The green-jackets were pressing him and his party hard.
"Ready now!" Hal grated at the seamen around him, and they crouched below the parapet and fingered their pikes and cutlasses. "Aboli, don't fire until Daniel is out of the line."
Suddenly Daniel threw down his burden, and turned back. He raced into the thick of the enemy, and scattered them with a great swipes of his cutlass. Then he ran to the wounded seaman, slung him over his shoulder and came on again towards where Hal crouched.
Hal glanced down the line of gun pits Although the forward-pointing cannon were still banging away at the ships in the lagoon, every second culverin was directed into the forest, waiting for the moment to loose a storm of shot into the lines of attacking infantry.
"At such short range the shot will not spread, and they are keeping their spaces," Aboli muttered.
"Schreuder has them well under control," Hal agreed grimly. "We can't hope to bring too many down with a single volley."
"Schreuder!" Aboli's eyes narrowed. "You did not tell me it was him."
"There he is!" Hal pointed at the tall wig less figure striding towards them through the trees. His sash glittered and his moustache bristled as he urged his musketeers forward.
Aboli grunted, "That one is the devil. We'll have trouble from him." He thrust an iron bar under the culverin and turned it round a few degrees, trying to bring the sights to bear on the colonel.
"Stand still," he urged, "for just long enough to give me a shot."
But Schreuder was moving up and down the ranks of his men, waving them on. He was so close now that his voice carried to Hal as he snapped at his men, "Keep your line! Keep the advance going. Steady now, hold your fire!" His control over them was apparent in the determined but measured advance. They must have been aware of the line of waiting guns, but they came forward without wavering, holding their fire, not wasting the one fair shot they carried in their muskets.
They were close enough for Hal to make out their individual features. He knew that the Company recruited most of its troops in its eastern colonies, and this was apparent in the Asiatic faces of many of the advancing soldiers. Their eyes were dark and almond-shaped and their skins a deep amber.
Suddenly Hal realized that the broadsides from the two warships had ceased and snatched a glance over his shoulder. He saw that both the black frigate and the Gull had anchored a cable's length or so off the beach. Their guns were silent, and Hal realized that Cumbrae and the frigate captain must have arranged with Schreuder a code of signals. They had ceased firing for fear of hitting their own men.
That gives us a breathing space, he thought, and looked ahead again.
He saw that Daniel's band was much depleted. they had lost half their number, and the survivors were clearly exhausted by their foray and the fierce skirmishing. Their gait was erratic many could barely drag themselves along. Their shirts were sodden with sweat and the blood from their wounds. One at a time they stumbled up and flopped over the parapet to lie panting in the bottom of the pit.
Daniel alone was indefatigable. He passed the wounded man over the parapet to the gunners and, so murderous was his mood, would have turned back and rushed at the enemy once more had not Hal stopped him. "Get back here, you great ox! Let us soften them up with a little grape shot. Then you can have at them again."
Aboli was still trying to line up the barrel on Schreuder's elusive shape. "He is worth fifty of the others," he muttered to himself, in his own language. Hal, though, was no longer paying him any heed, but trying anxiously to catch a glimpse of his father in the furthest emplacement, and take a lead from him.
"By God, he's letting them get too close!" he fretted. "A longer shot would give the grape a chance to spread, but I'll not open fire before he gives the order."
Then he heard Schreuder's voice again. "Front rank! Prepare to fire!" Fifty men dropped obediently to their knees, right in front of the parapet, and grounded the butts of their muskets.
"Ready now, men!" Hal called softly to the sailors crowded around him. He had realized why his father had delayed the salvo of culverin until this moment. he had been waiting for the attackers to discharge their muskets, and then he would have them at a fleeting disadvantage as they tried to reload.
"Steady now!" Hal repeated. "Wait for their volley!" "Present your arms!" Schreuder's command rang out in the sudden silence. "Take your aimV The file of kneeling men lifted their muskets and aimed at the parapet. The blue smoke from the slow-match in the locks swirled about their heads, and they slitted their eyes to aim through it. "Heads down!" Hal yelled.
The seamen in the gun pits ducked below the parapet, just as Schreuder roared, "Fire!" The long, ragged volley of musketry rattled down the file of kneeling men, and lead balls hissed over the heads of the gunners and thumped into the earth ramp. Hal leapt to his feet and looked down to the far end of the line of gun pits He saw his father jump onto the parapet, brandishing his sword, and, although it was too far for his order to carry clearly, his gestures were unmistakable.
"Fire!" yelled Hal at the top of his lungs, and the line of guns erupted in a solid blast of smoke, flame and buzzing grape shot. It swept through the thin green line of Dutch infantry at point-blank range.
Directly in front of him Hal saw one of them hit by the full fury of the volley. He disintegrated in a burst of torn green serge and pink shredded flesh. His head spun high in the air, then fell back to earth and rolled like a child's ball. After that, all was obscured by the dense cloud of smoke, but though his ears still sang from the thunderous discharge, Hal could hear the screams and moans of the wounded resounding in the reeking blue fog.
"All together!" Hal shouted, as the smoke began to clear. "Take the steel to them now, lads!"
After the mind-stopping blast of the guns their voices were thin and puny as they rose together from the gun pits "For Franky and King Charley!" they shouted, and the steel of cutlass and pike winked and twinkled as they jumped from the parapet and charged at the shattered rank of green uniforms.
Aboli was at Hal's left side and Daniel at his right as he led. them into the attack. By unspoken agreement the two big men, one white the other black, placed protective wings over Hal but they had to run at their best speed to keep up with him.
Hal saw that his misgivings had been fully borne out. The volley of grape had not wrought the devastation among the Dutch infantry that they might have hoped for. The range had been too short. five hundred lead balls from each culverin had cut through them like a single charge of round shot. Men caught by the discharge had been obliterated, but for every one blown to nothingness, five others were unscathed.
These survivors were stunned and bewildered, their eyes dazed and their expressions blank. Most knelt blinking and shaking their heads, making no attempt to reload their empty muskets.
"Have at them, before they pull themselves together!" Hal screamed, and the seamen following him cheered again more lustily. In the face of the charge the musketeers started to recover. Some leapt to their feet, flung down their empty guns and drew their swords. One or two petty officers had pistols tucked in their belts, which they drew and fired wildly at the seamen who rushed down on them. A few turned their backs and tried to flee back among the trees, but Schreuder was there to head them off. "Back, you dogs and sons of dogs. Stand your ground like men!" They turned again, and formed up around him.