Alexander Kent - Stand into Danger

Bolitho swung round, trying to hide his sudden desperation as he called, “How much longer, Little?” He realized that the gunner’s mate had only just told him, just as he knew that Colpoys and Cowdroy were watching him worriedly.

Little straightened his back and nodded. “Ready.” He stooped down again, his eye squinting along the gun’s black barrel. “Load with powder, lads! Ram the charge ’ome.” He was moving round the breech like a great spider, all arms and legs. “This ’as got to be done nice an’ tidy like.”

Bolitho licked his lips. He saw two seamen taking a shot-carrier towards the small furnace, where another man waited with a ladle in his fists, ready to spoon the heated ball into the carrier. Then it was always a matter of luck and timing. The ball had to be tipped into the muzzle and tamped down on to a double-thick wad. If the gun exploded before the rammer could leap clear he would be blown apart by the ball. Equally, it might split the barrel wide open. No wonder captains were terrified of using heated shot aboard ship.

Little said, “I’ll lay for the middle vessel, sir. A mite either way an’ we might ’it one or t’other.”

Stockdale nodded in agreement.

Colpoys said abruptly, “I can see some men on the hill-top. My guess is they’ll be raking us presently.”

A man shouted, “They’re musterin’ for another attack!”

Bolitho ran to the parapet and dropped on one knee. He could see the small figures darting amongst the rocks and others taking up positions on the hill-side. This was no rabble. Garrick had his people trained like a private army.

“Stand to!”

The muskets rose and wavered in the glare, each man seeking out a target amongst the fallen rocks.

A fusillade of shots ripped over the parapet, and Bolitho knew that more attackers were taking advantage of covering fire to work around the other end of the ridge.

He darted a quick glance at Little. He was holding out his hands like a man at prayer.

“Now! Load! ”

Bolitho tore his eyes away and fired his pistol into a group of three men who were almost at the top of the ridge. Others were fanning out and making difficult targets, and the air was filled with the unnerving din of yells and curses, many in their own language.

Two figures bounded over the rocks and threw themselves on a seaman who was frantically trying to reload a musket. Bolitho saw his mouth open in a silent scream as one attacker pinioned him with his cutlass and his companion silenced him forever with a terrible slash.

Bolitho lunged forward, striking a blade aside and hacking down the man’s sword-arm before he could recover. He felt the shock jar up his wrist as the hanger cut through bone and muscle, but forgot the screaming man as he went for his companion with a ferocity he had never known before.

Their blades clashed together, but Bolitho was standing amongst loose stones and could barely keep his balance.

The deafening roar of Little’s cannon made the other man falter, his eyes suddenly terrified as he realized what he had done.

Bolitho lunged and jumped back behind the parapet even before his adversary’s corpse hit the ground.

Little was yelling, “Look at that ’un!”

Bolitho saw a falling column of water mingled with steam where the ball had slammed down between two of the vessels. A miss maybe, but the effect would rouse panic quickly enough.

“Sponge out, lads!” Little capered on the edge of his pit while the men with the cradle dashed back towards the furnace for another ball. “More powder!”

Colpoys crossed the blood-spattered rock and said, “We’ve lost three more. One of my fellows is down, too.” He wiped his forehead with his arm, his gold-hilted sabre hanging from his wrist.

Bolitho saw that the curved blade was almost black with dried blood. They could not withstand another attack like the last. Although corpses dotted the slope and along the broken rim of the parapet, Bolitho knew there were many more men already grouping below. They would be far more fearful of Garrick than a ragged handful of seamen.

“Now!” Little plunged his slow-match down and the gun recoiled again with a savage explosion.

Bolitho caught a brief blur of the ball as it lifted and then curved down towards the unmoving vessels. He saw a puff of smoke, and something solid detach itself from the nearest schooner and fly into the air before splashing in the water alongside.

“A hit! A hit!” The gun-crew, black-faced and running with sweat, capered around the gun like madmen.

Stockdale was already using his strength on a handspike to edge the muzzle round just that small piece more.

“She’s afire!” Pearse had his hands above his eyes. “God damn ’em, they’re tryin’ to douse it!”

But Bolitho was watching the schooner at the far end of the lagoon. She of all the vessels was in the safest anchorage, and yet even as he watched he saw her jib flapping free and men running forward to sever the cable.

He reached out, not daring to take his eyes from the schooner. “Glass! Quickly!”

Jury hurried to him and put the telescope in his fingers.

Then he stood back, his eyes on Bolitho’s face as if to discover what was about to happen.

Bolitho felt a musket-ball fan past his head but did not flinch. He must not lose that small, precious picture, even though he was in danger of being shot down while he watched.

Almost lost in distance, and yet so clear because he knew them. Palliser’s tall frame, sword in hand. Slade and some seamen by the tiller, and Rhodes urging others to the halliards and braces as the schooner broke free and fell awkwardly downwind. There were splashes alongside, and for a moment Bolitho thought she was under fire. Then he realized that Palliser’s boarders were flinging the vessel’s crew overboard, rather than lose vital time putting them under guard.

Colpoys shouted excitedly, “They must have swum out to the vessel! He’s a cunning one is Palliser! Used our attack as the perfect decoy!”

Bolitho nodded, his ears ringing with the crack of musket-fire, the occasional bang of a swivel. Instead of steering for the centre of the lagoon, Palliser was heading directly for the schooner which had been hit by Little’s heated shot.

As they tore down on her, Bolitho saw a ripple of flashes and knew that Palliser was raking the men on her deck, smashing any hope they might have had of controlling the flames. Smoke was rising rapidly from her hatch and drifting down towards the beach and its deserted huts.

Bolitho called, “Little! Shift the target to the next one!”

Minutes later the heated ball smashed through a schooner’s frail hull and caused several internal explosions which brought down a mast and set most of the standing rigging ablaze.

With two vessels burning fiercely in their midst, the remainder needed no urging to cut their cables and try to escape the drifting fireships. The last schooner, the one seized by Palliser’s boarding party, was now under command, her big sails filling and rising above the smoke like avenging wings.

Bolitho said suddenly, “Time to go.” He did not know why he knew. He just did.

Colpoys waved his sabre. “Take up the wounded! Corporal, put a fuse to the magazine!”

Little’s slow-match plunged down again, and another heated ball ripped across the water and hit the vessel already ablaze. Men were leaping overboard, floundering like dying fish as the great pall of smoke crept out to hide them from view.

Pearse lifted a wounded marine across his shoulder, but held his boarding-cutlass in his other hand.

He said, “Wind’s steady, sir. That smoke will blind the bloody battery!”

Panting like wild animals, the seamen and marines scrambled down the slope, keeping the ridge between them and the hill-top battery.