’s all right. It’s all over now,” said Hornblower.
The fight had swept past them up the road; no one had paid them any attention save for the single question of the mounted Spanish officer. The small column of infantry marching in regular order behind the skirmishers saw them, however, saw the glittering gold, the epaulettes, and the cocked hats. Again a mounted officer wheeled towards them with the same question, to receive the same answer from Hornblower.
“Ingleses?” repeated the officer. “English? Why — you’re a British Admiral!”
“Commanding the British Squadron in West Indian waters,” said Hornblower.
“A pleasure to see you, sir. William Jones, late Captain, Twenty-Third Foot, now Major commanding a battalion in the Army of Greater Colombia.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Major.”
“Pardon me, but I must attend to my duties,” said Jones, wheeling his horse again.
“Hooray for England!” yelled someone in the marching ranks, and he was answered by a thin cheer; half of these ragged scarecrows must have been British, mingled indiscriminately with Negroes and South Americans. The cavalry followed them, regiment after regiment, a flood of men and horses filling the road like a river brimming its banks. Lancers and light horse, sore-backed horses and lame horses; most of the men had coiled ropes at their saddle bows, and they were all ragged and drooping in their saddles with fatigue; from the appearance of both men and beasts they had marched far and fought hard, and now they were pressing on to the limit of their strength after their defeated foe. A thousand men had passed, estimated Hornblower, judging the column as well as he could, when a new sound came to his ears through the monotonous trampling of the horses’ hoofs. A thumping and a jingling, loud and irregular. Here came the guns, dragged along by weary horses; at the heads of the horses walked men, ragged and bearded — they were wearing the remains of blue jumpers and white trousers. It was the crew of the Bride of Abydos. One of them lifted his weary head and recognised the party at the roadside.
“Good old Horny!” he shouted; his voice was thin with fatigue and sounded like an old man’s.
In the mounted officer riding alongside Hornblower recognised one of Ramsbottom’s lieutenants; he sat his plodding horse like a sailor, and raised his arm in a weary salute. One gun clattered by, and another followed it. The guns of Carabobo, which had won the independence of a continent.
Hornblower realised that he had not yet seen Ramsbottom, whom he would have expected to be at the head of the artillery column, but as the realisation came to him he saw something now beside the second gun. It was a horse litter, extemporised from two poles and some sheets of canvas. It was slung from two horses, one fore and one aft; the bight of canvas between the poles was shaded by an awning spread above it, and lying in the trough was a man, a smallish man, black-bearded, lying feebly against pillows behind his back. A seaman walked at the head of each horse, and with the plodding step of the animals the litter lurched and rolled, and the black-bearded man lurched and rolled at the same time. Yet he was able to take note of the group by the roadside, and he made an effort to sit up, and he called an order to the seamen leading the horses which caused them to turn out of the road and stop by Hornblower.
“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.