The jolly boat circled round until it dipped and lifted in the shallows, and Lieutenant Monteith called out as loudly as he dared, 'Ship at anchor, sir! Off the point! Brig or brigantine!'
Always the unexpected to raise the stakes, but Monteith sounded calm enough.
He could feel the coxswain's shoulder under his fingers, hard and tense. Waiting. They were all waiting.
Adam replied, 'Take over the others, Mr. Monteith.' He glanced at the pale faces of the oarsmen, watching and listening. How many times had he seen Keen brought to the ship in this barge, or pulled ashore to meet his lady? He thrust it from his mind. His new wife.
The jolly boat was too small, and by the time support could be organised even the sleepiest watch might have been roused. The unknown vessel had to be taken without delay. Any sort of alarm might bring troops, even a man-of-war hurrying to head them off.
He thought of Deighton. Another laurel for the family garland, for your uncle? He felt a grin breaking the fierce tension in his jaw. He could damned well think what he liked!
He said, 'Boarding party, be ready! Cox'n, as soon as we sight the brig, or whatever she is, make for the chains where we can hook on!'
He stared around for the jolly boat, but it had already drifted clear and merged with the darkness. Monteith was left to his own devices, perhaps the first time he had carried out such a mission. If I fall, he will be on his own. He drew his hanger and said, 'No shooting. You know what to do!'
'Give way all!'
The barge sighed into a low trough and gathered way again.
Perhaps the bearing was wrong? He glanced up, but even the stars were elusive. Some of the oarsmen were beginning to breathe more heavily: it had been a long pull with an overloaded boat; they were tired. All they had left was hope, and trust.
Something moved across the faint scattering of stars, like birds on passage. He gripped his hanger until the pain steadied him, and the birds hardened into shape, into the masts and yards of the anchored vessel. She loomed out of the night, so close that it seemed impossible that no one had yet sighted them.
'Easy, lads!' It was pointless to think of the other possibility: that the bulwarks were already lined with marksmen and swivels, that their carefully guarded secret was just another myth.
The coxswain hissed, 'Oars!'
Adam groped along the boat, holding a man's arm here, another's ready hand there, until he was in the bows with the waiting boarders. Jago was one of them, and Adam guessed he had detailed the spare hands when he realised what was happening.
He watched the rigging rising above him. 'Now!'
A grapnel flew over the bulwark and snared into place, and the gunner's mate, Jago, was up and over the vessel's side before anyone else could move. Adam found himself on a littered, unfamiliar deck, men hurrying past him, brushing him aside in their eagerness to get aboard.
There was a single cry, and Adam saw Jago drag a limp corpse down from the forecastle where the luckless seaman had been supposedly guarding the anchor cable.
Jago bent down and wiped his blade on the dead man's shirt and said between his teeth, 'Never sleep on watch! Bad for discipline!'
Incredibly. Adam heard somebody stifle a laugh.
He said, 'Rouse the others.' He walked to the vessel's deserted wheel and glanced at the masts and furled sails. Brigantine. Small, and very useful in these waters.
A few thumps and startled shouts, and then it was over. There were ten of them; the others, including the vessel's master, were ashore.
Jago said, They'll give no trouble, sir.'
Adam smiled. There was no point in telling Jago that the swivel guns on the brigantine's poop and foredeck were fully loaded and primed. But for the sleeping watchman, things would have been very different, and that would have left Monteith to make the biggest decision yet in his young life.
Tie them up. Tell them what to expect if they try to raise an alarm.'
Another seaman, one of Borradaile's, as Adam did not recognise him, said, 'She's the Redwing, out of Baltimore, sir. Carries stores for the army.' He jerked his thumb towards the land. 'To the battery. Their last visit, they tells me.'
Adam did not ask how he obtained the information, but it was priceless.
So the battery was there. And it was completed.
There was no time to spare. He beckoned to Jago. 'Could you work this vessel into open water? The truth, man no heroics.'
Jago faced him defiantly. 'Course I can, sir! I was servin' in one such out of Dover when I first got pressed!'
Adam matched his mood and gripped his arm, hard. 'She's yours, then. When you hear the charges blow, weigh anchor and try to rejoin the supporting squadron. I shall see you get a fair share of the prize money.'
Jago was still staring after him as the barge crew climbed down to their boat. Then he spat over the side and grinned. 'If you lives after today, Cap'n}'
The barge felt lighter as they pulled steadily toward the darker wedge of the land, and Adam saw the gleam of Monteith's white shirt as he stood in the jolly boat to wave as they surged abeam.
A lantern shutter lifted and light blinked across the water, and in what seemed like seconds men were leaping into the shallows on either bow to control and guide the boat in the last moments before the impact of driving ashore.
The marines were wading towards the beach, their bayoneted muskets held high, their heads turning like puppets as they fanned out to protect the other boats.
Adam felt the water surge around his boots and drag at each step forward. He could almost hear Borradaile's question. How do I feel, then, stepping once again onto a land that almost destroyed me, when even now there might be a marksman taking aim, holding his breath
But fear? There was none. A light-headedness which was no stranger to him, a reckless courage that matched Jago's defiance.
He waved his hanger, and saw faces turn towards him. 'Lively, lads! One hand for the King and keep one for yourselves!'
But the King was insane… so where was the sense of it? He knew that if he laughed now, he would be done for.
Then he thought of Bolitho, of his face when he had told him about Zenoria, and all those watching portraits which had condemned him. There had never been any choice for them, either.
Lieutenant Monteith rolled on to his side, an arm upraised as if to withstand a sudden blow, then gasped with relief as Adam dropped down beside him.
Adam pulled his small telescope from his coat. 'All quiet?'
'Yes, sir. Our people are in position and the marines have three pickets to guard each possible approach.'
He heard the anxiety in Monteith's voice. It was not unjustified. There was still enough darkness to cover them, but in less than an hour… He closed his mind to it. The admiral's report had claimed that the nearest artillery post was some five miles away, but without surprise they could not hope to destroy the battery in time.
Monteith said, 'I thought I could smell fire, sir. Like burning.'
Adam glanced at him. 'It must be the new oven for heating shot.'
There was no point in deceiving the young lieutenant. If they succeeded in destroying those guns, Borradaile would be ready and waiting to pick them up. If they failed, Alfriston would be the battery's first victim.
Monteith said between his teeth, 'Where the hell is that man?'
That man was a foretop man named Brady, as nimble and sure-footed as any cat when working high above the deck in every kind of weather. But before he had agreed to join the navy rather than face deportation or worse, he had been a poacher. A man very much at home in territory like this.
Adam said, 'He'll not run, Howard.' He smiled. 'We'd know by now if he had.'
He felt Monteith staring at him in the darkness, surprised that he could appear so confident, or unnerved by the casual use of his first name.
A marine said in a fierce whisper, 'Here comes the little bugger now!' He must have seen Adam's epaulettes,
