Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini (paper ebook reader txt) 📕

the Baron’s urgent orders they pulled away again out of danger, and stood about to pick up such survivors as contrived to battle towards them. Close upon fifty lives were lost in the adventure, together with half-a-dozen boats stored with ammunition and light guns.

The Baron went back to his flagship an infuriated, but by no means a wiser man. Wisdom⁠—not even the pungent wisdom experience thrusts upon us⁠—is not for such as M. de Rivarol. His anger embraced all things, but focused chiefly upon Captain Blood. In some warped process of reasoning he held the buccaneer chiefly responsible for this misadventure. He went to bed considering furiously what he should say to Captain Blood upon the morrow.

He was awakened at dawn by the rolling thunder of guns. Emerging upon the poop in nightcap and slippers, he beheld a sight that increased his unreasonable and unreasoning fury. The four buccaneer ships under canvas were going through extraordinary manoeuvre half a mile off the Boca Chica and little more than half a mile away from the remainder of the fleet, and from their flanks flame and smoke were belching each time they swung broadside to the great round fort that guarded that narrow entrance. The fort was returning the fire vigorously and viciously. But the buccaneers timed their broadsides with extraordinary judgment to catch the defending ordnance reloading; then as they drew the Spaniards’ fire, they swung away again not only taking care to be ever moving targets, but, further, to present no more than bow or stern to the fort, their masts in line, when the heaviest cannonades were to be expected.

Gibbering and cursing, M. de Rivarol stood there and watched this action, so presumptuously undertaken by Blood on his own responsibility. The officers of the Victorieuse crowded round him, but it was not until M. de Cussy came to join the group that he opened the sluices of his rage. And M. de Cussy himself invited the deluge that now caught him. He had come up rubbing his hands and taking a proper satisfaction in the energy of the men whom he had enlisted.

“Aha, M. de Rivarol!” he laughed. “He understands his business, eh, this Captain Blood. He’ll plant the Lilies of France on that fort before breakfast.”

The Baron swung upon him snarling. “He understands his business, eh? His business, let me tell you, M. de Cussy, is to obey my orders, and I have not ordered this. Par la Mordieu! When this is over I’ll deal with him for his damned insubordination.”

“Surely, M. le Baron, he will have justified it if he succeeds.”

“Justified it! Ah, parbleu! Can a soldier ever justify acting without orders?” He raved on furiously, his officers supporting him out of their detestation of Captain Blood.

Meanwhile the fight went merrily on. The fort was suffering badly. Yet for all their manoeuvring the buccaneers were not escaping punishment. The starboard gunwale of the Atropos had been hammered into splinters, and a shot had caught her astern in the coach. The Elizabeth was badly battered about the forecastle, and the Arabella’s maintop had been shot away, whilst’ towards the end of that engagement the Lachesis came reeling out of the fight with a shattered rudder, steering herself by sweeps.

The absurd Baron’s fierce eyes positively gleamed with satisfaction.

“I pray Heaven they may sink all his infernal ships!” he cried in his frenzy.

But Heaven didn’t hear him. Scarcely had he spoken than there was a terrific explosion, and half the fort went up in fragments. A lucky shot from the buccaneers had found the powder magazine.

It may have been a couple of hours later, when Captain Blood, as spruce and cool as if he had just come from a levee, stepped upon the quarterdeck of the Victorieuse, to confront M. de Rivarol, still in bedgown and nightcap.

“I have to report, M. le Baron, that we are in possession of the fort on Boca Chica. The standard of France is flying from what remains of its tower, and the way into the outer harbour is open to your fleet.”

M. de Rivarol was compelled to swallow his fury, though it choked him. The jubilation among his officers had been such that he could not continue as he had begun. Yet his eyes were malevolent, his face pale with anger.

“You are fortunate, M. Blood, that you succeeded,” he said. “It would have gone very ill with you had you failed. Another time be so good as to await my orders, lest you should afterwards lack the justification which your good fortune has procured you this morning.”

Blood smiled with a flash of white teeth, and bowed. “I shall be glad of your orders now, General, for pursuing our advantage. You realize that speed in striking is the first essential.”

Rivarol was left gaping a moment. Absorbed in his ridiculous anger, he had considered nothing. But he made a quick recovery. “To my cabin, if you please,” he commanded peremptorily, and was turning to lead the way, when Blood arrested him.

“With submission, my General, we shall be better here. You behold there the scene of our coming action. It is spread before you like a map.” He waved his hand towards the lagoon, the country flanking it and the considerable city standing back from the beach. “If it is not a presumption in me to offer a suggestion⁠ ⁠…” He paused. M. de Rivarol looked at him sharply, suspecting irony. But the swarthy face was bland, the keen eyes steady.

“Let us hear your suggestion,” he consented.

Blood pointed out the fort at the mouth of the inner harbour, which was just barely visible above the waving palms on the intervening tongue of land. He announced that its armament was less formidable than that of the outer fort, which they had reduced; but on the other hand, the passage was very much narrower than the Boca Chica, and before they could attempt to make it in any case, they