Lieutenant Hornblower

“Very good, sir.”

“But I’ll tell you where we’re bound. Mr. Carberry knows already.”

“Where, sir?”

“Santo Domingo. Scotchman’s Bay.”

There was a pause while this information was being digested.

“Santo Domingo,” said someone, meditatively.

“Hispaniola,” said Carberry, explanatorily.

“Hayti,” said Hornblower.

“Santo Domingo—Hayti—Hispaniola,” said Carberry. “Three names for the same island.”

“Hayti!” exclaimed Roberts, some chord in his memory suddenly touched. “That’s where the blacks are in rebellion.”

“Yes,” agreed Buckland.

Anyone could guess that Buckland was trying to say that word in as noncommittal a tone as possible; it might be because there was a difficult diplomatic situation with regard to the blacks, and it might be because fear of the captain was still a living force in the ship.

Chapter VII

Lieutenant Buckland, in acting command of HMS Renown, of seventyfour guns, was on the quarterdeck of his ship peering through his telescope at the low mountains of Santo Domingo. The ship was rolling in a fashion u

“For God’s sake,” said Hornblower, hanging on to a belaying pin in the mizzen fife rail to save himself from sliding down the deck into the scuppers, “can’t he make up his mind?”

There was something in Hornblower’s stare that made Bush look at him more closely.

“Seasick?” he asked, with curiosity.

“Who wouldn’t be?” replied Hornblower. “How she rolls!”

Bush’s castiron stomach had never given him the least qualm, but he was aware that less fortunate men suffered from seasickness even after weeks at sea, especially when subjected to a different kind of motion. This funereal rolling was nothing like the free action of the Renown under sail.

“Buckland has to see how the land lies,” he said in an effort to cheer Hornblower up.

“How much more does he want to see?” grumbled Hornblower. “There’s the Spanish colours flying on the fort up there. Everyone on shore knows now that a ship of the line is prowling about, and the Dons won’t have to be very clever to guess that we’re not here on a yachting trip. Now they’ve all the time they need to be ready to receive us.”

“But what else could he do?”

“He could have come in in the dark with the sea breeze. Landing parties ready. Put them ashore at dawn. Storm the place before they knew there was any danger. Oh, God!”

The final exclamation had nothing to do with what went before. It was wrenched out of Hornblower by the commotion of his stomach. Despite his deep tan there was a sickly green colour in his cheeks.

“Hard luck,” said Bush.

Buckland still stood trying to keep his telescope trained on the coast despite the rolling of the ship. This was Scotchman’s Bay—the Bahia de Escocesa, as the Spanish charts had it. To the westward lay a shelving beach; the big rollers here broke far out and ran in creamy white up to the water’s edge with diminishing force, but to the eastward the shore line rose in a line of treecovered hills standing bluffly with their feet in blue water; the rollers burst against them in sheets of spray that climbed far up the cliffs before falling back in a smother of white. For thirty miles those hills ran beside the sea, almost due east and west; they constituted the Samaná peninsula, terminating in Samaná Point. According to the charts the peninsula was no more than ten miles wide; behind them, round Samaná Point, lay Samaná Bay, opening into the Mona Passage and a most convenient anchorage for privateers and small ships of war which could lie there, under the protection of the fort on the Samaná peninsula, ready to slip out and harass the West Indian convoys making use of the Mona Passage. The Renown had been given orders to clear out this raiders’ lair before going down to leeward to Jamaica—everyone in the ship could guess that—but now that Buckland confronted the problem he was not at all sure how to solve it. His indecision was apparent to all the curious lookerson who clustered on the Renown’s deck.

The main topsail suddenly flapped like thunder, and the ship began to turn slowly head to sea; the land breeze was expiring, and the trade winds, blowing eternally across the Atlantic, were resuming their dominion. Buckland shut his telescope with relief. At least that was an excuse for postponing action.

“Mr. Roberts!”

“Sir!”

“Lay her on the port tack. Full and by!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The after guard came ru

“Better?” asked Bush of Hornblower.

“Better in one way,” was the reply. Hornblower looked over at the distant hills of Santo Domingo. “I could wish we were going into action and not ru

“What a fireeater!” said Bush.

“A fireeater? Me? Nothing like that—quite the opposite. I wish—oh, I wish for too much, I suppose.”

There was no explaining some people, thought Bush, philosophically. He was content to bask in the sunshine now that its heat was tempered by the ship’s passage through the wind. If action and danger lay in the future he could await it in stolid tranquillity; and he certainly could congratulate himself that he did not have to carry Buckland’s responsibility of carrying a ship of the line and seven hundred and twenty men into action. The prospect of action at least took one’s mind off the horrid fact that confined below lay an insane captain.

At di