"Tide's out," Lewrie said. "It'll be round fourty or fifty yards to the boat when it grounds. Be a real dash t'get into her as soon as she grounds, which'll be… 'bout a minute, or less. They'll not have us! When we run, go straight to the boat, no weavin' about, that's useless. Understand me? Caroline?"
Voices above were shouting; oddly, Lewrie could understand every word, for once. French must be gettin' better, he thought, sharing a joyful grin with his wife. There was another volley of about a dozen rounds from the cliff top, a ragged later shot from the soldiers on the path. He stood and fired over the boulder, not even bothering to aim this time, just to make them cower… to fear, and slow down!
He looked at the Plumbs; they were not taking this well. Lady Imogene was whey-faced, her teeth chattering. Sir Pulteney, holding her, looked glazed-eyed and ashen in the first hints of false dawn, staring off at nothing.
He claimed t'be a soldier once! Lewrie scoffed; most-like the parade-ground sort, in a fashionable regiment, and their sort doesn't get sent to battle that often. Schooled in arms, sometime long before, but… playin' chameleon's more his style, not fightin' for his life!
Lewrie waited out another volley, then rose and fired his other pistol, quickly tumbling down upon his back as a few cleverer French waited for his response and took pot-shots at him.
"Alan!" Caroline yelped, crawling to him.
"I'm fine! Get back against the boulder!" he told her, dusting himself off and taking his own advise to scramble back to cover, too, where he began to re-load with what little powder, shot, and wadding he had left; enough for four more shots, total, he reckoned.
The sea, the surf; it didn't look much higher than two-foot waves as the waters funnelled into the inlet and raled upon the sands. A bit choppy but… their salvation was now within fifty yards offshore. Lewrie risked one more peek and saw that a Chasseur officer-damme but wasn't he the one he'd met at Bonaparte's levee?-another one with a torch, Charitй, and a weaselly-looking man in a dark suit were at the bottom of the worst of the path, just about to hit the scree-slope. There was Choundas, too, in all his ugliness, past the last squeeze-point and being carried again by two soldiers. It would be a very close thing!
Time t' run! Lewrie decided for them all.
"We're breakin' cover, now!" he snapped. "Kiss for luck, m'dear?"
He put his arm round Caroline, she took his face in both hands and kissed him as fiercely as their first night wed; it was hard for Lewrie to break away, to gather his nerve, and let go of her!
"On our feet, ready?" He asked. "Ready, ready… wait!"
There was yet another volley from the cliff top. Lewrie stood and backed out into the open, bracing himself for any clever bugger up yonder. Presented with a good target at last, those last few clever Frenchmen fired, but, thankfully, they were gendarmes, not soldiers, and missed wide of him with their short-barrelled musketoons.
Now for the rest! Lewrie told himself, dancing further out onto the beach, capering and waving his arms. "Va te faire foutre! Foutre Napoleon! And God bless King George!" he yelled at the Chasseurs on the path, then lifted one of his pistols and fired upwards, striking a Chasseur carrying a lanthorn in one hand and his musketoon in the other. He yelped, dropped both, and clapped a hand to his thigh, losing his footing. The Chasseur in front of him, trying to aim and fire, was swept off his feet, too, as the first landed on his back, then began to slide down the scree slope, taking the lead man with him in a whirl of arms and legs!
"Shot their bolt!" Lewrie yelled as he rushed back to the rocks, followed by sharp cracks of musket fire and plumes of sand from misses. "Ready, ready, gol" With Caroline's hand in his left, and his last pistol in his right, they dashed for the surf line and the boat, which was now pitching in the shallows, not ten yards from grounding!
There were a couple of stray shots chasing them, but the party remained untouched. The deep sand above the tide line dragged at their feet like cold treacle, slowing them, and all the while, weapons were being reloaded and desperate soldiers were all but throwing themselves down the path and the slope. Lady Imogene hitched up her skirts with both hands to run faster, and Lewrie let go Caroline's hand for her to do the same. Sir Pulteney dodged astern of his wife, to shelter her.
"Kill them, kill them, someone!" Guillaume Choundas was howling.
"On, men, on!" Major Denis Clary was urging with his sword out, his musketoon in his left hand. Yet another Chasseur slipped on loose rock and shale and went tumbling, arses and elbows, to join the first two who'd fallen and who lay at the base of the slope barely moving, still stunned. Clary came to a halt at the top of the scree, fearing that half his borrowed troopers would break their necks or legs if they went on.
Charitй half-slid to a stop beside him, eyes wild and hair dishevelled, panting open-mouthed at the exertions. Fourchette thumped to a halt with them, too, then came another Chasseur with a torch.
"It's too steep to…," Clary said, dry-mouthed.
"Shoot him!" Fourchette ordered. "You soldiers, shoot him!"
"Not loaded, m'sieur," the torch-bearer told him, fumbling for cartridges.
"Shoot which one, m'sieur?" a second asked, also re-loading.
"The younger man, shoot him!" Fourchette snarled, nigh crazed. "Major Clary, you are loaded?"
"Oui, shoot him, Denis!" Charitй shrilly demanded.
"I am loaded, m'sieur" Clary calmly told Fourchette. "But I will take no part in murder. Here… do it yourself," he added as he shoved his weapon at the police agent.
"They're almost in the boat!" Guillaume Choundas screamed with frustration as he stumped down to join them at last, leaning on one of the Chasseurs who had been carrying him. "Someone do something for God's sake!" he said, punching the soldier in the arm to urge him to raise his musketoon and use it.
As if in answer, the gendarmes atop the cliff let off a ragged volley, but at that range, their shots only struck sand-plumes round the fleeing Anglais, raised a waterspout or two somewhat close to the boat, which was now grounding, but fell wide of their marks. Choundas was almost whimpering with rage, grinding what few teeth remained as the bow men sprang from the rowing boat into waist-deep water to steady it and help the escapees aboard!
Fourchette sneered at Major Clary's ill-placed ideas of honour and tugged the lock of the musketoon to full cock, then put it to his shoulder.
He reckoned himself a decent shot with a pistol or musket, and this fumier Lewrie would not be the first man he had had to shoot down, but most of his kills had been at much closer range. He put the rudimentary notch rear sight and front blade sight in line, on Lewrie's back, just at the top of his spine, trying to lead his target as he ran the last few yards to the waiting boat. A down-hill shot, fifty mиtres or more off? Should he not hold even higher, to allow for the bullet-drop? he wondered, then lifted the sights to aim at the top of Lewrie's skull. Fourchette took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly, gently stroking the trigger… which did not move even a millimиtre rearward. His own weapons were made by a talented Parisian gunsmith, and this musketoon was a crude, mass-produced military firearm. More pressure on the trigger, then the lock released with an audible clunk, then… Bang!