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The girl came hurrying around the square. As she opened the gate of the consulate and stepped on to the path leading up to the front door that door opened and Cherry came out. The sudden flood of light from the door set Sarah squinting as she approached but she could see Cherry in the act of thrusting something into his jacket pocket. It set Kaufmann to squinting as he stepped from the trees, the revolver held two-handed at arm’s length. It was a good shot for a man partly dazzled, whose breathing was still irregular. It was a distance of thirty feet and he missed Sarah by inches, but Cherry spun and fell as the shot crashed out.

Sarah was still for a shocked instant but Francis, trotting around the square, yelled and sprinted. She reacted and threw herself down so that the second shot slammed into the door-post. Kaufmann did not get another chance. Francis piled into him in a flying tackle that crashed Kaufmann’s head on the cobbles and sent the revolver leaping and skidding away.

Servants showed at the open door, peering out nervously. Sarah shouted at them from where she knelt on the path over Cherry, “Get a doctor! Quick!”

Cherry had been hit high in the chest and she snatched the handkerchief from his cuff to press on the wound. Then she saw the slip of paper, a corner of it sticking from Cherry’s pocket. She opened out its folds and read the telegram. For a moment she held it, taking it in, then crumpled it savagely and cradled Cherry in her arms. Cherry had been leaving to do his duty, reluctant though he might be. Sarah saw her duty differently. She peered down into his unconscious face and whispered, “We got the proof Smith wanted and I’ll see the Chileans have it.” Thunder’s wireless was wrecked but they could send a signal by the station at Punta Negro to Thunder where she lay in Stillwater Cove, waiting for the dawn. They could call her back. As for the telegram balled in her fist, she would find it — later.

The telegram was to relieve Smith of his command of Thunder and place him under arrest.

XIII

Aboard Thunder the activity below deck bore fruit. As she slipped slowly down-river towards the sea, lights again sprinkled her decks so the men could see as they began to bring up the furniture, the stores. Everything that could be ripped out, somehow, and moved, somehow, was brought up and heaved over the side. She left a slow, thick trail. At the end of twenty minutes, down to coal for twenty-four hours anyway, she was down to stores for that same period and her inside scoured clean as a washed corpse.

Benks and Horsfall and a party of seamen staggered on deck with the wardroom piano and grunting, shoved it jangling into the river.

Benks groaned, “Going too far it is. He’s barmy.”

“No, he ain’t. He knows what he’s doing.” But to himself, Daddy added, ‘I hopes’. Because stripping for action was one thing and this was another.

On the bridge Garrick said, “They’ve thrown everything overboard but the galley stoves.”

So Smith answered laconically, “See to it, Mr. Wakely.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

They stripped the galley except for one stove.

Smith left the bridge and made his way down through the men as they worked and talked, joked, laughed. He passed them with his cap in his hand, the fair hair sweat-darkened and set close to his skull from the cap. He was smiling and the blue eyes searched them, but were not cold. He looked very young. They watched him pass and only then realised they had responded and returned the grin of this young Captain.

Smith descended into the bowels of the ship until he came to the marine sentry and the door of the cell where they had put Gibb. The marine snapped to attention, startled. What was the old man doing down here?

“Open up.” Smith waited as the marine fumbled with the keys. Through the little barred opening in the door he could see Gibb in the glow from the solitary light. He sat on the edge of the bunk, hands pressed tight between his knees. There was no bedding, nothing in there but a bucket. Gibb looked up and peered uneasily as the key turned in the lock, saw Smith’s face striped beyond the bars and rose to his feet. The marine opened the door and Smith’s hand lifted to put on the cap, then he decided against it and walked in.

Gibb stood to attention, too rigid, too taut so that he wavered. His face was black with stubble and shiny with sweat. The knuckles of his clenched fists were bruised and the skin split.

Smith said, “You were in a fight with someone before you — left the ship?”

Gibb noted the hesitation and the choice of words and licked his lips. “Aye, sir.” He knew Rattray was alive and working at that moment.

Smith stared at him for a long minute, not a trick to screw the man’s nerves tight, but trying to sort out what to say and how to say it. He could preach or bully, sneer or appeal. No, he couldn’t. He was not that type of man, not a man for speeches let alone emotional oratory. Anyway, he did not have the time.

So he said flatly, “We will shortly be in action. Would you rather be aloft doing your duty or down here?”

Gibb stared, swallowed and whispered, “Aloft, sir.”

“Shave and shift into clean rig.” And to the marine: “Give me the keys and report for your normal duties.” The marine looked at him oddly then, but handed over the keys and left.

Ten minutes later the cells were empty and Smith returned to the bridge. He had sent two men back to duty. No superfluous weight.

Thunder slipped down between the dark shadows of the forest towards the sea. Then fine on the starboard bow opened a black void, a tunnel thrust into the forest, but to port lay Stillwater Cove.

Smith ordered, “Steer a point to port.” Thunder edged over and into the cove, dead slow now, barely making headway against the tide that was beginning to flow. A cluster of lights crept into view over the starboard bow, set high on a low hill beyond the black void; they marked the signalling station. Thunder, lit up as she was, would be clear to the watchers there. Her anchor roared out, her engines stopped and she hung at the end of her cable as the pinnace had done.

Then the deck lights went out and there were only the riding lights to mark her position.

A lamp blinked a question from the signalling station. They had known she was coming but they put the formal question: “What ship is that?”

Thunder replied.

Voices called softly along the boat-deck and Garrick reported, “Whaler’s away, sir.” And then: “Gig’s away, sir.” The boats had been lowered by hand in near silence.

Smith nodded and looked at his watch.

One minute. Two … Ten minutes.

He was watching the shore to port and saw the blink of light there that was come and gone in the wink of an eye but a score of eyes had watched for it, marked it. That was Midshipman Thorne who had taken the whaler and a dozen men, reporting that he was ready.

Now they waited for Kennedy, who had gone off in the gig.

Smith’s eyes turned to starboard and he waited again in the night that enfolded them. There was no mist; that would come with the last of the night. The lights of the signalling station were clear but the station itself was not, though it stood on the crest of the hill. The night was overcast, without moon or stars, black dark here under the hanging wall of the forest.

Smith asked, “Who has Thorne got with him?”

Garrick answered, “Leading-Seaman Bates.”

Smith nodded approval. Mention of Bates summoned up thoughts of the fore-turret and the men who manned it: Gibb, Rattray — he had been the victim of an ‘accident’, Albrecht had mentioned it acidly to Smith and Garrick.