Good God! it was still only yesterday that the Renown had tried to make her way in under the fire of redhot shot. Buckland had had a day of comparative peace, so that the mention of yesterday did not appear as strange to him.
“We’ll still be under the fire of the battery across the bay, even though we hold this one,” said Buckland.
“We ought to be able to run past it, sir,” protested Bush “We can keep over to this side.”
“And if we do run past? They’ve warped their ships right up the bay again. They draw six feet less of water than we do—and if they’ve got any sense they’ll lighten ‘em so as to warp ‘em farther over the shallows. Nice fools we’ll look if we come in an’ then find ‘em out of range, an’ have to run out again under fire. That might stiffen ‘em so that they wouldn’t agree to the terms that fellow just offered.”
Buckland was in a state of actual alarm at the thought of reporting two fruitless repulses.
“I can see that,” said Bush, depressed.
“If we agree,” said Buckland, warming to his subject, “the blacks’ll take over all this end of the island. This bay can’t be used by privateers then. The blacks’ll have no ships, and couldn’t man ‘em if they had. We’ll have executed our orders. Don’t you agree, Mr. Hornblower?”
Bush transferred his gaze. Hornblower had looked weary in the morning, and he had had almost no rest during the day. His face was drawn and his eyes were rimmed with red.
“We might still be able to—to put the thumbscrews on ‘em, sir,” he said.
“How?”