large numbers of boats with soldiers in them were rowing about, evidently determined to land, to take, burn, rase, and sack the town. The sergeant's guard from the little post
was lined up on the beach, but they did not seem to know what to do, and every man who could command a horse had long since galloped off to Saint Denis to give the alarm and to implore instant succour from the military there.
'This is going very well,' said Colonel Keating some time later, as he watched the vanguard of the succour through his telescope. 'Once their field-pieces are across the stream, they will have a devil of a time getting them back again. Their horses are quite done up already. See the company of infantry at the double! They will be pooped, sir, pooped entirely.'
'Aye,' said Jack. 'It is very well.' But his mind was more on the sea than on the land, and it appeared to him that the surf was growing: the rollers, perhaps from some blow far to the east, were coming in with more conviction. He looked at his watch, and although it wanted forty minutes of the stated time he said, 'Make Sirius's signal to carry on.'
The Sirius paid off heavily, filled, and bore away for Grande-Chaloupe, carrying close on a thousand men and the howitzers. As she moved off, her place was taken by the Kite, the Groper, and two other transports, increasing the alarm on shore.
The plan had been unable to allot any precise interval between the two landings, since obviously that must depend on the time the Sirius should take to pass Saint-Denis and reach the agreed point between that town and St Paul's; but they had hoped for something in the nature of two hours. With the failing breeze, however, it now looked as though at least three would be required: and all the while the surf was growing. The waiting was hard, and it would have been harder still if the newly-arrived French field- pieces, drawn up on a hill behind the post, had not seen fit to open fire. They threw no more than four- pound balls, but they threw them with striking accuracy, and after the first sighting shots one passed so close to Colonel Keating's head that he cried out indignantly, 'Did you see that, sir? It was perfectly deliberate. Infernal scrubs! They must know I am the commanding officer.'
'Do you not shoot at commanding officers in the army, Colonel?'
'Of course not, sir. Never, except in a melee If I were on land, I should send a galloper directly. There they go again. What unprincipled conduct: Jacobins.'
'Well, I believe we can put a stop to it. Pass the word for the gunner. Mr Webber, you may fire at the field- pieces by divisions: but you must point all the guns yourself, and you must not damage any civilian or ecclesiastical property. Pitch them well up beyond the town.'
With the great guns going off one after another in a leisurely, deliberate fire, and the heady smell of powder swirling about the deck, tension slackened. The soldiers cheered as Mr Webber sent his eighteen- pound balls skimming among the Frenchmen on their knoll, and they roared again when he hit a limber full on, so that one wheel sprang high into the air, turning like a penny tossed for heads or tails. But such an unequal contest could not last long, and presently the French guns were silenced: and all the time the swell increased, sending white water high on the reef and surging through the gap to break in great measured rollers on the strand.
Yet after the lull the breeze had strengthened too, with every sign of blowing hard before the night, and at length Jack said, 'Sirius should be at Grande Chaloupe by now. I think we may move on.'
Their move took them briskly past another shallow gap in the reef, where more fresh water broke the coral, and to another anchorage (though still indifferent) off the mouth of the Riviere des Pluies.
'This is it,' said Colonel Keating, map in hand. 'If we can go ashore here, the landing will be unopposed. It will be at least an hour before they can get round: probably more.'
'My God,' thought Jack, looking at the broad belt of surf, the steep-to beach of rounded boulders. He stepped to the taffrail and hailed, Nereide ahoy. Come under my stern.' The Nereide shot up, backed her foretopsail, and lay pitching on the swell: there was Lord Clonfert on her quarterdeck; and Stephen noticed that he was wearing full-dress uniform--no unusual thing in a fleet-action, but rare for a skirmish.
'Lord Clonfert,' called Jack, 'do you know the deepwater channel?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Is a landing practicable?'
'Perfectly practicable at present, sir. I will undertake to put a party ashore this minute.'
'Carry on, Lord Clonfert,' said Jack.
The Nereide had a little captured schooner among her boats, a local craft; and into this and some of her boats she poured an eager party of soldiers and seamen. The squadron watched the schooner run down to the edge of the surf, followed by the boats. Here she took to her sweeps, backing water and waiting for the master-wave: it came, and she shot in through the breaking water, on and on, and they thought she was through until at the very last she struck, ten yards from the shore, slewed round, and was thrown on to the beach, broadside on. As the wave receded all the men leapt ashore, but the backdraught took her into the very curl of the next, which lifted her high and flung her down so hard that it broke her back at once and shattered her timbers. Most of the other craft fared the same: the boats beaten to pieces, the men safe. Only four bodies were to be seen, dark in the white water, drifting westwards along the shore.
'It is essential to carry on,' cried Colonel Keating in a harsh voice. 'We must take Saint Denis between two fires, whatever the cost.'
Jack said to Mr Johnson, 'Make Groper's signal.'
While the transport was coming up he stared at the beach and the floating wreckage: as he had thought, it was only the last stretch that was mortal at this stage. Anything of a breakwater would allow boats to land and the Groper was the only vessel with a draught shallow enough to go in so far. When she was under the Boadicea's lee he called, 'Mr Pullings, you must shelter the boats: take your brig in, drop your stern-anchor at the last moment, and run her ashore as near as you can heading south-west.'
'Aye, aye, sir,'said Pullings.
The Groper bore up in a volley of orders, made her way slowly towards the land while her people were busy below, rousing a cable out of a stern-port, and then much faster: into the surf, on and on through it. In his glass Jack saw the anchor drop, and a moment later the Groper ran hard aground right by the shore. Her foretopmast went by the board with the shock, but the hands at the capstan took no notice: they were furiously heaving the cable in, forcing her stern round so that she lay just south-west, braced against the seas and creating a zone of
