Cochrane frowned at Sharpe, but did not countermand Fraser's invitation.
"Well?" Fraser insisted. The ship was still creeping toward the harbor mouth. In another half mile she would open the entrance and be under the guns of Fort San Carlos.
Cochrane was a devil, Sharpe thought, and suddenly he felt a smaller imp rise in himself. Goddamn it, but a man did not come this far just to be challenged by a toy boat and then turn back! "If we anchor off the beach," Sharpe said, "they'll think we're obeying their orders. We wait till it's dark, then we send a boat or two ashore. We can say we're looking for fresh water if anyone questions us. Then we'll attack the nearest fort. We may only capture a few kegs of powder, but at least we'll have let the bastards know that we're still dangerous."
"Magnificent!" shouted Cochrane, released from his torpor. He slapped Sharpe's back. "Goddamn it, man, but magnificent! I like it! Mister Almante! A signal to the O'Higgins, if you please, ordering them to ready anchors!" Cochrane was suddenly seething with energy and enthusiasm. "But bugger snatching a few kegs of powder! Let's go for the whole pot! We'll capture the western forts, then use their guns to bombard Niebla while our ships work their way inside. That'll be at dawn, Mister Fraser, so perhaps you will work out the time of the morning's flood tide for me? I don't know why I didn't think to do it this way from the very start! Mister Cabral? Order a meal served below decks. Tell the men they've got two hours rest before we begin landing troops."
"Now you've done it," Fraser grumbled to Sharpe.
"You spoke, Mister Fraser?" Cochrane demanded.
"Nothing, my Lord."
"As soon as we're at anchor," Cochrane went on, "you'll lower boats, but do it on the side facing away from the land! We don't want the enemy to see we're launching boats, do we?"
"A hole in each end, my Lord?" Fraser asked.
"Then suck the damned egg dry!" Cochrane, knowing he had given Fraser an unnecessary order, gave a brief guffaw of laughter.
Behind the Kitty the sky was a glorious blaze of gold touched scarlet, in which a few ragged clouds floated silver gray. The sea had turned molten, slashed with shivering bands of black. The great Spanish ensign, given an even richer color by the sun's flaming gold, slapped and floated in the fitful wind.
The two ships crept toward the shore. Sharpe could hear the breakers now and see where they foamed white as they hissed and roared toward the sand. Then, just when it seemed that the Kitty must inevitably be caught up in that rush of foam and be swept inexorably to her doom, Fraser ordered both anchors let go. A seaman swung a sledgehammer, knocking a peg loose from the cathead, and the starboard anchor crashed down through the golden sea. The port anchor followed a second after, the twin chains rattling loud in the dusk. Then, with a jerk, the Kitty rounded up and lay with her bows pointing toward the setting sun and her stern toward the mainland. The headland, on which Fort Ingles stood, was now on her port side.
The O'Higgins anchored a hundred yards further out. Both ships jerked and snubbed angrily, but Fraser reported that the anchors were holding. "Not that it will help us," he added to Sharpe, "for the boats will never land on that beach." He jerked an unshaven chin toward the Aguada del Ingles where, in the last slanting light, the foam was shredding spray like smoke. Cochrane might believe a landing to be possible, but Sharpe suspected that Fraser was right and that any boat that tried to land through that boiling surf would be swamped.
Cochrane stared up to where his topmen were efficiently gathering in the Kitty's sails. "The wind's backing, Fraser?"
"Aye, my Lord, it is."
Cochrane fidgeted a second. "We might leave the spanker rigged for mending, Mr. Fraser. It will hide your boats as they're launched."
Fraser did not like the idea. "The wind could veer, my Lord."
"Let's do it! Hurry now!"
The orders were given. Fraser offered Sharpe an explanation. The wind, he said, had been southerly all day, but had now gone into the west. By leaving the aftermost sail half hoisted he turned the ship into a giant weather vane. The wind would then keep the ship parallel to the beach, leaving the starboard side safely hidden from the fort. Cochrane could then launch his boats in the last of the daylight, safe from enemy gaze.
"Why not rig the sail full?" Sharpe asked. The sail was only half raised.
"Because that would look unnatural when you're at anchor. But half rig is how you'd hoist her for mending, and a half-collapsed sail hides the far side of the quarterdeck a deal better than a fully hoisted sail. Not that I suppose anyone up there understands seamanship."
Fraser had jerked a derisive thumb toward Fort Ingles above the beach. From Sharpe's position on the quarterdeck the fort's ramparts formed the skyline, clearly showing six embrasures in its grim silhouette. The guns were less than a half mile from the Kitty. If the Spanish did suddenly discover that the two anchored ships were hostile, the guns would wreak havoc in the crowded lower decks. Sharpe shuddered and turned away. Harper, seeing the shudder, surreptitiously crossed himself.
The sun was now a bloated ball of fire on the horizon. Ashore the shadows were lengthening and coalescing into a gray darkness. On the Kitty's quarterdeck, behind the concealing folds of heavy canvas, the ship's four longboats and two jolly boats were being lowered overboard. The Captain's barge was the last boat to be launched. Each boat held a single seaman whose job was to keep his craft from being crushed as the frigate heaved up and down on the swells. "Another hour," Cochrane spoke to Sharpe and Harper, "and it'll be dark enough to land troops. Why don't you get something to eat?"
Harper brightened at the thought and went below to the gun-deck where the cooks were serving a stew of goat meat to the waiting men. Sharpe wanted to stay on deck. "Bring me something," he asked as Harper swung off the quarterdeck.
Sharpe, left alone, leaned on the rail and gazed at the fort. A sudden gust of wind came off the land, ruffling the sea and forcing Sharpe to snatch at his old-fashioned tricorne hat. The wind gust billowed the loosely rigged spanker, driving the canvas across the deck and occasioning a shout of alarm from Lieutenant Cabral who was almost thrown overboard by the gusting sail. "Stow that sail now!" Fraser ordered. The longboats were safely overboard and the spanker no longer hid any suspicious activity.
A dozen topmen scrambled up the ratlines and edged out on the mizzen yard to haul in the spanker. The wind was still pushing the sail, driving the stern of the Kitty away from the beach.
The wind gusted again, sighing in the rigging and making the boat lean seaward. Some of the men in the longboats feared being trapped under the hull and pushed off from the threatening Kitty with their long oars. The boats were all tethered to the frigate with lines, but now, as the heavy warship with its clanking pumps continued to blow toward them, the boat-minders pushed themselves as far from her tarred hull as their tethers would allow.
The Kitty kept turning so that her bows were pointing almost directly at Fort Ingles. Fraser knew that the fort's garrison must be able to see the longboats and even the dullest Spanish officer would realize what such a sight portended. Innocent ships waiting for medical attention did not launch a fleet of longboats.
"Close up, damn you, close up!" Fraser shouted at the boat-minders. The topmen had furled the sail and the Kitty was swinging back again.
Cochrane came running up from his cabin where he had been eating an early supper. "What the hell is happening?"
"Wind veered." Fraser decently did not add that he had warned of just such a danger. "It drove us around."
"Sweet Jesus!" Cochrane, a leg of chicken in his hand, stared at the fort. The longboats were hidden again. "Did they see?" He asked the question of no one, merely articulating a worry.