Bush heard the pipes of the bosun’s mates and strained his ears to hear the orders given.
“Gig’s crew away! Hands to lower the gig!”
Buckland would of course be going off at once to report to the admiral, and just as Bush came to that conclusion Buckland came into the cabin. Naturally he was dressed with the utmost care, in spotless white trousers and his best uniform coat. He was smoothly shaved, and the formal regularity of his neckcloth was the best proof of the anxious attention he had given to it. He carried his cocked hat in his hand as he stooped under the deck beams, and his sword hung from his hip. But he could not speak immediately; he could only stand and stare at Bush. Usually his cheeks were somewhat pudgy, but this morning they were hollow with care; the staring eyes were glassy, and the lips were twitching. A man on his way to the gallows might look like that.
“You’re going to make your report, sir?” asked Bush, after waiting for his superior to speak first.
“Yes,” said Buckland.
Beside his cocked hat he held in his hand the sealed reports over which he had been labouring. Bush had been called in to help him compose the first, the anxious one regarding the displacement of Captain Sawyer from command; and his own personal report was embodied in the second one, redolent with conscious virtue, telling of the capitulation of the Spanish forces in Santo Domingo. But the third, with its account of the uprising of the prisoners on board, and its confession that Buckland had been taken prisoner asleep in bed, had been written without Bush’s help.
“I wish to God I was dead,” said Buckland.
“Don’t say that, sir,” said Bush, as cheerfully as his own apprehensions and his weak state would allow.
“I wish I was,” repeated Buckland.
“Your gig’s alongside, sir,” said Hornblower’s voice. “And the prizes are just anchoring astern of us.”