Even a half-witted spy, Cochrane grumbled, could have guessed his plans by just looking at the work being done on the two warships. In essence Cochrane was repeating the trick that had won him Puerto Crucero. That trick had enabled the Scotsman to take his men to the very edge of the defenses before their presence was detected, yet if the Spaniards had been alerted to the trick and had opened fire on the Espiritu Santo as soon as she had shown at the harbor mouth, blood would have poured thick from the frigate’s scuppers and Cochrane would have earned his first defeat.
The Spaniards could easily inflict that first defeat in the massive harbor at Valdivia. Valdivia’s six forts contained far more guns than Puerto Crucero’s one fortress, and Valdivia’s guns were spread out so that a surprise assault on one bastion could only serve to alert the others. It was that dispersion of enemy guns that worried Sharpe. Five of Valdivia’s forts were on the harbor’s western shore, while the sixth, Fort Niebla, was on the eastern bank and guarded the entrance to the River Valdivia. Cochrane, if he was to capture the town with its citadel and reputed treasure, had to capture Fort Niebla, for with the river mouth in his hands he could prevent the garrisons of the remaining fortresses from reinforcing the town’s defenders.
Cochrane’s plan to capture Fort Niebla was unveiled at a council of war that he held in the high arched room of Puerto Crucero’s citadel. He spread a map on a table and weighted its corners with bottles, of Chilean brandy, then, in a calm voice, spoke of sailing the disguised ships past the silent guns of the Spanish forts. Sharpe, like the other dozen officers in the room, listened to Cochrane’s confident voice, but saw on the map the terrible dangers that the Scotsman so blithely discounted. Most of the forts had been built high on the hills that surrounded the harbor—so high that, while they could plunge a lethal fire down into Cochrane’s ships, his own cannon could never elevate enough to return the fire. “But no one will open fire if they believe us to be the long-awaited transports with Colonel Ruiz’s guns and men!” Cochrane said confidently. He would keep his false ensigns flying until his two ships actually reached the quays in the river’s mouth. There, sheltered from all the western fortresses, as well as from the guns on Manzanera Island, he would launch a sudden landward assault against Fort Niebla. “And when Niebla falls, the whole thing collapses!” Cochrane said again. “Niebla controls the river! The river controls the town! The town controls what’s left of Spanish Chile!”
“Brilliant! Genius! Superb!” exclaimed Major Miller, his eyes glowing with admiration for his hero’s cleverness. “Superb, my Lord! Quite magnificent! Worthy of Wellington! I applaud you, ‘pon my soul, I do!”
“I believe Major Miller trusts our plan!” Cochrane said happily.
“I don’t,” Sharpe said.
“You don’t believe it will work?” Cochrane asked sarcastically.
“I believe it will work, my Lord, just so long as not one Spanish soldier can tell the difference between a transport ship and a warship. It will work so long as the real transport ships haven’t arrived yet. It will work so long as those real transport ships weren’t supplied with a password we don’t know. It will work so long as not one single officer of Colonel Ruiz’s regiment isn’t carried out to the arriving ships to check their cargoes. Good Lord! You think the Spaniards won’t be suspicious of every ship that comes into sight? They know how you captured this fortress, my Lord, so they’ll surely suspect that you’ll try the same trick again! How do we know that the Spanish aren’t inspecting every ship before it’s allowed to enter the harbor?” Sharpe spoke in English so that his pessimism would not be obvious to every man in the room, but his tone was more than enough to give it away. Even those who did not understand his words could look at the map and imagine the hell of being caught in the harbor, at the center of a ring of heavy guns that would be splintering the ships into floating charnel houses.