The tiller-bar creaked as Masters guided the helmsman's hand. He had committed himself and had no intention of drowning because of faulty steering.
Bolitho saw the end of the boom and a few hunched figures around the guide light. Someone was shouting at the yawl, and Masters waved, his lordly gesture made pathetic by his treachery.
'Now! Helm hard to starboard! Take in the sails!'
The seamen, used to working in all weathers in daylight or darkness, brought the yawl hard against the moored craft and heavy timbers. As their grapnels soared across the startled guards the first concealed sailor leapt on to the boom, his cutlass silencing a challenge and changing it to a terrible cry.
The boom was suddenly swarming with men, and while some took care of the wretched guards, others dragged out the yawl's dangerous cargo and wedged it into position.
'Light the fuses! Slow-match there! Lively!' Mountsteven barked out his orders while the prisoners were flung unceremoniously into the yawl.
Bolitho peered up at the fortress's blurred shape. No sound or sign. Maybe Rivers had really expected him to ignore his honour and his future and sign some illegal document. It would not have been unique in naval history.
'Moorings cut, sir!'
One slow-match sparked briefly like a glow-worm and then another as the last sailor jumped into the tossing boat. 'Cast off!'
Barely glancing at the cowering survivors from their swift attack the seamen thrust with long sweeps, boat- hooks and anything else they could find to carry the yawl away from the boom.
Lieutenant Mountsteven in his excitement seized Bolitho's arm and pointed with his hanger. 'There goes your man, sir!'
With only the oar blades visible like trailing white snakes the barge swept through the gap and was into the harbour before the yawl had staggered clear.
'Steer for the shore!'
Bolitho strode to the opposite side where Masters was leaning over the gunwale to peer towards the fortress.
It was like being in a mill-race, with the deck swaying from side to side, sometimes awash as the sweeps fought to hold steerage-way.
'That was well done, Masters.' Bolitho ignored the man's astonished glance and shouted, 'Stand by, lads!'
There was a muffled explosion and suddenly the yawl and their upturned faces were bathed in a vivid orange glare as the drifting boom burst into flames. In seconds it had moved well past the headland and was breaking up into smaller fiery shapes as the lashings parted.
Bolitho tightened the hanger's thong around his wrist and tested his wounded leg. If it failed him now…
The yawl hit the land, rebounded with the sea boiling over the gunwale and sweeping men aside like untidy sacks, and then drove ashore yet again. Bolitho heard wood splintering, the inrushing water surging and dragging at his legs as the boat continued to batter its way along a line of rocks.
But grapnels were already finding a grip, and as the first men clambered cursing and spluttering on to firm ground Bolitho heard the far-off blare of a trumpet.
He tried to fix the picture of the hillside in his mind, then turned to watch as another part of the drifting boom exploded in a great plume of sparks and flames.
The whole of Georgetown must surely be on the alert by now.
Crack… crack… crack… Musket shots whined impotently through the spray as some sentries fired from the fortress walls.
'Rally the men, Mr Mountsteven.'
The lieutenant was regarding the remains of the yawl. There was no way out by that method.
Someone gave a hoarse cheer which was instantly silenced by an unseen petty officer.
But Bolitho felt like cheering too. The Achates' cutters were pulling like demons as they swept through some last remnants of the boom, the marines' white cross-belts stark and clear despite the gloom.
From the bows of one came the sharp crack of a musket and a yell of command, magnified through a speaking-trumpet to add unreality to the moment.
A cutter was pulling directly for one of Rivers' own boats. Doubtless one which was bringing the unfortunate Lieutenant Trevenen to be exchanged. If they had harmed him…
He did not let his mind dwell on it as Mountsteven shouted, 'All accounted for, sir!'
'Carry on! Fast as you can! Across the track from the town. Scatter the men among the rocks, anywhere so that they can slow an attack until the marines support us!'
In spite of his racing thoughts he almost smiled at the absurdity of his orders. More like a general than a naval officer with a boatload of seamen and a company of marines, if they ever managed to reach here.
He ran with the seamen through dark rocks and great bushes which loomed and shook like monsters in the fierce wind as if to frighten them from their purpose.
'Here, sir!'
That was Christy, and Bolitho dropped beside him but gasped as the pain stabbed from his wounded thigh.
Christy was peering at his pistols and had a cutlass bared and lying beside him.
Bolitho saw others running and stooping as they sought out cover, while more musket shots whimpered overhead. Where was Rivers, he wondered? In his fine house, or up there on the fortress wondering if they were all going mad?
He pounded the wet ground with his fist. Everything depended on Allday. He might have run into a guard-boat like the one confronted by Achates' cutter. Even now Keen would be weighing anchor, watching the flames on the severed boom, all he had to divide sea from rock.
Soon those flames would have died too.
A voice yelled a command and a loose volley of shots cracked up the slope towards the fortress.
Scott, Achates' third lieutenant and Keen's next most experienced officer, yelled, 'Reload! Steady, lads!' He must have seen some movement at the fortress gates.
Bolitho tried not to think of Keen's helplessness as his ship tore free from the ground and began to claw her way round and into solid darkness. Short-handed because of the landing party, and with at least three of his officers out of the ship, it must be a living nightmare.
He saw Christy's eyes glow like twin matches and turned as a column of fire gushed from the end of the moorings.
Allday, in spite of all his doubts and arguments, had done it. The fire was burning brightly where the bargemen had lashed it to one of the buoys, and another would be ready when it died.
Then a cannon roared out like a thunder-clap. Where the ball went nobody saw. It had probably ripped over the very buoy which Rivers had indicated when he had made his casual threat.
Masters was crawling on the ground and when he saw Bolitho flopped down beside him. Now that he had done it he was unable to stop shaking with fear.
Bolitho looked at him and asked, 'What is the date, Mr Masters?'
Masters gulped and managed to reply, 'J-July the ninth, I believe, sir!'
He would have jumped to his feet if Christy had not dragged him down for his own safety.
Masters' voice cracked as he asked, 'I heard something! What's happening?'
Bolitho had heard it too. The faint rattle of drums and the frail sound of fifes.
He could see it as if he were there with them. His marines, marching along a rough road in this howling wind, the little drummer boys keeping an even distance behind their officers as if they were on parade. A road none of them had even seen, and some would never see it when daylight came.
Bolitho managed to say, 'The date is important. One we shall remember.'
He twisted his head to see another of Allday's blazing flares, but this time his eyes seemed blurred.
He drove the knuckle-bow of his hanger into the ground near his face and whispered, 'We shall win. We shall win'.' It sounded like a prayer.
Keen ran up the poop ladder and clung to a rail as the wind drove along the full length of his ship, the sound rising and strengthening like some obscene chorus.
