Hornblower swallowed the realisation that it was possible for a man not to be able to continue from that point with a single leap of his imagination.
“The landing party can make their way up to the crest without difficulty, sir. There’s no question of losing their way—the sea one side and Samaná Bay on the other. They can move forward along the crest. At dawn they can rush the fort. What with the marsh and the cliffs the Dons’ll keep a poor lookout on that side, I fancy, sir.”
“You make it sound very easy, Mr. Hornblower. But—a hundred and eighty men?”
“Enough, I think, sir.”
“What makes you think so?”
“There were six guns firing at us from the fort, sir. Ninety men at most—sixty more likely. Ammunition party; men to heat the furnaces. A hundred and fifty men altogether; perhaps as few as a hundred.”
“But why should that be all they had?”
“The Dons have nothing to fear on that side of the island. They’re holding out against the blacks, and the French, maybe, and the English in Jamaica. There’s nothing to tempt the blacks to attack ‘em across the marshes. It’s south of Samaná Bay that the danger lies. The Dons’ll have every man that can carry a musket on that side. That’s where the cities are. That’s where this fellow Toussaint, or whatever his name is, will be threatening ‘em, sir.”
The last word of this long speech came as a fortunate afterthought; Hornblower clearly was restraining himself from pointing out the obvious too didactically to his superior officer. And Bush could see Buckland squirm in discomfort at this casual mention of blacks and French. Those secret orders—which Bush had not been allowed to read—must lay down some drastic instructions regarding the complicated political situation in Santo Domingo, where the revolted slaves, the French, and the Spaniards (nominal allies though these last might be, elsewhere in the world) all contended for the mastery.
“We’ll leave the blacks and the French out of this,” said Buckland, confirming Bush’s suspicions.