Chapter IV: Part 4

Then came news, from Santa Cruz, that there'd been a great battle fifty miles or so to the north'ard of San Fernando, and that de Costa's insurgent troops had been defeated with great slaughter. There was a rumour going through the Club that Gerald had been killed, but I couldn't find how it had started.

'Don't you worry. All my eye!' my chum 'in the know' said; 'de Costa isn't such a fool as to try a pitched battle yet. Wait for another six months. The President is only trying to bluff the people who are finding the money to keep his end up.' Then he told me something more about that big armoured cruiser _La Buena Presidente_.

He had an idea that de Costa's people were trying to get hold of her. 'If they do,' he said, 'she can simply wipe the floor with all Canilla's rotten old tubs, and his game will be finished in a couple of months.'

I couldn't help worrying about Gerald and the mater--when she heard the news--for she thought he was still tapping his rubber trees. It may have been because of that, but I played abominably against the Prince Rupert's Island team that afternoon. It was fearfully hot, the sweat seemed to make my eyes all hazy; my fingers were all thumbs, I fumbled my passes, and if I did gather them properly, could think of nothing except to get rid of the ball quickly, without passing forward. I was playing centre three-quarters, so messed up the whole of our attack and we lost badly. The Angel at 'half kept looking at me with a puzzled face, wondering what was wrong, and all our chaps were shouting themselves hoarse, 'Buck up, Wilson,' but nothing would go right, and directly after the match I trudged down to the Governor's steps by myself, to smoke a pipe and wait for our boat.

You know what it feels like to have lost the game for your side; so I wanted to be alone, slung my heavy sweater over my back, with the arms tied round my neck, put on my coat over it, and sat down where old Ginger and I had sat that time before.

I smoked and watched a crowd of niggers hustling round me unloading a lighter which had come ashore from one of Pickford and Black's steamers lying off in the harbour--she had come in from Los Angelos that morning--and had just taken off my straw hat to light another match inside it, when I heard a naked footstep behind me, a fierce kind of a grunting hiss, and something struck my shoulder.

I was on my feet and had turned in a second, and there was that little brute who had been shadowing Gerald, and had nabbed me up at Santa Cruz. He had a long knife in his hand, and I knew him at once, although he was dressed as a coolie, by the scar on his forehead--the one my pipe had made.

I had hold of his wrist in a jiffy, but it was all oily. He wriggled himself free, I made another grab at him, but he was like an eel, and bolted through the crowd of niggers. It was all done so quickly that no one seemed to have noticed him, and, though I dashed after him, I lost sight of the little beast. Something warm began trickling down inside my jersey, and I gave up following him to see what damage had been done. The knife had made a gash in the skin over my left collar-bone, and I was bleeding like a pig. Like an ass, I must have fainted, for when I woke up my head was resting in the huge lap of Arabella de Montmorency, who was pinching up the skin near the gash; there were crowds of jabbering niggers all squashing round me; the tall grave Sikh policeman had his notebook out, and I heard her chattering away: 'The good Lo'd be praised. He send Arabella to sab de life of de British naval officah--some black trash hab done dis--no buckra niggah from Princes' Town--oh, de pretty yellow hair.'

Luckily for me Dr. Clegg and the rest of the football team came up and rescued me, or the old 'washa-lady' would probably have kissed me.

Of course I was all right directly, and Dr. Clegg stitched me up when we got aboard, but I was on the sick list for a week. The knife had cut clean through the knot in the sleeves of my sweater, and this had probably saved my life. Strangely enough, when I got on board, there was a letter waiting for me from my friend the fat A.D.C., telling me, in very bad English, that Pedro Mendez--that was the name of the ugly brute--had been dismissed the police force for bungling Gerald's arrest, and had left Santa Cruz burning to be revenged on us both. The letter and the ex-policeman had probably come across together in the Pickford and Black steamer which I'd been watching.

It was awfully decent of my A.D.C. chum to have taken all this trouble to warn me, because it must have been jolly hard work for him to write a letter in English.

He signed himself Alfonso Navarro, and I shouldn't forget his 'tally' in a hurry. It wasn't his fault that the letter had been a bit late, and it didn't make me the less grateful.

The Angel and Bob, pale with excitement, came rushing into my cabin directly Dr. Clegg had finished with me, and of course they wanted to see the letter. Bob wanted the stamps and begged the envelope. He gave a whoop. 'Look at that, Billums--on the back--it's in French!'

Scrawled in pencil very hurriedly was _Votre frere est blesse seulement dans le bras droit_.

Phew! then there had been a battle after all, and I felt sick all over, because it struck me that my brother might have been captured, otherwise how would the A.D.C. know? And if he was captured, I knew it meant San Sebastian and a firing-party.

It was mail day too; I had to write home, and it was jolly difficult not to tell the mater what I'd heard about Gerald. I couldn't tell her about the little brute either--only about my having done so badly at football.

It was lucky I didn't say anything about Gerald, because three days later--Dr. Clegg still kept me in my bunk--one of our boats brought off another note to me.

'One of those nigger kind of chaps gave it me, sir,' the coxswain of the boat said. 'Didn't seem to talk English--nothing but your name, sir. He cleared out directly he'd got rid of it.'

I thought of Gerald's messenger and thought it must be from Gerald, though it wasn't in his handwriting. It was from Gerald, for all that, and I soon knew why the handwriting was so funny, for he wrote:

'We've had a bit of a scrap--got a bit of a shell in my right arm. Learning to write with my left--don't tell the mater. We got a bit of a hiding--my fault--I'm all serene barring the arm. You'll hear news, important news soon.--GERALD.'

Well, he wasn't a prisoner, which was the great thing, and I felt jolly cheerful again.

'Wouldn't it be ripping if we could get some leave and go over there and chip in?' Bob and the Angel said, their mouths and eyes wide open.

Of course that was what we all wanted to do, and wondered all this time why the English Government allowed the President to go on stopping our trade. It was jolly galling to all of us to see the fleet of local British steamers lying in Princes' Town harbour doing nothing, simply because the President up at Santa Cruz wanted to punish the insurgents. The English merchants were grumbling furiously, and wanting to know what use the _Hector_ and _Hercules_ were if they weren't to be used to protect their trade. Everybody was saying that it was a thousand pities that more people hadn't followed Gerald's example and gone in for the revolution 'bald headed.' In fact, Gerald had become a popular hero, and you can imagine how proud it made me. But then I got rather a nasty jar. The Captain sent for me, and I found him in his cabin with a lot of papers in front of him. He tut, tutted and hummed and hawed a good deal, and then burst out with: 'Look here, Wilson, you'd better give that brother of yours the tip to keep clear of Princes' Town or an English man-of-war. I've got orders to arrest him if I can get my hands on him. Look at this!' and he showed me a big document beginning,

'Whereas it has been represented to us by our Minister resident in Santa Cruz in the Republic of Santa Cruz that a person, Gerald Wilson--known as Don Geraldio--being a British Subject, has taken up arms against the Government of Santa Cruz Republic, that Government being at present on terms of friendship with his Britannic Majesty's Government, all law-abiding subjects of his Britannic Majesty are hereby warned, on pain of being indicted for felony, to abstain from affording any assistance to the aforesaid Gerald Wilson.'

I got very red in the face, and then came to the part,

'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?'

'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.

I pretended I did see it.

'There's a big clearing close there--just twenty-four miles from here--and his army camped in it last night. My little chaps gave them a rotten time.'

I could not help thinking of those little brown-skinned, half-naked natives, with their bags of cartridges and their rusty rifles, gliding from tree to tree, through the thick undergrowth, and never giving the regulars a moment's rest, day or night. At night-time too! I shuddered to think of it, and began to have a most wholesome respect for those tattered ragamuffins of his.

'How many have you?' I asked him.

'I don't know,' he said. 'We have something like five thousand rifles, but whenever there is a spare rifle there are hundreds to claim it. Here come some who would be soldiers--that is, riflemen; they are taking food to the front.'

A long train of heavily laden mules came past us, ambling wearily down towards the stream, each mule led by a little native. As each passed he doffed his hat to Wilson, who stopped one of them and made him show me the _machete_ he carried in his waistband--a long curved knife something like a bill-hook, only heavier, and not so curved and the blade broad at the end. I felt the edge; it was very keen.

'They can cut an arm clean through at a stroke,' he said; 'these _machetes_ are better than rifles--at night,' and I shuddered again as the little man, with a grin of pride on his face, ran after his mule. It wasn't the kind of warfare I'd been brought up to. We watched them all splashing across the ford, forcing their mules through it as they tried to stop and drink. Before the last mule had entered the forest, the head of another train began to emerge from it.

'Those aren't mules,' I sang out, as they came towards us.

'They're horses,' he said, and walked down towards them.

There were thirty or more thin, hungry-looking beasts, with military saddles and equipment, each led by a little native, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure as he saluted Wilson.

'That's good news,' he said, after speaking to one of them; 'we cut off a whole squadron of Zorilla's cavalry early this morning. These are some of the horses. Look at the boots the men are wearing!'

I hadn't noticed them before, but now I couldn't help smiling, for the little half-naked men were shambling along with big cavalry boots on their feet, the soft leather 'uppers' half-way up to their knees.

'Quaint little chaps, aren't they? Their whole ambition is to be proper soldiers. The first thing they want is a rifle, and the next boots. They'll wear these now till their feet are so blistered that they can't walk with or without them.'

'Surely Zorilla will have to fall back,' I said, as we drove back to the town.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'My only fear is that he will break away towards El Castellar. About sixteen miles along that road there is a forest track leading there, and he may have to fall back on it; but he'll have to leave his wagons and his guns if he does, and his reputation will be lost. He's been ordered to attack San Fernando, and the fierce old man will do so, even if he and his two "A.D.C.'s" are the only ones left.'

We rattled past the string of captured horses, and drove down to the shore where I had landed, calling at the Club, on the way, to wake the Fleet Surgeon and bring him along.

Two big lighters were aground at the bottom of the beach, and hundreds of natives were swarming round them, wading into the water, bringing ashore the packing-cases of hydraulic machinery, and making a noise like a lot of bumble-bees as they dragged them up the sloping foreshore.

Thank goodness we'd got rid of them at last, for the Commander had been like a bear with a sore head ever since those cases had lumbered up his battery.

'Why the dickens don't they get rid of their rifles when they're working?' I asked, because most of them had rifles slung over their backs.

Wilson smiled, 'That's a regulation I've made. If a man drops his rifle for any purpose whatsoever, any man without one may pick it up and becomes a soldier and a _caballero_--a gentleman--and has a _machete_ man to carry his food for him on the march. That's why they won't part with them!'

That was a quaint idea if you like.

My galley was waiting alongside the little tumble-down jetty, and the Comfort pushed his way through a crowd of awestruck natives to give me a signal-paper. 'The Commander thought you'd like to see it, sir--a "wireless" from the _Hercules_.'

I read, '_La Buena Presidente_, under command of Captain Pelayo, left the Tyne yesterday.'

I thought it would interest Wilson, so I read it to him.

His eyes gleamed. 'What! Captain Pelayo! That's Captain don Martin de Pelayo--our man--a de Costa man--he's managed to get hold of her after all,' and he sang out some gibberish to the natives standing round. In a moment they had leapt in the air, shouting and waving their hats, and hugging each other, bolting away towards the town screaming shrilly, '_La Buena Presidente! La Buena Presidente! Viva Capitaine Pelayo!_'

I had some inkling of what had happened.

'Don Martin was the best captain in the Navy,' Wilson told me; 'chucked out because he demanded ammunition for his ships. We sent him to England, and if that telegram is correct, he has managed to get hold of the big cruiser. In three months de Costa should be President of Santa Cruz.'

I could not help telling him--not officially, of course--how glad I was; and as my lazy crew pulled us aboard, the town seemed to be buzzing like a bee-hive, the bells in the cathedral ringing joyously, and green and black flags hanging over every building.

'Your brother wants you to ride out to the front with him to-night,' I told my Sub. 'You can go when you like.'

As usual, the most beautifully cool crisp night followed the terrible heat of the day, and the town of San Fernando looked extremely picturesque, a mass of white roofs and clear-cut shadows, bathed in the light of a full moon. The road leading up the ridge behind the town stood out a silvery streak, and the mere thought of it, plunging into the appalling shadows of that grim forest beyond, made me shiver as I held my breath and listened for sounds of the struggle I knew must still be going on twenty miles away. Huddled together in some clearing of the forest, or strung wearily along the road, brave old Zorilla and his half-fed men were still surrounded by those fierce, silent, little forest-men with their terrible _machetes_, their bags of cartridges, and their rusty rifles. I turned in feeling rather creepy, and hoped that my Sub wouldn't do anything foolhardy.

What he did he will tell you himself.

*CHAPTER VII*

*General Zorilla falls back*

_Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N._

You may bet that I was glad to see Gerald, and to know that, although he still kept it in a sling, his arm was practically well again. I had a long yarn with him in that boat alongside, and told him my suspicions about the so-called hydraulic machinery we had brought across from Princes' Town. He knew that two 4.7's on field-carriages, four field-guns, and two pompoms, with plenty of ammunition, had been waiting there for weeks, so I pretty well guessed that they weren't very far away now, and implored him to send lighters off for them as quickly as he could, before any one else gave the show away. He had to wait for the Provisional Government, but could not have wasted a moment after he did land, for hardly had the Skipper and the Fleet Surgeon gone ashore than lighters came hurrying off, and I had the job of hoisting all those packing-cases into them, my heart in my mouth all the time lest anything should happen. Careful! Why, I lowered them down as if they were new-laid eggs or valuable china.

'What the Moses d'you mean by taking such a confounded time?' the Commander bellowed, and stood by my side yelling down orders to hurry. Thank goodness, O'Leary was in charge of the working party, and wouldn't be hurried for any one, although the Commander kept on shouting that he was a disgrace to his uniform, and that he'd disrate him to ordinary seaman.

Didn't I feel relieved when the last little lot had shoved off from the ship and was on its way ashore, the Santa Cruz cruiser taking no notice whatever. She didn't seem to suspect anything, got up her anchor, and steamed down towards El Castellan.