If they could overwhelm just one of those guns they could train it towards the others. The shock of an attack from behind might cause enough confusion and give Bolitho the diversion he desperately needed.
A seaman fell kicking and clasping his head, blood soaking his hair and shoulders. Herrick stared at him as seamen and marines faltered or blundered against each other in the choking smoke.
Then, as if to a signal, the air was filled with flying rocks and sharper pieces of stone. Herrick heard them hitting flesh and bone, men cursing and staggering while they tried to see their attackers.
Prideaux shouted, “Look! Across that clearing!” He raised a pistol and fired. “Natives from the village!”
More stones hurtled through the smoke, and two men fell, knocked senseless.
Midshipman Pyper crouched beside Herrick, his teeth bared. “What are they attacking us for? We’re here to help!” He sounded more angry than frightened.
Herrick raised his pistol and fired, feeling nothing as a dark figure cartwheeled down the slope and through the charred wall of the hut.
“They think we’re all the same!”
He swore obscenely as a stone hit his shoulder, numbing the whole of his arm so that he lost his grip on the pistol.
“Come on, Prideaux!”
The marine captain was peering through the swirling smoke, his eyes smarting as he watched the naked figures becoming real and menacing as they started to pound up the hillside.
“Ready!” His hanger did not falter as a marine fell sobbing beside him, his jaw broken by a rock. “Aim!”
Herrick dashed sweat from his eyes, gripping his sword with his left hand. He could hear them now. Like baying hounds, rising to a crescendo of hate and despair. It would be better to die than to linger on at their hands, he thought.
“Fire!”
The muskets cracked together, the stabbing flames making the smoke lift above the grim-faced marines.
“Reload! Keep your timing!”
Slightly above them, Finney’s men began to fire, with neither timing nor preparation. Herrick could hear the balls cracking into trees and rocks, the sharp screams which told their own story.
But they were still coming.
Herrick cleared his throat. It felt raw.
“Up, lads!” A spear passed over his head. He saw it, but through his racing mind it meant nothing. He balanced himself carefully on the treacherous stones. “Keep together!”
His eye took in the fact that the marines were moving with practised, jerky motions, like red puppets, arms rising and falling as one while the ramrods tamped home another volley.
“Take aim!”
A marine shrieked and dropped down the slope, his bloodied hands trying to drag a spear from his stomach.
“Fire!”
Again the musket balls swept across the crouching men in a lethal tide. Controlled, but with less authority as two more men fell under the ceaseless bombardment of rocks and spears.
A great chorus of shouts from the militia made Prideaux lose his outward calm. He looked at Herrick. “Finney is being attacked from the other side.” His hanger fell to his side, and he added with bitter disbelief, “God, the buggers are running for it!”
Herrick snatched up a musket from a fallen marine and cocked it, ignoring the agony in his shoulder as he made sure it would fire.
Through his teeth he said, “Send someone to the top again. See if the ship is safe. Quick as you can.”
Prideaux nodded. “Mr Pyper. You go.” He ducked as a spear hissed between them. “Tempest will be dismasted, I shouldn’t wonder.” He took a reloaded pistol from his orderly. “Here they come again.” He smiled tightly. “Put a ball in me rather than leave me, eh?” He walked back to his men. “I’ll do the same for you.”
Herrick watched him. For those few seconds he almost liked the man.
Then they were firing again, reloading and fumbling, firing and crouching together like the last men on earth. Herrick heard ragged shooting from some way off, and guessed that Finney’s men were retreating back to the schooner, all thought of defiance gone out of them.
He pulled the trigger. A misfire. He stood with his legs astride and used the musket like a club, feeling the pain run up his wrists as he smashed down a screaming savage and struck out at two more. All round him the sounds were of people now, the muskets used only for their bayonets, or as crutches for the wounded.
Herrick hurled the musket into a man’s face, noting briefly that his eyes were almost red with fury and the lust to kill. Then he drew his sword again, parrying aside a spear and hacking open a brown shoulder with the same movement.
Above and through it all he heard Pyper calling his name, then, “The ship’s gone about! She’s clearing the entrance!” Then he fell silent, terrified, even dead, Herrick did not know.
He yelled, “Fall back! Carry the wounded!”
He slashed at a figure which had somehow got past the gasping, thrusting marines. Herrick slipped and almost fell, searching wildly for his sword, knowing that his loss had halted the man, that he was turning towards him, his voice lifted in one terrifying shriek.
Another figure ran through the smoke, holding a pistol outstretched in both hands, as if it took all his strength to use it.
The heavy ball took away the native’s forehead and hurled him across Herrick in a welter of blood and convulsing limbs. He had been carrying a long, wavy knife, which fell across Herrick’s shoe and slit it open, merely with its own weight.
Herrick picked it up and recovered his sword. “Thanks, Mr Pyper.”
He waved his arms in the air, realizing that the attackers had melted into the smoke, leaving dead and wounded entwined amongst their discarded weapons.
Prideaux said tersely, “They’ll try to cut us off, damn them!” He watched his marines reloading their muskets and those of their dead or wounded comrades.
Herrick nodded. “It gives us a little time.”
Prideaux regarded him coolly. “For what? Praying?” He swung round angrily. “Be careful, you dolt! You nearly dropped it!” His orderly had been reloading a pistol, and was shaking so badly he seemed barely able to stand. “Go and help the wounded, man. You’re more menace than aid in your state!”
Herrick wiped his face and blinked at the sky. So clear above the smoke. Mocking all of them for their ant-like confusion.
A seaman said, “Four wounded or stunned by them rocks, sir. Five killed. I dunno ’ow many of the militia’s still with us, but I can see several corpses on th’ ’illside.”
Prideaux said angrily, “To hell with them, I say. If I meet Mr Finney again I’ll give him cause to regret he survived!”
Herrick said, “Ready to move.”
He had seen it before. The wildness of a battle going with the suddenness of a squall, leaving men like fallen trees. Useless. Broken.
“Yes.” Prideaux waved his hanger. “Two scouts up ahead!” He glanced at Pyper. “You take charge of the wounded.” His head darted forward. “Is that clear?”
Pyper nodded, his eyes glassy. He was probably remembering how he had nearly been cut off. How he had held the heavy pistol, feeling it gaining weight with each second as he had tried to clear his vision of sweat and fear as the naked, yelling savage had lunged towards the first lieutenant.
“Aye, sir.”
“That is a relief.”
Prideaux strode off again, his heels striking up dust as he hurried after his marines.
Herrick watched the clearing. It was wrong to leave the dead marines, but what could he do? He must lead and rally the survivors. The pirates might be after them as well, although it was unlikely they would wish to cross swords in wild country with natives whose village they had just burned.
He waited for Pyper and his stumbling group of wounded to pass and then walked towards the same rounded
