“Channels?” Sharpe asked.
Cochrane showed Sharpe a chart which revealed that the Chilean coast, so far as it was known, was a nightmare tangle of islands and hidden seaways. “There are thousands of natural harbors if you can get into the channels,” Cochrane explained, “but the channel entrances are as wicked as any in the world. As dreadful as the western coast of Scotland! There are cliffs on this coast that are as tall as mountains! And God only knows what’s waiting inside the channels. This is unexplored country. The old maps said that monsters lived here, and maybe they do, for no one’s ever explored this coast. Except the savages, of course, and they don’t count. Still, maybe the O’Higgins will find us first.”
“Is she close?”
“Christ only knows where she is, though she’s supposed to rendezvous with us off Valdivia. I’ve left a good man in charge of her, so perhaps he’ll have the wits to come south and look for us if we’re late, and if he does, and finds us sinking, then he can take us off.” He stared bleakly at the chart which he had draped over the Espiritu Santos shot-torn binnacle. “It’s a devil of a long way to Valdivia,” he said under his breath.
Sharpe heard a sigh of despair in Cochrane’s voice. “You’re not serious about Valdivia, are you?” Sharpe asked.
“Of course I am.”
“You’re going to attack with this broken ship?”
“This and the O’Higgins.”
“For God’s sake,” Sharpe protested, “Valdivia Harbor has more fortresses than London!”
“Aye, I know. Fort Ingles, Fort San Carlos, Fort Amargos, Corral Castle, Fort Chorocomayo, Fort Niebla, the Manzanera Island batteries and the quay guns,” Cochrane rattled off the list of fortifications with an irritating insouciance, as though such defenses were flimsy obstacles that were bound to fall before his reputation. “Say two thousand defenders in all? Maybe more.”
“Then why, for God’s sake?” Sharpe gestured at the exhausted men who stared dull-eyed at the threatening seas that roared up astern of the damaged frigate, hissed down her flanks, then rushed ahead in great gouts of wind-blown chaos.
“I have to attack Valdivia, Sharpe, because my lords and masters of the independent Chilean government, whom God preserve, have ordered me to attack Valdivia,” Cochrane suddenly sounded glum, but offered Sharpe a rueful grin. “I know that doesn’t make sense, at least not till you understand that the government owes me a pile of money that they desperately don’t want to pay me.”
“That still doesn’t make sense,” Sharpe said.
“Ah,” Cochrane frowned. “Try it this way. The government promised me hard cash for every Spanish ship I captured, and I’ve taken sixteen so far, and the buggers don’t want to honor the contract! They don’t even want to pay my crews their ordinary wages, let alone the prize money. So instead of paying up they’ve ordered me to attack Valdivia. Now do you understand?”
“They want you to be killed?” Sharpe could only suppose that with Cochrane’s death the debt due to him would be canceled.
“They probably wouldn’t overmuch object to my death,” Cochrane confessed, “except that it might encourage the damned Spaniards, so I suspect that the reasoning behind their order is slightly more subtle. They don’t want to pay me, so they have issued me an impossible order. Now, if I refuse to obey the order they’ll send me packing for disobedience, and refuse to give me my cash as a punishment for that disobedience, but if, on the other hand, I dutifully attack and fail, they’ll accuse me of incompetence and punish me by confiscating the money they owe me. Either way they win and I am royally buggered. Unless, of course,” Cochrane paused, and an impudent, wonderful grin crossed his face.
“Unless you win,” Sharpe continued the thought.
“Oh, aye, that’s the joy of it!” Cochrane slapped the rail of the quarterdeck. “My God, Sharpe, but that would be something! To win!” He paused, frowning. “Why was there no gold on this boat?”
“Because its presence was merely a rumor to lure you into making an attack.”
“It damn well worked, too!” Cochrane barked with laughter. “But think of it, Sharpe! If the gold isn’t here, then it has to be in Valdivia! Bautista’s as greedy as any Presbyterian! He’s been thieving for years, and now he’s Captain-General there’s been nothing to stop his mischief. Imagine it, Sharpe! The man has chests of money! Pots of gold! Rooms full of silver! Not a piddling little pile of coins, but enough treasure to make a man drool!” Cochrane laughed in relish of such plunder, and Sharpe saw in the Scottish nobleman a wonderful relic of an older, more glorious and more sordid age. Cochrane was a fighting sailor of the Elizabethan breed—a Drake or a Raleigh or a Hawkins—and he would fight like the devil the Spanish thought he was for gold, glory or just plain excitement.