hoped that Captain Turner's sudden demise would see him on his way.
But if all failed in Cozar the Hyperion needed a good, level-headed man in command, no matter how temporary, and Quarme had proved that he was more than able to run the ship.
Bellamy said anxiously, 'The horizon's clearing, sir.' He was dragging at his watch. 'God, this waiting!'
It was certainly brighter. Bolitho could see the sloop's full upper deck and the black finger of her bowsprit against the paling sky beyond. But for the small ship's sluggish response to helm and wind it was hard to imagine that crammed below decks were all of Ashby's marines, as well as fifty of Hyperion's seamen, with another fifty uncomfortably hidden beneath a tarpaulin on the maindeck itself. It was fortunate that Bellamy was already sailing shorthanded, but nevertheless it took every piece of hold space as well as the berth deck to cram them inside the sloop's hull.
The Chanticleer's own seamen were sitting or lounging around the bulwarks, saying little, and waiting to spread every stitch of canvas as soon as the order was given.
Bolitho's mind strayed to the awful possibility of Quarme's failure to reach the rendezvous in time. All night the sloop had hurried on ahead, just in case some snooping fishing boat or coasting craft should see them sailing in company and kill the only possible chance of success before they had even started.
He looked along the starboard battery of guns. The sloop was armed with eighteen tiny cannon, the whole broadside of which would hardly make a scar on that imposing fortress.
'Ah!' Bellamy let out a gasp as the golden rim of sunlight lanced brightly over the edge of the sea.
And there was the island. Maybe four miles clear, with its humped hills and the fortress square and black against the growing sunlight. Approaching from the west gave the island a different shape, Bolitho thought, but as he lifted his glass he could see the white breakers at the foot of the headland, and realised how tall and formidable the cliff looked by comparison.
He shivered again and was instantly reminded of the months he had lain in his bed at Falmouth. Without effort he could picture the big grey house, the view of the anchorage and Pendennis Castle he had seen from his window between bouts of dizziness and oblivion. The house with its great dark portraits of all the past Bolithos who had lived and died by the sea. It was full of memories, but empty of warmth. For he was the last of the line, with no one to carry on the family tradition.
He thought too of Nancy, his youngest sister. She had watched over him during his illness, and with Allday had nursed him through one agony after another. She adored him, he knew that well enough, and had tried to mother him whenever she got the chance.
Bolitho studied the slow-moving clouds impassively. If he was to die this morning, Nancy would have the old house. She was married to a Falmouth farmer and landowner, a County man who lived only for blood sports and good fare. He also had a ready eye for Bolitho's house, and would be more than ready to move in.
Allday whispered, 'Your sword, Captain.'
Bolitho lifted his arms automatically and felt the firm clasp of the belt about his waist as Allday adjusted the buckle.
Allday muttered, 'It's a mite loose from the last time you wore it, Captain.' He shook his head. 'You need some good Cornish lamb inside you!'
'Don't fuss, damn you!' Bolitho dropped his hand and ran it over the worn hilt. He should have left the old sword hanging in his cabin aboard Hyperion. But the thought of leaving it to fall into someone else's hands, or worse, for it to go to Nancy 's husband, was unbearable. That man would stick it on his wall amongst his fox masks and deer heads like one more shabby souvenir.
He tried to recall exactly the moment when his father had given it to him, but he could no longer obtain a clear picture of the proud old man, with his single arm and thick greying hair.
He lifted the sword a few inches in its scabbard and saw the razor-edged blade glimmer in the frail sunlight. It was old, but it was as true as ever. He snapped, it down and swung round as Bellamy muttered thankfully, `There she is, by God!'
The Hyperion's hull was still deep in shadow, but her topsails and courses were clear and white in the sunlight, like those of a phantom ship. Even as he watched he saw the topgallants appear as if by magic, and the sudden lift of spray around her beakhead as the land breeze found her and heeled her slightly in a tired curtsy.
Allday said, `She's altering course. She's seen us!'
There was a sudden flash from the Hyperion's forecastle, followed within seconds by a dull bang. Everyone on the sloop's deck ducked with alarm 'as a ball screamed overhead and smashed hissing into the sea beyond.
Bellamy gasped, 'I say, that was close!'
Bolitho could feel the same cold excitement that he had known so often in the past, and felt a grin frozen to his face like a mask: 'It was meant to be! This has to look right!' He seized the outraged Bellamy's arm. `Come on then! Jump to it!'
The lieutenant cupped his hands and yelled, `Hands aloft! Loose courses and foretops'll!' He ran to the opposite rail as his men broke into sudden acitivity. `Run up the colours, damn you!' But even he seemed surprised as the makeshift French flag broke from the gaff and whipped defiantly in the wind.
The sloop was responding well, and caught in a lazy offshore swell she threw back the spray from her stem in great white streamers.
The Chanticleer's only other officer joined in the confusion. 'Hands to quarters! Have the guns run out!'
Bolitho watched the ports jerking open and the slim muzzles sniffing above. the creaming water alongside. There, lashed like some snub-nosed beast was the Hyperion's second carronade. It was already loaded and had been doubly checked while Bolitho had slept in his cramped chair.
Such a weapon threw a giant sixty-eight-pound shot which burst on impact. It was crammed with grape, and at short range was murderous in its performance. Today it might be the margin between success and failure.
Another twelve-pound ball whimpered overhead and threw a tall waterspout within half a cable of the sloop's bows.
Bolitho turned as Rooke appeared beside him, his slight figure wrapped in a borrowed pea-jacket. Even like that he somehow looked smart and well turned out.
Rooke said tightly, 'That'll be Mr. Pearse, the gunner. He'll fire each shot himself, if I'm not mistaken, sir.' He tightened his jaw as a third ball slammed hard alongside and deluged the sloop's own gunners with spray.
'He certainly has a good eye.' Bellamy sounded anxious.
Bolitho lifted his glass as a distant trumpet call echoed above the moan of rigging and hiss of spray. He saw the flag rising above the fortress, the gleam of sunlight on a telescope or weapon by the battery wall.
He snapped, 'Alter course, Bellamy! Remember what I told you, and cut as close as you dare to the headland!'
He left Bellamy to his work as the Hyperion changed her tack and swung round menacingly to run almost parallel with the sloop. She was a good mile away, but under her great press of canvas and with the wind under her stem she was moving fast and well. Any observer from the shore would certainly assume she was making a desperate effort to overreach the sloop and catch her before she could tack and enter the safety of the harbour.
There was an echoing roar from the cliff, and they all heard the high-pitohed whine as the ball passed high overhead.
Rooke said, 'I didn't see anything!'
Bolitho bit his lip. Through his glass he had seen a hole appear right in the belly of the Hyperion's main course. It was a very good shot indeed.
He said, 'At least they are concentrating on Quarme for the moment!' But the humour was only in his voice. In the growing light Hyperion held a kind of beauty which he found hard to explain. He could see the angry figurehead, the gleam of reflected water in her tall side, and felt something like pain as another gun fired from the battery to throw a waterspout right alongside the old ship's poop.
That one could possibly have ricocheted into the hull timbers, he thought grimly. When he looked up at the fortress again he saw that there was still no furnace smoke above the ramparts. But it would not take them long to fan the overnight embers awake, and then any such shot could turn the Hyperion into an inferno.
Quarme was too close inshore. Maybe he had misjudged it, or perhaps he wanted it to look extra realistic.
He heard Rooke snarl, 'Tell that fool to hide himself!'
A pair of horny bare feet were protruding from beneath the spread tarpaulins, but they vanished with a yelp as
