His eyes shone suddenly and Bolitho grasped his thick forearm.
'The sun. Friend or foe, I wonder?'
'Stand by to come about!' Parris sounded untroubled. 'Two more hands on the forebrace, Keats.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Bolitho tried to recall the petty officer's face, but instead he saw other, older ones. Hyperion's ghosts come back to watch him. They had waited over the years after their last battle. To claim him as their own, perhaps?
The thought made a chill run down his spine. He undipped the scabbard and tossed it aside while he tested the hanger's balance in his hand.
More light, seeping and spreading across the water. There was the land to starboard, sprawling and shapeless. The flash of sunlight on a window somewhere, a ship's masthead pendant lifting to the first glow like the tip of a knight's lance.
The fortress was almost in line with the jib-boom, a stern, square contrast with the land beyond.
Bolitho let the hanger drop to his side and found that he had thrust his other hand inside his shirt. He could feel his heart pounding beneath the hot, damp skin, and yet his whole being felt cold; raw like steel.
'And there she lies!' He had seen the mastheads of the great ship below the fortress. She could be nothing else but Somervell's galleon. But instead of Somervell he saw Catherine's eyes watching him. Proud and captivating. Distant.
To tear himself from the mood he slowly raised his left arm, until the early sunlight spilled down the hanger as if he had dipped it into molten gold.
The sea noises intruded from every side. Wind and spray, the lively clatter of rigging and shrouds while the deck tilted to the change of tack.
Bolitho called, 'Look yonder, my lads! A reckoning indeed!'
But nobody spoke, for only Hyperion's ghosts understood.
7. Perhaps The Greatest Victory
Bolitho held up the folded chart and strained his eyes in the faint sunlight. He would have wished to take more time to study it in the security of the schooner's tiny cabin, but every second was precious. It was all happening so swiftly, and when he glanced up again from the tilting compass-box he saw the grand roadstead opening up like some vast amphitheatre. More anchored shipping, the distance making them appear to be huddled together near the central fortress, then the coast itself, with white houses and the beginning of the twisting road which eventually led inland. Each mountain was brushed with sunshine, their blue-grey masses overlapping and reaching away, until they faded into mist and merged with the sky.
He stared for several seconds at the big Spanish ship. In size she matched Hyperion. It must have taken a month or more to load her with the gold and silver which had been brought overland on pack-mules and in wagons, guarded every mile of the way by soldiers.
At any minute now Lieutenant Dalmaine would open fire on the battery, before the sunlight reached out and betrayed Thor at her anchorage.
He tore his eyes away to look along the schooner's deck. Most of the Spica's crew were sitting with their backs against the weather bulwark, their eyes fixed on the British seamen. No wonder they had offered no resistance. By contrast with the neat shirts of the Swedes, Hyperion's men looked like pirates. He saw Dacie the boatswain's mate, his head twisted at an angle so that he could watch his men and the Spica's master at the same time. Dacie wore an eye patch to cover an empty socket; it gave him a villainous appearance. Parris had every right to have such confidence in him. Near the helm, Skilton, one of Hyperion's master's mates, in his familiar coat with the white piping, was the only one who showed any sort of uniformity.
Even Jenour had followed his admiral's example and had discarded his hat and coat. He was carrying a sword which his parents had given him, with a fine blue blade of German steel.
Bolitho tried to relax as he studied the big Spanish ship. It was a far cry from that quiet room at the Admiralty when this plan had been discussed with all the delicacy of a conference at Lloyds.
He looked at Parris, his shirt open to the waist, his dark hair streaming above his eyes in the lively offshore breeze. Was Haven right to suspect him, he wondered? It certainly made sense that any woman might prefer him to his colourless captain.
A gull dived above the topsail yard, its mewing cry merging with the far-off blare of a trumpet. Ashore or at anchor, men were stirring, cooks groping for their pots and pans.
Parris stared at him across the deck and grinned. 'Rude awakening, Sir Richard!'
The crash when it came was still a surprise. It was like a double thunderclap which echoed across the water and then rolled back from the land like a returned salute.
Bolitho caught a sudden picture of Francis Inch when he had been given his first command of a bomb like Imrie's. He could almost hear his voice, as with his horse-face set in a frown of concentration he had walked past his mortars, gauging the bearing and each fall of shot.
'R«w the mortar up! Muzzle to the right! Prime! Fire!'
As if responding to the memory both mortars fired again. But it was not Inch. He was gone, with so many others.
The double explosions sighed against the hull, and Bolitho tightened his grip on the hanger as flags broke from the big Spaniard's yards. They were awake now, right enough.
'Make the recognition signal, Mr Hazlewood!'
The two flags soared aloft and broke stiffly to the wind. All they needed now was for it to drop and leave them helpless and becalmed.
Parris yelled, 'Jump about, you laggards! Wave your arms and point astern, damn your eyes!' He laughed wildly as some of the seamen capered around the deck.
Bolitho waved. 'Good work! We are supposed to be running from the din of war, eh?'
He snatched up a glass and levelled it towards the anchored ship. Beyond her, about half a cable distant, was a second vessel. Smaller than the one named Ciudad de Sevilla but probably carrying enough booty to finance an army for months.
Parris called, 'She's got boarding nets rigged, Sir Richard!'
He nodded. 'Alter course to cross her bows!' It would appear that they were heading towards the nearest fortress for protection.
'Helm a-lee, sir!'
'Steady as she goes, Nor' east by east!'
Bolitho gripped a stay and watched the sails flapping and banging as the schooner lurched close to the wind; but she answered well. He winced as the mortars fired yet again, and still the shore battery remained silent. It seemed likely that the first shots had done their work, the massive balls falling to explode in a lethal flail of iron fragments and grape.
Astern there was a lot of smoke, haze too, so that the shallows where they had felt their way into the anchorage had completely vanished. It might delay Thor's entrance, but at least she would be safe from the battery.
He said, 'Keep those other hands out of sight, Mr Parris!'
He saw Jenour watching him, remembering everything and perhaps feeling fear for the first time.
A man yelled, 'Guardboat, starboard bow, sir!'
Bolitho trained his glass and watched the dark shape thrusting around the counter of an anchored merchantman.
Just minutes earlier each man would have been thinking of his bed. Then some wine perhaps in the sunshine before the heat drove them all to their siesta.
He saw the oars, painted bright red, pulling and backing to bring the long hull round in a tight turn.
And far beyond he could make out the shape of a Spanish frigate, her masts like bare poles while she completed a refit, or like the Obdurate, repairs after a violent Caribbean storm.
Two points to starboard, Mr Parris!' Bolitho tried to steady the glass as the deck tilted yet again. He could hear more trumpet calls, most likely from the new fortress, and could imagine the startled artillerymen running to their stations, still unaware of what was happening.