For a moment Hornblower wished that, contrary to etiquette he had taken command of the landing party, fearing lest a disorderly and piecemeal attack should waste all the advantages gained. No, Bush was safe enough. He could see him through his glass, leaping up on to the road and then turning to face the landing party. Hornblower could see Bush’s arms wave as he gave his orders. Someone led off a party of seamen to the right — that was Rayner, for Hornblower’s straining eyes could perceive his bald head and unmistakable round shouldered gait. Morris was taking the marines — a solid block of scarlet — off to the left. Bush was forming up the remainder in the centre — Bush was clearheaded enough. There were three gullies in the face of the cliff, marked with straggling greenery, and indicating the easiest points of ascent. As the flanking parties reached the bottom of their paths, Hornblower saw Bush’s sword flash as he called his men on. They were breasting the cliffs now, all three parties simultaneously. A tiny faint cheer crept out over the water to the ship.
One or two of the main deck guns were making better practice now. Twice Hornblower thought he saw earth flying from the embrasures as shots struck them; so much the better, but the firing must stop now that the men were mounting the cliff. He pealed on his whistle and bellowed the order. In dead silence the ship slid on through the water while every eye watched the landing party. They were pouring over the top now. Sudden gusts of smoke showed that the guns were firing again — canister or grape, probably. Any of those parties caught in a whirlpool of canister from a forty-two pounder might well be wiped out. Weapons were sparkling on the parapet; little pinpricks of smoke indicated small arm fire. Now out on the left the red coats of the marines were on the very top of the parapet, a white clad sailor was waving from the centre. They were pouring over, although red dots and white dots littered the face of the parapet to mark where men had fallen. One anxious minute with nothing to see seemed to last for hours. And then the tricolour flag came slowly down its staff, and the hands on the main deck burst into a storm of cheering. Hornblower shut his glass with a snap.
“Mr Gerard, put the ship about. Send in the quarter boats to take possession of the craft in the bay.”
There were four tantanes, a felucca, and two cutter-rigged boats clustered at anchor in the tiny bay below the battery — a fine haul especially if they were fully laden. Hornblower saw the dinghies pulling madly from them for the shore on the side away from the battery, as the crews fled to escape captivity. Hornblower was glad to see them go; he did not want to be burdened with prisoners, and he had been a prisoner himself for two weary years in Ferrol. Something fell in an avalanche down the cliff, crashing on to the road at its foot in a cloud of dust and debris. It was a forty-two pounder heaved up by brute force over the parapet; Bush had got to work quickly enough at dismantling the battery — if Bush were still alive. Another gun followed at an interval, and another after that.
The small craft, two of them towing the quarter boats, were beating out towards the Sutherland where she lay hove-to awaiting them, and the landing party was coming down the cliff face again and forming up on the beach. Lingering groups indicated that the wounded were being brought down. All these necessary delays seemed to stretch the anticlimax into an eternity. A bellowing roar from the battery and a fountain of earth and smoke — momentarily like those volcanoes at whose foot the Lydia had anchored last commission — told that the magazine had been fired. Now at last the launch and the long boat were pulling back to the ship, and Hornblower’s telescope, trained on the sternsheets of the long boat, revealed Bush sitting there, alive and apparently well. Even then, it was a relief to see him come rolling aft, his big craggy face wreathed in smiles, to make his report.