Sharpes Devil   ::   Корнуэлл Бернард

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.

The fort's silhouette betrayed nothing. No one moved there, no one waved from the ramparts. The gaunt semaphore gallows stayed unmoving.

Cochrane bit into the chicken. "They're asleep."

"Thank God for that," Fraser said.

"Thank God indeed," Cochrane said fervently, for the only thing that had kept the Kitty safe from a murderous bombardment was the Spaniards' inattention. Cochrane bit the last meat off the chicken leg. "No harm done, eh? The silly buggers are all dozing!" He hurled the chicken bone toward the high fortress as a derisory gesture.