Signal Close Action (15 page)

The sky was paler, as were the stars, there was no doubt about that. But horizon and land were still interlocked, and only where the shoreline was edged with pale sand could he get a true idea of their position. They were on a hillside, behind and about level with the headland. In the small glass he could see the crude gashes where the ground had been dug into earthworks and pallisades, the occasional flicker of light from a single lantern. It played on a pair of fat gun breeches, probably twenty-four pounders, he thought.

Leroux was leaning on his elbows, sucking quietly at a round pebble.

'Down this steep slope and up the next to the pallisade, sir. Even allowing for there being no other protection at the rear, we might lose half our men in a charge.' He glanced at his weary marines. 'Shipboard life takes the wind out of 'em. They're not infantry or line soldiers.'

Somewhere in the distance a dog barked with sudden vigour. It was like the beginning of another day.

Bolitho snapped, 'This morning they will have to act like soldiers, Major. We must attack without delay. Before the trumpet calls the garrison to arms.'

He felt the other officers moving closer to him. He kept his gaze directed towards the sea, the three dark shapes of the anchored ships. Perhaps they could silence the battery and then fight their way to some boats. All because of that gully. And his own blindness.

He said shortly, 'Mr. Steere, you will take what seamen remain with us and head for the beach. Mr. Luce will accompany you.' He nodded to Leroux. 'Carry on. We had best move directly.'

Leroux touched his sergeant's arm in the gloom. The man jumped as if he had been hit by a ball.

The major said curtly, 'Sergeant Gritton. Pass the word. Fix bayonets. Check each man. When I give the signal, the whole line will advance at the trot.'

The marine straightened his hat. 'Yessir.' He might just as well have been ordered to polish his boots from the little emotion he showed.

Men stirred along the hillside, and steel clicked against steel as the bayonets emerged to glint feebly in the dull light.

Bolitho drew his sword and said quietly, 'We will make as much noise as we can. It is the best weapon today.'

He swung round as a single shot echoed and re-echoed round the hills like a ricochet.

For a moment he imagined that a picket had sighted his marines, or worse still they had been outmanoeuvred even as they prepared to mount their attack on the battery.

Nepean called, 'Down there, sir! I saw a flash. A man fell, I think.'

There were muffled shouts, and the single lantern on the battery began to move across the flat ground behind the earthworks as if carried by a spirit.

Leroux muttered, 'It's no signal, by God. There must be a madman at work.' He added bitterly, 'In heaven's name, look at the confusion! There's no chance of a surprise now!'

Bolitho could see even without the major's telescope the surging figures along the battery wall. Most were very pale, as if only partly dressed, rudely awa
kened by that mysterious s
hot,

He replied harshly, 'It is our only chance, Major.' He lurched to his feet and waved his hat towards the astonished marines. 'Are you with me ?' He could feel the madness rising in his throat like bile, the fierce pounding against his ribs as if his heart was trying to break free.

With something like a growl the marines stumbled from their positions and as one and then another pointed his bayoneted musket towards the battery Leroux yelled,
'Charge!
'

Down the slope, yelling and cheering like wild things, the marines soon forgot the order to keep down their speed. Faster and faster, feet kicking over grass and stones, the wavering line of bayonets brighter now as a faint glow showed above the headland.

Here and there a man fell, only to stagger upright again, find his musket and double after his yelling companions.

Bolitho heard a few shots, but who was firing and where they went he did not know. He knew it was getting harder to maintain the pace, and realised they were going up now instead of down.

He gasped out, 'Lively
1
Make for the palisades!
'

Some louder bangs came from above, and he heard a man gurgle and roll away down the slope.

But several marines had fallen behind and were kneeling to take aim above the heads of the others. A ball slammed past Bolitho's head and he heard a voice scream out with agony from the battery wall.

Leroux was yelling, 'A path! Sergeant Gritton, take 'em up there!'

Crack, crack, crack!
Balls ripped into the pallisade from both sides, and as if from a great distance Bolitho heard the urgent clamour of a trumpet.

They had to reach that wall. Breach it before help came from the camp. They had all heard the horses. Cavalry would disperse the tired marines and destroy them piecemeal.

He almost fell across a sprawled soldier in a gateway, before he was pushed aside by a yelling marine at the head of the leading section. His mind reeled but clung to the strange fact that the gate was open, the sentry killed.

Up some steps and around a narrow bend where he saw some half dozen Spaniards beating against a broad door with weapons and fists, oblivious it seemed to the onrushing marines.

One turned, then the whole bunch of them scattered from the door, fighting each other to climb up and over a partly finished wall.

Whooping like fiends the marines charged amongst them, the bayonets lifting and stabbing, the awful cries drowned by their own excited madness.

Bolitho shouted, 'Stand fast, marines!' To Leroux he gasped, 'Stop them, for God's sake! We must get through that door!'

Shots banged down from the battery and several marines fell kicking, but as others were still hurrying up the steps it seemed likely they would soon be unable to move, to escape the hidden marksmen.

He saw Sergeant Gritton with a great axe standing framed against the door, heard the mighty clang as the blade hacked into the studded timber.

Leroux fired a pistol and handed it to his orderly as a body spilled over the rampart and pitched amongst the yelling marines.

'He'll never get it down in time!'

He fired his other pistol and cursed as the ball whimpered harmlessly towards the sky.

'Ready, lads!' Gritton was almost screaming. 'It's openin'!'

Bolitho thrust himself through the press of men, aware that the door was swinging inwards, knowing that no axe had done it, and that in the next seconds his men might be smashed down by a blast of canister.

Gritton was bawling,
'Shoot,
lads! Let's be at the bastards!'

Then another voice, louder even than the sergeant's. 'Avast there, Sergeant Gritton! Hold your fire, damn you!'

Bolitho felt himself being carried bodily through the door on a tide of cursing, cheering marines, and as they burst into a roughly-hewn passage and fanned out on either side he stared at the two figures who were etched against a solitary lantern.

Leroux gasped, 'One of
us!
Shoot that soldier, Gritton!'

The 'soldier' threw down his musket, and as his arms were seized by two marines he called hoarsely,
'It's me!'

Bolitho pushed the marines aside and gripped the youth around his shoulders, 'I must be dreaming!'

Allday
shouted, "Then so must we, sir!
'

Leroux was at his side again. "This is the main magazine, sir!' He stared at Pascoe's stained face. 'Did you .
..
? I mean, were you going to. . . ?'

Pascoe said huskily, 'We planned to blow the magazine. The commandant here knows a ship is nearby.' He looked at Allday, the strength suddenly gone out of him. 'And we knew she would be
Lysander.
'

Allday nodded, his filthy face split into a grin. 'What we didn't know was that we'd see the bullocks this fine morning!'

Bolitho controlled his reeling thoughts. They might still be too late to do anything. But it no longer seemed so black, so impossible as it had just moments ago.

'Major, take some men to the battery. Tell your sharpshooters to fire with care. I doubt you'll get much opposition. They'll not be keen to shoot down here and build their own inferno.' He looked at Pascoe and Allday.
'As
you
were quite prepared to do.'

Allday said, 'One thing, sir. There's a second battery on the outboard end of the point. I think this is the only magazine, but-'

He broke off as the passageway shook to a sudden explosion. There was cheering, too, and the sporadic clatter of musket fire.

Bolitho nodded. 'That was a gun from the other battery, I'm thinking.'

Pascoe made to follow him as he ran after the marines, but he said, 'No, Adam. Yours has been the lion's share of danger. Remain here with these wounded marines until I know what to do.'

As he hurried along the dimly lighted passageway, past great vats of shot, barrels of powder and cradles for carrying the massive balls up to the furnace, he kept thinking of what had happened. Pascoe and Allday had survived. Not only that, they were here, with him, though how they had managed it he could not begin to comprehend. If he had been turned back completely by the gully, or had arrived at the camp perhaps minutes later, they would have blown up the magazine and battery, and themselves also. He felt the emotion pricking his eyes. To make that sacrifice, such a reckless gesture,

without even waiting to see if a ship was actually entering the bay. They had
known
she was
Lysander.
It had been enough.

Another great bang brought dust filtering from the beamed roof, but he took time to sheath his sword, to compose himself, as Leroux, hatless with blood above his eye ran down some steps and shouted,
'Lysander
is in sight, sir. The other battery has opened fire on her, but this one has struck to us.' He sighed heavily. 'Listen to my lads. Their
huzz
as
are a reward enough.'

Boli
t
ho flinched as another bang echoed around- the magazine.

'Traverse some of the cannon to point on the other battery. There is heated shot, I believe.'

Leroux led the way up the steps, his coat scarlet again in a rectangle of dull light from the sky.

Bolitho felt the salt air across his face, and watched the cheering marines as they hurried about the earthworks, firing as they went towards the other battery. He ignored the hiss of balls which flicked past him and stared fixedly at the high pyramid of canvas which appeared to be rising from the sea itself.

The seventy-four was moving very slowly into the bay, her lower hull still in deeper shadow. Herrick was coming in, just as he had known he would. No battery on earth would prevent his attempt to complete the plan of attack, nor frighten him from his attempt to rescue the landing party.

A gun crashed out from the battery, and he gritted his teeth as a tall waterspout erupted violently alongside the ship's hull.
Too close.

He snapped, 'Hurry your men, Major! Tell them that the sea is their only way out!'

6
Attack at Dawn

'C
ourse
nor'-east, sir!' The helmsman's voice was hushed.

'Very well.' Herrick moved restlessly to the weather side of the quarterdeck and peered towards the land.

As he turned to look along the upper gun deck he realised he could see some of the crews quite clearly, although at first glance it seemed as dark as before.

He walked aft to where Grubb stood near the wheel with Plowman, his best master's mate.

'There should have been a signal by now, Mr. Grubb.'

He ought to have held his silence and kept his anxiety to himself. But it seemed endless.
Lysander
's slow and careful approach towards the hidden land, the nerve-stretching tension as the men stood to their guns on each deck, while others waited at braces and halliards in case he should order a sudden change of tack.

Occasionally from right forward in the chains he heard the leadsman's cry, the splash beneath the bows as he made another cast.

There was no chance of a mistake. With the wind holding steady across the larboard quarter, the sea depth checking with that shown on the chart, plus Grubb's vast local knowledge, there was no room for doubt.

The sailing master looked even more shapeless with his arms thrust deep into the folds of his heavy coat.

'Mr. Plowman repeats 'e saw the landin' party safe away, sir. No challenge, nor even a sight of a whisker from the Dons.' He shook his head and added gloomily,
‘I
agrees with you, sir. There ought to 'ave bin a signal long since.'