OUTSIDE THE COVE

The Tigre.

Outside the cove, cannon fire from the French frigate jolted Babcock back to his senses.

He had come close—too damned close—to losing the Tigre on the hidden finger of the last reef. He knew he could make no more foolish mistakes like that. It was reassuring, however, to know that he had finally cleared all the reefs. He would remember the location of that last rocky prong and stay well away from there.

The important thing, he told himself, was that he had lured the French frigate out to sea. He had cleared the path for Horne to sail into the cove and bear down on the treasure ship.

Standing in the Tigre’s prow, Babcock took stock of the situation to decide what he should do next.

His brig stood between the cove and the French frigate to the east. Inside the cove, cannon fire was being exchanged between Horne and the treasure ship. They had obviously gone into battle.

Babcock suspected, too, that Jingee had begun the land diversion from the cliffs. Would Jingee’s patrol seriously disturb the enemy as Horne had predicted? Babcock didn’t know.

Looking at the French frigate beyond the brig’s prow, he told himself, ‘That frog captain out there can hear the cannon fire from inside the cove, too. He wants to move in to give assistance to that little ship with all that gold on it. The only thing standing in his way is me.

‘So what would I do if I was that frog captain from Mauritius and I wanted to save that bloody war chest from being captured by some strangers?’

He stood for a moment, studying the three-masted enemy ship. ‘That frog is coming back to try to smash me to kindling wood,’ he told himself. ‘That’s what he’s going to try to do. He can probably do it, too. Then, with me out of the way, he’s going into the cove to help pound Horne down to the bottom of the sea.’

What was he to do?

Babcock knew his own gunpower. Mustafa’s seven cannon run out could provide little more than a nuisance. So how could he continue stalling the enemy outside the cove while Horne moved in on the war chest? He could bluff. He could dally. But the few men he had were tired and becoming weak.

And what about the French seamen down in the bilges? Would they rally in support of their fellow countrymen when they heard cannon fire?

Babcock looked back to the jagged perimeter of the cove. Remembering how he had almost struck the last hidden reef, he had an inspiration. There was one way he could smash the enemy frigate to bits.

It would be risky. It would require Groot’s full co-operation. The Dutchman would have to understand fully what sailing manoeuvres Babcock intended and there must be no confusion between them about nautical and land talk—starboard and larboard, this way and that.

An explosion shook the Tigre.

Hitting the deck, Babcock felt the timbers shudder beneath his spreadeagled body; splinters and smoke flew around him; a wave swept over the bulwark, water crashing through the smoke from the broadside.

Time was running out. Babcock knew he had to take that crazy chance or they would all end up on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

* * *

Raising himself to his hands and knees in the dense smoke, Babcock looked around him to gauge the broadside’s destruction. Through the slap of waves and agonised groans, he heard Mustafa’s gruff voice bellowing at the crew to charge the cannon.