In Gallant Company (23 page)

D'Esterre said quietly, ‘They'll want to sound us out, discover our strength. They are not fools. One sight of a marine's coat and they'll know how we came, and what for.'

FitzHerbert said unhelpfully, ‘The horseman is an officer, sir.'

Bolitho shaded his eyes to follow the distant horse and rider. How was it possible to argue over honour and scruples at such a moment? Today or tomorrow he would be expected to cut down that same man if need be, without question or thought. And yet . . .

He said bluntly, ‘I'll put a ball in the centre of the causeway.'

Paget turned from studying the little group on the beach. ‘Oh, very well. But do get
on
with it!'

The second shot was equally well aimed, and threw spray and sand high into the air while the horseman struggled to regain control of his startled mount.

Then he turned and trotted back along the beach.

‘Now they know.' Paget seemed satisfied. ‘I think I'd like a glass of wine.' He left them and re-entered his room.

D'Esterre smiled grimly. ‘I suspect Emperor Nero was something of a Paget, Dick!'

Bolitho nodded and moved to the seaward side of the tower. Of Probyn's new command there was no trace, and he pictured her gaining more and more distance in the favourable off-shore wind. If the enemy column had seen the vessel leave, they would assume she had turned away at the sight of the redcoats. Otherwise, why should not the fort's new occupiers go with her?

Bluff, stalemate, guessing, it all added up to one thing. What would they do if the sloop did not or could not come to take them off the island? If the water ran out, would Paget surrender? It seemed unlikely the enemy commander would be eager to be lenient after they had blown up his fort and every weapon with it.

He leaned over the parapet and looked at the seamen who were sitting in the shadows waiting for something to do. If the water ran out, could these same men be expected to obey, or keep their hands off the plentiful supply of rum they had unearthed by the stables?

Bolitho recalled Paget's words. He knew where the enemy were getting much of their powder and shot. The information would be little help to Rear-Admiral Coutts if their brave escapade ended here.

Just to be back in
Trojan
, he thought suddenly. After this he would never complain again. Even if he remained one of her lieutenants for the rest of his service.

The very thought made him smile in spite of his uncertainty. He knew in his heart that if he survived this time he would be as eager as ever to make his own way.

He heard Lieutenant Raye of
Trojan
's marines clattering up the ladder and reporting to D'Esterre.

To Bolitho it was another sort of life. Tactics and strategy which moved at the speed of a man's feet or a horseman's gallop. No majesty of sail, no matter how frail when the guns roared. Just men, and uniforms, dropping into the earth when their time came. Forgotten.

He felt a chill at the nape of his neck as D'Esterre said to
the two lieutenants, ‘I feel certain they will attack tonight. An assault to test us out, to be followed up if we are caught unawares. I want two platoons on immediate readiness. The guns will have to fire over their heads, so keep 'em down in their gullies until I give the word.' He turned and looked meaningly at Bolitho. ‘I'll want two guns by the causeway as soon as it gets dark. We might lose them if we fall back, but we stand no chance unless we can give them bloody noses at the first grapple.'

Bolitho nodded. ‘I'll see to it.' How calm he sounded. A stranger.

He remembered his feelings as he had stood facing the fort with the pontoon moving away in the darkness. If the enemy broke through the causeway pickets, it was a long way to the gates for those in retreat.

D'Esterre was watching him gravely. ‘It sounds worse than it is. We must be ready. Keep our men on the alert and together. We might find ourselves with visitors after dark.' He gestured to the roughly dressed Canadian scouts. ‘Two can play their game.'

As shadows deepened between island and mainland, the marines and seamen settled down to wait. The beach was empty once more, and only the churned up sand betrayed where the horses and men had stood to watch the fort.

Paget said, ‘Clear night, but no moon.' He wiped one eye and swore. ‘Bloody wind! Constant reminder of our one weakness!'

Bolitho, with Stockdale close by his side, left the fort and went to watch the two guns being hauled down to the causeway. It was hard, back-breaking work, and there were no laughs or jests now.

It seemed cold after the day's heat, and Bolitho wondered how he could go through another night without sleep. How any of them could. He passed little gullies, their occupants revealed only by their white cross-belts as they crouched and cradled their muskets and watched the glitter of water.

He found Quinn with Rowhurst, siting the second cannon, arranging powder and shot so that it would be easily found and used in total darkness.

Stockdale wheezed, ‘Who'd be a soldier, eh, sir?'

Bolitho thought of the soldiers he had known in England. The local garrison at Falmouth, the dragoons at Bodmin. Wheeling and stamping to the delight of churchgoers on a Sunday, and little boys at any time.

This was entirely different. Brute force, and a determination to match anything which came their way. On desert or muddy field, the soldier's lot was perhaps the worst of all. He wondered briefly how the marines saw it? The best or the worst of their two worlds?

Quinn hurried across to him, speaking fast and almost incoherent.

‘They say it will be tonight. Why can't we fall back to the fort? When we attacked it they said the cannon commanded the causeway and the pontoon. So why not the same for the enemy?'

‘Easy, James. Keep your voice low. We must hold them off the island. They know this place. We only think we know it. Just a handful of them around the fort and who knows what could happen.'

Quinn dropped his head. ‘I've heard talk. They don't want to die for a miserable little island which none of them had ever heard of before.'

‘You know why we came.' He was surprised yet again by the tone of his own voice. It seemed harder. Colder. But Quinn must understand. If he broke now, it would not be a mere setback, it would be a headlong rout.

Quinn replied, ‘The magazine. The fort. But what will it matter, really count for, after we're dead? It's a pin-prick, a gesture.'

Bolitho said quietly, ‘You wanted to be a sea officer, more than anything. Your father wanted differently, for you to stay with him in the City of London.' He watched Quinn's face, pale in the darkness, hating himself for speaking as he was, as he must. ‘Well, I think he was right. More than you knew. He realized you would never make a King's officer. Not now. Not ever.' He swung away, shaking off Quinn's hand and saying, ‘Take the first watch here. I will relieve you directly.'

He knew Quinn was staring after him, wretched and hurt.

Stockdale said, ‘That took a lot to speak like so, sir. I know
'ow you cares for the young gentleman, but there's others wot depends on 'im.'

Bolitho paused and looked at him. Stockdale understood. Was always there when he needed him.

‘Thank you for that.'

Stockdale shrugged his massive shoulders and said, ‘It's nothing. But I thinks about it sometimes.'

Bolitho touched his arm, warmed and moved by his ungainly companion. ‘I'm sure you do, Stockdale.'

Two hours dragged past. The night got colder, or seemed to, and the first stiffening tension was giving way to fatigue and aching discomfort.

Bolitho was between the fort and the causeway when he stopped dead and turned his face towards the mainland.

Stockdale stared at him and then nodded heavily. ‘
Smoke
.'

It was getting thicker by the second, acrid and rasping to eyes and throat as it was urged across the island by the wind. There were flames too, dotted about like malicious orange feathers, changing shape through the smoke, spreading and then linking in serried lines of fires.

Midshipman Couzens, who had been walking behind them, asleep on his feet, gasped, ‘What does it mean?'

Bolitho broke into a run. ‘They've fired the hillside. They'll attack under the smoke.'

He forced his way through groups of startled, retching marines until he found the cannon.

‘Get ready to fire!' He picked out FitzHerbert with one of his corporals, a handkerchief wrapped around his mouth and nose. ‘Will you tell the major?'

FitzHerbert shook his head, his eyes streaming. ‘No time. He'll know anyway.' He dragged out his sword and yelled, ‘
Stand to! Face your front!
Pass the word to the other section!'

He was groping about, coughing and peering for his men, as more marines ran through the smoke, D'Esterre's voice controlling them, demanding silence, restoring some sort of order.

Couzens forgot himself enough to seize Bolitho's sleeve and murmur, ‘Listen! Swimming!'

Bolitho pulled out his hanger and felt for his pistol. Near his home in Cornwall there was a ford across a small river. But
sometimes, especially in the winter, it flooded and became impassable to wagons and coaches. But he had seen and heard horses often enough to know what was happening now.

‘They're swimming their mounts across!'

He swung round as above the sounds of water and hissing fires he heard a long-drawn-out cheer.

D'Esterre shouted, ‘They're coming from the causeway as well!' He pushed through his men and added, ‘Keep 'em down, Sarn't! Let the cannon have their word first!'

Some armed seamen amongst them blundered out of the darkness and slithered to a halt as Bolitho called, ‘Keep with me! Follow the beach!' His mind was reeling, grappling with the swiftness of events, the closeness of disaster.

A cannon roared out, and from somewhere across the water he heard the cheers falter, broken by a chorus of cries and screams.

The second cannon blasted the darkness apart with its long orange tongue, and Bolitho heard the ball smashing into men and sand, and pictured Quinn stricken with fear as the defiant cheers welled back as strong as before.

Stockdale growled, ‘There's one of 'em!'

Bolitho balanced himself on the balls of his feet, watching the hurtling shadow charging from the darkness.

Someone fired a pistol, and he saw the horse's eyes, huge and terrified, as it pounded towards the seamen, and then swerved away as another horseman lurched from the water and loomed above them like an avenging beast.

He thought Stockdale was saying to Couzens, ‘Easy, son! Keep with me! Stand yer ground!'

Or he may have been speaking to me
, he thought.

Then he forgot everything as he felt his hanger jerk against steel and he threw himself to the attack.

Lieutenant James Quinn ducked as musket-fire clattered along the causeway and some of the shots clanged and ricocheted from the two cannon. He was almost blinded by smoke, from the burning hillside and now with additional fog of gun-fire.

Out in the open it seemed far worse than any gundeck.
Metal shrieked overhead, and through the smoke men stumbled and cursed as they rammed home fresh charges and grapeshot to try and hold off the attack.

‘Fire!'

Quinn winced as the nearest cannon belched flame and smoke. In the swift glare he saw running figures and a gleam of weapons before darkness closed in again and the air was rent by terrible screams as the murderous grape found a target.

A marine was yelling in his ear, ‘The devils are on the island, sir!' He was almost screaming. ‘Cavalry!'

Lieutenant FitzHerbert ran through the smoke. ‘Silence, that man!' He fired his pistol along the causeway and added savagely, ‘You'll start a panic!'

Quinn gasped, ‘
Cavalry
, he said!'

FitzHerbert glared at him, his eyes shining above the handkerchief like stones.

‘We'd all be corpses if there was, man! A few riders, no doubt!'

Rowhurst shouted hoarsely, ‘Gettin' short of powder!' He blundered towards Quinn. ‘Damn yer eyes, sir! Do somethin', fer Christ's sake!'

Quinn nodded, his mind empty of everything but fear. He saw Midshipman Huyghue crouching on one knee as he tried to level a pistol above a hastily prepared earthwork.

‘Tell Mr Bolitho what is happening!'

The youth stood up, uncertain which way to go. Quinn gripped his arm. ‘Along the beach! Fast as you can!'

A shrill voice shouted, ‘'Ere the buggers come!'

FitzHerbert threw his handkerchief away and waved his sword. ‘Sar'nt Triggs!'

A corporal said, ‘He's dead, sir.'

The marine lieutenant looked away. ‘God Almighty!' Then as the shouts and whooping cheers echoed across the water he added, ‘
Forward
, marines!'

Stumbling and choking in the smoke, the marines emerged from their gullies and ditches, their bayonets rising in obedience to the order, their feet searching for firm ground as they peered with stinging eyes for a sign of their enemy.

A hail of musket-fire came from the causeway, and a third of the marines fell dead or wounded.

Quinn stared with disbelief as the marines fired, started to reload and then crumpled to another well-timed volley.

FitzHerbert yelled, ‘I suggest you spike those guns! Or get your seamen to reload our muskets!'

He gave a choking cry and pitched through his dwindling line of marines, his jaw completely shot away.

Quinn shouted, ‘Rowhurst! Fall back!'

Rowhurst thrust past him, his eyes wild. ‘Most of the lads 'ave gone already!' Even in the face of such danger he could not hide his contempt. ‘You might as well run, too!'

From over his shoulder Quinn heard the sudden blare of a trumpet. It seemed to grip the remaining marines like a steel hand.