Bolitho crossed to the door. 'Pass the word for the first lieutenant.' Then he walked back to the desk and eyed the French officer for several seconds.
He said quietly, 'If you have tried to deceive me, m'sieu, you will regret it.'
Quarme entered the cabin. 'Sir?
'I want all the French prisoners stowed aboard within the hour. By that time I will have drafted fresh orders for Captain Ashby, for we will have to sail without him.'
Quarme stared at him. 'Sail, sir?
Bolitho signalled for the waiting guards to escort Charlois from the cabin then he said calmly, 'I want all the boats swung out forthwith. Our people can warp the ship from the anchorage. With luck we will take advantage of some offshore breeze to get under way again.'
Quarme still did not seem able to grasp what was happening.
'But, sir, the hands are too parched and exhausted for that sort of task! Some of them are lying below like dead menl'
'Then stir them, Mr. Quarme, stir them!' He looked through the windows towards the haze-covered hills. 'Break out every last drop of water for them. I want this ship at sea, do. you understand? By tonight I intend to close St. Clar and arrange a parley.' He watched his words causing consternation on Quarme's face.
Almost gently he added, 'It may be the breeze I was telling you about earlier.' Overhead he heard the shrill of pipes and the sounds of the guardboat being pulled clear of the side. 'Before we see another day dawn, Mr. Quarme, we may have had some small achievement. We will either have paved the way for future operations on the mainland, or we will all be prisoners of war.' He smiled openly at Quarme's rigid features. 'Either way we will have water to drink!'
Bolitho walked slowly across the quarterdeck and held his watch close against the shaded binnacle lamp. In the dim glow he saw that the time was exactly half past three in the morning, and less than fifteen minutes since he had last allowed himself a glance at his watch.
He recrossed the deck with the same slow tread, every step a concentrated effort to control his rising sense of urgency and despair. It had been two full hours since the Hyperion had hove to and dropped her jolly boat in the black, undulating water alongside. Two hours of waiting and fretting while the Hyperion had sailed slowly back and forth with the great wedge of land barely two miles abeam. Soon it would be getting lighter, although for the moment the night was as dark as ever. Only the stars remained bright and unmoving, and as he stared upwards through the black tracery of shrouds and rigging it seemed as if some were within feet of the gently spiralling topmasts. They cast a small glow across the topsails, so that against the night sky they appeared ghost-white and vulnerable.
The offshore breeze was holding steady and felt ice cool after the heat of the day, and although the ship was cleared for action most of the gun crews still lolled beside their weapons, exhausted from the agonising haul out of Cozar. In relays they had pulled on their oars, blinded with sweat, their hands raw and blistered as like beasts of burden the ship's boats had warped the Hyperion clear of the anchorage and out to the open water beyond.
Once it had seemed as if the Hyperion was only intent on destroying herself on the shoals by the harbour entrance, and only the extra efforts of the oarsmen, urged on by blows and curses from their petty officers, had pulled her clear. But even that had not been enough. The dazed and gasping seamen had stared hopefully astern, their eyes watching the sails for some sign of life. But the canvas had mocked them, hanging from the yards limp and flat, so that it seemed as if the wind would never come.
Sun-dried, exhausted men were barely a team to combat the Hyperion's bulk at the best of times. Her one thousand six hundred-odd tons seemed to play with the puny boats which tugged at her massive bows like so many beetles. And then, even as one of the cutters had fallen away from her station, the oarsmen drooping at their thwarts indifferent to both blows and threats from a frantic midshipman, the sails had given one violeut shiver, and as the men had stared wearily with disbelief, the water around their boats had come alive with small, whipping catspaws.
For the rest of the daylight and deep into the night hours the ship had regained her power from the growing northwesterly and had driven up and around the distant coastline.
Then, as soon as night had closed in around them, they had shortened sail and beaten nearer and nearer to that great slab of deeper darkness, beyond which lay the sheltered port of St. Clar.
Now it was over there abeam, lost beneath the stars and below the rolling bank of hills beyond. There was not a light or beacon, and more than once a nervous lookout had report ed small craft approaching the ship, only to discover they were shadows or some trick of current to pluck the nerves of every man aboard.
Bolitho laid his hands on the quarterdeck rail and stared fixedly into the darkness. He was unable to stop himself going over and over what he had done, and as the minutes dragged past he felt the rising tension of despair. adding to his uncertainties.
He had allowed the French officer, Charlois, to go ashore in the jolly boat to make contact with his friends in St. Clar. The chance of the rough plan succeeding had always been thin, but Bolitho still tortured himself with doubts of what he could have done, of what he should have done to give the scheme even a small hope of success. It was no consolation to know that he still had all the French prisoners aboard. Without water he might just as well surrender to St. Clar, or scuttle the ship within reach of the shore.
He thought too of Lieutenant Inch's excited horse-face when he had told him that he was to take charge of the jolly boat's small party. Inch was a keen enough officer, but he lacked experience for this sort of thing, and Bolitho knew that deep in his heart he had chosen him more because he was the junior lieutenant and therefore the least loss if Charlois chose treachery rather than any desire to parley.
He thought suddenly of Midshipman Seton. It was strange that he had voluntereed to go with inch, and stranger too that Bolitho felt such a sense of loss now that he was gone from the ship. But if Seton had a terrible stammer, he could do something better than anyone else aboard. He could speak fluent French.
Quarme murmued at his side, `Any orders, sir?'
Bolitho squinted his eyes at the distant hump of land and tried to memorise the picture of the chart in his mind. `Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr. Quarme. Full and bye.'
Quarme hesitated. `That will bring us very close inshore, sir.'
Bolitho looked past him. 'Put two good leadsmen in the chains. We must give the jolly boat every chance.'
He heard the men stirring at the braces and the gentle slap of water around the rudder as the helm went over. What was the point? If Inch was already a prisoner he was only prolonging the agony. With the morning sun would come disaster. The end of everything.
From forward came a splash followed by the leadsman's droning chant, 'By th' mark twenty!'
A small figure moved below the nettings, and he saw Midshipman Piper's monkey-like shape standing on tiptoe to peer at the land. It was strange how close he and Seton had become. The cheeky, devil-may-care Piper and the nervous, stammering Seton. But as Bolitho watched the boy's apprehensive movements he knew just how firm that friendship had become.
… and a quarter less fifteen!' The chant floated back to mock him further. Once around this slab of headland and the water shoaled considerably.
The big wheel creaked at his back and the helmsman intoned, 'Nor' by west, sir! Full an' bye!'
Quarme crossed to his side again. 'If this wind drops away, sir, we'll not be able to beat clear of the headland on the far side of the bay.' He sounded very much on edge.
'I'm as much aware of that as you, Mr. Quarme.' He faced him in the darkness. 'More so, I expect, since it is my responsibility.'
Quarme looked away. 'I'm sorry, sir, but I just thought…' He broke off as the leadsman called tonelessly, 'By the mark ten!'
Bolitho rubbed his chin. 'Shoaling.' Just one word, yet it seemed to mark the failure like a crude signature.
He heard himself say, 'We will continue deeper into the bay. By the time we reach the other side the sky will be brightening, and by then..
He swung round as a voice yelled, 'Boats on the larboard quarter, sir!' As he ran to the nettings the lookout added sharply, 'hree, no four on 'em, sir!'
Bolitho snatched a telescope and swung it across the, nettings, his mind aching with concentration as he stared over the heaving pattern of dark water and reflected stars. Then he saw them, low black shapes outlined by a disturbed pattern of white splashes.
