"I shall want the two quarter boats manned as well as the longboats," said Peabody to his officers, and they stood in a semicircle before him as he gave them his orders.
They looked at each other as they listened, exchanging glances, and then looked back at him. His hard blue eyes had a light in them, and the firm compression of his lips seemed to make his thin nose more pronounced than ever in the frame of the deep lines beside it.
Two leadsmen in the chains chanted the depth as the Delaware glided round; steep-to as these West India islands all were, there were soundings and a dangerous shoal in the shallow channel between these two islands. Peabody looked over at Nevis, at the white houses of Charlestown broadcast over the green slopes like cubes of sugar, at the shallow crescent of the bay with its gleaming beach, and then back at St. Kitts. The guns rumbled out as the ports were opened, and with a scampering of feet the men at the weather braces backed the main-topsail.
"You can go now, Mr. Hubbard," said Peabody.
There was a cheer from the crew as the four boats dropped into the sea, and the men at the oars needed no urging as they drove the blades foaming through the water. This was an expedition whose daring was obvious to everyone, and which appealed to everyone. It was paying back in her own coin the thousand mortifying insults which Britain had dealt out to American shores. British squadrons might lord it in the Chesapeake and in Long Island Sound, but they could not guard the West Indies against reprisals. Peabody walked slowly back and forth across the quarter-deck, keeping wary watch upon all the three points of stress, on Nevis and on the battery and upon the Mole at Charlestown. Murray was leading the two fast gigs against the battery, the most vital point; Atwell with the two longboats was heading straight for the Mole. There were a hundred and fifty men in those boats, every single one which the Delaware could spare and still remain a fighting entity; Peabody watched their progress with an anxiety which he found it hard to conceal.
A movement over on the St. Kitts shore caught his attention.
"Mr. Shepherd," he said to the midshipman commanding the port-side quarter-deck guns. "Try a shot with that twelve-pounder at those boats."
The gun roared out and a spout of water in the smooth shallow sea showed where it had pitched; the rowboats which had crept out from shore manned by red-coated West Indians promptly turned back. There was no hope of crossing in rowboats two miles of open water swept by the guns of the Delaware. The garrison of St. Kitts would have to stand by impotently and watch the attack upon Nevis. Over in the battery appeared first one jet of smoke and then another; it was not until a quarter of a minute later that the sound of the shots, flat in the heated air, reached Peabody's ears. Peabody could see no sign of the fall of the shot; perhaps the gunners were using grape — at twice the effective range of grapeshot — or perhaps they had utterly misjudged the range, or perhaps they had forgotten to put in any shot at all. Militia gunners were capable of anything, especially when taken by surprise, and there could hardly be a greater surprise for them than the arrival of a powerful enemy in the same week that everyone was drawing a long breath at the conclusion of a war twenty years old.
Murray's men were running up the beach; at three miles the flash of the sun on the cutlass blades was still reflected clearly back. There was no need to worry then any more, and Peabody turned his attention to the Mole. He could see the longboats coming alongside, but he had to guess at the sequence of events — the blue Marines marching methodically forward while the white-clad sailors set about the work of destruction. Even through his glass the drowsy town still seemed eminently peaceful.
A sudden tremendous roar startled him a little. It came from the battery, which was concealed in a cloud of smoke. Murray must have blown it up, battery, magazine, guns, and all. Peabody hoped that none of the Delaware's men had been hurt, for blowing up magazines was a tricky, chancy business. But there were the gigs pushing off from the beach, so that presumably all was well. They were heading along the arc of the bay towards the Mole, to act as a reserve to Atwell if necessary. Over in St. Kitts rowboats were making their appearance again, far away on the farther side of the channel.
"Shall I try another shot at 'em, sir?" asked Shepherd, looking round at him.
"They're out of range," said Peabody, shaking his head. The St. Kitts garrison was welcome to try and interfere as long as they circled round beyond the range of the Delaware's guns — their course would land them on the far side of Nevis. After a four-mile row and a four-mile march they could do what they liked in Charlestown, seeing that the raid would be over long before their arrival.
Shepherd's wound had robbed him of his good looks; his scarred left cheek gave to his sunburned face a lopsided appearance which was utterly sinister, as he stood there beside his guns. Peabody looked back at Charlestown. There was still no sign of war in the drowsy town; the only things moving were Murray's gigs creeping beetlelike over the blue water towards the Mole, and he took the glass from his aching eye and walked slowly back and forth across the quarter-deck. Providence had decreed that he should be subjected to these long and dreary waits; it was that which robbed them of their sting. There was no break until the sound of another loud report came from the town, sending his glass to his eye again on the instant. It was a cannon shot without doubt, but search as he would with his glass he could see nothing whatever of the source of the sound. Murray had reached the Mole and was landing his men. There were fifty Marines and a hundred seamen there now, and Murray ought to be safe enough.
Yes, that was what he had been looking for. A wisp of black smoke was drifting slowly over the town, coming from the general direction of the warehouses grouped round the Mole. It thickened even as he watched. There would be a maximum of twenty minutes or thereabouts to wait, and he resumed his pacing. The Delaware, with her main-topsail aback, swung idly round in response to a fortuitous puff of wind — apparently the sea breeze was beginning to win its daily victory over the Trades. The black smoke was growing all the time in volume and intensity, and the sea breeze was spreading it like a fog over the slopes of Charlestown. Once those warehouses with their inflammable contents were well alight no effort whatever on the part of the British could extinguish them.
Here came a little block of white down the Mole to the boats, the first party of retiring seamen. First one longboat and then the other detached itself from the Mole and began to crawl out into the bay, and then the swifter gigs followed.
"Square away, Mr. Hubbard, if you please. "We'll run down to the boats."
On the quarter-deck Murray made his second report of the day.
"We blew the battery up, sir. Dismounted the guns and sent the whole place to glory. They only had time to fire two rounds at us — I guess you saw that, sir. There weren't more than twenty men serving the guns, an' they ran when we arrived. I had two men hurt, sir — Able Seaman Clarke and Seaman Hayes, both badly. They were hit by rocks when the magazine went up."
Atwell took up the tale, with a side glance to where the wounded were being swayed up to the deck.
"I had two men killed, sir — Robinson and Krauss. Some of their militia got an old gun — a six-pounder, sir — hidden in a lane an' fired it slap into my picket. Herbert lost his leg. But we burned everything there — boats, warehouses, everything."