Sharpe moved the glass down to where the massive waves thundered up the Aguada del Ingles. He edged the glass back to the fortress which looked much as he remembered it from his earlier visit—a makeshift defense work with an earthen ditch and bank, wooden palisades, and embrasures for cannon. “They’re signaling us!” he said to Cochrane as a string of flags suddenly broke above the fort’s silhouette.
“Reply, Mister Almante!” Cochrane snapped, and a Chilean midshipman ran a string of flags up to the Kitty’s mizzen yard. The flags that Cochrane was showing formed no coherent message, but were instead a nonsense combination. “In the first place,” Cochrane explained, “the sun’s behind us, so they can’t see the flags well, and even if they could see the flags they’d assume we’re using a new Spanish code which hasn’t reached them yet. It’ll make the buggers nervous, and that, after all, is a good way to begin a battle.” At the Kitty’s stern the Spanish ensign rippled in the wind, while below her decks the pumps sucked and spat, sucked and spat.
The gaunt arms of the telegraph atop Fort Ingles began to rise and fall. “They’re telling the other forts where we are,” Cochrane said. He glanced down at the waist of the ship where a crowd of men lined the starboard gunwale. Cochrane had permitted such sight-seeing, reckoning that if the Kitty were indeed a Spanish transport ship, the men would be allowed on deck to catch this first glimpse of their new station. Also on deck were four nine-pounder field guns that had been manhandled on board from Puerto Crucero’s citadel. The guns were not there for their firepower, but rather to make it look as if the Kitty was indeed carrying artillery from Spain. Cochrane, unable to hide his excitement, beat a swift tattoo on the quarterdeck rail with his hands. “How long?” he snapped to Fraser.
“We’ll make the entrance in one more hour,” Fraser spoke from the helm. “And an hour after that we’ll have moonlight.”
“The tide?” Cochrane asked.
“We’re on the flood, my Lord, otherwise we’d never make her past the harbor entrance. Say two and a half hours?”
“Two and a half hours to what?” Sharpe asked.
“One hour to clear the point,” Cochrane explained, “and another hour to work our way south across the harbor, then half an hour to beat in against the river’s current. It’ll be dark when we reach Fort Niebla, so I’ll have to use a lantern to illuminate our ensign. A night attack, eh!” He rubbed his big hands in anticipation. “Ladders by moonlight! It sounds like an elopement!” Below the Kitty’s decks were a score of newly made ladders which would be taken ashore and used to assault Niebla’s walls.
“There’s a new signal, my Lord!” The midshipman called aloud in English, the language commonly used on the quarterdeck of Cochrane’s ship.
“In Spanish from now on, Mister Almante, in Spanish!” If the Spaniards did send a guard ship then Cochrane wanted no one using English by mistake. “Reply with a signal that urgently requests a whore for the Captain,” Cochrane gave the order in his execrable Spanish, “then draw attention to the signal with a gun.”
The grinning Midshipman Almante began plucking signal flags from the locker. The new message, gaudily spelled out in a string of fluttering flags, ran quickly to the Kitty’s mizzen yard and, just a second later, one of the stern guns crashed a blank charge to echo across the sea.
“We are spreading confusion!” Cochrane happily explained to Sharpe. “We’re pretending to be annoyed because they’re not responding to our signal!”
“Another shot, my Lord?” Midshipman Almante, who was not a day over thirteen, asked eagerly.
“We must not overegg the pudding, Mister Almante. Let the enemy worry for a few moments.”
The smoke from the stern gun drifted across the wildly heaving swell. The two ships were close to land now, close enough for great drifting mats of rust-brown weed to be thick in the water. Gulls screamed about the rigging. Two horsemen suddenly appeared on the headland’s skyline, evidently galloping to get a closer look at the two approaching boats.
“Nelson was always seasick until battle was imminent,” Cochrane said suddenly.
“You knew Nelson?” Sharpe asked.
“I met him several times. In the Mediterranean.” Cochrane paused to train his telescope on the two riders. “They’re worried about us, but they can’t be seeing much. The sun’s almost dead behind us. A strange little man.”
“Nelson?”
“‘Go for them,’ he told me, ‘just go for them! Damn the niceties, Cochrane, just go and fight!’ And he was right! It always works. Oh, damn.” The curse, spoken mildly, was provoked by the appearance of a small boat that was sailing out of the harbor and was clearly intending to intercept the Kitty and O’Higgins. Cochrane had half-expected such a guard boat, but plainly his disguise would have been easier to preserve if none had been despatched. “They are nervous, aren’t they,” he said to no one in particular, then walked to the quarterdeck’s rail and picked up a speaking trumpet. “No one is to speak in any language but Spanish. You will not shout a greeting to the guard boat. You may wave at them, but that is all!” He turned sharply. “Spanish naval dress, gentlemen!”
Blue coats, cocked hats and long swords were fetched up from Cochrane’s cabin and issued to every man on the quarterdeck. Harper, pleased to have a coat with epaulettes, strutted up and down. Fraser, dwarfed by his naval coat, scowled at the helm while Cochrane, his cocked hat looking oddly piratical, lit a cigar and pretended to feel no qualms about the imminent confrontation. The third Lieutenant, a man called Cabral who, though a fierce Chilean patriot, had been born in Spain, was deputed to be the Kitty’s spokesman. “Though remember, Lieutenant,” Cochrane admonished him, “we’re called the Niño, and the O’Higgins is now the Cristoforo.” Cochrane glowered at the approaching boat which, under a bellying red sail, contained a dozen uniformed men. “We’ll all be buggered,” he muttered to Sharpe in his first betrayal of nerves, “if those two transport ships arrived last week.”
The guard boat hove to under the Kitty’s quarter, presumably because she was the ship showing the signal flags, and was therefore deemed to be the ship in command of the small convoy. A man with a speaking trumpet demanded to know the Kitty’s identity.
“We’re the Niño and Cristoforo out of Cadiz!” Cabral called back. “We’re bringing Colonel Ruiz’s guns and men.”
“Where’s your escort?”
“What escort?” Cochrane asked under his breath, then, almost at once, he hissed an answer to Cabral. “Parted company off Cape Horn.”
“We lost them off Cape Horn!”
“What ship was escorting you?”
“Christ Almighty!” Cochrane blasphemed. “The San Isidro.” He plucked the name at random.
“The San Isidro, señor,” Cabral obediently parroted the answer.
“Did you meet the Espiritu Santo?” The guard boat asked.
“No!”
The interrogating officer, a black-bearded man in a naval Captain’s uniform, stared at the sullen faces that lined the Niño’s rails. The man was clearly unhappy, but also nervous. “I’m coming aboard!” he shouted.
“We’ve got sickness!” Cabral, prepared for the demand, had his answer ready and, as if on cue, Midshipman Almante hoisted the yellow fever flag.
“Then you’re ordered to anchor off the harbor entrance!” the bearded man shouted up. “We’ll send doctors to you in the morning! You understand?”
“Tell them we don’t trust the holding here, we want to anchor inside the harbor!” Cochrane hissed.
Cabral repeated the demand, but the bearded man shook his head. “You’ve got your orders! The holding’s good enough for this wind. Anchor a half mile off the beach, use two anchors on fifteen fathoms of chain apiece, and sleep well! We’ll have doctors on board at first light!” He signaled to his helmsman who bore away from the Kitty’s side and turned toward the harbor.
“Goddamn it!” Cochrane said.
“Why don’t you just ignore the bugger?” Sharpe
asked.
“Because if we try to run the entrance without permission they’ll open fire.”
“So we wait for dark?” Sharpe, who until now had been dead set against any such attack, was now the one trying to force Cochrane past the obstacle.
“There’ll be a gibbous moon,” Fraser said pessimistically, “and that will serve as well as broad sunlight to light their gunners’ aim.”
“Damn, damn, damn.” Cochrane, usually so voluble, was suddenly enervated. He stared at the retreating guard boat and seemed bereft of ideas. Fraser and the other officers waited for his orders, but Cochrane had none to give. Sharpe felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the tall Scotsman. All plans were nothing but predictions, and like all predictions they were likely to be transformed by their first collision with reality, but the art of war was to prepare for such collisions and have a second or a third or a fourth option ready. Cochrane suddenly had no such options on hand. He had pinned his hopes on the Spanish supinely accepting his ruse, then feebly collapsing before his attack. Was this how Napoleon had been on the day of Waterloo? Sharpe wondered. He watched Cochrane and saw a man in emptiness, a clever man drained of invention who seemed helpless to stop the tide of disaster flooding across him.
“We’ve two hours of fair water, my Lord.” Fraser, recognizing the moment of crisis, had adopted a respectful formality.
Cochrane did not respond. He was staring toward the harbor entrance. Was he thinking of making a dash for it? But how could two slow ships dash? Their speed, even with the tide’s help, was scarcely above that of a man walking.
“We’ll not get through, my Lord.” Fraser, reading His Lordship’s mind, growled the warning.
“No,” Cochrane said, but said nothing more.
Fraser shot a beseeching look at Sharpe. Sharpe, more than any other man in the expedition, had counseled against this attack, and now, Fraser’s look seemed to be saying, was the time for Sharpe to urge withdrawal. There was just one chance of avoiding disaster, and that was for the two ships to turn and slip away southward.
Sharpe said nothing.
Fraser, desperate to end the indecision, challenged Sharpe directly. “So what would you do, Sharpe?”
Cochrane frowned at Sharpe, but did not countermand Fraser’s invitation.
“Well?” Fraser insisted. The ship was still creeping toward the harbor mouth. In another half mile she would open the entrance and be under the guns of Fort San Carlos.
Cochrane was a devil, Sharpe thought, and suddenly he felt a smaller imp rise in himself. Goddamn it, but a man did not come this far just to be challenged by a toy boat and then turn back! “If we anchor off the beach,” Sharpe said, “they’ll think we’re obeying their orders. We wait till it’s dark, then we send a boat or two ashore. We can say we’re looking for fresh water if anyone questions us. Then we’ll attack the nearest fort. We may only capture a few kegs of powder, but at least we’ll have let the bastards know that we’re still dangerous.”
“Magnificent!” shouted Cochrane, released from his torpor. He slapped Sharpe’s back. “Goddamn it, man, but magnificent! I like it! Mister Almante! A signal to the O’Higgins, if you please, ordering them to ready anchors!” Cochrane was suddenly seething with energy and enthusiasm. “But bugger snatching a few kegs of powder! Let’s go for the whole pot! We’ll capture the western forts, then use their guns to bombard Niebla while our ships work their way inside. That’ll be at dawn, Mister Fraser, so perhaps you will work out the time of the morning’s flood tide for me? I don’t know why I didn’t think to do it this way from the very start! Mister Cabral? Order a meal served below decks. Tell the men they’ve got two hours rest before we begin landing troops.”
“Now you’ve done it,” Fraser grumbled to Sharpe.
“You spoke, Mister Fraser?” Cochrane demanded.
“Nothing, my Lord.”
“As soon as we’re at anchor,” Cochrane went on, “you’ll lower boats, but do it on the side facing away from the land! We don’t want the enemy to see we’re launching boats, do we?”
“A hole in each end, my Lord?” Fraser asked.
“Then suck the damned egg dry!” Cochrane, knowing he had given Fraser an unnecessary order, gave a brief guffaw of laughter.
Behind the Kitty the sky was a glorious blaze of gold touched scarlet, in which a few ragged clouds floated silver gray. The sea had turned molten, slashed with shivering bands of black. The great Spanish ensign, given an even richer color by the sun’s flaming gold, slapped and floated in the fitful wind.
The two ships crept toward the shore. Sharpe could hear the breakers now and see where they foamed white as they hissed and roared toward the sand. Then, just when it seemed that the Kitty must inevitably be caught up in that rush of foam and be swept inexorably to her doom, Fraser ordered both anchors let go. A seaman swung a sledgehammer, knocking a peg loose from the cathead, and the starboard anchor crashed down through the golden sea. The port anchor followed a second after, the twin chains rattling loud in the dusk. Then, with a jerk, the Kitty rounded up and lay with her bows pointing toward the setting sun and her stern toward the mainland. The headland, on which Fort Ingles stood, was now on her port side.
The O’Higgins anchored a hundred yards further out. Both ships jerked and snubbed angrily, but Fraser reported that the anchors were holding. “Not that it will help us,” he added to Sharpe, “for the boats will never land on that beach.” He jerked an unshaven chin toward the Aguada del Ingles where, in the last slanting light, the foam was shredding spray like smoke. Cochrane might believe a landing to be possible, but Sharpe suspected that Fraser was right and that any boat that tried to land through that boiling surf would be swamped.
Cochrane stared up to where his topmen were efficiently gathering in the Kitty’s sails. “The wind’s backing, Fraser?”
“Aye, my Lord, it is.”
Cochrane fidgeted a second. “We might leave the spanker rigged for mending, Mr. Fraser. It will hide your boats as they’re launched.”
Fraser did not like the idea. “The wind could veer, my Lord.”
“Let’s do it! Hurry now!”
The orders were given. Fraser offered Sharpe an explanation. The wind, he said, had been southerly all day, but had now gone into the west. By leaving the aftermost sail half hoisted he turned the ship into a giant weather vane. The wind would then keep the ship parallel to the beach, leaving the starboard side safely hidden from the fort. Cochrane could then launch his boats in the last of the daylight, safe from enemy gaze.
“Why not rig the sail full?” Sharpe asked. The sail was only half raised.
“Because that would look unnatural when you’re at anchor. But half rig is how you’d hoist her for mending, and a half-collapsed sail hides the far side of the quarterdeck a deal better than a fully hoisted sail. Not that I suppose anyone up there understands seamanship.”
Fraser had jerked a derisive thumb toward Fort Ingles above the beach. From Sharpe’s position on the quarterdeck, the fort’s ramparts formed the skyline, clearly showing six embrasures in its grim silhouette. The guns were less than a half mile from the Kitty. If the Spanish did suddenly discover that the two anchored ships were hostile, the guns would wreak havoc in the crowded lower decks. Sharpe shuddered and turned away. Harper, seeing the shudder, surreptitiously crossed himself.
The sun was now a bloated ball of fire on the horizon. Ashore the shadows were lengthening and coalescing into a gray darkness. On the Kitty’s quarterdeck, behind the concealing folds of heavy canvas, the ship’s four longboats and two jolly boats were being lowered overboard. The Captain’s barge was the last boat to be launched. Each boat held a single seaman whose job was to keep his craft from being crushed as the frigate heaved up and down on the swells. “Another hour,” Cochrane spoke to Sharpe and Harper, “and it’ll be dark enough to land troops. Why don’t you get something to eat?”
Harper brightened at the thought and went below to the gundeck where the co
oks were serving a stew of goat meat to the waiting men. Sharpe wanted to stay on deck. “Bring me something,” he asked as Harper swung off the quarterdeck.
Sharpe, left alone, leaned on the rail and gazed at the fort. A sudden gust of wind came off the land, ruffling the sea and forcing Sharpe to snatch at his old-fashioned tricorne hat. The wind gust billowed the loosely rigged spanker, driving the canvas across the deck and occasioning a shout of alarm from Lieutenant Cabral who was almost thrown overboard by the gusting sail. “Stow that sail now!” Fraser ordered. The longboats were safely overboard and the spanker no longer hid any suspicious activity.
A dozen topmen scrambled up the ratlines and edged out on the mizzen yard to haul in the spanker. The wind was still pushing the sail, driving the stern of the Kitty away from the beach.
The wind gusted again, sighing in the rigging and making the boat lean seaward. Some of the men in the longboats feared being trapped under the hull and pushed off from the threatening Kitty with their long oars. The boats were all tethered to the frigate with lines, but now, as the heavy warship with its clanking pumps continued to blow toward them, the boat-minders pushed themselves as far from her tarred hull as their tethers would allow.
The Kitty kept turning so that her bows were pointing almost directly at Fort Ingles. Fraser knew that the fort’s garrison must be able to see the longboats and even the dullest Spanish officer would realize what such a sight portended. Innocent ships waiting for medical attention did not launch a fleet of longboats. “Close up, damn you, close up!” Fraser shouted at the boat-minders. The topmen had furled the sail and the Kitty was swinging back again.
Cochrane came running up from his cabin where he had been eating an early supper. “What the hell is happening?”
“Wind veered.” Fraser decently did not add that he had warned of just such a danger. “It drove us around.”
“Sweet Jesus!” Cochrane, a leg of chicken in his hand, stared at the fort. The longboats were hidden again. “Did they see?” He asked the question of no one, merely articulating a worry.