"Pah!" said Lieutenant Clark, aboard Bounder. "Silly bugger!"
"Pah!" said Lieutenant Comstock, aboard Jumper. "Stupid sod!"
But they muttered these observations under their breath, and then set about blasting their crews as idle, no-seaman lubbers who couldn't keep proper station on the flagship, nor probably a proper watch neither! For all aboard the three ships were young men wound up with excitement. Maybe it would be them that found Flint? Maybe they'd be the ones, the lucky ones, God bless them one and all!
So they bowled along, with the miserable island to starboard, the merry breeze a-blowing, and their slick, copper-plated hulls gleaming and plunging, and their bowsprits dipping, and their banners flying. And they poked into every inlet, and they looked at every cove, and they searched every beach, and in all three ships there were men in the tops and men along the rails with telescopes and peering eyes, never neglecting to keep a watch on the larboard beam besides, for you never knew, did you? And wouldn't it be a tragedy on the face of the waters for a ship to slip past on the seaward side and get away full of wicked miscreants and treasure?
By mid morning they'd passed the shoals that lay off the northern coast, where a great hill rose up, the second biggest of the three that lay in a line, north to south of the island, and round they came, navigating the northernmost, out-jutting peninsula at the top of the island, and were working southward towards a great mile-wide inlet that opened up some four or five miles ahead. Heffer stared and a prickling excitement arose. Ah! That was better. That was a real anchorage. Best they'd seen yet. That's where they'd be if they were anywhere! Then from Bounder's bow a gun threw white smoke and a flat boom, warning of an urgent signal.
"Damn!" said Heffer, as Bounder's flags went up. He put his glass on them. "Bugger!"
The flags spelled "Enemy in sight. Larboard bow."
"Bugger, bugger, bugger!" said Heffer, knowing he'd have to report that Bounder spotted them first. Let's hope it's a mistake, he thought, searching with his glass. But one of his mids was quicker.
"It's a boat, sir. A launch. Heading north out of the eastward side of the island. It can't be Flint, sir. Not in a boat, sir… it's all right, sir!"
"Good lad!" said Heffer. The boy had his heart in the right place.
He trained his glass where the mid indicated and caught the boat in the bobbing, spherical field. There it was… a big launch under sail… three… no, four… no, six men aboard.
Enemy in sight indeed! Rubbish! That weren't no pirate ship, now, was it? And there couldn't be no treasure aboard neither. Not the amount Flint was s'posed to have, anyway! Just six men… and something under a tarpaulin… hmm… Heffer wavered… perhaps…
"Make to Bounder,'" cried Heffer.
"Aye-aye, sir!"
"Pursue the enemy."
"Ah-ha!" cried Lieutenant Simon Clark, and snapped his fingers and danced for joy as he read the flags. He was independent! Detached from the squadron! Oh joy! Oh bloody rapture! Please God Almighty that the launch should fly like the wind, and have to be chased over the horizon, 'cos then Bounder would be out of sight of the commodore and Gordon bloody Heffer! Them and all the rest of the squadron, and he wouldn't have to share a penny piece with any of them! And Simon Clark, acting captain, would surely get his full two- eighths, as laid down in the Cruizers and Convoys Act of 1708, God bless it, God bless it, God bless it! It and the splendid men who'd shoved it through Parliament for the benefit of honest sailormen. Lieutenant Clark was fairly licking his lips at the thought of all the wealth that was going to be his…
Assuming, of course, that the launch had anything of value aboard. Oh…
Clark calmed himself. He cleared his throat. He stopped jumping and grinning. He adopted the gravitas of a sea-service officer.
"Helmsman!" he cried. "Put me alongside of that launch. Mr Bosun, make all possible sail!"
So Bounder parted company with Leaper and Jumper… or would have done, had not the three sloops — now crossing the mouth of the northern inlet — realised at that moment what was coming out to join them.
Chapter 41
Again the Patanq attacked the Royal Navy. As before, the volley of musket fire came sudden, and terrifying from close at hand. It came out of the trees with no warning, no drum roll, no hoisting of colours: no chance whatsoever for a man to stiffen the sinew and summon up the blood. It was all the worse for the fact that every man was strained to the utmost, trying — and failing — to keep a good watch on the wall of greenery through which the invisible enemy passed like the breeze: unseen, unknown and unheard.
Men fell, men trembled, men stood dismayed, and all of them looked over their shoulders, which was the first thing anyone did who was thinking of running. But not Commodore Scott-Owen. He went where the danger was worst, to where the column had been hardest hit. He drew his sword and raised it high.
"STAND FAAAAAAST!" he cried. "Marines rally to…"
Crack-Bang! Two muskets fired from the trees, and Scott- Owen went down with a ball in the chest and another in the brain. He was dead before his sword left his fingers.
Which was very nearly the end of it. The men groaned dismally as their much-loved leader fell. It was too much. They were out of their element, being hit repeatedly by an enemy they couldn't even see, and who — having once made that mistake — never again attempted to fight hand-to-hand. One second more and the whole two hundred and one of them — which was all that remained of the two hundred and fifty who'd started out that morning — would have been streaming back through the woods, heading for the safety of their ships. As it was, they stood dithering, staring into the suffocating forest and clutching their firelocks as if they'd strangle them.
Bang! Another shot from the woods. Another man fell.
"Ahhhh!" cried the seamen and marines, and started to run.
"No!" cried Mr Midshipman Povey. "Down! Everyone down! Get low!"
And he ran up and down the column, pushing men down on their haunches. Lieutenant Hastings, ever in his wake, caught the idea at once and did the same, then so did the rest of the mids and lieutenants, till the whole force was crouched down among the undergrowth.
Then Mr Povey did something extremely brave. He stood up and yelled at the top of his voice. It was brave because — as he was soon to explain — he was taking a terrible risk.
"Officers to me!" he cried. "Officers, mids and sergeants… and corporals, too!" There were others present who outranked him, some considerably, but in face of danger, they responded to pure leadership, even coming from a lad of fifteen who wasn't a lad but a man because he'd been bred up in a manly service.
So they scrambled and ran and plonked down beside Povey and looked at him: a ring of blue-coats and red-coats, who gaped at the first thing he said:
"Take your bloody coats off!"
Povey was busy wriggling out of his own blue coat with its white-lined collar, marking him out as a midshipman, and its gleaming brass buttons.
"What?" said the senior lieutenant, aghast. "Never!"
"We've got to… sir!" said Povey, remembering rank just in time.
"Why, in God's name? You'll have us strike colours next!"