Herrick thought about Bolitho and pictured him here. Now. What would he do? He grinned in spite of his apprehension. He was not here. He had sent his first lieutenant.
He looked up, sniffing the air. There was the smoke right enough. It was shimmering over a low hill, staining the sky.
Prideaux said harshly, “By God, this is hard going!”
Midshipman Pyper turned to Herrick and said, “I think I should go ahead with a guide, sir.” He was rather a serious youth, but likeable.
Herrick paused, hiding his surprise. That was what Bolitho would have done.
“I was thinking along that tack, Mr Pyper. But I’ll go myself.” He waved to Finney. “Halt the men and put out your pickets. I want the best guide, double-quick!” It was amazing how easily it was coming to him now. “Right, Mr Pyper, you can come too.” He slapped his shoulder.
Pyper stared at him, unaware what he had done to excite his lieutenant.
“Aye, sir.”
Prideaux said wearily, “Attack from the rear. Five or six volleys and a charge of canister would do just as well. Less work, too. They’d run like rabbits. Right under Tempest’s guns.”
Herrick looked at him, trying to mask his anger. Prideaux always swept other people’s plans away with a few simple remarks. The trouble was, he always sounded so confident.
“We shall see,” Herrick replied stiffly. “And in the meantime…”
He turned and hurried towards the waiting guide, a squat native, quite naked, and whose ears were split and transfixed by sharp bones.
Pyper grimaced. “He stinks a bit, sir.”
The guide showed his teeth. They were filed like marlin spikes.
“God.” Herrick examined his pistol and loosened his sword. “Come along then.”
The island was tiny, but after blundering and crawling over scrub and stone, and thrusting between tightly interwoven fronds, Herrick imagined it must be twice the size of Kent.
The guide bobbed round some rotting trunks and jabbed his hand towards the thickening smoke. He was excited.
Herrick said tightly, “We’ll have a look.”
He dropped on his knees once again and followed the guide’s scarred and dusty rump through a clump of prickly scrub.
Pyper exclaimed, “Masts and yards, sir! They’re anchored right below the village, where the smoke is coming from!”
Herrick shook his head. “Insolent buggers. They are that sure of their safety while they do their work.” He rubbed his hands, “Tempest will be able to take her time and blow them apart as she pleases.” He turned round with difficulty. “We’ll tell the others.” He looked at the Midshipman. “Well?”
Pyper flushed. “I thought-well, I was once told-”
“Spit it out or we’ll be here all day!”
Pyper said firmly, “Hadn’t we better look at those vessels first, sir? One might be better armed than the other. Perhaps we could get our sharpshooters to pick off her seamen if she seems likely to weigh first.” He added lamely, “I am sorry, sir.”
Herrick sighed. “You are quite right.” It must be the heat. “I should have thought of it.”
Leaving the perplexed guide amongst the scrub, Herrick and the midshipman wriggled further towards a dip in the bill. Then they saw the inlet, a line of huts blazing and crackling along the far bank like torches, and smoke hiding the water beneath them.
To the left was a jutting wedge of land, while closer to the hill and partly hidden from Herrick were the other huts. But he could only stare at the jutting piece of land and the beach below it.
“There are the ships, Mr Pyper.”
He could still not really accept it. The masts and yards looked real enough, but they were rigged to stand on the short beach, held upright by long stays and plaited creepers. There was even a masthead pendant on one of them, and Herrick realized that the loosely brailed-up sails were in fact crude matting.
The truth thrust into his dazed thoughts like ice water. If they seemed genuine to him this close, to Tempest’s masthead lookouts as she forged towards the headland they would appear perfect. Two vessels at anchor, their crews intent on pillage and murder ashore.
Pyper stared at him, his face filled with confusion.
“What will we do, sir?”
Herrick felt his throat go dry. Just above the out-thrust wedge of land he had seen something move. Tempest was here already. He could picture her exactly as if she were not hidden. Guns manned. Officers at their stations. Bolitho and Lakey on the quarterdeck.
He felt something akin to panic. What was waiting for her? Where were the pirates? He could hear occasional musket and pistol shots, and there was much more smoke now.
Something glinted beyond the burning huts, and Pyper said thickly, “A battery. Some big guns, sir.”
So that was it. It was all frighteningly clear to Herrick. Like walking to the edge of a grave and seeing yourself there.
The message, the dummy masts, the burning village had been a combined plan. To lure Tempest to the inlet.
Herrick stood up, regardless of the danger. Due to the wretched schooner, to everything which had happened since their arrival in the islands, Bolitho was unwarned and unready.
He heard himself say, “Run back! Tell Captain Prideaux I want a full-scale attack here and now!” He saw the shocked understanding on Pyper’s face. “I know. We’ll not be able to get away. But we’ll save the ship. Remember that.”
Then, as Pyper stumbled away and the naked guide watched him with fixed fascination, Herrick cocked his pistol and drew his sword.
“By th’ mark seven!”
Bolitho looked at Lakey’s intent face as the leadsman’s voice drifted aft from the chains. He restrained himself from using a telescope again and stood with his hands on his hips, trying to visualize his ship and the narrowing strip of water, the undulating barrier of land as a single panorama. After coming on deck before dawn, and going over the charts and calculations with Lakey and his two lieutenants, Bolitho was as prepared as any captain could be when approaching a little-known island. Island? It was not much more than the ridge of a drowned mountain, he thought.
He watched the surge of current around the nearest clump of rocks, the drag of it as it receded in a bright welter of spray. But the wind, hesitant though it was so near to land, was still holding, and steady. He glanced up at the long masthead pendant as it licked away towards the starboard bow. Wind and depth. The ability to stop the ship and anchor. The procession of thoughts and precautions trooped through his mind like persistent beetles.
“Deep eight!”
Lakey said sharply, “More like it.”
Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and looked down at the guns. Here and there a man moved nervously or took another pull on a gun tackle. Bare feet scraped on the sanded decks, and high in the maintop some marines were swinging a swivel gun back and forth in a silent bombardment. He saw Lieutenant Keen standing between the lines of twelve-pounders, bending at the waist to peer through one of the open ports, but keeping his arms folded as if to show how calm he was.
Two midshipmen were assisting him at the divisions of guns, the pug-faced Fitzmaurice and the slight figure of young Romney. Swift stood with his signal party on the quarterdeck, while Borlase, puffing and emptying his cheeks like a fretful baby, moved restlessly by the starboard gangway.
All there. Ready and waiting for something to happen.
Bolitho glanced at the half-hour glass beside the compass. He wanted to take out his watch to be sure, but knew it would be seen as agitation, uncertainty. He had been aware of the men nearby, watching him. Looking away quickly as his gaze had passed over them.
But it was taking far too long. If they had to change tack now it would be an age before they could work back towards the inlet. He studied the out-thrust wedge of land, the only thing recognizable from the bald description on
