"There's a new signal, my Lord!" The midshipman called aloud in English, the language commonly used on the quarterdeck of Cochrane's ship.
"In Spanish from now on, Mister Almante, in Spanish!" If the Spaniards did send a guard ship then Cochrane wanted no one using English by mistake. "Reply with a signal that urgently requests a whore for the Captain," Cochrane gave the order in his execrable Spanish, "then draw attention to the signal with a gun."
The grinning Midshipman Almante began plucking signal flags from the locker. The new message, gaudily spelled out in a string of fluttering flags, ran quickly to the Kitty's mizzen yard and, just a second later, one of the stern guns crashed a blank charge to echo across the sea.
"We are spreading confusion!" Cochrane happily explained to Sharpe. "We're pretending to be annoyed because they're not responding to our signal!"
"Another shot, my Lord?" Midshipman Almante, who was not a day over thirteen, asked eagerly.
"We must not overegg the pudding, Mister Almante. Let the enemy worry for a few moments."
The smoke from the stern gun drifted across the wildly heaving swell. The two ships were close to land now, close enough for great drifting mats of rust-brown weed to be thick in the water. Gulls screamed about the rigging. Two horsemen suddenly appeared on the headland's skyline, evidently galloping to get a closer look at the two approaching boats.
"Nelson was always seasick until battle was imminent," Cochrane said suddenly.
"You knew Nelson?" Sharpe asked.
"I met him several times. In the Mediterranean." Cochrane paused to train his telescope on the two riders. “They're worried about us, but they can't be seeing much. The sun's almost dead behind us. A strange little man."
"Nelson?"
"'Go for them, he told me, 'just go for them! Damn the niceties, Cochrane, just go and fight! And he was right! It always works. Oh, damn." The curse, spoken mildly, was provoked by the appearance of a small boat that was sailing out of the harbor and was clearly intending to intercept the Kitty and O'ffiggins. Cochrane had half-expected such a guard boat, but plainly his disguise would have been easier to preserve if none had been despatched. "They are nervous, aren't they," he said to no one in particular, then walked to the quarterdeck's rail and picked up a speaking trumpet. "No one is to speak in any language but Spanish. You will not shout a greeting to the guard boat. You may wave at them, but that is all!" He turned sharply. "Spanish naval dress, gentlemen!"
Blue coats, cocked hats and long swords were fetched up from Cochrane's cabin and issued to every man on the quarterdeck. Harper, pleased to have a coat with epaulettes, strutted up and down. Fraser, dwarfed by his naval coat, scowled at the helm while Cochrane, his cocked hat looking oddly piratical, lit a cigar and pretended to feel no qualms about the imminent confrontation. The third Lieutenant, a man called Cabral who, though a fierce Chilean patriot, had been born in Spain, was deputed to be the Kittys, spokesman. "Though remember, Lieutenant," Cochrane admonished him, "we're called the Nino, and the O'Higgins is now the Cristoforo." Cochrane glowered at the approaching boat which, under a bellying red sail, contained a dozen uniformed men. "We'll all be buggered," he muttered to Sharpe in his first betrayal of nerves, "if those two transport ships arrived last week."
The guard boat hove to under the Kittys quarter, presumably because she was the ship showing the signal flags, and was therefore deemed to be the ship in command of the small convoy. A man with a speaking trumpet demanded to know the Kitty's identity.
"We're the Nino and Cristoforo out of Cadiz!" Cabral called back. "We're bringing Colonel Ruiz's guns and men."
"Where's your escort?"
"What escort?" Cochrane asked under his breath, then, almost at once, he hissed an answer to Cabral. "Parted company off Cape Horn."
"We lost them off Cape Horn!"
"What ship was escorting you?"
"Christ Almighty!" Cochrane blasphemed. "The Sanhidro." He plucked the name at random.
"The Sanhidro, senor," Cabral obediently parroted the answer.
"Did you meet the Espiritu Santo?” the guard boat asked.
"No!"
The interrogating officer, a black-bearded man in a naval Captain's uniform, stared at the sullen faces that lined the Nino's rails. The man was clearly unhappy, but also nervous. "I'm coming aboard!" he shouted.
"We've got sickness!" Cabral, prepared for the demand, had his answer ready and, as if on cue, Midshipman Almante hoisted the yellow fever flag.
"Then you're ordered to anchor off the harbor entrance!" the bearded man shouted up. "We'll send doctors to you in the morning! You understand?"
"Tell them we don't trust the holding here, we want to anchor inside the harbor!" Cochrane hissed.
Cabral repeated the demand, but the bearded man shook his head. "You've got your orders! The holding's good enough for this wind. Anchor a half mile off the beach, use two anchors on fifteen fathoms of chain apiece, and sleep well! We'll have doctors on board at first light!" He signaled to his helmsman who bore away from the Kittys side and turned toward the harbor.
"Goddamn it!" Cochrane said.
"Why don't you just ignore the bugger?" Sharpe asked.
"Because if we try to run the entrance without permission they'll open fire."
"So we wait for dark?" Sharpe, who until now had been dead set against any such attack, was now the one trying to force Cochrane past the obstacle.
"There'll be a gibbous moon," Fraser said pessimistically, "and that will serve as well as broad sunlight to light their gunners' aim."
"Damn, damn, damn." Cochrane, usually so voluble, was suddenly enervated. He stared at the retreating guard boat and seemed bereft of ideas. Fraser and the other officers waited for his orders, but Cochrane had none to give. Sharpe felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the tall Scotsman. All plans were nothing but predictions, and like all predictions they were likely to be transformed by their first collision with reality, but the art of war was to prepare for such collisions and have a second or a third or a fourth option ready. Cochrane suddenly had no such options on hand. He had pinned his hopes on the Spanish supinely accepting his ruse, then feebly collapsing before his attack. Was this how Napoleon had been on the day of Waterloo? Sharpe wondered. He watched Cochrane and saw a man in emptiness, a clever man drained of invention who seemed helpless to stop the tide of disaster flooding across him.
"We've two hours of fair water, my Lord." Fraser, recognizing the moment of crisis, had adopted a respectful formality.
Cochrane did not respond. He was staring toward the harbor entrance. Was he thinking of making a dash for it? But how could two slow ships dash? Their speed, even with the tide's help, was scarcely above that of a man walking.
"We'll not get through, my Lord." Fraser, reading His Lordship's mind, growled the warning.
"No," Cochrane said, but said nothing more.
Fraser shot a beseeching look at Sharpe. Sharpe, more than any other man in the expedition, had counseled against this attack, and now, Fraser's look seemed to be saying, was the time for Sharpe to urge withdrawal. There was just one chance of avoiding disaster, and that was for the two ships to turn and slip away southward.
Sharpe said nothing.
Fraser, desperate to end the indecision, challenged Sharpe directly. "So what would you do, Sharpe?"