Lieutenant Hornblower. C. S. Forester

“Well, sir —”

“Come on. Out with it.”

“Ortega comes back tomorrow morning to hear our terms again, sir. I suppose he’ll get up at dawn or not long after. He’ll have a bite of breakfast. Then he’ll have a few words with Villanueva. Then he’ll row across the bay. He might be here at eight bells. Later than that, probably, a little —”

“Who cares when Ortega has his breakfast? What’s all this rigmarole for?”

“Ortega gets here at two bells in the forenoon. If he finds we haven’t wasted a minute; if I can tell him that you’ve rejected his terms absolutely, sir, and not only that, if we can show him the gun mounted, and say we’ll open fire in an hour if they don’t surrender without conditions, he’ll be much more impressed.”

“That’s true, sir,” said Bush.

“Otherwise it won’t be so easy, sir. You’ll either have to temporise again while the gun’s being got into position, or you’ll have to use threats. I’ll have to say to him if you don’t agree, then we’ll start hoisting a gun up. In either case you’ll be allowing him time, sir. He might think of some other way out of it. The weather might turn dirty — there might even be a hurricane get up. But if he’s sure we’ll stand no nonsense, sir —”

“That’s the way to treat ’em,” said Bush.

“But even if we start at dawn ” said Buckland, and having progressed so far in his speech he realised the alternative. “You mean we can get to work now?”

“We have all night before us, sir. You could have the launches hoisted out and the gun swayed down into one of them. Slings and cables and some sort of carrying cradle prepared. Hands told off —”

“And start at dawn!”

“At dawn the boats can be round the peninsula waiting for daylight, sir. You could send some hands with a hundred fathoms of line up from the ship to here. They can start off along the path before daylight. That’d save time.”

“So it would, by George!” said Bush; he had no trouble in visualising the problems of seamanship involved in hoisting a gun up the face of a cliff.

“We’re shorthanded already in the ship,” said Buckland. “I’ll have to turn up both watches.”

“That won’t hurt ’em, sir,” said Bush. He had already been two nights without sleep and was now contemplating a third.

“Who shall I send? I’ll want a responsible officer in charge. A good seaman at that.”

“I’ll go if you like, sir,” said Hornblower.

“No. You’ll have to be here to deal with Ortega. If I send Smith I’ll have no lieutenant left on board.”

“Maybe you could send me, sir,” said Bush. “That is, if you were to leave Mr Hornblower in command here.”

“Um —” said Buckland. “Oh well, I don’t see anything else to do. Can I trust you, Mr Hornblower?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Let me see —” said Buckland.

“I could go back to the ship with you in your gig, sir,” said Bush. “Then there’d be no time wasted.”

This prodding of a senior officer into action was something new to Bush, but he was learning the art fast. The fact that the three of them had not long ago been fellow conspirators made it easier; and once the ice was broken, as soon as Buckland had once admitted his juniors to give him counsel and advice, it became easier with repetition.

“Yes, I suppose you’d better,” said Buckland, and Bush promptly rose to his feet, so that Buckland could hardly help doing the same.

Bush ran his eye over Hornblower’s battered form.

“Now look you here, Mr Hornblower,” he said. “You take some sleep. You need it.”

“I relieve Whiting as officer on duty at midnight, sir,” said Hornblower, “and I have to go the rounds.”

“Maybe that’s true. You’ll still have two hours before midnight. Turn in until then. And have Whiting relieve you at eight bells again.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

At the very thought of abandoning himself to the sleep for which he yearned Hornblower swayed with fatigue.

“You could make that an order, sir,” suggested Bush to Buckland.

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