Having read this document Hornblower was able to spare a second glance at the other. It was a vigorous protest from the Dutch Governor at Curaçao demanding explanations, apologies, the immediate withdrawal of the blockade, and exemplary compensation. Hornblower stared at Hooper in astonishment.

“This is in legal form,” he said, indicating the proclamation, “but I never signed it. This is not my signature.”

“Then—?” spluttered Hooper. “I thought you might be acting under secret orders from London.”

“Of course not, sir.” Hornblower stared at Hooper for another long second before the explanation came to him. “Ramsbottom!”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been posing as me, or as one of my officers at least. Is the Dutch officer who brought this available?”

“He’s waiting in the next room. There’s a Spaniard there, too, sent over in a fishing boat by Morillo from La Quaira.”

“Can we have them in, sir?”

The Dutchman and the Spaniard were men full of indignation, which was not abated in the least by their presentation to the Admiral responsible, in their minds, for this trouble. The Dutchman spoke fluent English, and it was to him that Hornblower first addressed himself.

“How was this proclamation delivered?” he asked.

“By one of your ships. By one of your officers.”

“What ship?”

“The brig-of-war Desperate.”

“I have no such ship. There’s none in the Navy List. Who brought it?”

“The captain.”

“Who was he? What was he like?”

“He was an officer. A Commander, with epaulettes.”

“In uniform?”

“In full uniform.”

“Young? Old?”

“Very young.”

“Small? Slender? Handsome?”

“Yes.”

Hornblower exchanged a glance with Hooper.

“And this brig, the Desperate. About a hundred and seventy tons, bowsprit sieved nearly level, mainmast stepped rather far aft?”

“Yes.”

“That settles it, sir,” said Hornblower to Hooper, and, to the Dutchman, “you’ve been fooled, I’m sorry to say. This man was an impostor. This proclamation is a forgery.”

The Dutchman stamped with annoyance. He was unable to find words to express himself in a foreign tongue for some moments. Finally from his splutterings emerged a name, which he repeated until it was understandable.

“The Helmond! The Helmond!”

“What is the Helmond, sir?” asked Hornblower.

“One of our ships. Your ship—this Desperate—captured her.”

“A valuable ship?”

“She had on board the guns for the Spanish Army. Two batteries of field artillery, guns, limbers, ammunition, everything.”

“Piracy!” exclaimed Hooper.

“It sounds like it,” said Hornblower.

The Spanish officer had been standing by impatiently, apparently only half understanding the English conversation. Hornblower turned to him, and, after desperately trying to recapture his half-forgotten Spanish, entered upon a limping explanation. The Spaniard replied volubly, so volubly that more than once Hornblower had to ask him to speak more slowly. Ramsbottom had come sailing into La Guaira and had brought his precious proclamation with him. At the merest hint that the British Navy was instituting a blockade no ship had dared to stir on the South American coast, except for the Helmond. She had been badly needed. Bolivar was marching on Caracas; a battle was imminent on which depended the entire Spanish control of Venezuela. Morillo and the Spanish army were in need of artillery. Now not only were they left destitute, but with this news it could be taken as certain that those guns, those two batteries of field artillery, were in Bolivar’s hands. The Spanish officer wrung his hands in despair.

Hornblower translated briefly for the Governor’s benefit, and Hooper shook his head in sympathy.

“Bolivar has those guns. No doubt about it. Gentlemen, I much regret this occurrence. But I must impress upon you that His Majesty’s Government assumes no responsibility for it. If your chiefs took no steps to detect this impostor—”

That touched off a new explosion. The British Government should make sure that no impostor wore its uniform or posed as an officer in its service. It called for all Hooper’s elephantine tact to quiet down the angry officers.

“If you will permit me to consult with the Admiral, gentlemen, we may reach some satisfactory conclusion.”

Alone with the Governor again Hornblower struggled with a smile; he had never outgrown his tendency to laugh during a crisis. There was something amusing in the thought that a cocked hat and a pair of epaulettes should change the course of a war; it was a tribute to the power of the Navy that a single tiny ship should exert such enormous pressure.

“Ramsbottom and his Venezuelan mother!” said Hooper. “It’s not merely piracy, it’s high treason. We shall have to hang him.”

“M’m,” said Hornblower. “He probably holds a privateering commission from Bolivar.”

“But masquerading as a British officer? Forging official documents?”

“That was a ruse of war. An American officer deceived the Portuguese authorities in Brazil in much the same way in 1812.”

“I’ve heard some things about you, too,” added Hooper with a grin.

“No doubt, sir. In war a belligerent who believes what he’s told is a fool.”

“But we’re not belligerents.”

“No, sir. And we’ve suffered no loss. The Dutch and the Spaniards have only themselves to blame.”

“But Ramsbottom’s a subject of His Majesty.”

“Quite true, sir. But if he holds Bolivar’s commission he can do things as an officer of the revolutionary forces which he could not do as a private person.”

“D’ye mean to suggest we ought to allow him to continue this blockade of his? Nonsense, man.”

“Of course not, sir. I’ll arrest him, and I’ll send his ship in for adjudication, at the first opportunity. But a friendly Power has asked you, sir, the representative of His Majesty, if you have instituted a blockade. You must do everything in your power to demonstrate the truth.”

“Now for once you’re talking like a sensible man. We must send word at once to Curaçao and Caracas. That will be your immediate duty. You’d better go in person.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll sail with the land breeze. Have you any further instructions for me, sir?”

“None whatever. What goes on on the high seas is your affair, not mine. You’re answerable to the Cabinet through the Admiralty. I don’t envy you, frankly.”

“No doubt I’ll survive, sir. I’ll sail for La Guaira, and send another vessel to Curaçao. Perhaps if Your Excellency were to write official replies to the enquiries addressed to you they would be ready by the time I sail?”

“I’ll draft ‘em now.” The Governor could not repress one further outburst. “This Ramsbottom—and his corned beef and caviare!”

“He used a sprat to catch a mackerel, Your Excellency,” said Hornblower.

So it came about that the crew of HMS Clorinda did not spend that night in the debauchery of Kingston as they had expected. Instead they worked until dawn completing with stores and water, so hard that they had no breath to spare to curse the Admiral who did these things to them. In the very first light of morning they warped their ship out with the aid of the faint puffs of the land breeze, and Clorinda, her Admiral’s flag flying at the mizzen, headed close-hauled to the south-eastward on her thousand-mile voyage to La Guaira. She had on board Brigadier-General Don Manuel Ruiz, Morillo’s representative, to whom Hornblower had offered a passage back to his headquarters. The man was in a fever to return and put an end to Ramsbottom’s blockade; it was clear that the royal forces in Venezuela were hard pressed. He had no thought for anything else during that voyage. The lovely sunsets meant to him merely that another day had gone by without his reaching his destination. The gallant way in which Clorinda held her course, close-hauled, shouldering the long rollers aside in showers of spray, held no fascination for him, for she was not flying before the wind at her best speed. At noon each day, when the ship’s position was pricked off on the chart, he would look long and despairingly, estimating by eye the further distance to be traversed. He had not had sufficient experience at sea to acquire the knack of resigning himself to the influence of forces beyond human control. When the wind drew southerly and foul, as it did for two days consecutively, he was clearly on the verge of accusing Hornblower of being in league with his enemies, and made no attempt to understand Hornblower’s soothing explanation that on the starboard tack on which Clorinda was compelled to lie they were making easting which might be invaluable in possible later eventualities. He resented the caution of Captain Fell which led to Clorinda’s shortening sail as they entered the dangerous proximity of Grand Cay, and at dawn next day he was climbing the foremast shrouds as high as he dared, looking out for the first sight of the mountains of Venezuela—and even then he did not recognise as land the blue streak which he saw.