time there were no cheers, not even an isolated one. The men looked grim, watching the open gun ports, or standing close to one another as if for support. He saw Farquhar's fingers opening and closing repeatedly around his sword scabbard, his head very erect as he stared towards the wavering coastline, from where the enemy would open fire.
A light blinked from the nearest hilltop but did not reappear. A broken bottle reflecting the first ray of sunrise. The window of some concealed dwelling. Bolitho shivered. Or a ray of light catching the lens of a telescope? He imagined the signal being carried over the hill to the waiting artillery. The English are coming. As expected and predicted. He frowned. No matter what happened, they had to hold the enemy's attention until Probyn swept down on the anchored ships from the northern channel. A few heavy broadsides amongst a crowded anchorage and the odds could change considerably.
He remembered suddenly what his father had once told him. There is no such thing as a surprise attack. Surprise is only present when one captain or another has miscalculated what he has seen from the beginning.
He glanced at Pascoe and smiled briefly. He now knew exactly what his father had meant.
Bolitho re-crossed the quarterdeck and trained a glass on an out-thrust shoulder of land. A few tiny dwellings were visible at the foot of a steep slope, nestling between some scrub and the nearest beach. Fishermen's homes. But their boats lay abandoned on the coarse shingle, and only a dog stood its ground by the water's edge, barking furiously at the slow- moving ships.
He heard Farquhar say sharply, 'The next bay will be the one.'
Outhwaite turned and called, 'Be ready! Hold your fire till the order, then shoot on the uproll!'
Allday muttered scornfully, 'Uproll! Until we get clear of this headland and find some sort of wind again, there’ll be no uproll!'
'Deck there!' The masthead lookout's voice seemed unusually loud. 'ships at anchor around the point!'
Bolitho breathed out slowly. 'signal the information to Buzzard.'
An acknowledgement broke from the frigate's yards within seconds. Javal was like the rest of them. On the last edge of tension.
He glanced at his watch. Nicator should be well through the other channel by now and setting more sail to begin her vital part. Even if French pickets had sighted her, it would be too late to move artillery to the other end of their defences.
The bang, when it came, was like an abbreviated thunderclap. Bolitho saw neither smoke nor flash, but watched the ball's progress across the swirling current. It must have been fired from a low level, for he could see its path in a line of tiny wavelets, like an unnatural wind, or a shark charging to the attack.
The crash of the ball into the forepart of the hull brought a great chorus of shouts and yells, and Bolitho saw the second lieutenant hurrying from gun to gun, as if to reassure the crews.
'Look there, sir!' Allday pointed with his cutlass. 'soldiers!'
Bolitho watched the tiny, blue-coated figures bursting from the trees and scurrying towards the point. Perhaps they believed that the second wave of attacking ships would attempt a landing, and were getting ready to repulse them. Bolitho licked his lips. If only there was a second wave.
He said, 'Bring her up a point, Captain. Give our upper battery a target.'
Farquhar protested, 'Eighteen-pounders against infantry, sir?'
Bolitho said quietly, 'It will give them something to keep their minds occupied. It may also shake the enemy's confidence up ahead. They are anticipating a squadron, remember!'
He winced as another bang echoed across the water, and he heard the ball hiss viciously overhead.
'stand by to larboard!' Outhwaite pointed at the running soldiers. 'On the uproll!' He raised his speaking trumpet. 'Fire!'
The long line of guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles, the smoke rising and swirling above the packed hammock nettings. Bolitho held his glass on the land, seeing the balls whipping through trees and scrub, throwing up stones and clods of earth in haphazard confusion. The soldiers had obviously held the same ideas as Farquhar, for many were caught out in the open, and Bolitho saw bodies and muskets whirling through the air with the other fragments.
It was little enough, but it had given the gun crews some heart. He heard a few cheers, and yells of derision from the lower battery who had not been allowed to fire.
Outhwaite had caught some of the excitement. 'Move roundly, lads! Reload! Mr. Guthrie, a guinea for the first to run out!'
From a comer of his eye, Bolitho saw the headland drop- ping back, the first group of anchored ships glinting in frail sunlight, their sails furled, and their unmoving rigidity suggesting that each vessel was attached to the next, and so on, making them into an unbroken barrier. He had expected the French to anchor in this manner. It had been a favourite defence since long before a revolution had even been dreamed of.
Then he saw a flash. It came from a deep green saddle between two hills, and he knew the gunners had fired earlier to obtain a ranging shot.
It hit Osiris amidships, deep down and close to the waterline. The planks under Bolitho's feet rebounded, as if the ball had struck a few paces away instead of three decks down. He saw Farquhar's anxiety as he watched his boatswain dashing for a hatch with his seamen, and the wisps of dark smoke which eddied above the nettings as evidence of the gun's accuracy.
From astern he heard the controlled crash of cannon fire and knew that Javal was following his example and raking the nearest hillside in the hope of finding a target.
'Deck there! French ship o' the line at anchor beyond the transports!'.
Bolitho swung the glass across the rail, seeing faces on Osiris's forecastle looming like visions in the lens before he found and trained on the French seventy-four. Like the packed mass of transports, she was anchored. But her sails were only loosely brailed up, and her cable shortened home in readiness for weighing. And beyond her, gliding very slowly downwind, was a frigate, setting her foresail and shining momentarily as sunlight passed along
