“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 coffeecoloured 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 The sun beat down on the pair of them—the trumpeter had withdrawn out of earshot—for some time before Hornblower turned and looked up at Bush.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 CaptainGeneral, 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.”

“Sounds fishy to me,” said Bush; he distrusted all foreigners.

“I think he’d keep his word, sir. He’s a Spanish gentleman. Then we wouldn’t have to guard them, or feed them, sir. And when we evacuate this place what are we going to do with them? Pack ‘em on board Renown?”

A hundred prisoners in Renown would be an infernal nuisance, drinking twenty gallons of fresh water a day and having to be watched and guarded all the time. But Bush did not like to be rushed into making decisions, and he was not too sure that he cared to have Hornblower treating as obvious the points that he only arrived at after consideration.

“I’ll have to think about that, too,” said Bush.

“There was another thing that he only hinted at, sir. He wouldn’t make any definite proposal, and I thought it better not to ask him.”

“What was it?”

Hornblower paused before answering, and that in itself was a warning to Bush that something complicated was in the air.

“It’s much more important than just a matter of prisoners, sir.”

“Well?”

“It might be possible to arrange for a capitulation, sir.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“A surrender, sir. An evacuation of all this end of the island by the Dons.”

“My God!”

That was a startling suggestion. Bush’s mind plodded along the paths it opened up. It would be an event of international importance; it might be a tremendous victory. Not just a paragraph in the Gazette, but a whole page. Perhaps rewards, distinction—even possibly promotion. And with that Bush’s mind suddenly drew back in panic, as if the path it had been following ended in a precipice. The more important the event, the more closely it would be scrutinised, the more violent would be the criticism of those who disapproved. Here in Santo Domingo there was a complicated political situation; Bush knew it to be so, although he had never attempted to find out much about it, and certainly never to analyse it. He knew vaguely that French and Spanish interests clashed in the island, and that the Negro rebellion, now almost successful, was in opposition to both. He even knew, still more vaguely, that there was an antislavery movement in Parliament which persistently called attention to the state of affairs here. The thought of Parliament, of the Cabinet, of the King himself scrutinising his reports actually terrified Bush. The possible rewards that he had thought about shrank to nothing in comparison with the danger he ran. If he were to enter into a negotiation that embarrassed the government he would be offered up for instant sacrifice—not a hand would be raised to help a penniless and friendless lieutenant. He remembered Buckland’s frightened manner when this question had been barely hinted at; the secret orders must be drastic in this regard.

“Don’t lift a finger about that,” said Bush. “Don’t say a word.”

“Aye aye, sir. Then if he brings the subject up I’m not to listen to him?”

“Well—” That might imply flinching away from duty. “It’s a matter for Buckland to deal with, if anyone.”

“Yes, sir. I could suggest something, sir.”

“And what’s that?” Bush did not know whether to be irritated or pleased that Hornblower had one more suggestion to make. But he doubted his own ability to bargain or negotiate; he knew himself to be lacking in chicane and dissimulation.

“If you made an agreement about the prisoners, sir, it would take some time to carry out. There’d be the question of the parole. I could argue about the wording of it. Then it would take some time to ferry the prisoners over. You could insist that only one boat was at the landing stage at a time—that’s an obvious precaution to take. It would give time for Renown to work up into the bay. She can anchor down there just out of range of the other battery, sir. Then the hole’ll be stopped, and at the same time we’ll still be in touch with the Dons so that Mr. Buckland can take charge of the negotiations if he wishes to.”