Pascoe yelled, 'The enemy frigate is making more sail, sir!
And I see one of the corvettes breaking clear of the anchorage! '
Bolitho trained his glass through the drifting smoke. The frigate first. Long and lean. Thirty-eight guns against Javal's thirty-two. Provided he had managed to avoid the heavy artillery, he would stand a good chance. If he could hold off the corvette. If, if, if It was like hearing a taunt in his brain.
Something made a dark flaw in the side of the lens, and he swung it further to hold the French seventy-four in view. She was still under minimum canvas, and was moving very slowly towards Osiris on a converging tack, her guns run out, but in shadow. He considered this fact. In shadow. So her captain had no intention of trying to hold the wind-gage. Even now she was steering across Osiris's starboard bow, her reefed topsails braced hard round, her forecastle and even the beakhead alive with waving seamen and glittering weapons. He could see her name quite clearly, Immortalite.
Farquhar shouted hoarsely, 'How is the helm, Mr.
Outhwaite? Have they rigged emergency steering?'
Bolitho watched the water rippling above the concealed sand-bar. Fifty yards. Less. Even if they anchored they would be unable to fight clear now, let alone do any damage to the transports.
'He watched the two-decker, her tricolour very bright in the sunlight. He stiffened as he saw another flag at her mainmast. A dovetailed broad pendant.
Pascoe looked at him. 'A commodore, sir.' He tried to grin. 'It should have been a full admiral to do us honour!' A ball thundered through a lower port, and Bolitho heard the attendant chorus of screams and cries for the surgeon's helpers.
He turned again to the French ship. Pascoe was wrong. It should have been Probyn, pouring his broadsides into the anchored transports, now completely undefended as the two-decker and her smaller consorts came down the coast to give battle. Nicator would have had nothing to oppose her. He felt the anger welling up like a burning flood.
The deck shuddered slightly, and with the sound of a pistol shot the fore topgallant mast plunged down and over the side, dragging broken rigging in its wake like black serpents.
Farquhar stared at him wildly. 'Aground! He moved a few paces to the side, his shoes slipping on blood. 'God's teeth!' He shielded his face with one arm as a ball slammed through the bulwark again, upending another gun and cutting down two men who were dragging a wounded comrade away from their port.
Farquhar asked flatly, 'What orders, sir?'
Bolitho kept his eyes towards the transports, they seemed to be moving now, edging across the bows in one vast mass. But it was only because Osiris was swinging very slowly to the pressure of wind, her stem and forepart of the hull firmly embedded on hard sand.
He said slowly, 'It is my belief that we will soon be able to use the starboard guns.'
He saw Farquhar nod, his face ashen as more explosions threw spray high above the nettings. The painted strip of canvas which had been their only deception had long since gone, tom away in the hot wind of those guns. He gripped his arm tightly, dragging his mind from the threat and damage all around.
'see the Frenchman, Captain? Now he is making more sail..
Farquhar's eyes widened. 'In God's name!'
Slowly, inexorably, her bow pivoting on the bar, Osiris was swinging away from the land. No wonder the French commodore. had stayed his hand. Within half an hour, when he passed to leeward of the sand-bar and the trapped ship, he would see only Osiris's exposed stem. No commander could hope for a better, or a steadier target, and-one broadside would sweep through the ship from stem to bow.
Farquhar said, 'Then we're done for.'
Bolitho walked past him. 'Pass the word. Engage with every gun that bears. We’ll sink a round half-dozen of them with any luck.'
He heard the order being passed, the squeak of trucks as the gun captains brought their weapons round as far as they would move towards the supply ships.
They would see only the enemy, and even if they had guessed at their predicament, it was unlikely they understood Its full meaning. Farquhar knew well enough.
'Fire!'
The long battery of thirty-two-pounders crashed out in a ragged broadside, and at full elevation Bolitho knew that many of the balls would find targets. 'Fire!'
The eighteen-pounders hurled themselves inboard, their crews working like madmen to sponge out and ram home new charges.
Bolitho darted a quick look at the captain. It showed on his face with each savage crash of a broadside. The recoil of so many guns was enough to edge Osiris still firmer aground. It told him that the ship was already finished, and that Bolitho was carrying on with the attack despite it.
Allday said hoarsely, 'The hillside seems to be afire, sir!' Bolitho wiped his eyes with his sleeve and stared across the larboard bow. Osiris had pivoted right round now, and he could seethe dense wan of smoke, darting tongues of flame, too, rolling towards the sea and adding to the scene of chaos and despair.
Allday said it for him. 'Must be Mr. Veitch. Set the hillside ablaze. It's probably like tinder.' He sighed. 'A brave man. One of those guns will be blinded by smoke. They’ll not thank Mr. Veitch for that.'
A violent explosion thundered across the water, and through the thickening smoke Bolitho saw a vivid red heart.
Pascoe coughed in the smoke. 'We have hit one of the transports, sir! Must have been loaded with powder!'
Fragments splashed down lazily and bobbed around the embattled ship. Beyond the smoke Bolitho could hear
