Herrick glanced briefly at the anchored Tenacious before replying. 'The reasons are not our concern. But at dawn we will hoist Sir Edmund's flag at the mizzen.' He knew Gossett was staring at him. 'The responsibility shifts with the flag, of that I am sure!'
As the first sunlight touched the hills and filtered down between the rubble-strewn streets the enemy guns reopened fire. Black columns of smoke poured from the jetty, the bright sparks and drifting ashes marking the last stages of destruction as small groups of soldiers threw pii-soaked rags into the moored fishing boats and storage sheds before setting them ablaze.
Captain Ashby stood grim faced beside his square of marines watching the remaining files of soldiers hurrying back from the firing line, some carrying wounded comrades, others using their muskets as crutches as they headed for the water and the waiting boats.
In the big house Bolitho stood by one of the open windows, his hands resting on the sill while he studied the hills beyond the town. He heard the crunch of boots below him and saw the young infantry officer peering up at him.
'Is everything completed?'
The soldier nodded. 'The last picket is falling back now, sir.' He turned and drew his smoke-blackened figure to attention as a young lieutenant and three armed soldiers marched around a bend in the road, their step measured and correct, as if they were on parade. The lieutenant was carrying the regiment's colour, and as he passed Bolitho saw there were real tears 'running down his face, cutting through the grime like painted lines.
Bolitho walked back across the room. The house already seemed lost, and derelict, with little to show it had once been Pomfret's 'stepping-stone to Paris '.
In the square Ashby greeted him formally. `The charges are laid, sir. The Frogs will be here at any time now.'
Bolitho nodded, listening to the creeping murmur of heavy guns as the enemy put down a final barrage on the waiting line of redcoats. Without effort he could still see the crouching figures along the edge of the barricades and earthworks, apparently ready and resolved to withstand the last attack. It was almost the worst part of the whole wretched business, he thought. Just before dawn, while the weary troops had crept back from their positions, Lieutenant Inch and a party of seamen had prepared the last rearguard under his direction.
But when the French ceased their bombardment and entered the town the soldiers would not shoot back, nor would they surrender, for they were already dead. From the field hospital and the battered earthworks the seamen had gathered up their unprotesting bodies, had arranged them with their muskets in a silent array. There was even a flag above their sightless faces, a last grim mockery.
Bolitho shook himself from his brooding. Dead men could not suffer twice. The living had to be saved.
He snapped, `Carry on, Ashby! Fire the fuses!'
He heard the blare of a bugle and a sudden wave of cheering as, the first French soldiers charged down from the coast road. Around him.the marines were breaking up into sections, falling back towards the shattered jetty, their bayonets still trained towards the shadowed streets.
There were no signs of the inhabitants who had chosen to remain in St. Clar. They were hiding and holding their breaths, and when the first wave of fury and bloodshed had passed they would come out into the open to make their peace with their countrymen, Bolitho thought. Friends, even relatives would be denounced as proof of loyalty to the Revolution. The reckoning would be harsh and prolonged.
Right now the first French troops would be staring at. the dead defenders, possibly wondering at the meaning of this macabre attempt to delay their final victory.
At that instant the first fuse reached its target, and the whole town seemed to rock on its foundations from the force of the explosion.
Ashby said hoarsely, `That's the main magazine, sir! That'll have caught some of the bastards!' He waved his sword. `Into the boats!'
As yet another great explosion ravaged the town the marines hurled themselves into the boats to follow those already pulling away downstream. A few French sharpshooters must have infiltrated the harbour buildings, and here and there the water spouted with tall feathers of spray as they fired after the retreating boats.
Ashby watched his lieutenant running towards him from the square, hatless, and carrying a smoking slow match. `All done, Shanks?T
'The last fuse is just going, sir!' Shanks grimaced as a violent detonation brought down a complete house across the entrance of a narrow street, the shockwave almost hurliing him bodily into the water.
The barge was hooked on to the jetty piles, and as the last marines clambered down Allday yelled, `Here come the cavalry, Captain!'
There were about a dozen of them. They burst from a sidestreet, and as they sighted the barge at the jetty stairs they charged full tilt through the smoke of the last explosion.
Bolitho took a quick look round and then jumped for the gunwale.
As the boat backed clear the crouching seaman in the bows laid his eye against the mounted swivel gun and then stood clear. With a jerk on the lanyard the gun fired, the final shot of the retreat.
Bolitho clutched the gunwale as the tiller went over, and the roofless houses crept out to hide the tangled, bloody remains of horses and riders cut down by the double charge of cannister.
It was all but over. Briefly he found time to wonder about Colonel Cobban, but in his heart could find no pity for him.
During the night, as he had lain sleeping in Pomfret's deserted study, a messenger had burst in to tell him that Cobban had gone under a flag of truce to the French commander. To arrange a 'peace with honour' as he had described it.
Now, in the grim reality of daylight the French would probably see Cobban's pitiful attempt to save his own skin merely as a delaying tactic to cover the British evacuation. It was grotesque to realise that Cobban might even be remembered as a selfless and courageous officer because of it.
The boats were already gliding into the deeper waters of the inlet, and Bolitho levered his aching body upright in the sternsheets as he watched the two ships of the line waiting to receive them. Then he saw Pomfret's flag flapping gaily from the Hyperion's mizzen and knew that Herrick understood, even if he did not agree with what he was doing.
Within half an hour both ships had weighed, and as the wind freshened to drive the smoke seaward from the burning town Bolitho stood by the nettings, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed on the reflected fires inside the harbour.
But when the Hyperion spread her sails and heeled towards the wide entrance there was one final act, as if it had been set and timed for this single moment.
A solitary horseman appeared high on the southern headland, his yellow uniform shining in the pale light while he stood watching the departing ships. Bolitho did not need a glass to see that it was the Spanish colonel. No wonder there had been no sudden bombardment from the headland. Salgado's cavalry had done their work well, but the cost was plain because of this one, lonely figure.
Even as he watched he saw the Spaniard fall sideways from his saddle to lie within feet of the edge. Whether it was from some unheard musket-shot, or from wounds already suffered, in battle, no one knew.
Salgado's horse moved towards the edge of the headland, nuzzling its master as if to return him to life. Long after the ships had cleared the land the horse still stood outlined against the clouded sky. Like a monument.
Bolitho looked away. A memorial to all of us, he thought.
Then he glanced at Herrick, his eyes dull and unseeing. 'As soon as Harvester and Chanticleer are in company we will lay a course to round Cozar, Mr. Herrick.'
Herrick watched him sadly. 'We are rejoining the fleet, sir?'
Bolitho nodded and then turned towards the rolling bank of smoke. `There is nothing left for us here.'
Ashby waited until Bolitho had left the quarterdeck and then said quietly, `But by God the French will remember our visit, Mr. Herrick!'
Herrick sighed deeply. 'So will I, Captain Ashby. So will 1!'
Then he opened his glass and trained it on the Tenacious, as obedient to the flag she tacked ponderously to take station astern.
In his cabin Bolitho stood by the stern windows also watching the three-decker, her sails very white in the morning light. He wondered vaguely what Dash would think now, and whether he would remember where his
