Run Them Ashore Read Free Page A

for the marines there.’ Cassidy was acting lieutenant on the brig and in charge of the landing party. ‘Got all that?’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ Dobson replied formally, and stood up. ‘You should go, though, and I’ll stay.’
    Williams smiled. ‘They will obey you. If I go we will only have a discussion.’ He was junior to all the others, but was more worried because he did not know what sort of man Sinclair was.
    ‘Aye, you may be right, Pug.’
    ‘When you come back,’ Williams continued, ‘split the marines into two parties. Leave Corporal Milne with one lot here and take the other half up to that rise.’ Williams showed where he meant. ‘Clegg and I will take a look further down.’ He patted the sailor on the shoulder. ‘I need those eyes of yours.
    ‘We’ll try to remain out of sight, but we will distract them if they are coming on too fast. You wait, and give them a volley when they get close. They’ll only be expecting irregulars so will probably charge straight at you, so after that one shot take the men down the side of the dunes to the boats. If I don’t see you I will be back here with Milne and we will give them another surprise before we bolt down to join you.’ A thought struck him. ‘You had better give Mr Pringle our apologies and say that we are unlikely to be joining them and so they must proceed without us, so tell them not to wait around, but press on. We can maybe give them half an hour’s lead and that will have to be enough.’
    Dobson nodded.
    ‘Good luck, Dob,’ Williams added, and watched the sergeant jog down on to the road and head towards the chapel. ‘Come on, young Clegg, let us go and make some mischief.’
    Williams ran along the top of the ridge as fast as the tussocks of grass allowed. He had his pistol in his right hand and the heavy telescope in the other. The straps on his pack had worked loose again, so it banged against his back as he ran, but although the night was no cooler and the wind stronger than ever the officer no longer noticed it. Tiredness had gone along with the uncertainty and that strange sense of peace, for now he knew what he had to do. That did not mean that it would be easy to do it.
    He stopped on the rise where Dobson was to bring his men, lay down and propped his glass between two rocks.
    ‘There they are, sir,’ Clegg said, spotting them several moments before the officer.
    Williams pressed his eye to the lens and tried to move the telescope as gently as possible while he hunted for the enemy.It was a shame he did not have one of the night glasses he had seen on board the brig, but the moon was still strong and he soon found them. They were certainly cavalry, and were moving quicker than he had judged, so that when he pulled away from the glass to gauge the distance he guessed that they were now barely half a mile away. The French – they must be French for they were moving in better order than any partisans – were coming on at a steady trot, which suggested a clear purpose, whether or not it had anything to do with them. It was hard to know whether the enemy would be able to see the Sparrowhawk off-shore, but they certainly would by the time the road climbed up on to this ridge. Numbers were hard to determine in the darkness, but he doubted it was less than a company and probably a full squadron of more than a hundred riders.
    ‘Come on.’ Williams set off down the slope as the ground dipped into another little valley and then rose sharply to a round hillock, the highest point on the dunes. From the top Williams could see the road curving around its foot and then running in the gentlest of meanders down towards the coast. There was nowhere more promising down there, and so this was where they would wait, trusting to the steep sides of the hill to delay any mounted pursuit.
    The officer pointed back towards the rise they had come from. ‘Keep an eye out, Clegg, and tell me when Sergeant Dobson and the marines arrive.’
    They waited, and