'The utmost endeavour is to be made to arrest the aforesaid Gerald
Wilson should he enter British Territory.'
That was roughly what I read, though I can't remember now the actual
words, but it was so full of legal phrases that it made me feel cold all
over. It seemed so beastly cold-blooded too, as if he hadn't already
done more actually for old England than all the rest of us English out
here put together.
'Well, boy, give him the tip to keep clear--that's all,' the Skipper
said, screwing his eyeglass in and running his fingers through his long
hair.
'I can't, sir,' I told him. 'I don't know where he is. He's wounded
too, sir.'
Then I told him about the letters I'd received and how I'd got them.
'Well, well, boy, I can tell you. Tut, tut! Read that--I got it from
our Minister this morning--brought across in a trading-schooner. You're
not to speak of it till the news comes out.'
He was simply bubbling with pleasure, and handed me another paper.
'Received reliable news that General Moros abandoned San Fernando
yesterday--insurgents, under Don Geraldio, occupied it
immediately--Vice-President de Costa has formed a Provisional Government
there. General Zorilla, Governor of Los Angelos, left Santa Cruz
hurriedly this morning to take command of President's army in the
south.'
That, then, was the important news Gerald had written to me to expect.
I simply felt hot and cold all over with excitement and the pride of
imagining him, with his yellow hair and his arm in a sling, head and
shoulders above every one else, marching into San Fernando at the head
of his troops; and to have the fierce old Governor of Los Angelos on his
track--their best fighter--even that was simply glorious.
'Surely, sir, he won't be arrested if the insurgents win?'
The Skipper shrugged his shoulders. 'Those are my orders, whether he's
a hundred Generals rolled into one, or even the President himself, so
you'd better give him the tip.'
I went away feeling very proud of Gerald, but very upset about the other
thing. It did seem such jolly hard lines after he'd risked everything
to help the side that was friendly to Englishmen, and had made a great
name for himself in the country, and made all these half-civilized
people respect all Englishmen because of him. I was worrying about this
in my cabin, and how I could manage to warn him, when Ginger came
banging at the door.
'Look here, Billums, old chap, I've just come across from the
_Hercules_. This has got to stop. D'you know what has happened now?
One of your chaps in your picket-boat has smashed up our steam pinnace,
rammed her whilst she was trying to get alongside the Governor's
steps--cut her down to the water--did it on purpose.'
I had heard about it in the morning; Bob, who was running the
picket-boat, had told me. Her pinnace had tried to get alongside before
our boat, neither would give way, because the two mids. disliked each
other so much, and there'd been a collision.
'It was your boat's fault, Ginger; she cut across our bows. I've
reported it to the Commander.'
'Be blowed for a yarn. Our Padre was in the boat and said it was done
on purpose--the whole boat's crew said it was. The mid. tried his best
to get out of the way, and had his engines full speed astern. It was
done on purpose, I tell you.'
'It wasn't,' I said, getting angry with Ginger. 'It was your confounded
mid. who tried to cut across our bows, our Engineer Commander was in the
boat and told me so. The picket-boat has had to be hoisted in with her
stem smashed in. D'you mean to say you don't believe me?'
'Well, if it comes to that, d'you mean to say you don't believe me?'
Ginger jerked out.
'No, I'm hanged if I do! you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick,'
I said hotly.
'But, my dear chap, the Padre said----'
'I don't care a hang for your Padre--our Engineer Commander----'
'Then you won't take any notice of it?' Ginger was getting excited now.
'None,' I said, 'except to report your mid.'
'You won't cane your chap?'
'No, I'm hanged if I will. It was young Bob Temple, he's too stupid to
try and do a thing like that. Your boat was simply poaching--I'm hanged
if I'll cane him.'
Ginger's face looked as angry as mine felt, and he burst out with:
'Thank goodness, I haven't got a cousin aboard my ship, and ain't in
love with his sister!'
Well, that finished me, and I swung off that if he thought that was why
I didn't cane him he was welcome to think so for the rest of his
blooming existence.
'All right,' he muttered angrily, 'I'll not trouble to try and patch
things up again.'
'I hope you jolly well won't. If your chaps want to cut across our
bows, tell 'em to look out--that's all.'
'You absolutely refuse?' he said very coldly.
'Absolutely,' I answered, just as icily, holding the door curtain back.
'All right; sorry to have troubled you,' and Ginger had gone up on deck
before I could think of anything more, and I knew that we'd jolly well
parted 'brass rags' at last--after all the times we'd sworn that we'd
never let the gun-room quarrels make any difference to us.
I wanted to rush off to the _Hercules_ and make it 'up' on the spot, but
that beastly remark about Bob being my cousin--and the other
thing--simply set me tingling all over, and I'd see him in Jericho
first. If he thought that every time our midshipmen had a row, mine
were to go to the wall, he was jolly well mistaken.
There was bound to be a row about the damaged boats, and there was--a
regular Court of Inquiry--and a lot of hard swearing on both sides, the
only result of which was that Ginger and I--we'd been glaring at each
other all the time--got badly snubbed for not keeping better control
over our gun-rooms.
Well, all this, coming directly after the worry about Gerald, made me
feel pretty bad-tempered. I wanted Ginger to yarn with more than any
one, but that was 'finish,' and, as my shoulder wasn't quite all right
yet, I had nothing to do but wander about the ship like a caged monkey.
Every one knew about San Fernando in two or three days, and by the time
my shoulder was all right and I could go ashore--you bet I kept my eyes
skinned to see that chap who'd knifed me--news began coming pretty
regularly from that town, brought by small sailing-boats which managed
to get through at night--and most of it was pretty bad news.
Gerald and the insurgents had certainly got possession of San Fernando,
but El Castellar, the strong fort at the narrow inlet to the bay, was
still in the hands of the President, and still stopped all trade. Not
only that, but, worse still, the Santa Cruz gun-boats slipped up there
and amused themselves by bombarding the defenceless town. The whole
Insurgent army didn't possess anything even as big as a field-gun, so
the gunboats could fire away in comfort as long as their ammunition
lasted. We heard that the warehouses and offices along the sea-front
had already been practically destroyed by shell-fire. As these nearly
all belonged to English firms, whose headquarters were at Princes' Town,
the whole colony was in an uproar; and, much to our joy, our Skipper was
ordered--from home--to take the _Hector_ up to San Fernando and report
on the state of affairs. You can imagine how excited we all were, and
how I looked forward to seeing old Gerald bossing round in his General's
uniform.
That chum of mine ashore--the man who seemed to be 'in the know'--came
up to me in the Club, the day before we were to sail, and made me
introduce him to the Skipper. 'I want him to take a few things to San
Fernando for me,' he told me. 'I've got some machinery for one of our
estates--it's been lying on the wharves for the last six weeks, and they
can't get on without it.'
I didn't hear what passed between them, but knew that the Skipper was in
such high spirits that he'd have done anything for anybody just then.
And so it turned out, for that evening a lighter came alongside, and I
had the job of hoisting in four large crates of hydraulic machinery,
some boxes of shafting, and dozens of smaller crates. The Commander was
furious, but the Skipper had said 'yes,' and although his jolly face
fell when he saw how 'chock-a-block' the battery deck was, with all
these packing-cases, he wouldn't go back on his word.
After we'd finished I was getting a bit of supper in the gun-room when
O'Leary came knocking at the door and wanting to speak to me. He
wouldn't come in. 'Beg pardon, sir, but I wants to 'ave a word with
you, private like.'
'What is it?' I asked, taking him into my cabin.
He carefully pulled the curtain across, and then said in a half-whisper,
'We let down one of they small crates rayther 'eavy like, sir, and
started one of the boards, sir.'
'That doesn't matter,' I said.
'Eh, but it do, sir! I banged 'im in again, but not afore I'd seen
inside it--a hammunition box--sir--the same as what we've got for our
twelve-pounder.'
My aunt! that made me all jumpy.
'Are you quite certain?' I gasped.
'As certain as I'm astanding 'ere, sir. That ain't no bloomin'
'ydraulic machinery--they boxes marked "shafting" be guns, sir, that's
what they be.'
Hundreds of things rushed through my head.
'Did any one else see it?' I asked, and was jolly glad when he shook his
head.
'N'ary a one, sir; I covered 'em up too quick; and I ain't going to tell
no one neither, sir, for I 'ears your brother is takin' a leadin' part
in this 'ere revolution, and maybe he'll be wantin' a goodish deal o'
'ydraulic machinery before he's through with it. That's why I tells you,
sir. I couldn't keep it all to myself--in my chest--without tellin'
some one.'
My brain was so hot that I couldn't think properly.
'Don't mention it to a soul; I'll think over it,' I told him.
'No, that I won't, sir; good-night, sir;' and O'Leary left me.
Well, if he was correct, and it was ever found out, the Skipper would
get in an awful row; if any one found out that I knew about it, it would
mean the 'chuck' for me, and if I told what I knew, and it turned out to
be true, old Gerald wouldn't get his guns.
You can pretty easily guess what I did--kept as mum as a mummy--and how
I gloated over all that jumble of boxes and packing-cases and the long
boxes marked 'shafting for hydraulic machinery' when I walked through
the battery next morning on my way to the bridge.
As we passed under the stern of the _Hercules_ I saw Ginger on watch,
and I was just going to wave to him when I remembered that we'd parted
'brass rags' and didn't. I wished to goodness that we hadn't
quarrelled.
All that watch, as we drew nearer and nearer to the mainland, I kept on
thinking of these crates and boxes, frightened lest any one else should
have any suspicion about them, and couldn't help remembering the words
in that document which the Skipper had shown me, 'All law-abiding
subjects of his Britannic Majesty are hereby warned to abstain from
affording assistance to the aforesaid Gerald Wilson, on pain of being
indicted for felony.'
'Felony' has a jolly nasty sound about it. And there was another thing.
Suppose Gerald came off to the ship when we anchored at San Fernando.
Well, they couldn't arrest him unless he actually came aboard, and I
determined to stay on deck all the time, and warn him off before he
could get alongside. I'd tell all the watch-keeping lieutenants, and the
'Forlorn Hope' and the 'Shadow' too, for they kept watch in harbour.
*CHAPTER VI*
*The *_*Hector*_* goes to San Fernando*
_Written by Captain Grattan, R.N., H.M.S. 'Hector'_
As the English merchants in Prince Rupert's Island were kicking up no
end of a fuss about the stoppage of their trade with Santa Cruz, I
received orders from home to take my ship to San Fernando and report on
the state of affairs there; so one morning I left old 'Spats'
comfortably anchored off Princes' Town and toddled across. Young
Wilson--my Sub-Lieutenant--has told you about that fort at the entrance
to La Laguna, the fort which had been firing on our merchant steamers
and stopping all trade to San Fernando, at the head of the bay, fifteen
miles farther on, and as we steamed towards the gap in the high cliffs
which marked the entrance, all of us on the bridge were anxious to know
whether the insurgents had managed to capture it yet. We could see the
little white lighthouse on the port side, the rambling white walls of
the fort itself, perched high in the air, on the starboard side, and
presently the yeoman of signals reported that a small cruiser, lying
close inshore, was flying the Government colours--you could tell them
because the stripes were vertical--so we guessed that it still remained
in the President's hands.
The heat, however, was so great that the glare from the water and the
mirage from the baking rocks made it difficult to see anything
distinctly, and it was not till we drew nearer that we made out a large
yellow and green flag, hanging limply down over the fort itself. That
settled the question.
In another quarter of an hour we were passing through the entrance,
when--well, I couldn't believe it myself, and I saw it, so can hardly
expect you to believe it--the miserable sons of Ham in that fort had the
colossal cheek to fire a shot across my bows.
'Accident, my dear boy!' I told Wilson, who was officer of the watch;
'of course it was an accident; but I'm blowed if, before we'd got a
cable length past the entrance, a second shot didn't come along and make
as neat a furrow across my fo'c'stle deck-planks as you'd see anywhere.
It scattered the stokers and bandsmen basking under the awning, and I
quite enjoyed their little obstacle-race into the shelter of the
battery.'
'My dear boy, they don't mean it; but just put your helm hard a-port and
go full speed astern starboard--if you please. Give 'em back a 9.2
common,[#] please, Commander; they've only fired by accident, but
accidents are bound to happen sometimes in the best-regulated ships.'
Round we swung on our heels--we just had room--and I dropped my eyeglass
to laugh more easily, because that little cruiser--one of those piffling
little things I'd towed out of Los Angelos six weeks ago--had hauled
down her flag, and was scurrying off as fast as she could go. The poor
idiots who'd had their little accident in the fort thought, I suppose,
that we were running away, so didn't ease off again, and by the time
Montague, my Gunnery Lieutenant, had reported the for'ard 9.2 cleared
away, and the fo'c'stle awning had been furled, we'd turned and were
coming back past the fort. 'Have your accident, Montague--as soon as you
like; but I'll only give you one, so don't miss.'
[#] 'Common' = common shell, A thin-walled shell with a heavy bursting
charge.
His accident was quite a success, and when the smoke of the bursting
shell had cleared away, there was a hole in the walls through which even
my coxswain could have steered the galley without breaking an oar, and
that yellow and green monstrosity was being hauled down with a run.
Angry! Rather not! I can't afford to get angry; it's bad for my gout;
I'd had my accident, and proceeded on my way quite ready to apologise
for my gross carelessness directly they apologised for theirs. I suppose
I should have had to be angry if that shell, or whatever it was, had
killed any of my people--except my coxswain, and then I should have
blessed them, for he was the most exasperating idiot I'd ever known.
An hour later we came up to San Fernando--a miserable deserted-looking
collection of dingy white walls and warehouses, fizzling in the awful
heat, and, 'pon my word, there was another dirty little cruiser there at
anchor, with the yellow and green ensign flying, calmly potting at the
town--firing a gun every other minute. We could not see what damage she
was actually doing, but the white walls along the sea-front were riddled
with holes, and that was good enough for me.
'Front row of the stalls, old chap,' I told my navigator, and though
he'd have walked about on his head, or shaved it, if he thought it would
please me, he hadn't a sense of humour, and looked puzzled. 'As close to
her as you can,' I explained, 'between her and the town;' and there we
dropped anchor, and awaited the next item on the programme. It was
jolly lucky for her that she didn't have any _accidents_. We hadn't
been comfortably anchored for more than five minutes before dozens of
black and green flags were hoisted over the town, people began to
venture out into the front street, and I had hardly gone below, when one
of the signalmen came running down. 'A boat's pulling this way, sir,
from shore, sir, with a black and green flag flying.'
My coxswain--I called him the 'Comfort' because he was such a nuisance
to me--pulled my cap out of my hands and gave it me, seized my telescope
from under my arm, rubbed the bright part up and down his sleeve, and
handed it back, gave me two right-hand kid-gloves from the table, and I
was ready to receive anybody, the Insurgent Provisional Government, or
the Queen of Sheba, on my quarterdeck. A clumsy white boat, with a huge
ensign, came wobbling off, very careful to keep us between her and the
little cruiser. The crew were rowing atrociously, each man pulling the
time that suited him best, and it occurred to me that perhaps the
Provisional Government might possibly accept the services of the Comfort
for their official barge. Then they were near enough for me to see that
there was a white man there, among several dark-skinned people, under
the stern awning--a white man with yellow hair and his right arm in a
sling, my Sub's brother, as sure as life. I looked round and saw Wilson
himself, the colour of a sheet, trying to attract the boat's attention,
and looking piteously at me, 'Here! Hi! give me a megaphone--some one!'
I sung out. A dozen people fell over one another to get one, and I
shouted through it, 'Lay on your oars,' and when my Sub's brother had
made them stop, I sang out, 'Is that Gerald Wilson aboard?'
[Illustration: "IS THAT GERALD WILSON ABOARD?"]
'Yes,' he shouted, putting his head out from under the awning. 'Then,
for goodness' sake, don't come aboard my ship, or I'll have to arrest
you. I've got your warrant on board. You can come alongside, but don't
leave your boat.'
'Thank you,' he shouted; and it amused me to see my Sub's face. I
believe that he was even grateful enough to stop the mids. doing
physical drill early in the morning over my head on the quarterdeck. The
Provisional Government--for that it actually was--did manage to get
alongside, and the first man to tramp up the ladder was the
Vice-President--de Costa himself. I recognised him at once from having
seen him in the cathedral at Santa Cruz. Poor chap, he had on a black
frock-coat and beautifully brushed tall black hat--in that awful heat
too. No wonder, if it was necessary, as head of the Provisional
Government, to wear it, that he looked ten years older than when I saw
him last.
His face looked more yellow and flabby, and his black eyes more shifty
than ever. He bowed, and I bowed, and then he waved his secretary at
me--a little chap in another frock-coat and silk hat who followed him.
The little chap's patent-leather boots were giving him trouble, and he
came along the quarterdeck on his toes, like a cat walking along a wall
covered with broken glass. Fortunately he could speak a little English,
and whilst his boss was mopping his forehead, he said, 'Presidente de
Costa thank you for coming,' almost breaking himself in half, he bowed
so low. Four or five more chaps came along, every one of them with an
enormous black and green rosette in his coat. These were soldiers--two
of them niggers--and very mild-looking soldiers they were, just the sort
you'd imagine would hang about at headquarters, and get soft jobs where
there weren't many bullets flying round. However, I was wrong in
thinking so.
They spent half an hour on board, explaining that the Dictator's flag
(Canilla's) flew nowhere throughout the province of Leon, except over El
Castellar--the fort which had had the accident two hours before--and of
course swore that they were now strong enough to march on Santa Cruz
itself, and intended to do so very shortly. The upshot was that they
demanded official recognition from the Foreign Powers. That was the
whole matter; they wanted recognition so that they could buy warlike
supplies from abroad openly, for of course at the present time no
Foreign Power would allow its subjects to assist them. 'We have this
policy foreign, we encourage the merchants, and we permit all trade very
much of the foreign peoples, and very much the _Inglesas_ also. Always
they shall be first now that the noble _Inglese_ ship of war visit San
Fernando--the first ship to come,' the little secretary told me.
He looked so diminutive and so important, and was evidently in such
discomfort with his boots and his tight frock-coat, that I had to screw
my eyeglass into my eye till it pained--I wanted to laugh so much.
Not a word did they say about the little cruiser which was lying close
by, waiting for a chance to pot them on their way ashore, or about the
shell-marks on every wall. Not much, for that would have drawn
attention to the perfectly obvious fact that they could do nothing till
they had command of the sea, and also to the fact that they were
absolutely without any artillery. A couple of well-fought six-pounder
guns, if they'd had them, would have been quite sufficient to drive off
the wretched little cruiser-gunboat kind of affair. Poor chaps! you
couldn't help seeing that they were terribly in earnest, but I couldn't
possibly give them any hopes of their Provisional Government being
recognised, the most I could do was to forward their demand by
'wireless' to the _Hercules_ at Princes' Town for her to cable home. I
saw them over the side, and interrupted the brothers Wilson yarning at
the bottom of the gangway.
'Ask your brother if he'll show me round the place if I come ashore for
a toddle,' I sang out.
'Certainly, sir; he'll be only too pleased,' my Sub answered.
'If he dyed his hair I might ask your brother to dine with me to-night,'
I told him, as we watched them slowly splashing ashore; 'I shouldn't
recognise him with his hair dyed--not officially.'
Botheration take it! I'd never said anything about that wretched
hydraulic machinery I'd been bullied into bringing across. Still, you
can't talk to Provisional Governments about packing-cases, can you?
However, my Sub relieved my mind on this point.
'I told Gerald that we had a lot of things for a firm here, sir,' he
informed me. 'He's going to tell them.'
'Good lad! Good boy!' I said, and went below. The commander of the
cruiser wasn't showing any signs of calling on me, in fact he was
beginning to raise steam, so I got ready for my toddle ashore.
'Yes, please; usual leave to officers,' I told the Commander, who
hammered at my door (he always was noisy, thought it made him breezy--it
didn't), and sent the Comfort with my compliments to Dr. Watson, my
Fleet Surgeon, and would he come ashore with me for a walk. He was so
lazy that he wouldn't be able to walk far, and would therefore act as a
check on my Sub's brother if he wanted to rush me over the country. I
had thought of taking my Sub himself, but he couldn't come, had to get
out that hydraulic machinery.
The Comfort and five loafing sons of sea-cooks, whom the Commander had
given me as my galley's crew, pulled us ashore, and a miserable-looking
place it was, a long sloping beach covered with rubbish and stinking
seaweed, dead dogs here and there, and live ones, not much more
healthy-looking, prowling about in search of food.
We ran alongside a crumbling wooden jetty, and Wilson was waiting for
us, dressed in white duck riding gear, smart brown gaiters, and with a
smart white polo helmet on his head. His arm in the sling gave just the
wounded-hero appearance to complete the picture. He had a carriage
waiting for us, but before we got in he pointed out a very
weather-beaten pillar of granite, about five feet high, standing on the
shore. 'Pizarro landed there with thirteen men in 1522 or thereabouts to
conquer this country--thirteen men, their armour, and ten horses. Just
think of it!'
This pillar was one of the most sacred things in the Republic, and there
was a white flag flying close to it, so that the gunboats could give it
a wide berth when they shelled the rest of the town. There were traces
of shell-fire everywhere, but it was astonishing to see how little
actual damage had been done. 'Five men and a little girl killed, and
they've fired over six hundred shell into the town during the last
fortnight,' Wilson told me. There was one two-storey house close by
with at least twenty holes in the side facing the harbour, and yet it
seemed little the worse--rather improved, from my point of view, because
the holes increased the ventilation.
The place was swarming with people, practically all were men, and nine
out of ten of them had rifles slung round their necks--a ragged
unkempt-looking lot of scaramouches they were, you couldn't call them
soldiers. Most of them had no equipment at all--a cotton bag to hold
cartridges slung with string over their shoulders, a loose white shirt,
and a ragged pair of cotton drawers, legs and feet bare, and very often
nothing on their heads at all, or, if they had, a rough-plaited,
wide-brimmed grass hat. Their attempts to salute, as Wilson and we
drove along, were praise-worthy but ludicrous. There were shrill cries
of '_Viva los Inglesas!_' and they would have followed us if Wilson had
not stopped them, but they were eminently respectful, and the slightest
word he spoke seemed law to them.
'You're a bit of a nob here,' I said. I wanted to say 'my boy,' but I'm
hanged if I could. He was two or three sizes too big for me, was Gerald
Wilson. I'm a pretty big boss on board my ship, but I'm hanged if I was
in it compared with him on shore. I've cultivated the 'for goodness'
sake, get out of my way; don't you see it's me' air pretty successfully,
but he'd got it to perfection, apparently without knowing it, and when
he stopped the carriage, and we got out, he strode along with the
chin-strap of his polo helmet over his grand square jaw--simply a
blooming emperor.
He was taking us to the cathedral, on one side of the usual Plaza you
find in all Spanish types of towns, and as we passed the 'Cuartel de
Infanteria,' two or three hundred so-called troops were hurriedly
forming in front of it. The trumpeter was the only chap in anything
approaching a uniform.
'Kicked out of the regulars for blowing so badly,' Wilson said; and I
didn't doubt his word when I heard him try to sound some kind of a
salute.
'My dear chap!' Thank goodness, I stopped myself in time and didn't say
that, but wanted to ask him if he thought it possible to knock the
troops I had seen in Santa Cruz with these he had here.
There was something in his face, 'a keep off the grass' look, that made
me, me a Post-Captain commanding one of the finest armoured cruisers in
the Royal Navy, take soundings jolly carefully before I spoke to him.
He saw what I was thinking, and smiled, 'I'm licking them into shape
gradually. We've only just begun.'
He took us into the cathedral, a crumbling old place with a huge crack
across one side--the result of an earthquake some years ago--and the
cool, musty, religious gloom inside was very comforting after the dazzle
and glare of the sun outside. Two little stars of light, far away at
the end of the chancel, made the gloom all the more mysterious, and
then, as our eyes became more accustomed, we could make out the gaudy
image of the Holy Virgin, looking down, with calm patient eyes, on the
high altar and its tarnished gaudy tapestry.
At the foot of the steps, below the altar-rails, many women, shrouded in
black hoods, were praying before it.
'They come here when the gunboats start firing; the cathedral is
spared,' Wilson whispered, as we tiptoed out into the glare again.
'Where do the men go?' I asked.
'They carry on with their work,' he answered; and that came with rather
a 'thump' after seeing the men. Perhaps they were better chaps than they
looked.
'Not one shell in twenty bursts,' he said, as an afterthought.
Then he took us across the square to the English Club, the only clean,
cool-looking building there, with a shady creeper-covered verandah all
round it, and long easy wicker-chairs simply inviting rest.
'I shan't get you away from here, doctor, I fancy,' I said to the Fleet
Surgeon, who was already streaming with perspiration, and I didn't. He
went to sleep the whole of the afternoon in one of those chairs. We
always chaffed him about the book he said he was writing: 'Clubs I have
slept in.'
In the reading-room all the dear old English papers and periodicals, ten
weeks old, were neatly laid on a table, and about a dozen thin,
lantern-jawed Englishmen had come to welcome us. De Costa, looking
nervous and uncomfortable, was there too, with his secretary (he'd
changed his boots). We all had a green bitters, and I was given the
longest cigar, and the best I'd smoked for many a day.
I wanted to do as Watson had already done--stretch myself on one of
those long chairs on the cool verandah, with my feet up, and stay there
till it was time to go aboard--but I was much too afraid of Wilson, and
drove away again. 'I'll take it out of my Sub if his brother bullies me
too much,' I chuckled to myself as we bounced along into the country to
see what preparations were being made to defend San Fernando against the
army which fierce old General Zorilla was leading to attack it. Luckily
the carriage had an awning, but it was horribly hot all the same.
We got out of the town, passing along shady lanes, with little
palm-hidden villas standing back in the shadows of olive groves and
vineyards, and gradually clattered up to some high ground, a regular
tree-covered ridge, at the back of San Fernando, from which we had a
grand view of the town at our feet, the square cathedral tower, the
grand sweeping bend of the head of La Laguna, and, far away to the left,
the faint outline of the rocks which marked its inlet--El Castellar
could not be seen because of the dazzling haze and mist which hung on
the water. The wretched little cruiser had just weighed, and was
steaming slowly past my ship, covering her with black oily smoke. I
only hoped that the Comfort, or the officer of the watch, had had the
'savvy' to shut my stern windows.
Wilson turned me round to look inland.
Sloping gently downwards at our feet was some open ground, dancing in
the heat, and pigs and goats and some wretched cattle were lazily
browsing there. The road in which we were standing ran down it, a broad
red streak, to a sluggish stream at the bottom, crossed it by a ford,
and gently rose over some more bare, parched, open ground, and was
swallowed in the dark shade of a forest. Everywhere beyond, look which
way I would, there was nothing but forest, stretching away in the
distance in every direction till the outlines of the trees were lost in
a dim confusion of mist on the horizon. The town of San Fernando, but
for that bare ground on each side of the stream which swept round it,
was simply built in a great clearing, and it gave me the impression that
that dark motionless forest was silently awaiting the opportunity to
claim its own again and swallow it up.
'That is our first line of defence, and our last,' he said, sweeping his
arm round the horizon.
'Sometimes, when it is not so hot, you can see the dim outlines of the
mountains of Santa Cruz away over there,' Wilson said, pointing to the
north. 'You see that road--Queen Isabella's road they call it--it runs
straight as a die for fifty miles through the trees. Three hundred
years ago the Spaniards cut it through the forest, and from here to
Santa Cruz you could travel by coach in five days, but now the part
through the mountains has been destroyed by earthquakes.'
'But where are your defences--your trenches?' I asked.
'We have none,' he said, 'we don't want any. General Zorilla is marching
down that road to attack us. He is a grand old man' ('I know him: he
is,' I said, beginning to understand), 'and a grand soldier, but his
only way through fifty miles of virgin forest is along that road. It is
a big job, and he knows it. Six days ago he and his army plunged into
it, and they will never leave it, for my little brown forest-men, with
rifles and _machetes_, hover all round him. We are drawing him on, the
farther he gets away from Santa Cruz, the greater difficulty he has to
feed his troops--he has four thousand of them and artillery--and is
already short of food, sending out strong parties to forage, but they
find nothing, and we capture fifty or sixty of his men every day.
'You see that dark mass over there?' he pointed.