against his hip. “After that…” He shrugged.
With her canvas flapping noisily, Tempest’s shadow rode across the moon’s path, while the three boats were swayed out and the seamen and marines scrambled into them.
Two boats would have been sufficient under normal circumstances, but with the additional hands required to pull them back to the ship, overcrowding would have added a full hour to the operation.
Bolitho made a last check in his mind. Lieutenant Keen, aged twenty-two, was his second in command. James Ross, master’s mate, a thickset Scot with dark red hair, would add weight and experience to the party. Sergeant Quare and his six sharpshooters, all strangely unrecognizable without their usual scarlet coats, and hugging their long muskets like backwoodsmen. Midshipman Swift and Miller, a boatswain’s mate, completed the authority.
The bulk of the men had been chosen for their skills, their ability to obey under almost any conditions, and some because they would kill without hesitation if such was the need.
He took a long breath. “Carry on, Mr Ross.”
He saw the master’s mate raise his fist and then the cutter began to move away. From the deck it looked crammed with men, oars and weapons. Next Tempest’s launch, and her largest longboat, idled clear of the side, oars in momentary confusion until the current swung them away from the ship’s undertow. Bolitho saw Keen, very upright in the sternsheets, his shirt holding the moonlight like a banner. Allday was already in the gig, as were Midshipman Swift and the rest of the last group.
Bolitho touched Herrick’s arm. “Perhaps when this is done you may have more respect for Captain Cook’s description of the islands.” He smiled grimly. “Take care, Thomas.” Then he lowered himself down the side and jumped out into the gig.
Allday said, “Shove off! Out oars! Give way all!”
The gig plunged and rose steeply in the swell, and now they were clear of the ship’s hull Bolitho could hear the hiss and boom of breakers.
He glanced along the boat at the regular rise and fall of the oars. It was not easy to pull smoothly with the boat filled with arms and legs. He noticed too that his gig’s crew had donned their chequered shirts which they always wore for taking their captain on his normal affairs of duty.
This was hardly normal, and he was moved to say, “Thank you, lads.” But nobody spoke, and the only sound to match the sea was the steady creak of oars.
When he looked astern again Tempest was only a tall shadow with the moon’s silver across her flapping topsails.
As soon as the boats were safely hoisted inboard again she would set every stitch of canvas she could carry to stand clear of the land as fast as possible.
A shuttered lantern blinked from the leading boat. Ross had sighted the first elbow of rocks. They must follow through one gap and then a second. After that it was no more than a cable to the beach. If it was there.
“Watch your helm, Allday. This is the worst part.”
He saw the quick exchanges throughout the boat. It was best for everyone to know all the risks and not just some of them, he thought.
The sea noises changed again, the great surge of water against the outer reef muffled slightly as the three boats forged steadily around the glistening crags of rock. Little waterfalls changed to surging torrents as the tide cascaded over and around the rock barrier, making pools and lakes and just as quickly draining them again.
The bowman called, “Beach dead ahead, sir!” A pause. “Cutter’s already there!”
By the time Allday had steered the gig through the last scattering of rocks and lined up the stem with the tiny patch of beach, the cutter was already passing on the return trip.
The bowman leapt down and almost fell as he guided the boat into the shallows, and more men waded out to stop her from broaching to.
Men, weapons, discipline. Bolitho watched his gig backing water with the oars, the crew’s check shirts already more distinct in the first hint of dawn.
He felt Allday’s grip steadying him as he climbed up the wet sand and on to some fallen boulders. They were all cut off. And he had brought them here.
He said, “I will lead with my party, Mr Keen. You will bear south and then east as soon as we get off the beach. Good luck.”
With Allday and Midshipman Swift at his heels he turned and looked up the steep, sun-cracked slope. If ever he had needed his confidence, it was now, he decided.
5. Now Or Never
“WE WILL rest here.” Bolitho lowered himself on one knee and unslung the telescope from his shoulder. “Sergeant Quare’s scouts will be back directly.”
The gasping, sweating file of seamen climbed over the lip of a small gully and found what shelter they could amongst thick, prickly bushes. The sun was higher, and the heat which was thrown back from the hillside and cracked boulders fiercer than ever.
Bolitho trained his telescope on the nearest of the island’s five hills. It was more rounded than the others, so that it looked hunched, leaning away from him towards the sea on the other side. He saw a brief glitter of reflection, probably on a weapon, as one of the scouts paused to examine one of the many small gullies.
But nothing else moved. It was like a dead place. Harder now to believe that the Eurotas was anchored beyond the big hill. That she had ever been there.
Midshipman Swift scrambled over loose stones, his tanned features shining with sweat.
He liked Swift. More so since his willingness to go aloft in the storm to rescue Romney. He had pleasant, regular features, and hair so bleached by sun and salt Bolitho doubted if his mother would recognize him. Swift had been barely fifteen when she had last seen him. When she saw him next, with any kind of luck, he would be a lieutenant.
Bolitho said, “Pass the word. Just take a sip of water. See that they don’t drink the whole lot at once.”
He felt the wind ruffling his hair, and shifted his glass towards the sea. It was rarely out of sight in this island. It was hard to believe they had come through a storm. How blue the sea looked with just the cruising movement of white horses to betray the wind which had carried Tempest away to the south under full canvas. Now, it was empty, reaching away towards the larger islands and sluicing over the long reef barriers to show the set of the tide and yet another change of wind.
Sergeant Quare strode through the dusty bushes, his boots covered in salt and sand. He was a tall, powerful man, with intense pride in his marines and what they could do.
Bolitho nodded to him. “Seems quiet enough.”
Quare lowered a musket to the ground and slitted his eyes in the glare.
“Two more hours and we should see something, sir.” He had a round, Devonian dialect which was like a touch of home. He hesitated. “ ’Course, the ship might have up-anchored already, sir.”
“Yes.”
Bolitho took a flask from Allday and let a little water trickle over his tongue. Brackish from the ship’s casks, yet it tasted like the best wine in St James’s.
Quare straightened his back, his eyes on the opposite slope.
“Here comes Blissett, sir.”
The scout in question loped down the slope towards them, seemingly without effort, his musket held high to avoid striking the ground.
Bolitho knew something of Blissett’s past, and why Quare had selected him as a scout. The marine had once worked on a vast estate in Norfolk. As one of the gamekeepers, and a fine shot to boot, he had enjoyed a good and fairly comfortable life. Until, that was, he had set his cap at the niece of his lord and master. Bolitho imagined that the matter was probably more complicated than Quare knew, but the end result was that Blissett had been thrown out of work and had gone into town to drown his sorrows. A recruiting party had been at the inn also, and the rest, marked down in a haze of despair and bravado, was now history.
The Island of Five Hills must seem very different from Norfolk.
