And now I saw that a man was waving frantically from the beach. He kept himself wide of the fire but shouted and pointed despairingly at the cutter and at the damage it was wreaking. Behind the man there was a low hut in the bush: it had not been hit, as far as I could see, but clearly the man felt he was in peril. I was beginning to think that those on board the cutter had not seen him, but even as I watched, a pillar of water erupted only yards short of him. He redoubled his protest, kicking at the sand now. The marksmen had turned their attention towards him and were laughing as they took aim. I dreaded a repeat of the moment at Rodondo, but it seemed the sport here was in terrifying him: sand sprayed up from the rifle shots encircling his feet. He retreated into the scrub to howls of laughter.

Argyle gave orders to reef the sails but not to cast anchor. We were half a furlong away, up behind their stern as they faced broadside to the beach. Their lookout had found us now, and had alerted his shipmates: the laughter died and their anchor chain rattled against the hull. Within moments, they had the cutter underway but we could see from the ripple of faintly breaking water ahead of them that the narrow passage between Long Island and the much larger island, Cape Barren, was blocked by a shallow bank. Their rudder came round and they tacked clumsily until they were facing us. For a moment I feared they would turn the cannons on us, but no one was manning the guns: all hands were in the rigging and suddenly the passage was a very crowded place.

As they came by, Argyle studied them through an eyeglass; I could see a uniformed man aboard their vessel doing the very same thing. Their crew now stopped their work and lined the near-side bulwark between the cannons so that the combined weight of men and armaments had the cutter listing drunkenly towards us.

All of them were silent now and staring: was this meant as intimidation?

‘Please, nobody move or make comment,’ said the master quietly. He was looking at Connolly.

The cutter edged by, the morning sun behind its sails. Only when it was well past us and heading north did the master give the orders to take us to shore.

~

The man’s name was Jemmy Campbell. He was a miner, he said. His accent was recent Orkneys: an echo of poor dead Angus.