a petty officer lashed out with his rattan.
Bellamy was more concerned with his own ship than the Hyperion's danger. He was beside the wheel watching both binnacle and sails as the dark-sided headland crept out as if to meet the Chanticleer's bows head on.
He dropped his hand. 'Braces therel Lively, you idle bastards!'
Groaning and protesting the sloop quivered and then heeled over to the thrust of wind and rudder. One snag- toothed rock seemed almost to graze the hull as she surged around the headland to where the flat water of the harbour greeted her like a placid trap.
Bolitho said quietly, 'Shorten sail now, Mr. Bellamy. And pass the word to the men below.' His hand against the sword hilt felt clammy with sweat.
He turned to watch the Hyperion's shape shorten as she started to tack closer inshore. She too had reduced sail, and he held his breath as two more waterspouts lifted within feet of her side. The French were firing more rapidly now, and it seemed likely that they had acted just as he had anticipated by moving more of the guns to the seaward side of the battery.
He swung round to face forward, unable to watch the Hyperion's dangerous manoeuvres. He saw that some of the sloop's men were clustered by the forecastle, watching the widening approaches of the harbour. He shouted angrily, 'Look astern, you idiots! If you were Frogs you'd be more afraid of the Hyperion than your own anchorage!'
His words steadied them and helped to break the tension of his own thoughts.
Rooke said, 'There's the landing place, sir!'
Bolitho nodded. It was little more than a wooden pier below a rough, narrow road which twisted away between a great cleft in the hillside beyond. There were many figures already there, and he could just make out the muzzle of an old fieldpiece crouching between its two massive iron wheels.
'Steady now, Mr. Bellamy.' He had to lick the dryness from his lips. 'Make for the anchorage beyond the pier. But when we are within a cable of the landing place get the sails off her and steer for the pier! You'll be in the lee of the hill by then, the ship's own way should take her in!'
Bellamy tore his eyes from the bows. 'It won't do my timbers any good, sir!' But he grinned. 'My God, this is better than running the fleet mails!'
Bolitho caught a glimpse of Inch, the Hyperion's horsefaced junior lieutenant, his head framed in an open hatch, and knew that the rest of the landing party were packed behind him like peas in a barrel. It must be worse for them, he thought vaguely. Crammed in the sloop's small hull in complete darkness, with nothing but fear and the sounds of gunfire to keep them company.
He snapped, 'Wave to the soldiers on the pier!' Some of the sailors gaped at him. 'Wave! You've just escaped the bloody English!'
He sounded so wild and angry that several of the men actually yelled with insane laughter and capered like madmen as the figures on the pier began to wave back.
Bolitho wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve and then said quietly, 'When you are ready, Mr. Bellamy.'
When he glanced briefly astern the harbour mouth was already sealed by the outflung wedge of headland. Above it he could see the Hyperion's upper yards and felt an overwhelming relief as he realised that she was already going about and heading for the safety of the open sea.
Then Bellamy barked, 'Now! Helm alee!'
When he faced forward again, Bolitho saw that the bowsprit was pointing straight towards the cleft in the hillside. Very deliberately he drew his sword from its scabbard and began to walk towards the caironade.
5. SHORT AND SHARP
With the sails whisked from her yards the Chanticleer continued to glide steadily towards the rough wooden pier where some thirty or so French soldiers had gathered to watch her approach. Slightly to one side of the chattering soldiers a disdainful, moustached officer sat stiffly on his horse, only his hands and feet moving to, calm his mount as the battery guns continued to fire after the invisible Hyperion.
Then, as the sloop swung drunkenly towards them, the men nearest the water's edge seemed to realise that something was wrong. In the next few seconds everything happened at once.
From right forward in the bows a whistle shrilled, and as the last gunport was raised and the carronade trundled into full view the deck tarpaulin was hauled aside, and from beneath it and from every hatch the sloop became alive with swarming seamen and marines.
Too late the soldiers tried to press back towards the safety of the narrow road, but behind them there were others trying to push further forward on to the pier, and here and there a man still cheered and waved towards the sloop's topmasts and the flapping French flag.
The carronade's roar was like a thunderclap. Penned in by the cliffs, the explosion was so great that it started several tiny avalanches of loose stones, whilst high against the sky hundreds of terrified seabirds wheeled and screamed in protest.
The great ball cleaved through the packed troops and struck the iron-wheeled cannon beyond. There was another great flash, and as the smoke swirled back across the sloop's tilting deck Bolitho saw the soldiers falling and dying, their ranks carved apart in bright scarlet channels.
He waved his sword. 'Fire!'
This time it was the turn of the small deck guns. They were already loaded with canister, and as their whiplike cracks momentarily overcame the screams and terrified shouts on the shore the contents of their little muzzles sprayed across the remaining survivors, cutting them down like grass before a scythe.
Bolitho hurled himself over the bulwark, his shoes skidding on blood and torn flesh, while at his back the seamen surged to follow, their eyes blank, as if dazed by the slaughter around them…
Grapnels dug into the pier, and with a final lurching groan of protest the Chanticleer came to a halt, her deck trembling as marines and sailors tumbled ashore to be held and checked into some sort of order by their officers.
A mere handful of Frenchmen were running back up the road, followed by musket shots from eager marines and jeers from the seamen who were armed mainly with pikes and
cutlasses.
Bolitho grabbed Ashby's arm. 'You know what to do! Keep your squads well apart. I want it to look as if you've got double the men available. Ashby was nodding violently, his face scarlet from shouting and running.
It took a good deal more yelling to get the maddened marines to fall in on the road, their uniforms clashing with the grisly remains and writhing wounded about them.
It was only then that Bolitho realised the French officer and 'his horse had somehow escaped the onslaught of grape and canister unscathed. A sailor ran to' catch the horse's bridle, but in one swift movement the officer raised his sabre and cut him down. The man fell without a sound, and something like a sigh rose from the motionless marines.
There was a single pistol-shot, and dignified to the end, the French officer toppled from his saddle to lie beside the landing party's first casualty.
Lieutenant Shanks handed the smoking pistol to his orderly. 'Reload,', be said curtly. Then to Ashby he added formally, 'I think you should take the horse, sir.'
Ashby swung himself gratefully into the saddle and looked down at Bolitho. 'I will go along this road, sir. It should take about' twenty minutes to reach the fortress, I imagine: He twisted round to watch with detached professional interest as his first squad of marines broke off in a trot to disperse as scouts on either hillside, their coats shining in the scrub like ripe fruit.
Two drummers and two fifers took up their positions at the head of the main force, and behind them Lieutenant inch with seventy seamen formed into some semblance of order.
Ashby doffed his hat. Seated on his captured horse he made a very soldierly figure, Bolitho thought.
The marine roared, `Fix bayonets!'
Bolitho turned his back to stare along the steep cliff towards the headland. From this point he could not even see the battery ramparts. His own party of seamen was waiting at the end of the pier with Rooke and a
