“What ship is that?”
“Goshawk, from Liverpool to Vera Cruz, with supplies for the Castle of San Juan de Ulua. What ship is that?”
“Schooner Tampico, from Havana to Matamoras, with supplies for General Ampudia,” came much more cheerfully back. “We had to run away from Matamoras in ballast to escape the gringos. Their cruisers are around like hawks. You won’t get to Vera Cruz if they can help it.”
Captain Kemp already knew something about the reckless ways of men-of-war, but he did not say so. He merely responded:
“Is that so? How about the war? We’ve no news at all.”
“War?” shouted the Mexican skipper, triumphantly. “Why, there have been three great battles already. We have whipped the Americans! General Taylor is surrounded, and will have to surrender. So will the fort on the Rio Grande. We shall drive the gringos out of Texas. I did not know until now that you British were going to help us.”
There could be no further conversation, for the Goshawk was sweeping on out of hearing, but Ned Crawford exclaimed, indignantly:
“Our army defeated? How can that be? I don’t believe it!”
Everybody on deck could hear the captain when he laughingly responded:
“The victories were won in that fellow’s head, most likely. He was on board his schooner at Matamoras, and he didn’t see it done. All he knows is that the war is really begun. It takes a long time, men, to make either an American or a British army think of surrendering. We shall hear a good deal more about those battles one of these days. I’d like to read the newspaper reports, though, on both sides.”