The fort’s defenders, doubtless recognizing the Espiritu Santo as one of their own ships, would be watching the O’Higgins now, measuring their distance, waiting for her hull to clear the headland and thus expose herself to their dreadful fire. Sailors were lining the rails of the American brigantine, drawn there by the great percussive explosions of gunfire that had startled this Chilean dawn. Gulls screamed in the frigate’s broken rigging. Sharpe could smell shellfish and seaweed. He could also smell the smoke from the cooking fires in the fishing hovels beyond the beach, and he thought how different the land smelled from the sea, then he obsessively drew the sword he had borrowed from Lord Cochrane an inch free from its scabbard to make sure that the blade was not stuck. In battle he had known men killed because their swords had rusted into their scabbards. The pumps clattered on the lower deck to spurt discolored bilge water into the silver-gray harbor. One of Miller’s flautists blew three fast and plaintive notes as if checking that his instrument still worked. “Not yet, boys!” Miller said, “Not yet! And when we do attack, boys, I want to hear ‘Heart of Oak’!” He beat time to a tune heard only in his head, then explained to Sharpe that two of his flautists were Chilean and therefore unfamiliar with patriotic British songs. “But I taught ’em, Sharpe, ‘pon my soul I taught ’em.” Unable to restrain himself, the Major burst into song.
“Come, cheer up, my lads!
‘tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to his wonderful year;
To honor we call you, not press you like slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Heart of oak are our ships!
Heart of oak are our men!
We always are ready!
Steady, boys, steady …
“Stop that bloody caterwauling down below!” came a bellow from the quarterdeck.
“A thousand apologies, my Lord!” Miller was mortified to have earned a reproof from his beloved Cochrane.
“Save your dreadful music for the enemy, Miller!” Cochrane was clearly amused by Miller’s singing.
“Whatever you say, my Lord. And I’m much obliged for Your Lordship’s advice!”
“And cheer up, lads!” Cochrane called down to all the hidden men who were nervously waiting for the attack to begin. “There are whores with tits of purest gold ashore! One more hour and we’ll all be drunk, rich and rogered witless!”
Major Miller smiled confidingly at Sharpe. “A great man, our Tommy, a great man! A hero, Sharpe, like yourself. Cut from the old cloth, poured from an antique mold, sprung from ancient seed, clean hewn from solid oak!” Miller, moved by this elaborate encomium, sniffed. “He may be a Scotsman, but at heart there’s English oak there, Sharpe, pure English oak! I’m proud to know him, I am, proud indeed.” Miller looked as if he needed to cuff a tear from his eyes, but his emotional outpouring of loyalty was cut short by an appalling crash of gunfire from the castle ramparts. Heavy roundshot screamed overhead, slashing above the Espiritu Santa’s truncated masts to blast fountains of water close to the pursuing O’Higgins. The Chilean flagship immediately answered with a deafening full broadside.
“God save Ireland,” Harper said, “but I never thought to be in a battle again.”
The Chilean shots cracked against the castle crag, splintering shards of stone, but otherwise doing no damage. Other guns were firing now, lighter guns, cracking their missiles down from the citadel’s highest ramparts, Sharpe imagined the roundshots smashing through the O’Higgins’ hull timbers. God help them, he thought, God help them. So far, at least, the deception had worked and no Spanish guns were firing at the Espiritu Santo; all the dreadful gunnery was aimed at the O ‘Higgins.
A strange voice called in a lull between the gunshots, and Sharpe, with an apprehensive leap of his heart, realized that the voice must have been calling from somewhere ashore. They were close, so close. A wisp of mist drifted across the wreckage which Cochrane had artfully strewn on the Espiritu Santos, main deck. The voice called again, and this time a man shouted in answer from the frigate’s bow, explaining that the Espiritu Santo had been in a running fight with the devil Cochrane these last six days, and that the frigate was filled with wounded, but praise God and Saint James they had slaughtered and wounded scores of their enemies and might even have killed that devil Cochrane with their gunnery.