The sea breeze had died away with the cooling of the land, and it was that breathless time of night when air pressures over land and ocean were evenly balanced. Not many miles out at sea the trade winds could blow, as they blew eternally, but here on the beach a humid calm prevailed. The long swell of the Atlantic broke momentarily at the first hint of shallows far out, but lived on, like some once vigorous man now feeble after an illness, to burst rhythmically in foam on the beach to the westward; here, where the limestone cliffs of the Samaná peninsula began, there was a sheltered corner where a small watercourse had worn a wide gully in the cliff, at the most easterly end of the wide beach. And sea and surf and beach seemed to be afire; in the dark night the phosphorescence of the water was vividly bright, heaving up with the surf, running up the beach with the breakers, and lighting up the oar blades as the launches pulled to shore. The boats seemed to be floating on fire which derived new life from their passage; each launch left a wake of fire behind it, with a vivid streak on either side where the oar blades had bitten into the water.
Both landing and ascent were easy at the foot of the gully; the launches nuzzled their bows into the sand and the landing party had only to climb out, thighdeep in the water—thigh-deep in liquid fire—holding their weapons and cartridge boxes high to make sure they were not wetted. Even the experienced seamen in the party were impressed by the brightness of the phosphorescence; the raw hands were excited by it enough to raise a bubbling chatter which called for a sharp order to repress it. Bush was one of the earliest to climb out of his launch; he splashed ashore and stood on the unaccustomed solidity of the beach while the others followed him; the water streamed down out of his soggy trouser legs.
A dark figure appeared before him, coming from the direction of the other launch.
“My party is all ashore, sir,” it reported.
“Very good, Mr. Hornblower.”
“I’ll start up the gully with the advanced guard then, sir?”
“Yes, Mr. Hornblower. Carry out your orders.”
Bush was tense and excited, as far as his stoical training and phlegmatic temperament would allow him to be; he would have liked to plunge into action at once, but the careful scheme worked out in consultation with Hornblower did not allow it. He stood aside while his own party was being formed up and Hornblower called the other division to order.
“StarbowLines! Follow me closely. Every man is to keep in touch with the man ahead of him. Remember your muskets aren’t loaded—it’s no use snapping them if we meet an enemy. Cold steel for that. If any one of you is fool enough to load and fire he’d get four dozen at the gangway tomorrow. That I promise you. Woolton!”
“Sir!”
“Bring up the rear. Now follow me, you men, starting from the right of the line.”
Hornblower’s party filed off into the darkness. Already the marines were coming ashore, their scarlet tunics black against the phosphorescence. The white crossbelts were faintly visible side by side in a rigid twodeep line as they formed up, the noncommissioned officers snapping low-voiced orders at them. With his left hand still resting on his sword hilt Bush checked once more with his right hand that his pistols were in his belt and his cartridges in his pocket. A shadowy figure halted before them with a military click of the heels.
“All present and correct, sir. Ready to march off,” said Whiting’s voice.
“Thank you. We may as well start. Mr. Abbott!”
“Sir!”
“You have your orders. I’m leaving with the marine detachment now. Follow us.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
It was a long hard climb up the gully; the sand soon was replaced by rock, flat ledges of limestone, but even among the limestone there was a sturdy vegetation, fostered by the tropical rains which fell profusely on this northern face. Only in the bed of the watercourse itself, dry now with all the water having seeped into the limestone, was there a clear passage, if clear it could be called, for it was jagged and irregular, with steep ledges up which Bush had to heave himself. In a few minutes he was streaming with sweat, but he climbed on stubbornly. Behind him the marines followed clumsily, boots clashing, weapons and equipment clinking, so that anyone might think the noise would be heard a mile away. Someone slipped and swore.
“Keep a still tongue in yer ‘ead!” snapped a corporal.
“Silence!” snarled Whiting over his shoulder.
Onward and upward; here and there the vegetation was lofty enough to cut off the faint light from the stars, and Bush had to grope his way along over the rock, his breath coming with difficulty, powerfully built man though he was. Fireflies showed here and there as he climbed; it was years since he had seen fireflies last, but he paid no attention to them now. They excited irrepressible comment among the marines following him, though; Bush felt a bitter rage against the uncontrolled louts who were imperilling everything—their own lives as well as the success of the expedition—by their silly comments.
“I’ll deal with ‘em, sir,” said Whiting, and dropped back to let the column overtake him.
Higher up a squeaky voice, moderated as best its owner knew how, greeted him from the darkness ahead.
“Mr. Bush, sir?”
“Yes.”
“This is Wellard, sir. Mr. Hornblower sent me hack here to act as guide; There’s grassland beginning just above here.” Very well, said Bush.
He halted for a space, wiping his streaming face with his coat sleeve, while the column closed up behind him. It was not much farther to climb when he moved on again; Wellard led him past a clump of shadowy trees, and, sure enough, Bush felt grass under his feet, and he could walk more freely, uphill still, but only a gentle slope compared with the gully. There was a low challenge ahead of them.
“Friend,” said Wellard. “This is Mr. Bush here.”
“Glad to see you, sir,” said another voice—Hornblower’s.
Hornblower detached himself from the darkness and came forward to make his report.
“My party is formed up just ahead, sir. I’ve sent Saddler and two reliable men on as scouts.”
“Very good,” said Bush, and meant it.
The marine sergeant was reporting to Whiting.
“All present, sir, ‘cept for Chapman, sir. ‘E’s sprained ‘is ankle, or ‘e says ‘e ‘as, sir. Left ‘im be’ind back there, sir.”
“Let your men rest, Captain Whiting,” said Bush.
Life in the confines of a ship of the line was no sort of training for climbing cliffs in the tropics, especially as the day before had been exhausting. The marines lay down, some of them with groans of relief which drew the unmistakable reproof of savage kicks from the sergeant’s toe.
“We’re on the crest here, sir,” said Hornblower. “You can see over into the bay from that side there.”
“Three miles from the fort, d’ye think?”
Bush did not mean to ask a question, for he was in command, but Hornblower was so ready with his report that Bush could not help doing so.
“Perhaps. Less than four, anyway, sir. Dawn in four hours from now, and the moon rises in half an hour.”
“Yes.”
“There’s some sort of track or path along the crest, sir, as you’d expect. It should lead to the fort.”
“Yes.”
Hornblower was a good subordinate, clearly. Bush realised now that there would naturally be a track along the crest of the peninsula—that would be the obvious thing—but the probability had not occurred to him until that moment.
“If you will permit me, sir,” went on Hornblower, “I’ll leave James in command of my party and push on ahead with Saddler and Wellard and see how the land lies.”
“Very good, Mr. Hornblower.”
Yet no sooner had Hornblower left than Bush felt a vague irritation. It seemed that Hornblower was taking too much on himself. Bush was not a man who would tolerate any infringement upon his authority. However, Bush was distracted from this train of thought by the arrival of the second division of seamen, who came sweating and gasping up to join the main body. With the memory of his own weariness when he arrived still fresh in his mind Bush allowed them a rest period before he should push on with his united force. Even in the darkness a cloud of insects had discovered the sweating force, and a host of them sang round Bush’s ears and bit him viciously at every opportunity. The crew of the Renown had been long at sea and were tender and desirable in consequence. Bush slapped at himself and swore, and every man in his command did the same.
“Mr. Bush, sir?”
It was Hornblower back again.
“Yes?”
“It’s a definite trail, sir. It crosses a gully just ahead, but it’s not a serious obstacle.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hornblower. We’ll move forward. Start with your division, if you please.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The advance began. The domed limestone top of the peninsula was covered with long grass, interspersed with occasional trees. Off the track walking was a little difficult on account of the toughness and irregularity of the bunches of high grass, but on the track it was comparatively easy. The men could move along it in something like a solid body, well closed up. Their eyes, thoroughly accustomed to the darkness, could see in the starlight enough to enable them to pick their way. The gully that Hornblower had reported was only a shallow depression with easily sloping sides and presented no difficulty.
Bush plodded on at the head of the marines with Whiting at his side, the darkness all about him like a warm blanket. There was a kind of dreamlike quality about the march, induced perhaps by the fact that Bush had not slept for twentyfour hours and was stupid with the fatigues he had undergone during that period. The path was ascending gently—naturally, of course, since it was rising to the highest part of the peninsula where the fort was sited.
“Ah!” said Whiting suddenly.
The path had wandered to the right, away from the sea and towards the bay, and now they had crossed the backbone of the peninsula and opened up the view over the bay. On their right they could see clear down the bay to the sea, and there it was not quite dark, for above the horizon a little moonlight was struggling through the clouds that lay at the lower edge of the sky.
“Mr. Bush, sir?”
This was Wellard, his voice more under command this time.
“Here I am.”
“Mr. Hornblower sent me back again, sir. There’s another gully ahead, crossing the path. An’ we’ve come across some cattle, sir. Asleep on the hill. We disturbed ‘em, and they’re wandering about.”
“Thank you, I understand,” said Bush.
Bush had the lowest opinion of the ordinary man and the subordinary man who constituted the great bulk of his command. He knew perfectly well that if they were to blunder into cattle along this path they would think they were meeting the enemy. There would be excitement and noise, even if there was no shooting.
“Tell Mr. Hornblower I am going to halt for fifteen minutes.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
A rest and opportunity to close up the column were desirable for the weary men in any case, as long as there was time to spare. And during the rest the men could be personally and individually warned about the possibility of encountering cattle. Bush knew that merely to pass the word back down the column would be unsatisfactory, actually unsafe, with these tired and slowwitted men. He gave the order and the column came to a halt, of course with sleepy men bumping into the men in front of them with a clatter and a murmur thee the whispered curses of the petty officers with difficulty suppressed. While the warning was being circulated among the men lying in the grass another trouble was reported to Bush by a petty officer.
“Seaman Black, sir. ‘E’s drunk.”
“Drunk?”
“’E must ‘ave ‘ad sperrits in ‘is canteen, sir. You can smell it on ‘is breff. Dunno ‘ow ‘e got it, sir.”
With a hundred and eighty seamen and marines under his command one man at least was likely to be drunk. The ability of the British sailor to get hold of liquor and his readiness to overindulge in it were part of his physical makeup, like his ears or his eyes.
“Where is he now?”
“’E made a noise, sir, so I clipped ‘im on the ear’ole an’ ‘e’s quiet now, sir.”
There was much left untold in that brief sentence, as Bush could guess, but he had no reason to make further inquiry while he thought of what to do.
“Choose a steady seaman and leave him with Black when we go on.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
So the landing party was the weaker now by the loss of the services not only of the drunken Black but of the man who must be left behind to keep him out of mischief. But it was lucky that there were not more stragglers than there had been up to now.
As the column moved forward again Hornblower’s unmistakable gangling figure showed up ahead, silhouetted against the faint moonlight. He fell into step beside Bush and made his report.
“I’ve sighted the fort, sir.”
“You have?”
“Yes, sir. A mile ahead from here, or thereabouts, there’s another gully. The fort’s beyond that. You can see it against the moon. Maybe half a mile beyond, maybe less. I’ve left Wellard and Saddler at the gully with orders to halt the advance there.”
“Thank you.”
Bush plodded on over the uneven surface. Now despite his fatigue he was growing tense again, as the tiger having scented his prey braces his muscles for the spring. Bush was a fighting man, and the thought of action close ahead acted as a stimulant to him. Two hours to sunrise; time and to spare.
“Half a mile from the gully to the fort?” he asked.
“Less than that, I should say, sir.”
“Very well. I’ll halt there and wait for daylight.”
“Yes, sir. May I go on to join my division?”
“You may, Mr. Hornblower.”
Bush and Whiting were holding down the pace of the march to a slow methodical step, adapted to the capacity of the slowest and clumsiest man in the column; Bush at this moment was checking himself from lengthening his stride under the spur of the prospect of action. Hornblower went plunging ahead; Bush could see his awkward gait but found himself approving of his subordinate’s overflowing energy. He began to discuss with Whiting plans for the final assault.
There was a petty officer waiting for them at the approach to the gully. Bush passed the word back for the column to be ready to halt, and then halted it. He went forward to reconnoitre; with Whiting and Hornblower beside him he stared forward at the square silhouette of the fort against the sky. It even seemed possible to see the dark line of the flagpole. Now his tenseness was eased; the scowl that had been on his face in the last stages of the advance had softened into an expression of good humour, which was wasted in the circumstances.
The arrangements were quickly made, the orders whispered back and forth, the final warnings given. It was the most dangerous moment so far, as the men had to be moved up into the gully and deployed ready for a rush. One whisper from Whiting called for more than a moment’s cogitation from Bush.
“Shall I give permission for the men to load, sir?”
“No,” answered Bush at length. “Cold steel.”
It would be too much of a risk to allow all those muskets to be loaded in the dark. There would not only be the noise of the ramrods, but there was also the danger of some fool pulling a trigger. Hornblower went off to the left, Whiting with his marines to the right, and Bush lay down in the midst of his division in the centre. His legs ached with their unaccustomed exercise, and as he lay his head was inclined to swim with fatigue and lack of sleep. He roused himself and sat up so as to bring himself under control again. Except for his weariness he did not find the waiting period troublesome to him; years of life at sea with its uncounted eventless watches, and years of war with its endless periods of boredom, had inured him to waiting. Some of the seamen actually slept as they lay in the rocky gully; more than once Bush heard snores begin, abruptly cut off by the nudges of the snorers’ neighbours.
Now there, at last, right ahead, beyond the fort—was the sky a little paler? Or was it merely that the moon had climbed above the cloud? All round about save there the sky was like purple velvet, still spangled with stars. But there—there—undoubtedly there was a pallor in the sky which had not been there before. Bush stirred and felt again at the uncomfortable pistols in his belt. They were at halfcock; he must remember to pull the hammers back. On the horizon there was a suspicion, the merest suggestion, of a redness mingled with the purple of the sky.
“Pass the word down the line,” said Bush. “Prepare to attack.”
He waited for the word to pass, but in less time than was possible for it to have reached the ends of the line there were sounds and disturbances in the gully. The damned fools who were always to be found in any body of men had started to rise as soon as the word had reached them, probably without even bothering to pass the word on themselves. But the example would be infectious, at least; beginning at the wings, and coming back to the centre where Bush was, a double ripple of men rising to their feet went along the line. Bush rose too. He drew his sword, balanced it in his hand, and when he was satisfied with his grip he drew a pistol with his left hand and pulled back the hammer. Over on the right there was a sudden clatter of metal; the marines were fixing their bayonets. Bush could see the faces now of the men to right and to left of him.
“Forward!” he said, and the line came surging up out of the gully. “Steady, there!”
He said the last words almost loudly; sooner or later the hotheads in the line would start to run, and later would be better than sooner. He wanted his men to reach the fort in a single wave, not in a succession of breathless individuals. Out on the left he heard Hornblower’s voice saying “Steady” as well. The noise of the advance must reach the fort now, must attract the attention even of sleepy, careless Spanish sentries. Soon a sentry would call for his sergeant, the sergeant would come to see, would hesitate a moment, and then give the alarm. The fort bulked square in front of Bush, still shadowy black against the newly red sky; he simply could not restrain himself from quickening his step, and the line came hurrying forward along with him. Then someone raised a shout, then the other hotheads shouted, and the whole line started to run, Bush running with them.
Like magic, they were at the edge of the ditch, a sixfoot scarp, almost vertical, cut in the limestone.
“Come on!” shouted Bush.
Even with his sword and his pistol in his hands he was able to precipitate himself down the scarp, turning his back to the fort and clinging to the edge with his elbows before allowing himself to drop. The bottom of the dry ditch was slippery and irregular, but he plunged across it to the opposite scarp. Yelling men clustered along it, hauling themselves up.
“Give me a hoist!” shouted Bush to the men on either side of him, and they put their shoulders to his thighs and almost threw him up bodily. He found himself on his face, lying on the narrow shelf above the ditch at the foot of the ramparts. A few yards along a seaman was already trying to fling his grapnel up to the top. It came thundering down, missing Bush by no more than a yard, but the seaman without a glance at him snatched it back, poised himself again, and flung the grapnel up the ramparts. It caught, and the seaman, setting his feet against the ramparts and grasping the line with his hands, began to climb like a madman. Before he was half way up another seaman had grabbed the line and started to scale the ramparts after him, and a yelling crowd of excited men gathered round contending for the next place. Farther along the foot of the ramparts another grapnel had caught and another crowd of yelling men were gathered about the line. Now there was musketry fire; a good many loud reports, and a whiff of powder smoke came to Bush’s nostrils in sharp contrast with the pure night air that he had been breathing.
Round on the other face of the fort on his right the marines would be trying to burst in through the embrasures of the guns; Bush turned to his left to see what could be done there. Almost instantly he found his reward; here was the sally port into the fort—a wide wooden door bound with iron, sheltered in the angle of the small projecting bastion at the corner of the fort. Two idiots of seamen were firing their muskets up at the heads that were beginning to show above—not a thought for the door. The average seaman was not fit to be trusted with a musket. Bush raised his voice so that it pealed like a trumpet above the din.
“Axemen here! Axemen! Axemen!”
There were still plenty of men down in the ditch who had not yet had time to scale the scarp; one of them, waving an axe, plunged through the crowd and began to climb up. But Silk, the immensely powerful bosun’s mate who commanded a section of seamen in Bush’s division, came running along the shelf and grabbed the axe. He began to hew at the door, with tremendous methodical blows, gathering his body together and then flinging the axehead into the wood with all the strength in his body. Another axeman arrived, elbowed Bush aside, and started to hack at the door as well, but he was neither as accomplished nor as powerful. The thunder of their blows resounded in the angle. The ironbarred wicket in the door opened, with a gleam of steel beyond the bars. Bush pointed his pistol and fired. Silk’s axe drove clean through the door, and he wrenched the blade free; then, changing his aim, he began to swing the axe in a horizontal arc at the middle part of the door. Three mighty blows and he paused to direct the other axeman where to strike. Silk struck again and again; then he put down the axe, set his fingers in the jagged hole that had opened, his foot against the door, and with one frightful muscletearing effort he rent away a whole section of the door. There was a beam across the gap he had opened; Silk’s axe crashed on to it and through it—and again. With a hoarse shout Silk plunged, axe in hand, through the jagged hole.
“Come along, men!” yelled Bush, at the top of his lungs, and plunged through after him.
This was the open courtyard of the fort. Bush stumbled over a dead man and looked up to see a group of men before him, in their shirts, or naked; coffeecoloured faces with long disordered moustaches; men with cutlasses and pistols. Silk flung himself upon them like a maniac, the axe swinging. A Spaniard fell under the axe; Bush saw a severed finger fall to the ground as the axe crashed through the Spaniard’s ineffectual guard. Pistols banged and smoke eddied about as Bush rushed forward too. There were other men swarming after him. Bush’s sword clashed against a cutlass and then the group turned and fled. Bush swung with his sword at a naked shoulder fleeing before him, and saw a red wound open in the flesh and heard the man scream. The man he was pursuing vanished somewhere, like a wraith, and Bush, hurrying on to find other enemies, met a redcoated marine, hatless, his hair wild and his eyes blazing, yelling like a fiend. Bush actually had to parry the bayonetthrust the marine made at him.
“Steady, you fool!” shouted Bush, only conscious after the words had passed his lips that they were spoken at the top of his voice.
There was a hint of recognition in the marine’s mad eyes, and he turned aside, his bayonet at the charge, and rushed on. There were other marines in the background; they must have made their way in through the embrasures. They were all yelling, all drunk with fighting. And here was another rush of seamen, swarming down from the ramparts they had scaled. On the far side there were wooden buildings; his men were swarming round them and shots and screams were echoing from them. Those must be the barracks and storehouses, and the garrison must have fled there for shelter from the fury of the stormers.
Whiting appeared, his scarlet tunic filthy, his sword dangling from his wrist. His eyes were bleary and cloudy.
“Call ‘em off,” said Bush, grasping at his own sanity with a desperate effort.
It took Whiting a moment to recognise him and to understand the order.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
A fresh flood of seamen came pouring into view beyond the buildings; Hornblower’s division had found its way into the fort on the far side, evidently. Bush looked round him and called to a group of his own men who appeared at that moment.
“Follow me,” he said, and pushed on.
A ramp with an easy slope led up the side of the ramparts. A dead man lay there, half way up, but Bush gave the corpse no more attention than it deserved. At the top was the main battery, six huge guns pointing through the embrasures. And beyond was the sky, all bloodyred with the dawn. A third of the way up to the zenith reached the significant colour, but even while Bush halted to look at it a golden gleam of sun showed through the clouds on the horizon, and the red began to fade perceptibly; blue sky and white clouds and blazing golden sun took its place. That was the measure of the time the assault had taken; only a few minutes from the earliest dawn to tropical sunrise. Bush stood and grasped this astonishing fact—it could have been late afternoon as far as his own sensations went.
Here from the gun platform the whole view of the bay opened up. There was the opposite shore; the shallows where the Renown had grounded (was it only yesterday?), the rolling country lifting immediately into the hills of that side, with the sharply defined shape of the other battery at the foot of the point. To the left the peninsula dropped sharply in a series of jagged headlands, stretching like fingers out into the blue, blue ocean; farther round still was the sapphire surface of Scotchman’s Bay, and there, with her backed mizzen topsail catching brilliantly the rising sun, lay the Renown. At that distance she looked like a lovely toy; Bush caught his breath at the sight of her, not because of the beauty of the scene but with relief. The sight of the ship, and the associated memories which the sight called up in his mind, brought his sanity flooding back; there were a thousand things to be done now.
Hornblower appeared up the other ramp; he looked like a scarecrow with his disordered clothes. He held sword in one hand and pistol in the other, just as did Bush. Beside him Wellard swung a cutlass singularly large for him, and at his heels were a score or more of seamen still under discipline their muskets, with bayonets fixed, held before them ready for action.
“Morning, sir,” said Hornblower. His battered cocked hat was still on his head for him to touch it, and he made a move to do so, checking himself at the realization that his sword was in his hand.
“Good morning ‘ said Bush automatically.
“Congratulations, sir ‘ said Hornblower. His face was white, and the smile on his lips was like the grin of a corpse. His beard sprouted over his lips and chin.
“Thank you,” said Bush.
Hornblower pushed his pistol into his belt and then sheathed his sword.
“I’ve taken possession of all that side, sir,” he went on, with a gesture behind him. “Shall I carry on?”
“Yes, carry on, Mr. Hornblower.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
This time Hornblower could touch his hat. He gave a rapid order posting a petty officer and men over the guns.
“You see, sir,” said Hornblower, pointing, “a few got away.”
Bush looked down the precipitous hillside that fell to the bay and could see a few figures down there.
“Not enough to trouble us,” he said; his mind was just beginning to work smoothly now.
“No, sir. I’ve forty prisoners under guard at the main gate. I can see Whiting’s collecting the rest. I’ll go on now, sir, if I may.
“Very well, Mr. Hornblower.”
Somebody at least had kept a clear head during the fury of the assault. Bush went on down the farther ramp. A petty officer and a couple of seamen stood there on guard; they came to attention as Bush appeared.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“This yere’s the magazine, zur,” said the petty officer—Ambrose, captain of the foretop, who had never lost the broad Devon acquired in his childhood, despite his years in the navy. “We’m guarding of it.”
“Mr. Hornblower’s orders?”
“Iss, zur.”
A forlorn party of prisoners were squatting by the main gate. Hornblower had reported the presence of them. But there were guards he had said nothing about: a sentry at the well; guards at the gate; Woolton, the steadiest petty officer of them all, at a long wooden building beside the gate, and six men with him.
“What’s your duty?” demanded Bush.
“Guarding the provision store, sir. There’s liquor here.”
“Very well.”
If the madmen who had made the assault—that marine, for instance, whose bayonetthrust Bush had parried—had got at the liquor there would be no controlling them at all.
Abbott, the midshipman in subordinate command of Bush’s own division, came hurrying up.
“What the hell d’ye think you’ve been doing?” demanded Bush, testily. “I’ve been without you since the attack began.”
“Sorry, sir,” apologised Abbott. Of course he had been carried away by the fury of the attack, but that was no excuse; certainly no excuse when one remembered young Wellard still at Hornblower’s side and attending to his duties.
“Get ready to make the signal to the ship,” ordered Bush “You ought to have been ready to do that five minutes ago. Clear three guns. Who was it who was carrying the flag? Find him and bend it on over the Spanish colours. Jump to it, damn you.”
Victory might be sweet, but it had no effect on Bush’s temper, now that the reaction had set in. Bush had had no sleep and no breakfast, and even though perhaps only ten minutes had elapsed since the fort had been captured, his conscience nagged at him regarding those ten minutes; there were many things he ought to have done in that time.
It was a relief to turn away from the contemplation of his own shortcomings and to settle with Whiting regarding the safeguarding of the prisoners. They had all been fetched out of the barrack buildings by now; a hundred half naked men, and at least a score of women, their hair streaming down their backs and their scanty clothing clutched about them. At a more peaceful moment Bush would have had an eye for those women, but as it was he merely felt irritated at the thought of an additional complication to deal with, and his eyes only took note of them as such.
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.