The growling rumble went on, and Okes heard a splintering crash as the bridge fell into the ravine like so much kindling wood.

Strangely, he found that he could walk now, his feet moving almost steadily as he followed his men down the road towards the pier and safety. He had acted in the only way possible. He kept his eyes fixed on the pier. The only way. Others would soon see that, too. He pictured his wife’s face when she read the announcement in the Gazette.

“Lieutenant Matthew Okes, who carried the brunt of the responsibility of this daring raid after the death of his commanding officer, is to be congratulated on his valour and his keenness to press home an attack against impossible odds!”

He slowed to a halt as a group of marines burst through the gorse and took up positions on the road itself.

A marine yelled, “Here they come, lads!”

Sergeant Garwood’s voice boomed from beyond the hilltop. “Hold your fire, my darlings! Ready, now! Fire!”

His last order came as a charging line of blue uniformed soldiers rose above the skyline and started to run down towards the beach. As the musket smoke drifted clear Okes saw the soldiers falling back, leaving others screaming and kicking in the low gorse.

“Reload! Take yer time!” Garwood sounded calm. “Aim low, lads!”

Another sharp volley, but this time there were more soldiers, and they came on with fresh determination in spite of losses. And here and there a marine lay dead, and several others crawled slowly down the hillside after their comrades.

Okes could see Rennie standing imperturbably on a hillock, ignoring the sharpshooters as he controlled his thin line of retreating men. He felt his envy giving way to hatred. Rennie would never have acted as he had done! He would have waited for Bolitho and allowed everyone to die for nothing!

Okes shouted, “To the lugger! Lively there!”

The sailors ran wildly to the pier, carrying their wounded companions and yelling encouragement to the marines. It seemed to Okes that another age passed before all his men were aboard and the last of the marines were falling back along the pier. There was a fresh morning breeze to fill the lugger’s sails, and as the last marine scrambled gasping over the bulwark the boat idled clear.

With a maddened roar the French soldiers charged from cover and headed for the pier. From individual uniformed blobs they converged into a solid force, and as they surged on to the pier itself they merged into a single enemy.

McIntosh crouched in the bows and looked along the swivel gun. He ignored the sporadic musket fire, and waited until the soldiers were packed into a yelling, tangled throng before he jerked the lanyard. “There, my beauties!” He stood up wildly in the pitching boat as the canister shot cut through the screaming soldiers like a scythe. “That’s fer the cap’n! An’ all the others!”

Before the second wave of soldiers had reached the bloody, threshing carnage on the pier the lugger had gone about and headed out to sea. Aboard there was silence now, and even when the Phalarope’s raked masts rounded the headland and bore down on the small boat like a protective parent, the exhausted men could not even muster a cheer.