some blocks came hurtling down into the splinter-netting over the quarterdeck. The next sent a dozen hammocks flying amidships; yet still the squadron could not reply.
'You have noted the time, Mr Peter?' asked Jack, knotting a stray signal halliard.
'Immediately, sir,' cried Peter. The secretary was a yellowish white, made all the more evident by his black clothes: his morning's beard showed strongly against his skin. 'Seventeen minutes after eight,' he said.
How the Caroline pasted them! She was completely shrouded in her own smoke, but still the twenty- four pound shot came crashing home. 'Admirable practice,' observed Jack to the secretary. Still another steady broadside, and the ship's bulwark of hammocks had great ragged gaps in it; three men were down. The glass turned; the bell struck one. 'Mr Woods,' said Jack to the master, as he stood conning the ship, 'as soon as the church and the tower are in line, we shall go about. Mr Graham, to the squadron: Tack in succession at the gun. And then Close engagement.' The minutes dropped by, then at last the signal-gun. The squadron went about as smoothly as a machine, Boadicea, Sirius, Raisonable, Otter, Nereide; smoothly, but slower, close-hauled on the failing inshore breeze, into the reach of the French guns again. Nearer still, and now the Indiamen let fly, together with the brig and every armed vessel in the port. But now in the town the situation was clear enough. Union flags were flying from all the batteries but one, and at this close range the squadron's guns could at last tell friend from foe. In succession their forward guns began to speak: Boadicea fired some deliberate sighting shots, Sirius her half-broadside, and the Raisonable, a moderate rolling fire; Otter and Nereidenothing but their bow-guns yet. Eliot had a fine notion of close engagement, observed Jack to himself. The Boadicea had stopped firing and she was standing straight in to cross the bows of the Caroline as she lay there within twenty-five yards of the shore. At this rate she would surely ground in the next few minutes.
'Boadicea signalling: Permission to anchor, sir,' said a voice in his ear.
'Affirmative,' said Jack, and he turned to the waiting carpenter.
'Five foot of water in the well, sir,' reported Mr Gill, land we sprung a butt end, with them old guns.'
'Mr Woods, haul your wind,' said Jack, never moving his eye from the Boadicea. 'Ship the pumps.' He saw her small bower splash down, followed by her streamanchor: there she lay, her sails clewed up, right athwart the Caroline, within pistol-shot of the shore. And now her crew's long training showed itself: in a furious eruption of fire and smoke she played with both broadsides on the frigate, the Indiamen, and the remaining battery. The Sirius, the Otter, and from some distance, the Nereide supported her: the Raisonable, lying to, said nothing apart from a few symbolic shots from her stern- chaser. But Jack's spirit was entirely aboard the Boadicea, in the true heart of the battle, approving her every stroke; and when, in less than half a glass, the Caroline's colours came down, followed by those of all the other ships and of the last battery, his heart leapt as though she had struck to him. They came down, and a universal cheer went up from the entire squadron, echoed by a roaring from the land.
'My barge, Mr Warburton,' said Jack to the first lieutenant. 'And my compliments to Dr Maturin: we are going ashore.'
The town had suffered very little, and the square in which they met Colonel Keating, with a group of officers and civilians, might have been living in deep peace--windows open, stalls of bright fruit and vegetables displayed, the fountain played--but for the dead silence, all the heavier for the recent warlike thunder, and the total absence of inhabitants. 'Give you joy, Colonel,' said Jack in an unnaturally loud voice as they shook hands. 'You have done wonders, sir: I believe the place is ours.'
'For the moment we may say so, sir,' said Keating with a beaming smile, 'but they are rallying on the hills above, and Desbrusleys' column from Saint-Denis is likely to be here by nightfall. We must go to work at the double.' He laughed very cheerfully, and catching sight of Stephen he said, 'There you arc, Doctor: a glorious good morning to you, sir. You politicoes will be pleased with us--we have behaved like lambs, sir, like Sunday-going lambs--not a maiden has been put to the blush, so far, and my men are all well in hand.'
'Might I beg for an officer and a few soldiers, Colonel?' said Stephen. 'I must find the mayor and the chief of police.'
'Certainly you may, sir. Captain Wilson will be delighted to accompany you. But please to remember, that we arc likely to be bundled out in less than twelve hours' time; a couple of regiments, with their artillery playing on us from the heights, would make the place untenable.' He laughed again, and from some odd contagion the whole group laughed too: cautious faces peered at the mirth from behind window- curtains; a number of small black boys crept closer under the market stalls. 'Oh, Commodore,' he went on, 'where are my wits? Here are the captains of the Indiamen.'
'I am happy to see you, gentlemen,' said Jack, 'and beg you will go aboard your ships at once. We knocked them about a little, I fear, but I trust they will be ready for sea before . . . ' His words were cut off by an earth- shaking explosion, the upward flight of dark lumps of masonry, their corresponding downward crash, as the Lambousiere battery disintegrated.
'That will be your friend Lord Clonfert,' remarked the Colonel, chuckling. 'A very active officer. Now, Commodore, shall we attend to the public property?'
They attended to it, and to a great deal besides. Theirs was an enormously busy day, for not only had the more dangerous fortifications to be destroyed, a large number of English prisoners to be released, still more French prisoners to be secured, the wounded seamen from the Caroline--half the crew, headed by their captain-- to be carried to the hospital, and committees of anxious citizens, clergy and merchants to be reassured, but the wind had fulfilled its earlier threat. It now lay somewhat to the west of south, and the surf was increasing every hour. The Caroline, the Indiamen, the Grappler brig, and several other vessels having cut their cables at the last moment, had to be heaved off; the Raisonable was obliged to be laid in a mud berth at the ebb for the angry Mr Gill to come at her sprung butt-end; while every officer, every bosun and carpenter that could possibly be spared from a thousand other urgent tasks was furiously busy in the French naval yard, an undreamed-of Tom Tiddler's ground strewn with cordage, sailcloth, and spars of every dimension. Stephen had an equally strenuous time with the mayor, the vicar-general, and the chief of police; while at the same time he made a large number of private contacts. His was a less physically active day than most, but at sunset, when the senior officers gathered at Keating's headquarters, a carefully-chosen cabaret by the port, and sat there refreshing themselves with white wine and an admirable local fish, he was as tired as any of them. The weariness was apparent in their drawn faces, the frequent yawns, the relaxed posture, but not in their expressions, and their spirits: they were still a band of grigs. Colonel Keating was as merry as ever when he passed Jack his little spy-glass and pointed out the French soldiers gathering on the heights above the town. 'They tell me the main column is to be led by General Desbrusleys himself,' he said, speaking loud to be heard above the surf. 'Yet I wonder a man of such spirit has not placed his artillery before this; there are some capital places up there, you know, for a plunging cross-fire. But no doubt he means to come by another route.'
A frantic Company's supercargo darted by, In search of hands to reload his precious silk. He plunged through the gathering maidens lining the port and vanished with a low, frustrated how]. The maidens resumed their vigil, clasping one another and giggling: none had yet been caused to blush, even by this late hour; but hope was not altogether dead, though the last boats were putting off.
