Among the men there was a small sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes, but most of them were Spaniards. Nearly all the dead men who lay here and there were fully clothed, in white uniforms wide blue facings — they were the sentinels and the main guard who had paid the penalty for their lack of watchfulness.
“Who was in command?” asked Bush of Whiting.
“Can’t tell, sir.”
“Well, ask them, then.”
Bush had command of no language at all save his own, and apparently neither had Whiting, judging by his unhappy glance.
“Please, sir —” This was Pierce, surgeon’s mate, trying to attract his attention. “Can I have a party to help carry the wounded into the shade?”
Before Bush could answer him Abbott was hailing from the gun platform.
“Guns clear, sir. May I draw powder charges from the magazines?”
And then before Bush could give permission here was young Wellard, trying to elbow Pierce on one side so as to command Bush’s attention.
“Please, sir. Please, sir. Mr Hornblower’s respects, sir, an’ could you please come up to the tower there, sir? Mr Hornblower says it’s urgent, sir.”
Bush felt at that moment as if one more distraction would break his heart.
Chapter X
At each corner of the fort there was a small bastion built out, to give flanking fire along the walls, and on top of the southwest bastion stood a little watchtower which carried the flagstaff. Bush and Hornblower stood on the tower, the broad Atlantic behind them and before them the long gulf of the bay of Samaná. Over their heads waved two flags: the White Ensign above, the red and gold of Spain below. Out in the Renown they might not be able to make out the colours, but they would certainly see the two flags. And when having heard the three signal guns boom out they trained their telescopes on the fort they must have seen the flags slowly flutter down and rise again, dip and rise again. Three guns; two flags twice dipped. That was the signal that the fort was in English hands, and the Renown had seen it, for she had braced up her mizzen topsail and begun the long beat back along the coast of the peninsula.
Bush and Hornblower had with them the one telescope which a hasty search through the fort had brought to light; when one of them had it to his eye the other could hardly restrain his twitching fingers from snatching at it. At the moment Bush was looking through it, training it on the farther shore of the bay, and Hornblower was stabbing with an index finger at what he had been looking at a moment before.
“You see, sir?” he asked. “Farther up the bay than the bakery. There’s the town — Savana, it’s called. And beyond that there’s the shipping. They’ll up anchor any minute now.”
“I see ’em,” said Bush, the glass still at his eye. “Four small craft. No sail hoisted — hard to tell what they are.”
“Easy enough to guess, though, sir.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Bush.
There would be no need for big men of war here, immediately adjacent to the Mona Passage. Half the Caribbean trade came up through here, passing within thirty miles of the bay of Samaná. Fast, handy craft, with a couple of long guns each and a large crew, could dash out and snap up prizes and retire to the protection of the bay, where the crossed fire of the batteries could be relied on to keep out enemies, as the events of yesterday had proved. The raiders would hardly have to spend a night at sea.
“They’ll know by now we’ve got this fort,” said Hornblower. “They’ll guess that Renown will be coming round after ’em. They can sweep, and tow, and kedge. They’ll be out of the bay before you can say Jack Robinson. And from Engano Point it’s a fair wind for Martinique.”
“Very likely,” agreed Bush.
With a simultaneous thought they turned to look at the Renown. With her stern to them, her sails braced sharp on the starboard tack, she was making her way out to sea; it would be a long beat before she could go about in the certainty of being able to weather Cape Samaná. She looked lovely enough out there, with her white sails against the rich blue, but it would be hours before she could work round to stop the bolt hole. Bush turned back and considered the sheltered waters of the bay.