“That’s so,” agreed Bush. “Remember to see that they’re issued.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Do you need a messenger, Mr Hornblower?” asked Buckland.
“It might be better if I had one, sir.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“I’d prefer to have Wellard, sir, if you’ve no objection. He’s cool‑headed and thinks quickly.”
“Very well.” Buckland looked hard at Hornblower at the mention of Wellard’s name, but said nothing more on the subject for the moment.
“Anything else? No? Mr Bush? All settled?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bush.
Buckland drummed with his fingers on the table. The recent alteration of course had not been the decisive move; it did not commit him to anything. But the next order would. If the hands were roused out, arms issued to them, instructions given for a landing, he could hardly draw back. Another attempt; maybe another failure; maybe a disaster. It was not in his power to command success, while it was certainly in his power to obviate failure by simply not risking it. He looked up and met the gaze of his two subordinates turned on him remorselessly. No, it was too late now — he had been mistaken when he thought he could draw back. He could not.
“Then it only remains to issue the orders,” he said. “Will you see to it, if you please?”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bush.
He and Hornblower were about to leave the cabin when Buckland asked the question he had wanted to ask for so long. It necessitated an abrupt change of subject, even though the curiosity that inspired the question had been reawakened by Hornblower’s mention of Wellard. But Buckland, full of the virtuous glow of having reached a decision, felt emboldened to ask the question; it was a moment of exaltation in any case, and confidences were possible.
“By the way, Mr Hornblower,” he said, and Hornblower halted beside the door, “how did the captain come to fall down the hatchway?”
Bush saw the expressionless mask take the place of the eager look on Hornblower’s face. The answer took a moment or two to come.
“I think he must have overbalanced, sir,” said Hornblower, with the utmost respect and a complete absence of feeling in his voice. “The ship was lively that night, you remember, sir.”
“I suppose she was,” said Buckland; disappointment and perplexity were audible in his tone. He stared at Hornblower, but there was nothing to be gleaned from that face. “Oh, very well then. Carry on.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Chapter IX
The sea breeze had died away with the cooling of the land, and it was that breathless time of night when air pressures over land and ocean were evenly balanced. Not many miles out at sea the trade winds could blow, as they blew eternally, but here on the beach a humid calm prevailed. The long swell of the Atlantic broke momentarily at the first hint of shallows far out, but lived on, like some once vigorous man now feeble after an illness, to burst rhythmically in foam on the beach to the westward; here, where the limestone cliffs of the Samaná peninsula began, there was a sheltered corner where a small watercourse had worn a wide gully in the cliff, at the most easterly end of the wide beach. And sea and surf and beach seemed to be afire; in the dark night the phosphorescence of the water was vividly bright, heaving up with the surf, running up the beach with the breakers, and lighting up the oar blades as the launches pulled to shore. The boats seemed to be floating on fire which derived new life from their passage; each launch left a wake of fire behind it, with a vivid streak on either side where the oar blades had bitten into the water.
Both landing and ascent were easy at the foot of the gully; the launches nuzzled their bows into the sand and the landing party had only to climb out, thigh‑deep in the water — thigh-deep in liquid fire — holding their weapons and cartridge boxes high to make sure they were not wetted. Even the experienced seamen in the party were impressed by the brightness of the phosphorescence; the raw hands were excited by it enough to raise a bubbling chatter which called for a sharp order to repress it. Bush was one of the earliest to climb out of his launch; he splashed ashore and stood on the unaccustomed solidity of the beach while the others followed him; the water streamed down out of his soggy trouser legs.