'Easy, James. Keep your voice low. We must hold them off the island. They know this place. We only think we know it. Just a handful of them around the fort and who knows what could happen.'
Quinn dropped his head. 'I've heard talk. They don't want to die for a miserable little island which none of them had ever heard of before.'
'You know why we came.' He was surprised yet again by the tone of his own voice. It seemed harder. Colder. But Quinn must understand. If he broke now, it would not be a mere setback, it would be a headlong rout.
Quinn replied, 'The magazine. The fort. But what will it matter, really count for, after we're dead? It's a pin- prick, a gesture.'
Bolitho said quietly, 'You wanted to be a sea officer, more than anything. Your father wanted differently, for you to stay with him in the City of London.' He watched Quinn's face, pale in the darkness, hating himself for speaking as he was, as he must. 'Well, I think he was right. More than you knew. He realized you would never make a King's officer. Not now. Not ever.' He swung away, shaking off Quinn's hand and saying, `Take the first watch here. I will relieve you directly.'
He knew Quinn was staring after him, wretched and hurt.
Stockdale said, 'That took a lot to speak like so, sir. I know 'ow you cares for the young gentleman, but there's others wot depends on 'im.'
Bolitho paused and looked at him. Stockdale understood. Was always there when he needed him.
'Thank you for that.'
Stockdale shrugged his massive shoulders and said, 'It's
nothing. But I thinks about it sometimes.'
Bolitho touched his arm, warmed and moved by his ungainly
companion. 'I'm sure you do, Stockdale.'
Two hours dragged past. The night got colder, or seemed to,
and the first stiffening tension was giving way to fatigue and
aching discomfort.
Bolitho was between the fort and the causeway when he stopped dead and turned his face towards the mainland.
Stockdale stared at him and then nodded heavily. 'Smoke.'
It was getting thicker by the second, acrid and rasping to eyes and throat as it was urged across the island by the wind. There were flames too, dotted about like malicious orange feathers, changing shape through the smoke, spreading and then linking in serried lines of fires.
Midshipman Couzens, who had been walking behind them, asleep on his feet, gasped, 'What does it mean?'
Bolitho broke into a run. 'They've fired the hillside. They'll attack under the smoke.'
He forced his way through groups of startled, retching marines until he found the cannon.
'Get ready to fire!' He picked out FitzHerbert with one of his corporals, a handkerchief wrapped around his mouth and nose. 'Will you tell the major?'
FitzHerbert shook his head, his eyes streaming. 'No time. He'll know anyway.' He dragged out his sword and yelled, 'Stand to! Face your front! Pass the word to the other section!'
He was groping about, coughing and peering for his men, as more marines ran through the smoke, D'Esterre's voice controlling them, demanding silence, restoring some sort of order.
Couzens forgot himself enough to seize Bolitho's sleeve and murmur, 'Listen! Swimming!'
Bolitho pulled out his hanger and felt for his pistol. Near his home in Cornwall there was a ford across a small river. But sometimes, especially in the winter, it flooded and became impassable to wagons and coaches. But he had seen and heard horses often enough to know what was happening now.
'They're swimming their mounts across! '
He swung round as above the sounds of water and hissing fires he heard a long-drawn-out cheer.
D'Esterre shouted, 'They're coming from the causeway as well!' He pushed through his men and added, 'Keep 'em down, Sarn't! Let the cannon have their word first!'
Some armed seamen amongst them blundered out of the darkness and slithered to a halt as Bolitho called, 'Keep with me! Follow the beach!' His mind was reeling, grappling with the swiftness of events, the closeness of disaster.
A cannon roared out, and from somewhere across the water he heard the cheers falter, broken by a chorus of cries and screams.
The second cannon blasted the darkness apart with its long orange tongue, and Bolitho heard the ball smashing into men and sand, and pictured Quinn stricken with fear as the defiant cheers welled back as strong as before.
Stockdale growled, 'There's one of 'em!'
Bolitho balanced himself on the balls of his feet, watching the hurtling shadow charging from the darkness.
Someone fired a pistol, and he saw the horse's eyes, huge and terrified, as it pounded towards the seamen, and then swerved away as another horseman lurched from the water and loomed above them like an avenging beast.
He thought Stockdale was saying to Couzens, 'Easy, son! Keep with me! Stand yer ground!'
Or be may have been speaking to me, he thought.
Then he forgot everything as he felt his hanger jerk against steel and he threw himself to the attack.
Lieutenant James Quinn ducked as musket-fire clattered along the causeway and some of the shots clanged and ricocheted from the two cannon. He was almost blinded by smoke, from the burning hillside and now with additional fog of gun-fire.
Out in the open it seemed far worse than any gundeck.
Metal shrieked overhead, and through the smoke men stumbled and cursed as they rammed home fresh charges and grapeshot to try and hold off the attack.
'Fire!'
Quinn winced as the nearest cannon belched flame and smoke. In the swift glare he saw running figures and a gleam of weapons before darkness closed in again and the air was rent by terrible screams as the murderous grape found a target.
A marine was yelling in his ear, 'The devils are on the island, sir!' He was almost screaming. 'Cavalry!'
Lieutenant FitzHerbert ran through the smoke. 'Silence, that man!' He fired his pistol along the causeway and added savagely, 'You'll start a panic!'
Quinn gasped, 'Cavalry, he said!'
FitzHerbert glared at him, his eyes shining above the handkerchief like stones.
'We'd all be corpses if there was, man! A few riders, no doubtV
Rowhurst shouted hoarsely, 'Gettin' short of powder!' He blundered towards Quinn. 'Damn yer eyes, sir! Do somethin', fer Christ's sake!'
Quinn nodded, his mind empty of everything but fear. He
saw Midshipman Huyghue crouching on one knee as he tried to
level a pistol above a hastily prepared earthwork.
'Tell Mr Bolitho what is happening!'
The youth stood up, uncertain which way to go. Quinn
gripped his arm. 'Along the beach! Fast as you can!'
A shrill voice shouted, ' 'Ere the buggers come!'
FitzHerbert threw his handkerchief away and waved his
sword. 'Sar'nt Triggs!'
A corporal said, 'He's dead, sir.'
The marine lieutenant looked away. 'God Almighty!' Then as the shouts and whooping cheers echoed across the water he added, 'Forward, marines!'
Stumbling and choking in the smoke, the marines emerged from their gullies and ditches, their bayonets rising in obedience to the order, their feet searching for firm ground as they peered with stinging eyes for a sign of their enemy.
