Chapter XIII Bad News for Gerald Wilson
Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson
Later on in the morning, after all those things had happened about which that young ass of a cousin of mine has just told you, and after the Santa Cruz Navy and the transports had disappeared, a boat came pulling off to the ship with a note from old Gerald.
‘Dear Billums—The whole “caboodle” has shoved off home—haven’t an idea why, but they were in such a hurry that they left behind them a grand lot of ammunition—the very thing we wanted. Old Zorilla has gone back without his black horse—never mind. There’s a report that a white flag is flying over El Castellar. I’m just off to see. GERALD.’
I read it out to the gun-room. Wasn’t it grand for old Gerald? He’d just about swept the board.
I thought I’d show the letter to the Skipper, and did so—he was jolly pleased.
‘Tut, tut, boy! I’ll tell “Old Spats,”’ he chuckled, and sent for a signalman, but had hardly spoken before one came tearing in with a ‘wireless’ message from the Hercules—she was still at Princes’ Town.
‘La Buena Presidente put into San Josef two days ago, after carrying out target practice, and, under shelter of Punta Rejos, coaled from a collier. She is flying the insurgent flag.’
‘Now we know, lad! That’s the reason the Santa Cruz fleet cleared off, lad! They’ve heard about her. She’ll be off the coast any day, and they’re flying back under the guns of Los Angelos.’
He sent the signalman back with his message for Captain Roger Hill.
‘Tut, tut, boy! I’ll be able to ask your brother to dinner in a few days, I hope—that is, if he isn’t too big a swell—makes me feel a worm—p’r’aps he won’t come—hope he will.’
He pointed his telescope towards the shore. ‘Look at those black and green flags flying over the town. The Provisional Government are unpacking their bags again, I expect, and if they demand Official Recognition they’ll probably get it.’
‘I hope they will, sir,’ I said, and went below. You can guess how jolly cheerful I felt, and how I blessed La Buena Presidente and the people who’d coaled her.
I knew how awfully happy the news would make them at home, so I got permission to send a telegram to tell them that Gerald was safe. It went to the Hercules by ‘wireless,’ and I jolly well hoped that some one on board her would pay for it to be telegraphed to England. I did so wish that old ‘Ginger’ and I hadn’t parted ‘brass rags,’ and that I could have asked him to send it.
That afternoon the Captain sent for me; he’d shipped a sea-boot face, and I knew that something had gone wrong.
‘I’ve just had that signal, lad,’ he said, and handed it to me.
‘From Captain, Hercules, to ditto, Hector.—The following signal has been received from the Admiralty: “The cruiser known as La Buena Presidente, flying the unrecognised flag of the insurgent Provisional Government, left San Josef on the 22nd. She is to be arrested as soon as possible, and handed over to the Government at Santa Cruz. Force is to be employed if necessary. Steps are to be taken to inform the Government Authorities that she will not be allowed to afford any assistance to the insurgents.”
‘Identical orders have been received by the Governor of Prince Rupert’s Island from the Foreign Office.’
‘That’s a bit of a knock-out for your brother, I’m afraid,’ he said sadly.
I don’t know what I answered, I’d never been so miserable in my life; this simply turned everything upside down again, and whatever Gerald did now, he could never hope to win—things were too hopelessly against him. The possession of La Buena Presidente was the insurgents’ only chance of success, and without her they could do nothing. I knew that Gerald was too proud to escape from the country, and he’d probably end by being killed in some rotten little action or shot against the wall, between those saluting guns, in San Sebastian. The only bright thing at all, on that miserable day, was a ‘wireless’ from dear old Ginger. ‘Have sent your telegram home.’ I wished he was here, I’d have banged him on the chest, made up that silly row on the spot, and we’d have talked over things.
The Provisional Government did come aboard, later on, smiling all over, the New President’s unhealthy face looking happy for the first time, and his little Secretary bobbing about as if he were on springs. They came to formally demand Recognition from the Foreign Powers, and of course the Captain passed on the demand, by ‘wireless,’ to the Hercules for her to transmit to London.
Neither the Captain nor any one else had the heart to tell them the bad news, so they all went ashore as cheerful as crickets, fully expecting a favourable reply.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as the reply comes,’ the Captain sent his coxswain to tell me, and I waited all the rest of that wretched day, wandering about like a lost sheep. I couldn’t even turn in at night, and spent most of it on the bridge waiting for the reply to be telephoned up from the wireless room.
The answer came at last, and it seemed to blotch out the last hope.
‘The existence of the Provisional Government cannot be recognised.’
‘Don’t send it ashore till the morning,’ the Skipper muttered; ‘bad news will keep. The Government are evidently anxious to make up for their slackness in allowing the insurgents to get hold of that ship in English waters, and I’m afraid no Provisional Government can expect to last long now that we have to hand her over to the Santa Cruz people.’
Next morning we weighed and steamed slowly down the bay of La Laguna, past the Casino where the great fight had been, and anchored under El Castellar. The green and yellow flag was still flying over it, and they had made no attempt to cover up the hole my for’ard 9.2 gun had made in the walls. Every now and then we heard rifle shots, and saw parties of the little insurgents running about among the trees beneath the fort, so knew that Gerald was still investing it.
The Captain sent for me.
‘I’m going ashore, boy! going to see the Commandant of that fort and you can come with me. Have to inform him about our Government’s decision and about La Buena Presidente. I don’t like the job, boy, that I don’t.’
In half an hour we were alongside a small jetty, built below the fort, and had landed in white uniform, helmets, and swords. An officer and a couple of black soldiers came running down a zigzag path to meet us, the officer saluting and bowing and the two black chaps presenting arms.
‘El Commandante?’ the Skipper said, shipping his ‘tin eye,’ and pointing up to the fort.
‘He will have much honour,’ the officer bowed.
‘Thank goodness some one knows a bit of English,’ I heard the Skipper mutter as we followed him. My aunt! but it was hot, and the Skipper was sweating like a bull as he walked up that blazing path. The stones under our feet seemed to burn through the soles of our boots, and the withered palm and cactus leaves, stuck in between the rocks, looked as if they’d never known what rain was or a breeze either—they were covered with a thick white dust.
The officer didn’t sweat, he looked as dry and shrivelled as the leaves themselves, and as if he hadn’t had a drink or a square meal for weeks; his uniform was dirty and torn. Across the flap of his revolver holster there was a long furrow, made, probably, by a bullet, and, to judge by its appearance, within a few hours, but he gave you the impression that he’d never known anything else except war and forest fighting, and that one bullet, more or less, didn’t matter.
‘Pretty swanky!’ the Skipper grunted, taking off his helmet and wiping his forehead.
‘I no savvy,’ the officer said, and then ‘tumbled’ to it and smiled for a second, his yellow leathery face looking as if it would crack.
As we reached the top we passed any number of ox bones and skulls, and the smell was pretty unpleasant. It looked as if they’d been thrown over the walls. Then we passed inside the fort, through a small iron door in the thickness of the wall, not that part of the wall which our 9.2 had damaged, but round a corner, and it struck me that we had been purposely taken this way, so as not to see the hole.
As we entered, we found ourselves in a great square red-tiled parade-ground. There were open thatched sheds all round two sides of it, and a dozen or more soldiers were hurriedly pouring out from under them to form a guard of honour. A couple of antiquated ‘smooth bores’ lay on the ground with their trunnions smashed, in the centre was a broken-down well, and the whole place was littered with rubbish, old clothes, bones, and empty ammunition boxes. We’d hardly had a look round when who should come across, from some buildings on the far side, but old Gerald, a grey-haired, sunburnt, and bent-backed officer talking very fast to him. For a second I wondered whether he was a prisoner, but then I saw my friend the ‘Gnome’ and several others of Gerald’s officers. The ‘Gnome’ recognised me at once, showed his white teeth, smiled, pointed up to a flagstaff where that green and yellow flag hung, and then to a roll of green and black bunting which he was carrying under his arm, and I knew at once that Gerald was there to accept the surrender of the place, and that my bandy-legged chum was going presently to hoist the insurgent flag.
Poor old Gerald! He looked so splendidly English, in his white riding-gear and polo-hat, and so proud, that I hated to meet him and tell him the awful news.
He introduced the Skipper, and then me, to the weather-beaten Commandant.
‘I no speak the English,’ he said, bowing.
‘We’re just arranging the terms of surrender,’ Gerald told the Skipper. ‘You’ve come in the nick of time, because the Commandant won’t trust himself in de Costa’s hands. They are old enemies, and I cannot persuade him.’
Oh! Fancy having arrived at this very moment to spoil all poor old Gerald’s hopes.
I saw the Skipper ship his ‘sea-boot’ face again, and felt certain that he was wondering whether it was possible to let things go on as they were, and not tell the news.
He ‘tut-tutted,’ screwed in his eyeglass, took off his helmet, and ran his fingers through his long hair, as he always did when worried, and then burst out with, ‘Wilson, I’ve bad news for you—very sorry, lad, very sorry; the fleet and the transports cleared out because that cruiser of yours, La Buena Presidente, may be here at any minute, and, very sorry, lad, but I’ve got to capture her and give her up to the people at Santa Cruz. Our Government won’t recognise the insurgent Provisional Government, and I’m ordered to inform the Commandant. That’s why I’m here now.’
I could hardly bear to look at Gerald.
He caught his breath for a moment, and his grand jaw tightened the least little bit as he said slowly, ‘We shall have to make a fresh start, Captain Grattan.’
‘What shall I do?’ the Skipper asked him. ‘You’d better explain to the Commandant.’
That struck me as being too much to ask of Gerald, but he only tightened his jaws a little more, and began jabbering away in Spanish to the Commandant, whose tired, hungry-looking eyes opened out with pleasure and cunning, so that I knew that my brother had told him everything, and knew perfectly well that there would be no surrender. It wouldn’t help old Gerald much now, even if he did get possession of the fort, because that cruiser, whose coming we’d been longing for so much and now so dreaded, would, after we’d handed her over to the Santa Cruz Navy, batter down its walls with the utmost ease.
If I’d been Gerald I’m hanged if I would have told him the truth, and would have taken my chance with the fort. Oh! wasn’t it cruel luck?
‘The Commandant thanks you for the information,’ Gerald said, turning to the Skipper, ‘and under the new circumstances will not surrender El Castellar.’
We saw the Commandant speak to the officer who had met us, and he must have passed the news round, for, in a minute or two, a couple of hundred ragged half-starved soldiers surged out from under those thatched huts, swarmed round us, and began shouting out, ‘Viva los Inglesas!’ ‘Viva la Marina Inglesa!’ The brutes—they’d have cut our throats, ten minutes ago, with the greatest pleasure. I saw the ‘Gnome’s’ hand go to his revolver, for they jolly well looked as if they wanted to cut his throat and the other officers’—he was bristling with anger.
‘Come along, boy, we’ve done enough harm here,’ the Skipper said.
‘Hadn’t we better see my brother safely out of it first, sir?’ I suggested, for I didn’t like the Commandant’s eyes or those treacherous-looking soldiers.
‘Brain wave, lad! Good brain wave!—we will.’
We did see him out, tramping along through the main gateway, over a drawbridge, and took him down to where his own little brown men clustered, at the edge of the forest, waiting to see the black and green flag hoisted above the fort they hated so much.
It was the most miserable walk I have ever had, and I could have killed the men shouting ‘Viva los Inglesas!’ as they lined the wall and crowded through the gateway behind us. I feel certain that, if we hadn’t been there, and the Hector lying close inshore, they’d have shot Gerald and his officers in the back.
I told Gerald about my having cut the fingers off that little ex-policeman, and implored him not to let him go again, and before we got to the forest we stopped to wish him good-bye. As I was going, he said: ‘I know Captain Pelayo, Billums, the Captain of La Buena Presidente—he and old Zorilla are about the only types of the old fighting Spaniard left in the country—and he won’t surrender his ship without fighting. He’s got good men aboard too.’
We left old Gerald there, but I turned to watch him and the ‘Gnome’ disappear into the gloomy forest among their little men, before I followed the Skipper—a big lump sticking in my throat.
‘I’d have asked your brother to come on board, lad,’ he said, ‘hang the arresting part of it and that warrant, and have taken him out of the country in safety, but I know he wouldn’t; he isn’t the kind of chap to leave his fellows in a hole.’
He was about right there.
The same officer who had met us took us back, and this time we were obliged to pass that hole our 9.2 had made. The pathway was almost hidden by the blocks of stone and scattered bricks which had been hurled down by the explosion, and we had to pick our way very gingerly across them, so that it was impossible not to notice the huge gap above us.
The officer waved his hands and shrugged his shoulders, ‘We forget—you forget—all mucho bueno.’
‘Do you expect that ship to come here, sir?’ I asked him, as we pulled back to the ship.
‘Don’t know, lad, she should make for San Fernando first, and I’m going to stay here to see that she doesn’t get there, but I’ve told “Old Spats” to take the Hercules to Los Angelos, in case she should attempt anything there.’
I told him what Gerald had said to me about Captain Pelayo, and asked him what he would do if she did not stop when told to do so.
‘Shall we have to fight her, sir?’
‘I suppose we shall,’ he answered, with a wink. He looked as though he almost hoped she wouldn’t stop. So should I have done but for old Gerald.
‘She’ll be a pretty hard nut to tackle, sir; she’s got eight twelve-inch guns on a broadside.’
‘Well, we’ve got four 9.2’s and four 7.5’s. Don’t bother about that, she won’t know how to use them.’
Still I couldn’t help thinking that, unless we had the Hercules to help us, it would be a pretty hard job.
Most of us on board thought so too, that is, if it did come to a scrap, but the general opinion was that her crew could not possibly be trained, would not be able to fight her guns properly, and, if she couldn’t run away, would have to surrender.
Raynor, the Engineer Sub, who knew all about her, pointed out that she was supposed to have three knots more speed than the Hector, so might be able to escape.
‘Running away won’t do her any good,’ I said, ‘or Gerald’s people either.’
However, the possibility of having to fight made every one of us in the gun-room, except myself, extremely cheerful and excited, and when late in the afternoon we began to ‘clear ship for action’ and ‘prepare for battle,’ you would have thought by the way we all jumped round and got the ship in fighting trim that we were expecting to pay off old scores on some deadly enemy. It almost made me smile to hear the mids. talking now. At the back of their minds there was a feeling that perhaps the fight might be a bit more even if the Hercules came along to help, and they made quite pleasant remarks about her and her hated gun-room.
I know that I myself hoped that if it did come to a ‘scrap,’ old Ginger Hood would be there to share the fun.
Cousin Bob must tell you what did actually happen.