“Wind’s backing to the nor’rard, My Lord,” he said—Giles was as interested as everyone else in the vessel’s progress.
“Excellent,” said Hornblower; it was only some seconds later that the dull pain grew up again inside him. That wind would bear him more swiftly to his fate.
As the day wore on the trade wind displayed some of its midsummer freakishness. It died away, died away more and more, until it blew only in fitful puffs, so that there were intervals when Crab drifted idly over the glassy blue sea, turning her head to all points of the compass in turn, while the vertical sun blazed down upon a deck in whose seams the pitch melted. Flying fish left fleeting dark tracks upon the enamel surface of the sea. No one cared; every eye was scanning the horizon for the first hint of the next cat’s-paw of wind creeping towards them. Perhaps, not too far away in this moody Caribbean, Daring was holding her course with all sail set and drawing. The day ended and the night went by, and still the trade wind did not blow; only occasionally would a puff send Crab ghosting along momentarily towards the Tobago Channel. The sun blazed down, and men limited to two quarts of water a day were thirsty, thirsty all the time.
They had seen very few sail, and the ones they saw were of no use in furthering Hornblower’s plans. An island schooner bound to Belize. A Dutchman homeward bound from Curaçao, no one with whom Hornblower could entrust a letter, and no ship of his own squadron—that was something almost beyond the bounds of possibility. Hornblower could only wait, as the days went by, in grim, bleak patience. At last the freakish wind blew again, from one point north of east, and they were able to hold their course, with topsails set again, heading steadily for the Antilles, reeling off as much as six knots hour after hour. Now as they approached the islands they saw more sails, but they were only inter-island sloops trading between the Leeward Islands and Trinidad. A square rigger seen on the horizon roused momentary excitement, but she was not the Daring. She flew the red and gold of Spain—a Spanish frigate heading for the Venezuelan coast, presumably to deal with the insurgents. The voyage was nearly completed; Hornblower heard the cry of land from the masthead lookout, and it was only a moment before Gerard came into the cabin.
“Grenada in sight, My Lord.”
“Very well.”
Now they were entering the waters where they could really expect to meet Daring; now the direction of the wind was of more importance than ever. It was blowing from the northeast, now, and that was helpful. It extinguished the very faint possibility that Daring might pass to the northward of Tobago instead of through the Tobago Channel.
“Daring’s,bound to make the same landfall, My Lord,” said Gerard, “and by daylight if she can.”
“We can hope for it, at least,” said Hornblower.
If Daring had been as long out of sight of land as had Crab, in the fluky winds and unpredictable currents of the Caribbean, her captain would certainly take all precautions in his approach.
“I think, Mr. Harcourt,” said Hornblower, “that we can safely hold our course for Point Galera.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
Now was the worst period of waiting, of wondering whether the whole voyage might not prove to be a fool’s errand, patrolling, beating up to within sight of Trinidad and then going about and reaching past Tobago again towards Grenada. Waiting was bad; if the voyage should not turn out to be a fool’s errand it meant something that Hornblower, and Hornblower alone, knew to be worse. Gerard raised the question again.
“How do you propose to stop him, My Lord?”
“There may be means,” answered Hornblower, trying to keep the harshness out of his voice that would betray his anxiety.
It was on a blue and gold, blazing day, with Crab ghosting along before only the faintest breeze, that the masthead lookout hailed the deck with the news of the sighting.
“Sail ho! Dead to loo’ard, sir!”
A sail might be anything, but at long intervals, as Crab crept closer, the successive reports made it more and more likely that the strange sail was Daring. Three masts—even that first supplementary report made it reasonably sure, for not many big ships plied out into the South Atlantic from the Caribbean. All sail set, even skysails, and stu’ns’ls to the royals. That did not mean quite so much.
“She looks like an American, sir!”
The skysails had already hinted strongly in the same direction. Then Harcourt went up to the mainmast head with his own glass, and came down again with his eyes shining with excitement.
“That’s Daring, My Lord. I’m sure of it.”
Ten miles apart they lay, on the brilliant blue of the sea with the brilliant blue of the sky above them, and on the far horizon a smudge of land. Crab had won her race by twenty-five hours. Daring was ‘boxing the compass’, swinging idly in all directions under her pyramids of sails in the absence of all wind; Crab carried her way for a while longer, and then she, too, fell motionless under the blazing sun. All eyes turned on the Admiral standing stiffly with his hands locked behind him gazing at the distant white rectangles that indicated where lay his fate. The schooner’s big mainsail flapped idly, flapped again, and then the boom began to swing over.
“Hands to the sheets!” yelled Harcourt.
The air was so light that they could not even feel it on their sweating faces, but it sufficed to push the booms out, and a moment later the helmsman could feel the rudder take hold just enough to give him control. With Crab’s bowsprit pointed straight at Daring the breath of wind was coming in over the starboard quarter, almost dead astern, almost dead foul for Daring if ever it should reach her, but she was still becalmed. The breath of wind increased until they could feel it, until they could hear under the bows the music of the schooner’s progress through the water, and then it died away abruptly, leaving Crab to wallow on the swell. Then it breathed again, over the port quarter this time, and then it drew farther aft, so that the topsails were braced square and the foresail could be hauled over to the port side and Crab ran wing-and-wing for ten blessed minutes until the wind dropped again, to a dead, flaming calm. They could see Daring catch a wind, see her trim her sails, but only momentarily, only long enough to reveal her intentions before she lay once more helpless. Despite her vast sail area her greater dead weight made her less susceptible to these very faint airs.
“Thank God for that,” said Gerard, glass to his eye, as he watched her swing idly again. “I think she aims to pass us beyond cannon-shot, My Lord.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised at that,” agreed Hornblower.
Another breath, another slight closing of the gap, another dead calm.
“Mr. Harcourt, perhaps it would be best if you let the men have their dinners now.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
Salt beef and pease pudding under a noonday sun in the tropics—who could have any appetite for that, especially with the excitement of watching for a wind? And in the middle of dinner hands were sent again to the sheets and braces to take advantage of another breath of wind.
“At what time will you have your dinner, My Lord?” asked Giles.
“Not now,” was all the answer Hornblower would give him, glass to eye.
“He’s hoisted his colours, My Lord,” pointed out Gerard. “American colours.”
The Stars and Stripes, regarding which he had been expressly ordered to be particularly tender. But he could be nothing else in any case, seeing that Daring mounted twelve-pounders and was full of men.
Now both vessels had a wind, but Crab was creeping bravely along at a full two knots, and Daring, trying to head to the southward close-hauled, was hardly moving; now she was not moving at all, turning aimlessly in a breeze too faint to give her steerage way.