He walked behind the young officer, watching for signs of success or delays in the army's progress so far. There were plenty of soldiers in evidence, working to haul powder and shot from the beach while others marched steadfastly in squads and platoons towards the hills. A few glanced at him as they passed, but he meant nothing to them. Some of them were very bronzed, as if they had come from garrisons in the Indies; others looked like raw recruits. Weighed down as they were with packs and weapons, their coats were already darkly patched with sweat.
Allday tilted his hat over his eyes and commented, "Bloody shambles, if you asks me, Sir Richard."
Bolitho heard the far-off bang of light artillery-English or Dutch it was impossible to tell. It seemed impartial and without menace, but the canvas-covered corpses awaiting burial along the rough coastal track told a different story.
The captain paused and pointed at some neat ranks of tents. "My company lines are here, Sir Richard, but the General is not present." When Bolitho said nothing he added, "I am sure he will be back shortly."
Somewhere a man screamed out in agony, and Bolitho guessed there was a field hospital here, too, with the headquarters company. Progress was slow. Otherwise the army surgeons would be beyond that forbidding-looking ridge, he decided.
The captain opened a tent flap and Bolitho ducked to enter. The contrast was unnerving. The ground was covered by rugs and Bolitho imagined the challenge it must have been for the orderlies to find somewhere flat enough to lay them, and pitch this large tent so securely.
A grave-faced colonel, who had been seated in a folding campaign chair, rose to his feet and bowed his head.
"I command the Sixty-First, Sir Richard." He took Bolitho's proffered hand and smiled. "We knew of your presence here, but not amongst us of course! " He looked tired and strained. "There was no time to receive you with due honours."
Bolitho looked up and saw a singed hole in the top of the tent.
The colonel followed his glance. "Last evening, Sir Richard. One of their marksmen got right through our pickets. Hoping for an important victim, no doubt." He nodded to the orderly who had appeared with a tray of glasses. "This may quench your thirst while you are waiting for the General."
"Are the enemy well-prepared?"
"They are, Sir Richard, and they have all the advantages." He frowned and added disdainfully, "But they use methods I find unsoldierly. That marksman, for instance, was not in uniform, but dressed in rags to match his surroundings. He shot two of my men before we ran him to earth. Not the kind of ethics I care for."
Allday remarked, "I think I sees him just now, Sir Richard, hanging from a tree."
The colonel stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
"What…?"
Bolitho said, "Mr Allday is with me, Colonel."
He watched as Allday took a tall glass of wine from the orderly and winked at him. "Don't you stray too far, matey." In his fist, the glass looked like a thimble.
Bolitho sipped the wine. It, like the General, travelled well.
The colonel walked to a folding table where several maps were laid out.
"The enemy falls back when pressed, Sir Richard-there seems no eagerness to stand and fight. It is a slow business all the same." He shot Bolitho a direct glance. "And if, as you say, we can expect no further support in men and supplies, I fear it will be months rather than weeks before we take Cape Town."
Bolitho heard horses clattering amongst loose stones, the bark of commands and the slap of muskets from the sentries outside the tent. The horses would be glad to be on dry land again, Bolitho thought, even if nobody else was enjoying it.
The General entered and threw his hat and gloves on to a chair. He was a neat man with piercing blue eyes. A no-nonsense soldier who claimed that he asked nothing from his men that he could or would not do himself.
There were instructions; then the General suggested that the others should leave. Allday, with three glasses of wine under his belt, murmured, "I'll be in earshot if you needs me, Sir Richard."
As the flap fell across the entrance the General commented, "Extraordinary fellow."
"He's saved my life a few times, Sir David; my sanity a few times more."
Surprisingly, some of the sternness left the General's sun-reddened face.
"Then I could use a few thousand more like him, I can tell you! " The smile faded just as quickly "The landings went well. Commodore Popham worked miracles, and apart from the inevitable casualties it was very satisfactory He looked at Bolitho severely "And now I am told that I shall receive no reinforcements, that you even intend to strip the squadron of some of the frigates."
Bolitho was reminded vividly of his friend Thomas Herrick. His eyes were that blue. Stubborn, loyal, hurt even. Was Herrick still his friend? Would he never accept his love for Catherine?
He said shortly, "It is not merely my intention, Sir David! " Thinking of Herrick and the gulf which had come between them had put an edge to his voice. "It is the King's own signature on those orders, not mine."
"I wonder who guided his hand for him?"
Bolitho replied quietly, "I did not hear that, Sir David."
The General gave him a wry smile. "Hear what, Sir Richard?"
Like two duellists who had changed their minds, they moved to the maps on the table.
Once, the General looked up and listened as distant gunfire echoed sullenly around the tent. It reminded Bolitho of surf on a reef.
Bolitho laid his own chart on top of the others and said, "You are a soldier, I am not; but I know the importance, the vital necessity of supplies to an army in combat. I believe that the enemy expect to be reinforced. If that happens before you can take Cape Town, Sir David, what chances have you of succeeding?"
The General did not answer for a full minute while he studied Bolitho's chart, and the notes which he had clipped to it.
Then he said heavily, "Very little." Some of his earlier sharpness returned. "But the navy's task is to prevent it! Blockade the port, and fight off any would-be attempt to support the garrison." It sounded like an accusation.
Bolitho stared at the chart, but saw only Warren 's handful of ships. Each captain had his orders now. The three frigates would watch and patrol the Cape and the approaches, while the remaining two schooners maintained contact between them and the commodore. They might be lucky but under cover of darkness it would not, be too difficult for other vessels to slip past them and under the protection of the shore batteries.
And then the choice would remain as before. Attack into the bay and risk the combined fire of the batteries and the carefully moored ships-at best it would end in stalemate. The worst did not bear contemplating. If the army was forced to withdraw in defeat because of lack of supplies and the enemy's continued stubborn resistance, the effect would resound right across Europe. The crushing victory over the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar might even be cancelled out by the inability of the army to occupy Cape Town. France 's unwilling allies would take fresh heart from it, and the morale in England would crumble with equal speed.
Bolitho said, "I suspect that neither of us welcomed this mission, Sir David."
The General turned as the young captain Bolitho had seen before appeared at the entrance. "Yes?"
The captain said, "A message from Major Browning, Sir David. He wishes to re-site his artillery."
"Send word, will you? Do nothing until I reach there. Then tell an orderly to fetch my horse."
He turned and said, "The news you have brought me is no small setback, Sir Richard." He gave him a level stare. "I am relying on you, not because I doubt the ability of my officers and men, but because I have no damned alternative! I know the importance of this campaign-all eyes will be watching it as a foretaste of what lies ahead. For make no mistake, despite all the triumphs at sea, they will be as nought until the English foot-soldier plants his boots on the enemy's own shores."