futile attempt to escape. But then as the man's frantic cries made others turn to stare he saw a pale shape rising through the smoke from the burning ship, and imagined he could feel a hot wind as the sound of a full broadside thundered across the water and against the cliff face like an avalanche.
The seaman was rocking from side to side, his hands locked together across his chest like someone at prayer. He shouted wildly, 'Look, ladsl 'Tis the old Hermes!'
Then he fell headlong over the edge, his death cry lost in the rumble of cannon fire as yet another set of topsails loomed through the smoke. The sight of his own ship coming at last to his aid must have been the last thing he saw.
Bolitho stood up and yelled, 'Back, lads! Fall back to the headland!' Shots whimpered around him, and still more men fell as they ran crouching across the long stretch of open ground.
Allday had Lang bodily across his shoulders, and Bolitho saw Pascoe trying not to falter as a seaman by his side whirled round, his scream choking on blood as a ball smashed the back of his skull to pulp and splintered bone.
As the first of the soldiers reached the undefended barrier Fox held the slow-match carefully in place and then jumped aside to watch as the ball cleaved through the packed men like a giant axe.
That last shot and the sight of the ships pushing slowly into the bay were enough. The attack dropped away, and then, in spite of the shrill whistle and bellowed commands, the troops turned and ran headlong towards the hillside. It was likely they would keep running until they reached the town, for fear of being cut off by a fresh landing from the avenging ships.
Quince reached Bolitho and said between deep breaths, 'A close call, sir.'
Bolitho did not reply for a moment. He was watching his own ship, the old Hyperion, as she tacked slowly around the nearest Frenchman, her gunsmoke masking the destruction and chaos as two by two the muzzles poured their broadside into the helpless enemy. She was too far away to pick out the details, but he could see Inch in his mind's eye, watching and gauging the moment to tack, with Gossett nearby like an immovable English oak. He looked round, suddenly sick of the land, the staring corpses and the huddled cluster of frightened prisoners.
They had come thirty miles to do this. Thirty miles of swamp and impossible hardship, yet only once had the morale nearly broken. He watched the hobbling wounded and the ones still left who could stand and fight. There were very few of the latter.
Quince added quietly, 'Mr. Fox reports that the sloop Dasher is anchored below the headland, sir. She's lowering boats to take us off.'
'Very well.' Even speech was too much. 'Have the wounded carried down to the foreshore as soon as the last gun is over the edge.' He turned to watch as the heavy cannon rolled over the cliff and plunged into the deep water amidst several bobbing corpses.
When Quince returned he found Bolitho standing alone, his eyes on the ships in the bay.
The lieutenant said, 'Hermes has lowered boats, sir. I think she is putting a raiding party ashore to add to the Frogs' discomfort.'
– Resistance had ceased aboard the nearest French ship, -and she was already listing badly with her lower ports awash. The second one was burning so fiercely that for one brief moment Bolitho imagined Inch had taken his ship too close to the savage flames and would perish with her. But as Hyperion's topsails filled and hardened on the new tack he saw the sparks and drifting ashes passing well abeam, while some of the French survivors paused in their frantic swimming to tread water and stare up at the slowmoving two-decker with her fierce-eyed figurehead and cheering seamen.
Of the other two French ships there was no sign at all, and he guessed they had weighed and clawed around the far headland even as the attacking squadron entered the bay at the opposite end.
He saw Pascoe standing by the abandoned furnace, his dirk still in his hand. 'Come with me, boy. You have seen and done enough for ten men today.'
Pascoe looked at him gravely. 'Thank you, sir,' was all he said.
The lieutenant in charge of the sloop's boats watched the ragged and bleeding survivors with something like horror. 'Where are the rest?' He could not even recognise an officer amidst the exhausted figures which waded or were carried into the boats.
Bolitho waited until the last man was aboard and then followed. He said coldly, 'We are the rest!' Then he sat in silence watching his party which could hardly fill two boats let alone the four which had been left far behind.
He saw the Telamon going about, her yards bedecked with signal flags as she heeled to the fresh breeze from the shore. There was no sign at all of the Indomitable, but Bolitho was too weary to care.
Quince said, 'That's the signal to withdraw, sir. The commodore must be aboard the Dutchman.'
Bolitho glanced up, unable to hide the bitterness any longer. 'Then for his own safety I hope he stays there!'
Then he looked at his men again. Lang, sobbing quietly, his hands across his bandaged eyes, and the others too spent and drained even to respond to the men who cheered them from the anchored sloop. They had done what had been asked of them, and more beside, but the spark had gone with the last shot, the inner strength, quenched as survival and help had driven away the madness and desperate bravery of battle. Now they just sat or lay like mindless beings, their eyes turned inward, examining perhaps the last stricken images, which given time they might recall with pride or terror, with sadness for those left behind, or with thanksgiving for being spared at their expense.
The sloop's young commander met Bolitho and said excitedly, 'Welcome aboard, sir! Is there anything I can do for you before I weigh?'
Bolitho stared past him towards the blazing ship. She was almost gone now, just a few blackened timbers which still defied the fire, and some last buoyancy to keep her afloat and bare her misery to watching eyes.
He replied, 'Get me to my ship.' He tried to force his mind to obey him, to hold back the dragging weariness which made his limbs feel like lead. 'And see that these men are cared for. They have come a long way and must
not suffer to no good purpose.'
The commander frowned, uncertain what Bolitho meant. Then he hurried away to pass his orders, his mind busy with what he had witnessed and how he would retell it one day.
Later as the ships sailed from the bay and re-formed into line the smoke was still following them on the wind, the air heavy with ashes and a smell of death.
Lieutenant Inch stepped hesitantly into the stem cabin and blinked at the glare from the sea below the counter.
'You sent for me, sir?'
Bolitho was stripped to the waist and shaving hurriedly, a mirror propped on the top of his desk.
'Yes. Have there been any signals from the Telamon?'
Inch watched round-eyed as Bilitho towelled his face vigorously and then pulled a clean shirt over his head. Bolitho had been back aboard his own ship less than five hours but had hardly paused to take a meal, let alone rest after his return from the swamp and the destruction of the enemy battery.
He answered, 'Nothing, sir.'
Bolitho walked to the quarter windows and stared at the haze-shrouded shoreline far away on the starboard beam. On a slow larboard tack the ships were making little progress, and when he peered astern at the Hermes he saw that her sails were almost flat and unmoving, her hull shimmering above the haze of her own reflection.
He had expected Pelham-Martin to call his captains aboard the Telamon for a conference, or to send some sort of congratulations to the exhausted raiding party. Instead, the signal to heave 'to had been hoisted, and after another frustrating delay boats had shoved off from the Hermes loaded to the gunwales with men and headed immediately for the Hyperion's side.
Lieutenant Quince had come with the boats to announce that the Hermes' brief raid on the waterfront at Las Mercedes had found and breached the prison and had released some sixty seamen held prisoner there, fifty of whom Captain Fitzmaurice had sent across to supplement Bolitho's own company. Also, Quince had come aboard to say goodbye. Pelham-Martin had appointed him as acting commander of the disabled Indomitable, with orders to make sail forthwith for Antigua, some six hundred miles to the north-east, where English Harbour could afford the necessary facilities for repairs, enough at least for her return to England and the refit she so sorely needed.
Bolitho had been on deck to watch the listing seventyfour as she had edged slowly away from her consorts, showing her scars and battered hull, the clanking pumps telling only too well of her struggle to stay afloat. No
