A Tradition of Victory (34 page)

He wondered if any of the squadron were near enough to hear the explosion.

Searle said, “I’ve got my breath, Oliver. Lead on.”

They tramped past the camel-shaped rock and down towards the rocks where someone had beached a small boat. Smuggler or fisherman, Browne did not care. It was unlikely they would ever reach safety, but anything was better than waiting to be slaughtered.

“Halte-là!”

The voice cracked out of the darkness like a shot.

Browne dragged Searle down beside him and pointed. “Up to the left!”

It came again.
“Qui va là?”
But this time there was also a click of metal.

Searle let out a sob of despair and anger. “Damn their bloody eyes!”

Feet slipped and thudded over the rocks, and Browne heard one of the seamen yell, “Take that, you bugger!”

He saw Nicholl shine suddenly in the blast of a musket fired at point-blank range, saw him drop his cutlass and fall dead.

But in the flash Browne had seen three, perhaps four, French soldiers.

“Ready?” He barely recognized his own voice. “Them or us!”

Searle nodded violently, and together the two lieutenants rose to their feet, and with pistols drawn and cocked ran the last few yards along the beach.

There were more shouts, which changed to screams as the pistols flashed across wet sand and brought two of the soldiers kicking amongst the rocks.

Cooper’s wiry shape darted forward, and a choking cry announced another victim to his dirk.

The remaining soldier threw down his musket and yelled at the top of his voice. That too was cut short with the suddenness of deafness, and the seaman named Moubray joined his lieutenants and cleaned his cutlass in the sand.

“That were for Bill ’Arding, sir.”

Browne tried to reload his pistols, but his hands were shaking so badly he had to give up.

“Launch the boat, lads.”

He saw Cooper stooping over a sprawled body, doubtless stealing something, he thought wearily.

Then he grasped Cooper’s shoulder and pushed him roughly aside. “Help the others. It’ll be light very soon.”

He dropped on one knee and peered at the corpse. It was the

little commandant who had bade them farewell on this same beach. Well, they had met once again after all.

Searle called, “What is it?”

Browne stood up shakily. “Nothing.”

Searle completed reloading his pistols without any difficulty.

“You really are a marvel, Oliver.”

Am I? Is that what you think?

Browne followed him down to the small boat, but paused long enough to stare back at the dark shape which was already being lapped by the tide.

For a moment longer Browne felt cheated and unclean. It was like leaving a friend, not an enemy.

Then he said, “Pull hard, lads. We’ve a whole ocean to choose from.”

“North-west by north, sir! Full and bye!”

Bolitho glanced up as the maintopsail shook violently in protest.
Odin
was sailing closer to the wind than he had imagined possible. A heavier ship like
Benbow
would have been in real difficulties by now, he thought.

Inch said, “I’ve put my best lookouts aloft, sir.”

Bolitho watched the water creaming away from the lee side as the sixty-four heeled over to the strengthening breeze. He could see the white patterns reaching out across the surface, when only a short while ago there had been darkness. Faces stood out too, and the uniforms of the marines looked scarlet and not black as they had appeared in the night.

“Deep nine!” The leadsman’s chant floated aft.

Bolitho glanced briefly at M’Ewan, the master. He appeared calm enough, although nine fathoms was no great depth beneath
Odin
’s keel.

He saw the land for the first time, a ragged shadow to starboard which marked the entrance of the bay.

Inch observed, “Wind’s steady, sir.” He was thinking of his ship’s safety this close inshore.

Bolitho watched Stirling and the ship’s signal midshipman with their assistants, surrounded by flags to suit every demand.

Without turning his head, Bolitho knew Allday was standing just a few paces away, arms folded as he stared fixedly ahead beyond the gilded figurehead and bowsprit as the ship thrust towards the top of the bay.

“By the mark seven!”

Inch stirred uneasily. “Mr Graham! We will alter course two points. Steer nor’-west by west!”

Graham raised his speaking trumpet. There was no need for silence any more. Either the invasion craft were here or they were not.

“Hands to the braces, Mr Finucane!”

Inch walked aft and consulted the binnacle as the ship paid off and then steadied on her new course. It was a small alteration but would keep the keel out of danger. Above the decks the sails hardened and filled as they too responded to the change.

“By the mark ten!”

The midshipman-of-the-watch coughed into his hand to hide his relief, and several of the marine marksmen glanced at each other and grinned.

“Deck there! Anchor lights fine on th’ weather bow!”

Bolitho followed Inch and his first lieutenant to the starboard side.

Dawn was minutes away. If they had kept to their original plan of attack they would be miles away, with every French ship and coastguard on full alert.

He tried not to think of Browne and what must have happened, but concentrated everything on the paler shadows and winking lights which must be the anchorage.

A distant boom echoed and re-echoed around the bay, and

Bolitho knew the sound was being thrown back by the land.

A signal gun, a warning which was already too late, and had been from the moment they had slipped past Remond’s sleeping ships.

With the wind thrusting almost directly at the starboard side, and the ship tilting over to a steep angle, the guns would have all the help they required for the first broadsides.

Already the gun captains were waving their fists and their crews were working feverishly with tackles and handspikes.

Inch called, “On the uproll, Mr Graham, when I give the word!”

“Take in the mains’l!”

As the great sail was brought up to its yard Bolitho was reminded of a curtain being raised. There was sunlight too, prob-ing out from the land where night mist and wood smoke drifted above the water like low cloud.

And there lay the anchored vessels of the invasion fleet.

For a moment Bolitho imagined the frail light was playing tricks, or that his eyes were deceiving him. He had expected a hundred such craft, but there must have been three times that number, anchored in twos and threes and filling the elbow of the bay like a floating town.

There was a medium sized man-of-war anchored nearby, a cut-down ship of the line, Bolitho thought, as he peered through his telescope until his eye throbbed.

The crowded vessels looked at peace through the silent lens, but he could picture the pandemonium and panic there must be as
Odin
sailed purposefully towards them. It was impossible, but an enemy ship was right amongst them, or soon would be.

Inch said, “
Phalarope
’s on station, sir.”

Bolitho trained his glass towards the frigate and saw her exposed carronades, blunt-muzzled and ugly, run out in a long black line. He thought he could see Pascoe too, but was not certain.

“Signal
Phalarope. Take station astern of the
Flag.”

He ignored the bright flags darting up to the yards and turned his attention back to the enemy.

He heard a trumpet, far-off and mournful, and moments later saw the guard-ship running out her guns, although as yet she had not made any attempt to up-anchor or set sail.

In his excitement Inch took Bolitho’s arm and pointed towards the shore.

“Look, sir!
The tower!
”

Bolitho trained his telescope and saw a tower above the headland like a sentinel. At the top a set of jerking semaphore arms told their story better than shouted words.

But if Browne had destroyed the semaphore station on the church, there would be no one to see and relay the message to Remond’s squadron. And even if the same message was passed in the other direction, all the way to Lorient, it was too late to save this packed assembly.

Odin
’s jib-boom had passed the end of the anchored vessels now, which presented an unbroken barrier some half a mile away.

Smoke swirled above the guard-ship, and the rolling cash of gunfire showed that the French were now wide awake.

A few balls hurled spray into the air close abeam and brought cries of derision from
Odin
’s gun crews.

Graham watched as Inch slowly raised his sword above his head.

“On the uproll!
Steady,
my lads!”

A stronger gust of wind sighed into
Odin
’s topsails so that she heeled over and showed her copper in the pale sunlight. It was all Inch needed. The sword slashed down.

A midshipman who had been clinging to an open hatchway above the lower gun-deck yelled,
“Fire!”

But his shrill voice was lost in the devastating roar of the upper battery’s eighteen-pounders.

Bolitho watched the waterspouts lifting amongst and beyond

the anchored craft. The spray was still falling as the lower battery’s thirty-two-pounders added their weight of iron to the destruction. Bolitho saw fractured planking and whole areas of decking flung into the air, and when the smoke cleared he realized that several of the smaller craft were already heeling over. In the telescope’s lens he could see a few boats pulling clear, but in some cases the crews on the landward side of the anchorage had at last cut their cables and were trying to work clear.

“Run out!”

Again the trucks creaked and squealed up the slanting deck and the muzzles thrust through their ports.

“Stand by! As you bear!”

The sword came down again.
“Fire!”

Slower this time, as each gun captain waited and took more careful aim before jerking at his trigger line.

The French guard-ship was loosening her topsails, but had fouled two of the drifting invasion craft. She fired nevertheless, and two balls hit
Odin
just above the waterline.

Bolitho saw smoke around the guard-ship, and realized one of the other craft had caught fire. It might even have been caused by a blazing wad from one of the guard-ship’s own guns. He could see the running figures, tiny and futile in distance, as they hurled water from the beakhead and tried to free their ship from the flames. But the entanglement of rigging and the persistent strength of the offshore wind were too much for them, and Bolitho saw flames leaping from hull to hull and eventually setting light to the guard-ship’s jibsails.

On their converging approach they were now within a cable of the nearest craft, and from the bows
Odin
’s leadsman yelled,

“Deep
six!
”

Inch looked anxiously at Bolitho. “Far enough, sir?”

Bolitho nodded. “Bring her about.”

“Stand by to come about!”

All available hands sprang to braces and halliards, some still gasping and rubbing their streaming eyes from the gun smoke.

“Ready ho!”

“Put the wheel down!”

The spokes glittered in the sunshine as the helm was put hard over, and then M’Ewan shouted, “Helm’s a-lee, sir!”

Bolitho watched the panorama of drifting and shattered vessels as they began to swing slowly across
Odin
’s bows until it appeared as if the jib-boom was right above them. The sails flapped and thundered, while petty officers added their own weight to the braces to haul the yards round and lay the ship on the opposite tack.

Inch shouted, “Stand by on the larboard battery! On the uproll, Mr Graham!”

“Steady as you go!”

M’Ewan waited until the last sail was brought under control, hard-bellied in the wind.

“Sou’-east by east, sir!”

“Fire!”

The larboard guns hurled themselves inboard for the first time, the smoke funnelling back through the ports as the whole broadside crashed and blasted amongst the invasion craft with terrible effect.

Bolitho watched
Phalarope
’s shape lengthening, her sails in confusion as she followed the flagship’s example and tacked across the wind. She was even closer to the enemy, and Bolitho could imagine the terror those carronades would create.

The guard-ship was no longer under control and from her mainmast to forecastle was ablaze, the flames leaping up the sails and changing them to ashes in seconds.

Bolitho saw her shake and a topgallant mast fall like a lance

into the smoke. She must have run aground, and several figures were floundering in the water, while others were swimming towards some rocks.

“Cease firing!”

A silence fell over the ship, and even the men who were still sponging out the guns from the last broadside stood up to the gangways to watch
Phalarope
’s slow and graceful approach.

Allday said thickly, “Look at her. Moving closer. I could almost feel sorry for the mounseers.”

Emes was taking no chances, either with his aim or with the effect on his ship’s timbers. From bow to stern the carronades fired one by one. Not the echoing crash of a long gun, but each shot was hard and flat, like a great hammer on an anvil.

The carronades were hidden from view, but Bolitho saw the shots slamming home amongst the remaining invasion craft like a great gale of wind. Except that this wind was tightly packed grape contained in one huge ball which burst on contact.

If one ball from a “smasher” exploded in the confines of a gun-deck, it could turn it into a slaughterhouse. The effect on the smaller, thinly-planked invasion craft would be horrific.

Emes took his time, reefing all but his topsails to give his carronade crews an opportunity to reload and fire one last broadside.

When the echoes faded, and the smoke eventually eddied clear, there were barely a dozen craft still afloat, and it seemed unlikely that they had escaped some casualties and damage.

Bolitho shut the telescope and handed it to a midshipman.

He saw Inch slapping his first lieutenant on the shoulder and beaming all over his long face.