Signal Close Action (42 page)

Bolitho heard Allday say, 'I've brought the sword, sir.'

He slipped off the boat cloak he had been wearing since three hours before dawn and allowed Allday to buckle on his sword.

Allday said softly, but with obvious disapproval, 'You look more like a buccaneer than a commodore, sir
1
I don't know what they'd say in Falmouth!'

Bolitho smiled. 'One of my ancestors
was
a pirate, Allday.' He tightened the belt buckle. He had lost some weight during his fever. 'When it was a respectable calling, of course.'

He turned as Farquhar hurried past. 'Have you extra hands on pumps and buckets?'

'Yes, sir.' Farquhar ran a finger around his neckcloth. 'If they use heated shot on us, I'm as ready as I can be.' He looked at the nets spread above the gun deck, at the looser ones draped along the shrouds to prevent a sudden rush of boarders. To the sentries at each hatch and companion, and the boatswain's party who waited to hack away fallen spars, or clear corpses from an upended gun.

Bolitho watched him, seeing his mind examining each part of his command for a flaw or a weak point. Under their feet, and beneath the crowded gun deck, the lower batteries of thirty-two-pounders would be ready and waiting. And below them, standing like ghouls in a circle of lanterns, the surgeon and his assistants,
watching the empty table, the gli
ttering knives and saws. Bolitho recalled Luce's pale face, his pleading. His one frantic scream. He looked across at Pascoe who stood on the lee side by the main shrouds, talking with a petty officer and a midshipman. Was he thinking about Luce, he wondered ?

Aft, on the poop, the bulk of the marines waited by the nettings, in three lines, for if
Osiris
was to engage from her larboard side, they would have to fire rank by rank, like soldiers in a square.

Bolitho tried to pick out faces he knew, but there were hardly any. Anonymous, yet familiar. Typical, but unknown. Marines and seamen, lieutenants and midshipmen. He had seen them in a dozen ships, in as many fleets.

A marine lieutenant's silver shoulder-plate gleamed suddenly as if heated from within. As Bolitho turned his head to starboard he saw the sun's rim on the horizon, the rays filtering down across the ruffled water towards him like molten metal.

Allday remarked, 'Going to be a fine day.'

Lieutenant Outhwaite was standing by the main companion way, his eyes glowing like little stones as he stared towards the sunrise. Like his captain, he was impeccably dressed, his hat set exactly square on his head, his long queue straight down his spine.

Farquhar wore no hat, but a midshipman stood near him, carrying it, and his sword, as if for an actor waiting to begin his most difficult role. In fact, Bolitho saw that Farquhar's mouth was moving. Speaking to himself, or rehearsing a speech for his men, he did not know.

His hair was very fair, and he had it pulled back to the nape of his neck and tied with a neat black bow. Whatever happened in the next hours, Farquhar was dressed for it.

He seemed to sense Bolitho's scrutiny and turned towards rum. He gave a slow smile. 'A new uniform, sir. But I recalled your own custom before a fight of consequence.' He gave a brief shake of the head. 'And as your tailor is elsewhere, I thought I would set the example.'

Bolit
ho replied, 'A kind thought.'

He peered along the deck again, seeing the land-mass growing and looming towards the bowsprit, as if they were touching.

'The enemy will not fire until he has a sure target. His gunners will have the sun in their eyes directly, but once we are standing well up the eastern shore it will not help us much. There is a dip behind the bay I have in mind. A good site for long-range guns.'

He strained his eyes beyond the bows as a voice yelled, 'Surf! Fine on the larboard bow!'

The master said tightly, 'That'll be the damned reef, sir.'

'Let her pay off a point, Mr. Bevan. Steer nor'-east by north.' Farquhar looked at his first lieutenant. 'D'you have a good leadsman in the chains?'

'Aye, sir.' The frogface watched him questioningly. 'I have stressed the importance of his task this morning.'

Bolitho found he could smile, in spite of the gnawing uncertainty of waiting. Farquhar and Outhwaite were well matched. So maybe Farquhar was right in" his methods of selection. After all, they said of West Country ships that they were foreign to all but the Cornish and Devonians who manned them. The ways of St. James's and Mayfair were as hard to learn.

The light was spreading and filtering on to small beaches now and winkling out shadows from hillsides and coves. The sea's face, too, was clearer, the tiny white cat's-paws moving away to starboard to merge in the colourful horizon and the sun.

Maybe the real Lysander has seen such a sea, Bolitho thought. When the fleets of triremes and galliasses had smashed into each other and the sky had been dark with arrows and darts of fire.

From astern
he heard the sudden squeak and rumble of guns being run out, and knew that Javal was getting ready.

Farquhar snapped, 'Alter course three points. Steer north.'

He craned over the nettings to watch a hump of sand or rock edging past the quarter. Some gulls rose squawking from their little islet, very white against the land's backdrop. They circled above the mastheads, hoping for food, noisy in their greed.

Bolitho looked up at his pendant as one gull dipped near it, screaming angrily. It was flapping less persistently, for the land was creeping past, dampening down the wind. He thought of Probyn. It was to be hoped he had worked his ship into position early, to allow for adverse winds, the treacherously narrow channel.

He pulled his watch from his breeches and examined it. He could see it well now, even the beautiful lettering on the face,
Mudge
and
Dutton
of
London.
He closed the guard with a snap and saw Midshipman Breen jump with alarm.

He said, 'Very well. We are past the headland.'

Outhwaite swung round, his speaking tru
mpet to his mouth. "Mr. Guthrie!
Pass the word!
Run
out!
'

As the port lids squeaked open there was a brief pause, and down on the lower gun deck the seamen, stripped and ready, would be seeing the land for the first time. A whistle shrilled, and with a mounting tremble
Osiris
ran out her artillery.

'Brail up the forecourse!'

Farquhar watched the great sail being subdued and brailed to its yard, and snapped his fingers. The midshipman gave him his sword and then his hat. He adjusted his hat with care, and after a moment walked forward to the weather gangway.

The forecourse had completed the illusion. The stage was set. The actors were prepared.

Bolitho drew his sword and laid it flat on the rail, feeling the steel, cool under his palms.

'Run up the Colours.'

He heard the squeak of a block and saw the flag's great shadow rippling across the gangway and above the gentle bow wave.

'Now stand-to, lads, and make each ball count.'

He glanced quickly at the nearest gun crews. They could have been placed in any part of history. One seaman, standing by a sixteen-pounder immediately below the quarterdeck, was leaning on a rammer, his neckcloth tied around his ears to withstand the first deafening roar. Men like him had sailed with Drake aboard his
Revenge,
and had cheered as the Armada had been "drummed up the Channel". But this time there were no cheers, not even an isolated one. The men looked grim, watching the open gun ports, or standing close to one another as if for support. He saw Farquhar's fingers opening and closing repeatedly around his sword scabbard, his head very erect as he stared towards the wavering coastline, from where the enemy would open fire.

A light blinked from the nearest hilltop but did not reappear. A broken bottle reflecting the first ray of sunrise. The window of some concealed dwelling. Bolitho shivered. Or a ray of light catching the lens of a telescope ? He imagined the signal being carried over the hill to the waiting artillery.
The
English
are
coming.
As expected and predicted. He frowned. No matter what happened, they had to hold the enemy's attention until Probyn swept down on the anchored ships from the northern channel. A few heavy broadsides amongst a crowded anchorage and the odds could change considerably.

He remembered suddenly what his father had once told him.
There
is
no
such
thing
as
a
surprise
attack.
Surprise
is
only
present when
one
captain
or
another
has
miscalculated
what
he
has
seen
from the
beginning.

He glanced at Pascoe and smiled briefly. He now knew exactly what his father had meant.

Bolitho re-crossed the quarterdeck and trained a glass on an out-thrust shoulder of land. A few tiny dwellings were visible at the foot of a steep slope, nestling between some scrub and the nearest beach. Fishermen's homes. But their boats lay abandoned on the coarse shingle, and only a dog stood its ground by the water's edge, barking furiously at the slow-moving ships.

He heard Farquhar say sharply, 'The next bay will be the one.'

Outhwaite turned and called, 'Be ready! Hold your fire till the order, then shoot on the uproll!'

Allday muttered scornfully,
'Uproll!
Until we get clear of this headland and find some sort of wind again, there'll be no uproll!'

'Deck there!' The masthead lookout's voice seemed unusually loud. 'Ships at anchor around the point!'

Bolitho breathed out slowly. 'Signal the information to
Buzzard
.'

An acknowledgement broke from the frigate's yards within seconds. Javal was like the rest of them. On the last edge of tension.

He glanced at his watch.
Nicator
should be well through the other channel by now and setting more sail to begin her vital part. Even if French pickets had sighted her, it would be too late to move artillery to the other end of their defences.

The bang, when it came, was like an abbreviated thunderclap. Bolitho saw neither smoke nor flash, but watched the ball's progress across the swirling current. It must have been fired from a low level, for he could see its path in a line of tiny wavelets, like an unnatural wind, or a shark charging to the attack.

The crash of the ball into the forepart of the hull brought a great chorus of shouts and yells, and Bolitho saw the second lieutenant hurrying from gun to gun, as if to reassure the crews.

'Look there, sir!' Allday pointed with his cutlass. 'Soldiers!'

Bolitho watched the tiny, blue-coated figures bursting from the trees and scurrying towards the point. Perhaps they believed that the second wave of attacking ships would attempt a landing, and were getting ready to repulse them. Bolitho licked his lips. If only there
was
a second wave.

He said, 'Bring her up a point, Captain. Give our upper battery a target.'

Farquhar protested, 'Eighteen-pounders against infantry, sir?'

Bolitho said quietly, 'It will give them something to keep their minds occupied. It may also shake the enemy's confidence up ahead. They are anticipating a squadron, remember
1'

He winced as another bang echoed across the water, and he heard the ball hiss viciously overhead.

'Stand by to larboard!' Outhwaite pointed at the running soldiers. 'On the uproll!' He raised his speaking trumpet.
'Fire!'

The long line of guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles, the smoke rising and swirling above the packed hammock nettings. Bolitho held his glass on the land, seeing the balls whipping through trees and scrub, throwing up stones and clods of earth in haphazard confusion. The soldiers had obviously held the same ideas as Farquhar, for many were caught out in the open, and Bolitho saw bodies and muskets whirling through the air with the other fragments.

It was little enough, but it had given the gun crews some heart. He heard a few cheers, and yells of derision from the lower battery who had not been allowed to fire.

Outhwaite had caught some of the excitement. 'Move roundly, lads! Reload! Mr. Guthrie, a guinea for the first to run out!'

From a corner of his eye, Bolitho saw the headland dropping back, the first group of anchored ships glinting in frail sunlight, their sails furled, and their unmoving rigidity suggesting that each vessel was attached to the next, and so on, making them into an unbroken barrier. He had expected the French to anchor in this manner. It had been a favourite defence since long before a revolution had even been dreamed of.