The petty officer of the watch was waiting there with the telescope, having descended from the lookout tower to meet him. Bush took the glass and looked through it. A six-oared boat, black against the blue of the bay, was pulling straight towards him, as the messenger had said. From the staff in the bow hung a flag, which might be white; there was no wind to extend it. But in the boat there were no more than ten people all told, so that there could be no immediate danger to the fort in any case. It was a long row across the glittering bay. Bush watched the boat heading steadily for the fort. The low cliffs which descended to meet the water on this side of the Samaná peninsula sank in an easy gradient here in the neighbourhood of the fort; diagonally down the gradient ran a path to the landing stage, which could be swept — as Bush had already noted — by the fire of the last two guns at the right-hand end of the battery. But there was no need to man those guns, for this could not be an attack. And in confirmation a puff of wind blew out the flag in the boat. It was white.
Undeviating, the boat pulled for the landing stage and came alongside it. There was a flash of bright metal from the boat and then in the heated air the notes of a trumpet call, high and clear, rose to strike against the ears of the garrison. Then two men climbed out of the boat on to the landing stage. They wore uniforms of blue and white, one of them with a sword at his side while the other carried the twinkling trumpet, which he set to his lips and blew again. Piercingly and sweet, the call echoed along the cliffs; the birds which had been drowsing in the heat came fluttering out with plaintive cries, disturbed as much by the trumpet call as they had been by the thunder of the artillery in the morning. The officer wearing the sword unrolled a white flag, and then he and the trumpeter set themselves to climb the steep path to the fort. This was a parley in accordance with the established etiquette of war. The pealing notes of the trumpet were proof that no surprise was intended; the white flag attested the pacific intentions of the bearer.
As Bush watched the slow ascent he meditated on what powers he had to conduct a negotiation with the enemy, and he thought dubiously about the difficulties that would be imposed on any negotiation by differences of language.
“Turn out the guard,” he said to the petty officer; and then to the messenger, “My compliments to Mr Hornblower, and ask him to come here as soon as he can.”
The trumpet echoed up the path again; many of the sleepers in the fort were stirring at the sound, and it was a proof of the fatigue of the others that they went on sleeping. Down in the courtyard the tramp of feet and the sound of curt orders told how the marine guard was forming up. The white flag was almost at the edge of the ditch; the bearer halted, looking up at the parapets, while the trumpeter blew a last final call, the wild notes of the fanfare calling the last of the sleepers in the garrison to wakefulness.
“I’m here, sir,” reported Hornblower.
The hat to which he raised his hand was lopsided, and he was like a scarecrow in his battered uniform. His face was clean, but it bore a plentiful growth of beard.
“Can you speak Spanish enough to deal with him?” asked Bush, indicating the Spanish officer with a jerk of his thumb.
“Well, sir — yes.”
The last word was in a sense spoken against Hornblower’s will. He would have liked to temporise, and then he had given the definite answer which any military situation demanded.
“Let’s hear you, then.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hornblower stepped up on the parapet; the Spanish officer, looking up from the edge of the ditch, took off his hat at the sight of him and bowed courteously; Hornblower did the same. There was a brief exchange of apparently polite phrases before Hornblower turned back to Bush.
“Are you going to admit him to the fort, sir?” he asked. “He says he has many negotiations to carry out.”
“No,” said Bush, without hesitation. “I don’t want him spying round here.”
Bush was not too sure about what the Spaniard could discover, but he was suspicious and cautious by temperament.
“Very good, sir.”
“You’ll have to go out to him, Mr Hornblower. I’ll cover you from here with the marines.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
With another exchange of courtesies Hornblower came down from the parapet and went down one ramp while the marine guard summoned by Bush marched up the other one. Bush, standing in an embrasure, saw the look on the Spaniard’s face as the shakos and scarlet tunics and levelled muskets of the marines appeared in the other embrasures. Directly afterwards Hornblower appeared round the angle of the fort, having crossed the ditch by the narrow causeway from the main gate. Bush watched while once more hats were removed and Hornblower and the Spaniard exchanged bows, bobbing and scraping in a ludicrous Continental fashion. The Spaniard produced a paper, which he offered with a bow for Hornblower to read — his credentials, presumably. Hornblower glanced at them and handed them back. A gesture towards Bush on the parapet indicated his own credentials. Then Bush could see the Spaniard asking eager questions, and Hornblower answering them. He could tell by the way Hornblower was nodding his head that he was answering in the affirmative, and he felt dubious for a moment as to whether Hornblower might not be exceeding his authority. Yet the mere fact that he had to depend on someone else to conduct the negotiations did not irritate him; the thought that he himself might speak Spanish was utterly alien to him, and he was as reconciled to depending on an interpreter as he was to depending on cables to hoist anchors or on winds to carry him to his destination.
He watched the negotiations proceeding; observing closely he was aware when the subject under discussion changed. There was a moment when Hornblower pointed down the bay, and the Spaniard, turning, looked at the Renown just approaching the point. He looked long and searchingly before turning back to continue the discussion. He was a tall man, very thin, his coffee-coloured face divided by a thin black moustache. The sun beat down on the pair of them — the trumpeter had withdrawn out of earshot — for some time before Hornblower turned and looked up at Bush.
“I’ll come in to report, sir, if I may,” he hailed.
“Very well, Mr Hornblower.”
Bush went down to the courtyard to meet him. Hornblower touched his hat and waited to be asked before he began his report.
“He’s Colonel Ortega,” said Hornblower in reply to the “Well?” that Bush addressed to him. “His credentials are from Villanueva, the Captain-General, who must be just across the bay, sir.”
“What does he want?” asked Bush, trying to assimilate this first rather indigestible piece of information.
“It was the prisoners he wanted to know about first, sir,” Bud Hornblower, “the women especially.”
“And you told him they weren’t hurt?”
“Yes, sir. He was very anxious about them. I told him I would ask your permission for him to take the women back with him.”
“I see,” said Bush.
“I thought it would make matters easier here, sir. And he had a good deal that he wanted to say, and I thought that if I appeared agreeable he would speak more freely.”
“Yes,” said Bush.
“Then he wanted to know about the other prisoners, sir. The men. He wanted to know if any had been killed, and when I said yes he asked which ones. I couldn’t tell him that, sir — I didn’t know. But I said I was sure you would supply him with a list; he said most of them had wives over there” — Hornblower pointed across the way — “who were all anxious.”
“I’ll do that,” said Bush.
“I thought he might take away the wounded as well as the women, sir. It would free our hands a little, and we can’t give them proper treatment here.”
“I must give that some thought first,” said Bush.
“For that matter, sir, it might be possible to rid ourselves of all the prisoners. I fancy it would not be difficult to exact a promise from him in exchange that they would not serve again while Renown was in these waters.”