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 unnatural and disturbing, for the long Atlantic swell, driven by the northeast trades, was passing under her keel while she lay hoveto to the final puffs of the land breeze which had blown since midnight and was now dying away as the fierce sun heated the island again. The Renown was actually wallowing, rolling her lower deck gunports under, first on one side and then on the other, for what little breeze there was was along the swell and did nothing to stiffen her as she lay with her mizzen topsail backed. She would lie right over on one side, until the gun tackles creaked with the strain of holding the guns in position, until it was hard to keep a foothold on the steep-sloping deck; she would lie there for a few harrowing seconds, and then slowly right herself, making no pause at all at the moment when she was upright and her deck horizontal, and continue, with a clattering of blocks and a rattle of gear, in a sickening swoop until she was as far over in the opposite direction, gun tackles creaking and unwary men slipping and siding, and he there unresponsive until the swell had rolled under her and she repeated her behaviour.
“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!”