They almost planed across the last of the surf, the oars desperately keeping with the stroke until Allday yelled, 'Now!' And as he slammed the tiller hard round he added, 'Back-water to larboard!'
Floundering and tilting dangerously the gig came to the beach almost broadside, the keel grinding across loose pebbles and weed in a violent, protesting shudder.
But men were already leaping into the spray, holding the gunwale, guiding the gig to safety with sheer brutestrength.
'Clear the boat!'
Allday steadied Bolitho's arm as with Armitage and the others he waded, reeled and finally walked on to firm beach.
Bolitho ran to the foot of the cliffs, leaving Allday to supervise the business of getting the gig safely secured.
He waved his arm towards the three marines. 'Spread out! See if you can find a way to the top V
This, they understood, and with barely a glance towards the onrushing cutter they loped up the first crumbling rock-slide, their muskets primed and held ready.
Bolitho waited, staring up at the jagged clifftop, the pale blue sky above. No heads peering down. No sudden fusilade of musket balls.
He breathed moreevenly and turned to watch the cutter as it edged round and plunged wildly before driving on to the beach and amongst the waiting seamen.
Davy staggered towards him, gasping for breath, but loading his pistol with remarkably steady fingers.
Bolitho said, 'Muster the men, and send your three marines after the others.'
He looked for Armitage, but he was nowhere to be seen. 'In God's name!'
Davy grinned as the midshipman came round a large boulder, buttoning his breeches.
Bolitho said harshly, 'If you must relieve yourself at such times, Mr. Armitage, I would be obliged if you would remain in sight!'
Armitage hung his head. 'S-sorry, sir.'
Bolitho relented. 'It would be safer for you, and I will try and hide any embarrassment you might cause me.'
Allday crunched over the loose shingle, chuckling as he, too, loaded a brace of pistols with fresh, dry powder.
'Bless me, Mr. Armitage, but I can understand how you feel P
The youth stared at him unhappily. 'You can?'
'Why, once, I was hiding in a loft.' He winked at the cutter's coxswain. 'From the bloody pressgang, believe it or not, and all I could think of was pumping my bilges!'
Bolitho said to Davy, 'That seems to have helped his mind a little.'
He forgot Armitage's troubles and said, 'We'll leave four hands with the boats.'
He saw Undine swaying like a beautiful model, her sterq windows flashing in the sunlight, and imagined Herrick watch, ing their progress. He could send aid to the beached boats i f trouble arrived. He looked up at the cliffs again. Damp, clammy deceptively cool. That would change as soon as they reached the top and the waiting sun.
Bolitho waited for Davy to rejoin him. 'Best be moving off,'
He examined his landing party carefully as Allday waved them towards the cliffs. Thirty in all. Apart from Davy anti Armitage, he had brought a master's mate named Carwithen knowing the man would have resented being left behind after Fowlar's previous involvements. A dark, unsmiling man, he was, like Bolitho, a Cornishman, and hailed from the fishing, village of Looe.
He waited while they checked their weapons. His chain of command. Ship or shore, it made no difference to them.
Carwithen said, 'I hope they've a drop to drink when we get, t'other side.'
Bolitho noticed that hardly anybody smiled at his remark, Carwithen was known as a hard man, given to physical vio, lence if challenged. Good at his work, according to the master, but little beyond it. How different from Fowlar, Bolithc; thought.
'Lead your party to the left, Mr. Davy, but allow the marine; to set the pace.' He looked at Armitage. 'You keep with me.'
He saw a marine waving from a high ledge, indicating tht path up the first section of cliff.
It was strange how sailors always hated the actual moment of leaving the sea behind. Like having a line attached to your belt, dragging you back. Bolitho eased the sword further around his hip and reached out for the nearest handhold, Smoothed away by timeless weather. Stained with dropping; from a million sea-birds. No wonder ships avoided the place.
As he moved carefully up the fallen boulders he felt a small pressure against his thigh, the watch she had given him ir, Madras. He thought suddenly of that moment when she hay? offered him far more. And he had taken it without even smallest hesitation. How soft, how alive she had felt in hip arms.
He grimaced as his fingers slipped in a pile of fresh droppings. And how quickly circumstances could change, he thought grimly.
The passage across the small islet was to prove harder and more exhausting than anyone could have expected. From the moment they topped the first cliff and the sun engulfed them in its searing glare, they realised they must climb immediately into a treacherous gully before they could begin scaling the next part. And so it went on, until they were finally tramping across an almost circular depression which Bolitho guessed was the central part of the islet. It held the heat and shielded them from any sea-breeze, and their progress was further delayed by the clinging carpet of filth which covered the depression from side to side.
Allday gasped, 'Will we rest up once we get to the far side, Captain?' Like the others, his legs and arms were caked with muck, and his face masked in a fine film of dust. 'I am as dry as a hangman's eye!'
Bolitho refrained from looking at his watch again. He could tell from the sun's angle that it was late afternoon. It was taking too long.
He peered across to the other side of the unsheltered depression, seeing Davy's straggling line of men, the marine sharpshooters walking like hunters through a cloud of pale dust, their muskets over their shoulders.
He replied, 'Yes. But we must go carefully with the water ration.'
It was like being on top of the world, the curving sides of the depression hiding everything but the sun and open sky. One of the long, slanting shadows behind him faltered and then sprawled in the inches-deep bird droppings, and without turning he knew it was Armitage.
He heard a seaman say hoarsely, 'Give us yer 'and! Gawd, you do look a sight, beggin' yer pardon, sir!'
Poor Armitage. Bolitho kept his gaze fixed on the pale breeches of the marine directly ahead of him, his body smoking in haze and dust. There were rocks beyond the marine, probably marking the end of the depression. They could take a rest. Find brief shelter while they regained their senses.
He turned and sought out the seaman who had helped Armitage to his feet. 'Can you raise the breath to carry a message to the scouts ahead, Lincoln?'
The man bobbed his head. Small and wiry, his face was disfigured by a terrible scar from some past battle, or in a tavern brawl. A surgeon had made a bad job of it, and his mouth was drawn up at one side in a permanent, lopsided grin.
'Aye, sir.' The man shaded his eyes.
'Tell them to halt at those rocks.'
He saw Lincoln hurry ahead of the column, his tattered trousers flapping and stirring up more choking dust.
It took another hour to reach those rocks, and Bolitho had the impression he was taking two paces backwards for every one he advanced.
Davy's party arrived amongst the tall rocks almost at the same time, and while the men threw themselves down into the small patches of shade, gasping and wheezing like sick animals, Bolitho called the lieutenant aside and said, 'We will take a look.' He saw Davy nod wearily, his hair bleached so much that it was like corn in the sunlight.
They found a marine on the far side of the rocks, his eyes slitted with professional interest as he stared at the gently sloping hillside which continued without a break towards the sea. And there, cradled inside the narrowest sweep of the islet, the 'whale's tail', was the schooner.
She was so close inshore that for an instant longer Bolitho imagined she had been driven aground in the storm. Then he saw the drifting smoke from a fire on the beach, heard the muffled tap of hammers, and guessed her crew were carrying out repairs. They might even have had the schooner careened to put right some damage to her bilge or keel, but at first glance she looked well enough now.