Another terrible crash of gunfire was followed by a horribly familiar rending sound as the great cannonballs ripped the sky apart. Sharpe, looking up through the Espiritu Santa’s tattered rigging, saw the smoke trails.of heated shot. “God help the O’Higgins,” he said softly.
“God help us all,” Harper responded. A marine crossed himself. Miller was singing again, though under his breath for fear of offending Cochrane. The men at the pumps faltered for a second, then began their desperate pumping again. Footsteps paced, slow and comforting, on the quarterdeck above.
“Not long now, lads,” Cochrane’s voice called softly. “Think of the waiting whores. Think of the gold! Think of the plunder we’ll take! Not long now!”
The man on the frigate’s beakhead was calling more news ashore. Captain Ardiles was dead, he said, and the First Lieutenant dying. “We have women and children on board!” he called ashore.
“Twenty paces, no more!” Cochrane warned his attackers.
“I pray there’s water under our keel!” Miller said in sudden fear. “God, give us water!” Sharpe had a sudden image of the frigate stranded fifteen paces from land and being pulverized by cannonfire.
“Fifteen paces! Stay hidden now!” Cochrane said.
A marine nervously scraped a sharpening stone down his fixed bayonet. Another felt the edge of his cutlass with his thumb. Sharpe had seen the man do the same thing at least a dozen times in the last minute. Miller took a hugely deep breath, then spat onto the snakeskin handle of his sword. A gust of wind reflected off the citadel’s crag to flog the edge of a sail and spray dew thick as rain down onto the frigate’s deck.
“Ensign!” Cochrane called sharply. “Hoist our colors!”
The Spanish flag rippled down, to be replaced immediately with the new Chilean flag. At the very same moment there was a crash as the frigate’s starboard quarter slammed into the quay.
“Come on!” Cochrane roared. “Come on!”
The assault force was still staggering from the impact of the frigate’s crashing arrival against the quay, but now they pushed themselves upright and, screaming like devils, scrambled into the dawn’s wan light.
Cochrane was already poised on the ship’s rail. The frigate had struck the quay, and was now,rebounding. The gap was two paces, three, then Cochrane leaped. Other men were jumping ashore with berthing lines.
“Come on, lads! Music!” Miller’s sword was high in the air.
A seaman had slung a prow ashore to act as a gangplank. A few men jostled to use it, but most men simply leaped to the quay from the frigate’s starboard rail. A flute screeched. A drummer, safely ashore, gave a ripple of sound. A man screamed as he missed his footing and fell into the water.
A cannon fired from the quay’s far end and a ball slashed harmlessly across the quarterdeck, bounced, and ripped out a section of the port gunwale. Sharpe was at the rail now. Christ, but the gap looked huge and beneath him was a churning mass of dirty white water, but men were shouting at him to make way, and so he jumped. The first men ashore were screaming defiance as they ran toward the small battery at the quay’s end where the gunners were desperately trying to slew their guns around to faqe the sudden enemy. Cannon smoke was blowing across the harbor. The O’Higgins had cleverly taken shelter behind the American brigantine and the Spanish gunners, fearful of bombarding a neutral ship and unable to depress their heavy cannons sufficiently to fire down onto the Espiritu Santo, had temporarily ceased fire.
Harper jumped and sprawled on the quay beside Sharpe. He picked himself up and ran toward the stone stairs. Major Miller was already on the steps, climbing as fast as his short legs would carry him. Behind him a mass of men flooded onto the stairway. Fear gave the attack a desperate impetus. A last cannon fired from the quay battery and Sharpe saw one of Miller’s marines torn bloody by the ball’s terrible strike.
Then a musket banged from the citadel high above and the ball flattened itself on the quay. The quay battery was finished, its gunners were either bayonetted or shot, or had jumped into the water. Lord Cochrane, that task successfully completed, was running to the stairs, trying to catch up with Miller’s frantic assault. Sharpe ran with Cochrane, easily outpacing the fat Harper who was struggling behind. “Jesus Christ, but this is wonderful! Oh, God, but this is wonderful! What joy this is!” Cochrane was talking to himself, lost in a heaven of weltering blood and banging gunfire. “Christ, but what a way to live! Isn’t this wonderful? ‘pon my soul, what a morning!” His Lordship elbowed his way through Miller’s rear ranks so he could lead the attack.