“Aye aye, sir.”
Chapter XII
Three officers sat in what had been the commanding officer’s room in Fort Samaná; in fact, seeing that Bush was now the commanding officer there, it could still be called the commanding officer’s room. A bed with a mosquito net over it stood in one corner; at the other side of the room Buckland, Bush, and Hornblower sat in leather chairs. A lamp hanging from a beam overhead filled the room with its acrid smell, and lit up their sweating faces. It was hotter and stuffier even than it was in the ship, but at least here in the fort there was no brooding knowledge of a mad captain the other side of the bulkhead.
“I don’t doubt for one moment,” said Hornblower, “that when Villanueva sent Ortega here to open negotiations about the prisoners he also told him to put out a feeler regarding this evacuation.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” said Buckland.
“Well, sir, put Yourself in Ortega’s position. Would you say a word about a subject of that importance if you weren’t authorised to? If you weren’t expressly ordered to, sir?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Buckland.
No one could doubt that who knew Buckland, and for himself it was the most convincing argument.
“Then Villanueva had capitulation in mind as soon as he knew that we had captured this fort and that Renown would be able to anchor in the bay. You can see that must be so, sir.”
“I suppose so,” said Buckland, reluctantly.
“And if he’s prepared to negotiate for a capitulation he must either be a poltroon or in serious danger, sir.”
“Well —”
“It doesn’t matter which is true, sir, whether his danger is real or imaginary, from the point of view of bargaining with him.”
“You talk like a sea lawyer,” said Buckland. He was being forced by logic into taking a momentous decision, and he did not want to be, so that in his struggles against it he used one of the worst terms of opprobrium in his vocabulary.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Hornblower. “I meant no disrespect. I let my tongue run away with me. Of course it’s for you to decide where your duty lies, sir.”
Bush could see that that word ‘duty’ had a stiffening effect on Buckland.
“Well, then, what d’you think lies behind all this?” asked Buckland. That might be intended as a temporising question, but it gave Hornblower permission to go on stating his views.
“Villanueva’s been holding this end of the island against the insurgents for months now, sir. We don’t know how much territory he holds, but we can guess that it’s not much — only as far as the crest of those mountains across the bay, probably. Powder — lead — flints — shoes — he’s probably in need of all of them.”
“Judging by the prisoners we took, that’s true, sir,” interrupted Bush. It would be hard to ascertain the motives that led him to make this contribution to the discussion; perhaps he was only interested in the truth for its own sake.
“Maybe it is,” said Buckland.
“Now you’ve arrived, sir, and he’s cut off from the sea. He doesn’t know how long we can stay here. He doesn’t know what your orders are.”
Hornblower did not know either, commented Bush to himself, and Buckland stirred restlessly at the allusion.
“Never mind that,” he said.
“He sees himself cut off, and his supplies dwindling. If this goes on he’ll have to surrender. He would rather start negotiations now, while he can still hold out, while he has something to bargain with, than wait until the last moment and have to surrender unconditionally, sir.”
“I see,” said Buckland.
“And he’d rather surrender to us than to the blacks, sir,” concluded Hornblower.
“Yes indeed,” said Bush. Everyone had heard a little about the horrors of the servile rebellion which for eight years had deluged this land with blood and scorched it with fire. The three men were silent for a space as they thought about the implications of Hornblower’s last remark.
“Oh, very well then,” said Buckland at length. “Let’s hear what this fellow has to say.”