Once, the General looked up and listened as distant gunfire echoed sullenly around the tent. It reminded Bolitho of surf on a reef.
Bolitho laid his own chart on top of the others and said, 'You are a soldier, I am not; but I know the importance, the vital necessity of supplies to an army in combat. I believe that the enemy expect to be reinforced. If that happens before you can take Cape Town, Sir David, what chances have you of succeeding?'
The General did not answer for a full minute while he studied Bolitho's chart, and the notes which he had clipped to it.
Then he said heavily, 'Very little.' Some of his earlier sharpness returned. 'But the navy's task is to prevent it! Blockade the port, and fight off any would-be attempt to support the garrison.' It sounded like an accusation.
Bolitho stared at the chart, but saw only Warren 's handful of ships. Each captain had his orders now. The three frigates would watch and patrol the Cape and the approaches, while the remaining two schooners maintained contact between them and the commodore. They might be lucky but under cover of darkness it would not, be too difficult for other vessels to slip past them and under the protection of the shore batteries.
And then the choice would remain as before. Attack into the bay and risk the combined fire of the batteries and the carefully moored ships-at best it would end in stalemate. The worst did not bear contemplating. If the army was forced to withdraw in defeat because of lack of supplies and the enemy's continued stubborn resistance, the effect would resound right across Europe. The crushing victory over the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar might even be cancelled out by the inability of the army to occupy Cape Town. France 's unwilling allies would take fresh heart from it, and the morale in England would crumble with equal speed.
Bolitho said, 'I suspect that neither of us welcomed this mission, Sir David.'
The General turned as the young captain Bolitho had seen before appeared at the entrance. 'Yes?'
The captain said, 'A message from Major Browning, Sir David. He wishes to re-site his artillery.'
'Send word, will you? Do nothing until I reach there. Then tell an orderly to fetch my horse.'
He turned and said, 'The news you have brought me is no small setback, Sir Richard.' He gave him a level stare. 'I am relying on you, not because I doubt the ability of my officers and men, but because I have no damned alternative! I know the importance of this campaign-all eyes will be watching it as a foretaste of what lies ahead. For make no mistake, despite all the triumphs at sea, they will be as nought until the English foot-soldier plants his boots on the enemy's own shores.'
There were hushed voices outside the tent, the dragging steps of a horse being led reluctantly back to duty.
The General tossed back the glass of brandy someone had brought for him and picked up his hat and gloves. They were probably still warm from his last ride.
He gave a wry smile. 'A bit like Nelson yourself, y'know. He used to think he was just as able a brigadier ashore as he was a good sailor afloat! '
Bolitho said coldly, 'I do recall that he captured Bastia and Calvi with his sailors, and not the army.'
'Touche! ' The General led the way from the tent and Bolitho saw more soldiers marching past, their boots churning up clouds of red dust.
The General said, 'Look at 'em. Must they die for nothing?'
Bolitho saw Allday hurrying down the beach to signal for the boat. He answered, 'If you knew me, Sir David, you would not ask that.'
The blue eyes flashed like ice as the General lifted one foot to the stirrup. 'It is because I know of you, Sir Richard; and I am not asking. For the first time in my career, I am begging! '
The colonel joined Bolitho near the water's edge, and together they watched the boat pulling strongly around an anchored storeship.
He said, 'I have never seen him like that before, Sir Richard.'
Allday was pointing to where he wanted the boat to come in, but his mind was still with Bolitho. What he had not heard, he could guess. Whoever knew the rights and wrongs of all this must have realised the hopeless task they had given him.
He heard the colonel snap his boots together as he said, 'I hope we shall meet again, Sir Richard.'
Bolitho turned and looked up the shelving beach. 'Be certain of it, Colonel. In Cape Town or in hell, only greater powers will decide which! '
The boat had almost reached the anchored schooner when Bolitho turned and spoke to Allday again.
'You remember Achates, Allday?'
The big coxswain grimaced and touched his chest. 'Not likely to forget that little lot, Sir Richard! ' He tried to grin, to shrug it off. 'But that were four years past.'
Bolitho touched his arm. 'I did not mean to bring it back, old friend, but I had an idea concerning it. There was a time when I thought we had lost 'Old Katie' just as surely as Hyperion.'
Allday stared at his grave features, his spine suddenly like ice despite the strong sunlight. 'A fireship, d'you mean, sir?' He spoke almost in a croak, then glanced at the stroke oarsman to make certain he was not listening as he threw himself back on his loom.
Bolitho seemed to be thinking aloud. 'It might prove useless. I realise what I am asking others to do.' He stared abeam as a fish leapt from the water. 'But set against the cost in lives and ships…'
Allday twisted round and looked at the boat's coxswain. But the man's eyes were fixed on the final approach, his knuckles whitening on the tiller bar. It was unlikely that Miranda would carry a flagofficer again. He would be fully aware of the consequences if he ruined it.
Not one of them in the boat would realise what agony Bolitho was going through, nor understand if they did.
Bolitho said, 'I recall what Mr Simcox said about the wind. Little use to us maybe, but it might entice the enemy to cut and run for it.'
He turned as the schooner's masts swept above them. 'They will have to be volunteers.'
Allday bit his lip. These were not Bolitho's men, but strangers. They had not followed his flag when they had broken the enemy's line with all hell coming adrift around them. He could remember that other time at San Felipe as clearly as yesterday Achates at her moorings, and then suddenly the approaching ship bursting into flames, bearing down on them while they stared with horror at the inferno. There was only one thing worse than being snared by a fireship, Allday thought grimly, and that was being the crew of one. Volunteers? They were as likely as a virgin on Portsmouth Hard.
Bolitho reached up for the side as the boat lurched against the hull and the seamen tossed their oars, like white bones in the sunshine.
He looked down at Allday's troubled face and said calmly, 'It is not a question of choice this time. For there is none.' Then he was up and over the bulwark. Allday followed and saw him already talking with Tyacke, who mercifully had his terrible scars turned away.
After what he had suffered, it was unlikely that Tyacke would offer much support.
Commodore Arthur Warren watched with open astonishment, while Bolitho tossed his crumpled shirt to Ozzard before slipping into a clean one. The little servant was fussing round him and almost got knocked over as Bolitho hurried between the table and the stern windows of Themis's great cabin.
Before Themis began to swing again to her cable, Bolitho had seen the busy activity aboard the nearest transport. The captured slaver was hidden on her seaward side, and he wondered how long it would take to complete the arrangements he had ordered.
Bolitho had never understood his own instincts; how he could sense that time was in short supply. He felt it now, and it was vital that Warren knew what was happening.
He said, 'You'll have the schooner Dove to repeat your signals to the offshore patrol.' In his mind he could see the thirty-six-gun frigate Searcher tacking back and forth somewhere beyond the horizon, Warren 's first line of defence should an enemy approach from the west. The second schooner was retained to keep the same contact with the main squadron at Saldanha Bay It was up to each captain, from the senior, Varian, to the lieutenants who commanded the schooners, to use their own initiative if the wind changed against them, or they sighted any vessel which was obviously hostile. In his written orders Bolitho had stressed his requirements precisely and finally. There would be no heroics, no ship-to-ship actions without informing the commodore.
The anchorage looked strangely deserted and even more vulnerable, and he wondered if Warren were regretting the removal of his aftermost cannon to replace them with useless 'quakers.' It was too late for regrets
