“Bush!Bush!” That was Hornblower’s voice, pleading and tender. “Bush, please, speak to me.”
Two gentle hands were holding his face between them. Bush could just separate his eyelids sufficiently to see Hornblower bending over him, but to speak called for more strength than he possessed. He could only shake his head a little, smiling because of the sense of comfort and security conveyed by Hornblower’s hands.
Chapter XV
“Mr Hornblower’s respects, sir,” said the messenger, putting his head inside Bush’s cabin after knocking on the door. “The admiral’s flag is flying off Mosquito Point, an’ we’re just goin’ to fire the salute, sir.”
“Very good.” said Bush.
Lying on his cot he had followed in his mind’s eye all that had been going on in the ship. She was on the port tack at the moment and had clewed up all sail save topsails and jib. They must be inside Gun Key, then. He heard Hornblower’s voice hailing.
“Lee braces, there! Hands wear ship.”
He heard the grumble of the tiller ropes as the wheel was put over, they must be rounding Port Royal point. The Renown rose to a level keel — she had been heeling very slightly — and then lay over to port, so little that, lying on his cot, Bush could hardly feel it. Then came the bang of the first saluting gun. Despite the kindly warning that Hornblower had sent down Bush was taken sufficiently by surprise to start a little at the sound. He was as weak and nervous as a kitten, he told himself. At five-second intervals the salute went on, while Bush resettled himself in bed. Movement was not very easy, even allowing for his weakness, on account of all the stitches that closed the numerous cuts and gashes on his body. He was sewn together like a crazy quilt; and any movement was painful.
The ship fell oddly quiet again when the salute was over — he was nearly sure it had been fifteen guns; Lambert presumably had been promoted to vice-admiral. They must be gliding northward up Port Royal bay; Bush tried to remember how Salt Pond Hill looked, and the mountains in the background — what were they called? Liguanea, or something like that — he could never tackle these Dago names. They called it the Long Mountain behind Rock Fort.
“Tops’l sheets!” came Hornblower’s voice from above. “Tops’l clew lines.”
The ship must be gliding slowly to her anchorage.
“Helm-a-lee!”
Turning into the wind would take her way off her.
“Silence, there in the waist!”
Bush could imagine how the hands would be excited and chattering at coming into harbour — the old hands would be telling the new ones about the grog shops and the unholy entertainments that Kingston, just up the channel, provided for seamen.
“Let go!”
That rumble and vibration; no sailor, not even one as matter-of-fact as Bush, could hear the sound of the cable roaring through the hawsehole without a certain amount of emotion. And this was a moment of very mixed and violent emotions. This was no homecoming; it might be the end of an incident, but it would be most certainly the beginning of a new series of incidents. The immediate future held the likelihood of calamity. Not the risk of death or wounds; Bush would have welcomed that as an alternative to the ordeal that lay ahead. Even in his weak state he could still feel the tension mount in his body as his mind tried to foresee the future. He would like to move about, at least fidget and wriggle if he could not walk, in an endeavour to ease that tension, but he could not even fidget while fifty-three stitches held together the half-closed gashes on his body. There would most certainly be an inquiry into the doings on board HMS Renown, and there was a possibility of a court-martial — of a whole series of courts-martial — as a result.
Captain Sawyer was dead. Someone among the Spaniards, drunk with blood lust, at the time when the prisoners had tried to retake the ship, had struck down the wretched lunatic when they had burst into the cabin where he was confined. Hell had no fire hot enough for the man — or woman — who could do such a thing, even though it might be looked upon as a merciful release for the poor soul which had cowered before imagined terrors for so long. It was a strange irony that at the moment a merciless hand had cut the madman’s throat some among the free prisoners had spared Buckland, had taken him prisoner as he lay in his cot and bound him with his bedding so that he lay helpless while the battle for his ship was being fought out to its bloody end. Buckland would have much to explain to a court of inquiry.
Bush heard the pipes of the bosun’s mates and strained his ears to hear the orders given.
“Gig’s crew away!Hands to lower the gig!”
Buckland would of course be going off at once to report to the admiral, and just as Bush came to that conclusion Buckland came into the cabin. Naturally he was dressed with the utmost care, in spotless white trousers and his best uniform coat. He was smoothly shaved, and the formal regularity of his neckcloth was the best proof of the anxious attention he had given to it. He carried his cocked hat in his hand as he stooped under the deck beams, and his sword hung from his hip. But he could not speak immediately; he could only stand and stare at Bush. Usually his cheeks were somewhat pudgy, but this morning they were hollow with care; the staring eyes were glassy, and the lips were twitching. A man on his way to the gallows might look like that.
“You’re going to make your report, sir?” asked Bush, after waiting for his superior to speak first.
“Yes,” said Buckland.
Beside his cocked hat he held in his hand the sealed reports over which he had been labouring. Bush had been called in to help him compose the first, the anxious one regarding the displacement of Captain Sawyer from command; and his own personal report was embodied in the second one, redolent with conscious virtue, telling of the capitulation of the Spanish forces in Santo Domingo. But the third, with its account of the uprising of the prisoners on board, and its confession that Buckland had been taken prisoner asleep in bed, had been written without Bush’s help.
“I wish to God I was dead,” said Buckland.
“Don’t say that, sir,” said Bush, as cheerfully as his own apprehensions and his weak state would allow.
“I wish I was,” repeated Buckland.
“Your gig’s alongside, sir,” said Hornblower’s voice. “And the prizes are just anchoring astern of us.”
Buckland turned his dead-fish eyes towards him; Hornblower was not quite as neat in appearance, but he had clearly gone to some pains with his uniform.
“Thank you,” said Buckland; and then, after a pause, he asked his question explosively: “Tell me, Mr Hornblower — this is the last chance — how did the captain come to fall down the hatchway?”
“I am quite unable to tell you, sir,” said Hornblower.
There was no hint whatever to be gleaned from his expressionless face or from the words he used.
“Now, Mr Hornblower,” said Buckland, nervously tapping the reports in his hand. “I’m treating you well. You’ll find I’ve given you all the praise I could in these reports. I’ve given you full credit for what you did at Santo Domingo, and for boarding the ship when the prisoners rose. Full credit, Mr Hornblower. Won’t you — won’t you — ?”
“I really cannot add anything to what you already know, sir,” said Hornblower.
“But what am I going to say when they start asking me?” asked Buckland.
“Just say the truth, sir, that the captain was found under the hatchway and that no inquiry could establish any other indication than that he fell by accident.”
“I wish I knew,” said Buckland.
“You know all that will ever be known, sir. Your pardon, sir” — Hornblower extended his hand and picked a thread of oakum from off Buckland’s lapel before he went on speaking — “the admiral will be overjoyed at hearing that we’ve wiped out the Dons at Samaná, sir. He’s probably been worrying himself gray-haired over convoys in the Mona Passage. And we’ve brought three prizes in. He’ll have his one-eighth of their value. You can’t believe he’ll resent that, can you, sir?”