Jury whispered, “What are they doing, sir?”
“The San Augustin is preparing to leave.” He rolled on his back, oblivious to the jagged stones as he tried to think clearly. “Destiny cannot fight them all. We must act now.”
He saw the frown on Jury’s face. He had never thought otherwise. Was I like him once? So trusting that I believed we can never be beaten?
He said, “See? More boats are coming down to her. Garrick’s treasure. It has all been for this. His own flotilla, and now a forty-four-gun ship to do with as he will. Captain Dumaresq was right. There is nothing to stop him.” He smiled gravely. “But Destiny.”
Bolitho could see it as if it had already happened. Destiny standing close inshore to provide a diversion for Palliser, while all the time the captured San Augustin lay here, like a tiger ready to pounce. In confined waters, Destiny would stand no chance at all.
“We must get back.”
Bolitho lowered himself through the boulders, his mind still refusing to accept what had to be done.
Colpoys could barely hide his relief as they scrambled up to join him on the ridge.
He said, “They’ve been working all the time. Clearing those huts. They’ve slaves with them too, poor devils. I saw more than one laid flat by a piece of chain.”
Colpoys fell silent until Bolitho had finished describing what he had seen.
Then he said, “Look here. I know what you’re thinking. Because this is a damnable, rotten useless island which nobody cares about and precious few have even heard of, you feel cheated. Unwilling to risk lives, your own included. But it’s like that. Big battles and waving flags are rare. This will be described as a skirmish, an ‘incident’, if you must know. But it matters if we think it does.” He lay back and studied Bolitho calmly. “I say to hell with caution. We’ll go for that cannon without waiting for the dawn tomorrow. They’ve nothing else which will bear on the lagoon. All the other guns are dug-in on the hill-top. It will take hours to shift ’em.” He grinned. “A whole battle can be won or lost in that time!”
Bolitho took the telescope again, his hands shaking as he trained it on the ridge and the partly covered cannon. It was even the same lookout as before.
Jury said huskily, “They’ve stopped work.”
“No wonder.” Colpoys shaded his eyes. “See yonder, young fellow. Isn’t that a cause enough for dying?”
Destiny moved slowly into view, her topsails and topgallants very pale against the hard blue sky.
Bolitho stared at her, imagining her sounds now lost in distance, her smells, her familiarity.
He felt like a man dying of thirst as he sees a wine jar in a desert’s image. Or someone on his way to the gallows who pauses to listen to an early sparrow. Each knows that tomorrow there will be no wine, and no birds will sing.
He said flatly, “Let’s be about it then. I’ll tell the others. If only there was some way of informing Mr Palliser.”
Colpoys backed down the slope. Then he looked at Bolitho, his eyes yellow in the sunlight.
“He’ll know, Richard. The whole damned island will!”
Colpoys wiped his face and neck with his handkerchief. It was afternoon, and the blazing heat thrown back at them from the rocks was sheer torment.
But waiting had paid off. Most of the activity around the huts had ceased, and smoke from several fires drifted towards the hidden seamen and marines, bringing smells of roasting meat as an additional torture.
Colpoys said, “They’ll rest after they’ve eaten.” He glanced at his corporal. “Issue the rations and water, Dyer.” To Bolitho he added quietly, “I estimate that gun to be a cable’s distance from us.” He squinted his eyes as he examined the slope and the steep climb to the other ridge. “If we start, there’ll be no stopping. I think there are several men with the cannon. Probably in some sort of magazine underground.” He took a cup of water from his orderly and sipped it slowly. “Well?”
Bolitho lowered the telescope and rested his forehead on his arm. “We’ll risk it.”
He tried not to measure it in his mind. Two hundred yards across open ground, and then what?
He said tightly, “Little and his crew can take care of the gun. We’ll attack the ridge from both sides at once. Mr Cowdroy can take charge of the second party.” He saw Colpoys grimace and added, “He’s the senior one of the pair, and he’s experienced.”
Colpoys nodded. “I’ll place my marksmen where they’ll do the most good. Once you’ve taken the ridge, I’ll support you.” He held out his hand. “If you fail, I’ll lead the shortest bayonet-charge in the Corps’ history!”
And then, all of a sudden they were ready. The earlier uncertainty and tension was gone, wiped away, and the men gathered in their tight little groups with grim but determined faces. Josh Little with his gun-crew, festooned with the tools of their trade, and extra charges of powder and some shot.
Midshipman Cowdroy, his petulant face set in a scowl, had already drawn his hanger and was checking his pistol. Ellis Pearse, boatswain’s mate, carried his own weapon, a fearsome, doubleedged boarding-cutlass which had been made specially for him by a blacksmith. The marines had dispersed amongst the rocks, their long muskets probing the open ground and further towards the flat-topped hill-side.
Bolitho stood up and looked at his own men. Dutchy Vorbink, Olsson, the mad Swede, Bill Bunce, an ex- poacher, Kennedy, a man who had escaped jail by volunteering for the Navy, and many others he had come to know so well.
Stockdale wheezed, “I’ll be with you, sir.”
Their eyes met.
“Not this time. You stay with Little. That gun has got to be taken, Stockdale. Without it we might as well die here and now.” He touched his thick arm. “Believe me. We are all depending on you today.”
He turned away, unable to watch the big man’s pain.
To Jury he said, “You can keep with Lieutenant Colpoys.”
“Is that an order, sir?”
Bolitho saw the boy’s chin lift stubbornly. What were they trying to do to him?
He replied, “No.”
A man whispered, “The sentry’s climbed down out of sight!”
Little chuckled. “Gone for a wet.”
Bolitho found his feet already over the edge, his hanger glinting in the sunlight as he pointed towards the opposite ridge.
“Come on then! At ’em, lads! ”
Heedless now of noise and deception, they charged down the slope, their feet kicking up dust and stones, their breath rasping fiercely, as they kept their eyes fixed on the ridge. They reached the bottom of the slope and pounded across open ground, oblivious to everything but the hidden gun.
Somewhere, a million miles away, someone yelled, and a shot whined across the hill-side. More voices swelled and faded as the men by the lagoon stampeded for their weapons, probably imagining that they were under attack from the sea.
Three heads suddenly appeared on the top of the ridge even as the first of Bolitho’s men reached the foot. Colpoys’ muskets banged seemingly ineffectually and from far away, but two of the heads vanished, and the third man bounded in the air before rolling down the slope amongst the British sailors.
“Come on!” Bolitho waved his hanger. “Faster!”
From one side a musket fired past him, and a seaman fell clutching his thigh, and then sprawled sobbing as his companions charged on towards the top.
Bolitho’s breath felt like hot sand in his lungs as he leapt over a crude parapet of stones. More shots hammered past him, and he knew some of his men had fallen.
He saw the glint of metal, a wheel of the cannon beneath its canvas cover, and yelled, “Watch out!”
But from beneath the canvas one of the hidden men fired a fully charged musketoon into the advancing seamen. One was hurled on his back, his face and most of his skull blasted away, and three others fell kicking in their own blood.
With a roar like an enraged beast, Pearse threw himself from the opposite of the gun-pit and slashed the canvas apart with his double-edged blade.
A figure ran from the pit, covering his head with his hands and screaming, “Quarter! Quarter!”
