“Oh, hell and damnation!” said Bush. “Have it your own way, then. Who are you going to send?”
“I could go myself, sir. Then I could tell Mr. Buckland everything necessary.”
“You mean about—about—” Bush actually did not like to mention the dangerous subject.
“About the chance of further negotiations, sir,” said Hornblower stolidly. “He has to know sooner or later. And while Ortega’s still here—”
The implications were obvious enough, and the suggestion was sensible.
“All right. You’d better go, I suppose. And mark my words, Mr. Hornblower, you’re to make it quite clear that I’ve authorised no negotiations of the sort you have in mind. Not a word. I’ve no responsibility. You understand?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Chapter XII
Three officers sat in what had been the commanding officer’s room in Fort Samaná; in fact, seeing that Bush was now the commanding officer there, it could still be called the commanding officer’s room. A bed with a mosquito net over it stood in one corner; at the other side of the room Buckland, Bush, and Hornblower sat in leather chairs. A lamp hanging from a beam overhead filled the room with its acrid smell, and lit up their sweating faces. It was hotter and stuffier even than it was in the ship, but at least here in the fort there was no brooding knowledge of a mad captain the other side of the bulkhead.
“I don’t doubt for one moment,” said Hornblower, “that when Villanueva sent Ortega here to open negotiations about the prisoners he also told him to put out a feeler regarding this evacuation.”