'Very happy,' replied O'Higgins, with a face even graver, more concerned than the Colonel's.
However, they were both cheerful, seriously cheerful, when the supper table was cleared and they sat with charts and views spread out before them, and coffee at their sides with brandy for those that liked it.
'Now, sir,' said Jack, 'since you have asked me to begin, I shall start by saying that the gunner and I have overhauled his stores and that materially the scheme that I shall propose is feasible. In essence it is this: having embarked your men at Concepcion - they will be men picked for courage, agility and freedom from seasickness - we, the schooner and the frigate, will return a little before dawn, landing all the soldiers and the seamen accustomed to mining, blowing up and destroying gun emplacements, at this point, Cala Alta. The boats will return to the ship, which will then make sail and proceed to a station off the fort, which she will most deliberately bombard from ranges suited to the accuracy of the defenders. But at no time will she fire on the great gate leading to the mole. During this bombardment the soldiers and seamen will advance along the path on the inland side, and I think the intensity and the noise of the bombardment will prevent the defenders - the comparatively unseasoned and inexperienced defenders, as Colonel Valdes tells me -from noticing their approach. But whether or no, the seamen's task is to fire rockets and stinkpots into all embrasures, filling the whole place with vile, unbreathable fumes and stench, and to mine all emplacements with guns in them. All this time the soldiers will keep up a steady fire, shrieking and bawling like fiends...'
'What is fiends?' whispered Valdes in Stephen's ear.
'Demonios.'
Then followed a whispered Spanish conversation in which Valdes described a pillar in a cathedral of his childhood which showed devils tormenting the damned in Hell, uttering shrieks as they did so.
When this was over, Stephen's closer attention returned to Jack Aubrey's discourse: '. . . and my reason for leaving the northern wall and its gate-house untouched is that I am convinced that the defenders, unless they are hardened grenadiers, will very quickly sicken of the bombardment and the sulphurous fumes and stench, and seek to escape by rushing out of the gate and running along the mole to the next strong-point or the one beyond if not to the town itself, or at least to the store-houses, and as they flee we can pepper them with the grape and then pursue...'
He paused: the Chileans looked at one another, and O'Higgins, sure of the reply, said, 'Colonel, may we hear your opinion?'
'Excellence,' said Valdes, 'it seems to me an eminently feasible operation.'
'I entirely agree. Dear Captain Aubrey, may I beg you to desire your people to sail the ship back to Concepcion as rapidly as may be convenient?'
'By all means, sir. But as I believe you noticed, we altered the frigate's appearance - remarkable to any seaman - and to return to Concepcion with any speed we must restore her mainmast. The one in the middle,' he added.
'Certainly: the central mast - can it indeed be changed at sea?'
'With a strong crew and a moderate sea, yes: but it takes time, and you might think it prudent to send your orders in to Concepcion by the schooner. She will get there much sooner: and when we arrive, if all goes well, your men should be waiting on the quay.'
'They shall be written at once, in emphatic words suited to the meanest intelligence: and as I recall the men are to be picked for courage, agility and freedom from seasickness.
'Exactly so, sir: and as soon as they are written, I shall entrust them to Mr. Reade, who commands the schooner, with orders to proceed to Concepcion without the loss of a minute, there to embark the troops named in the margin, and to return with the utmost dispatch. And as soon as he is under way, it may interest you to see a brutish, stump-masted, unmemorable frigate transformed into something truly glorious by the towering mainmast of a thirty-six-gun ship! And then when all is a-tanto and belayed we shall set out with a press of sail for Concepcion.'
Out and back again, still on this glorious and even strengthening west wind, a splendid piece of sailing - so splendid that it reconciled the sombre infantrymen crammed into the two vessels, so that at times they burst into song. They had a likeable, fairly intelligent set of officers to whom the largest plan of Valdivia had been shown, spread out in the gunroom, while the fairly simple plan of attack was explained again and again. Two of the officers knew Valdivia well and they pointed out the store-houses at the end of the mole, with the treasury behind them.
A little before dawn, with Mars rising astern, the galleys in both crafts were heated to something not far from incandescence and the cooks and their mates served out a royal breakfast to all hands, not a crock nor a pot nor a square wooden plate being left unfilled.
By now the mountains were filling a quarter of the sky; a few scattered lights could be seen ashore. Surprise's and Ringle's officers were very busy in getting their boats over the side, formed into two trains, ready to be manned. Jack, right forward with his night-glass, saw the Cala Alta clear, and the central fortification looming up behind it. He had already reduced sail: the ships' people were extraordinarily silent, almost the only sound coming from the breeze (much less inshore) whispering through the rigging and from the water running gently down the side.
With the Cala Alta close on the larboard bow Jack called 'Let go' and a kedge was lowered into the sea, bringing the ship up just abreast of the rock. The boats put off one by one: five dark lanterns in each: the seamen ran them beyond the tide mark: the silent lines formed up, glimmering light between each band: Harding, in charge of the detachment of heavily laden seamen, said, 'Give way,' and they stepped out, followed by the soldiers.
'Kedge,' called Jack. 'Hands to the braces.'
The frigate's yards came round, her sheeted sails took the wind, and she moved forward, faster, faster, and the main fortress came abreast of the larboard beam: lightless, blind, except for a single window. He glanced aft: no sign of the marching column yet. 'Mr. Beeton,' he called to the gunner. 'What do you make it?'
'A trifle above five hundred yards, sir.'
'Try a sighter, mid-high.'
'Aye-aye, sir: mid-high it is.' And the gunner's voice was cut off by the bellow of his gun and the shriek of the recoiling carriage. The wind swept the smoke forward and all eyes strained to see the impact. Nothing could the most eager make out in the darkness, but almost at once the windows came to life, row after row of lamp-lit squares.
