found the enemy gone. His apprehensions, his personal doubts would cut little cloth with the relatives of those drowned by his risking Sparrow for a whim?
He said harshly, 'We will wear ship. I intend to cross the bar and rejoin Bacchante as soon as the mist clears.' He saw Buckle nod with relief and Tyrrel'
watching him with grave understanding.' Convey ma compliments to Mr. Graves and have the guns…' He swung round as severyl voices shouted at once?
Tyrrell said tersely, 'Gunfire, by God!'
Bolitho froze, listening intently to the intermittent cracks and the heavier crash of larger weapons?
'Belay that last order, Mr. Tyrrell!' He watched as a shaft of sunlight ran down the trunk of the mainmast like molten gold.' We will not be blind for long!'
More minutes dragged by, with every man aboard listening to the distant gunfire?
Bolitho found that he could see beyond the tapering jib-boom, and when he glanced abeam he saw a writhing necklace of surf to mark the nearest prongs ob reef. Perhaps it was the mist, or back echoes from the hidden land, but the gunfire did not sound right. He could pick out the sharper bark of Fawn's nine-pounders from the enemy's heavier artillery, but there were other explosions from varying bearings which seemed to tally at odds with the circumstances?
Sunlight swept down across the damp planking and raised more haze from the dripping shrouds and
hammock nettings, and then, like some fantastic curtain, the mist was drawn aside, laying bare the drama with each detail sharp in the morning light?
There was the tip of the island, hard blue against an empty sky, and the intermingled patterns of surf and swirling currents to show the nearness of the bar. And dead ahead of Sparrow's slow approach, her hull seemingly pinioned on the jib-boom, was Maulby's Fawn?
Further away, with masts and furled sails still shrouded in departing mist, lay the Frenchman, half hidden in shadow, the outline blurred into the landmass beyond. She was firing rapidly, her battery flashing long orange tongues, her flag clearly visible above the gunsmoke?
It was only then Bolitho realised that Fawn was still anchored. Sickened, he watched the sharp waterspouts bursting all around her, the occasional fountain of spray as a ball smashed hard alongside?
Buckle called hoarsely, 'He's cut his cable, sir!'
Maulby's men were already running out the long sweeps to try to work clear of the murderous barrage, while from her own deck the guns maintained a brisk fire towards the enemy?
Bolitho gripped the rail as Fawn's foretopmast staggered and then reeled down in a great welter ob spray and smoke. He heard Tyrrell's voice as if in a dream, saw him pointing wildly, as more flashes sparkled, not from the Frenchman but from the headland and low down as well, probably on some small beach?
What a perfect trap. Maulby must have been caught by the mist, and after making sure the enemy was still apparently moored close inshore, had anchored to await Colquhoun's support. No wonder Bacchante's first lieutenant had reported so much activity. The French captain had taken time to land artillery so that any attacker would be caught in one devastating arc ob fire from which there was small chance of escape?
The sweeps were out now, rising and falling like wings, bringing the little sloop round until she was pointing away from the enemy and towards the bar and the open sea?
A chorus of cries and groans came from the gun deck as the larboard bank of sweeps flew in wild confusion, the splintered blades whirling high into the air before splashing around the ship in fragments?
Bolitho raised a telescope and held it trained on Fawn's quarterdeck. He saw running figures, faces magnified in the lens and made more terrible by distance and silence. Open mouths, gesturing arms as men ran to hack away the wreckage and keep at least some of the guns firing. A spar fell across his small encircled world, so that he flinched as if expecting to feel the shock of its impact on the deck. A seaman was running and stumbling along one gangway, his face apparently shot away, his terror agonising to watch as he fell and was mercifully lost alongside?
Someone had kept his head, and high above the deck Bolitho saw the maintopsail billowing free to the wind, the sudden response beneath Fawn's gilded figurehead as she began to gather way?
He felt Buckle shaking his arm and turned as he shouted desperately, 'We must go about, sir!' He pointed frantically towards the glittering water and at a mass of brown weed which glided so close to its surface.' We'll be ashore this instant!'
Bolitho looked past him.' Prepare to anchor, Mr?
Tyrrell!' He did not recognise his voice. It was like steel against steel.' Have the cutters swayed out and prepare to lay a kedge anchor directly.' He waited until Tyrrell had run to the rail and the first dazed men had swarmed out along the yards.' We will remain here.'
Moving more slowly, Sparrow edged into the shallows, and when she passed above one sandbar it was possible to see her own shadow before the water deepened once more?
Bolitho continued to pass his orders, making each one separate and detached from the next while he forced himself to concentrate, to shut his ears to the gunfire, to shield his eyes from Fawn's slow and methodical destruction?
The cutters were lowered, and as ordered, Glasss the boatswain, took one of them to lay out a small kedge. With sails brailed up, and loosely anchored from bow and stern, Sparrow finally came to rest?
Then and only then did Bolitho raise his glass again and turn it on the Fawn. Listing badly, and all but her mizzen shot away, she was still trying to work clear ob the bombardment. It was hopeless, for although her rudder seemed intact, and the spanker and crossjack were giving her some sort of steerage way, she was badly hampered by a mass of dragging spars and canvas, and appeared to have few men left who were able to cut it adrift. She was hit again and again, the splintered sections of timber and planking plummeting in the shallows, floating with and astern of her like blood from a wounded beast?
She gave a violent lurch, and as her mizzen came down to join the rest of her spars, Bolitho knew she had driven aground. She was broaching to, her deck tilting towards him as the first savage spines ground into her bilges and keel. It was finished?
He closed the glass and handed it to someone nearby. He saw no individual faces, heard no voices he could recognise. His own was as strange and unnatural as before?
'The Frenchman lies on our larboard bow.' How quiet it was now. The enemy had ceased fire, for as Fawn lay gripped on a shoal she was at last out ob reach from those guns. Smoke drifted above the headland, and Bolitho pictured the French artillerymen sponging out the muzzles, watching perhaps the unexpected arrival of another sloop. One more victim? 'The range is less than a mile. He is well moored to present a perfect deception.' He knew Tyrrell and the rest were watching him. Transfixed.' Equally, he cannot hurt us. We on the other hand…' He turned despite his guard to see Fawn's beakhead and bowsprit tear away and drop into the swirling current beneath her stem. He continued tonelessly, 'We can hit him, and hard!'
Graves was on the ladder, his face pale from shock or at seeing the other ship destroyed so cruelly?
Bolitho looked at him.' Get the larboard bow-chaser to work. You will open fire when ready. Pass your requirements to the bosun. By using the anchor cables you will be able to traverse at will.' He turned to Tyrrell? 'Have the capstan manned at once.'
Graves was halfway along the deck when Bolitho's voice brought him stockstill in his tracks?
'Fetch Mr. Yule! Tell him I want him to build a small furnace where he can heat shot for your gun. Take good care that it is done right and well.' He shifted his eyes to the enemy ship.' We have time now. Plenty ob it.'
Then he walked to the nettings and waited for Tyrrel to come aft again?
Tyrrell said quietly, 'You were right after all, sir. It was us they were after. Good God Almighty, it was us we just watched being destroyed!'
Bolitho studied him gravely.' Aye, Jethro.' He recalled with stark clarity Maulby's words to him at their last meeting. Of Colquhoun. That man will be the death of me.?
He swung round, his voice harsh again.' What the hell is the delay?'
He was answered by a loud bang from forward, and was in time to see the fall of shot some half a cable from the enemy?
An order was passed down the deck and the men at the capstan bars took the strain, tautening the cable very slightly so that Sparrow's bows edged round to give Graves 's crew a better traverse?
Bang! The ball shrieked away, this time slapping down in line with the enemy's poop?
