A RAID UP THE ESTUARY

The fourth instalment of Paul Weston's Napoleonic series of novels finds Lieutenant Snowden and the Oleander off the coast of Brittany. He has been tasked with 'duties not normally required of a sea-officer' and is thus even more free than usual to use his initiative and seize his chances.

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In the gathering dusk, with a nearly full moon rising, Oleander slipped past the Roches Douvres, that fearsome plateau of tide-beset rocks. The westerly wind was light, and the coast of Brittany could be discerned ahead. Pascoe, aided by Luciani, was busy with his instruments, marking their position on the chart every few minutes and from time to time looking at the tidal curve he had drawn on a large sheet of paper. Their destination, the Trieux estuary, was rocky and heavily tidal, a place that demanded the utmost respect. There was no room for mistakes.

With the men tense at their stations, under only the mainsail and a flying jib, with the long boat towing astern, Oleander swept silently forward on the last of the flood tide, with a dark rocky island Bréhat, close to port.

Pasco gestured ahead to where an ugly looking rock rose from the water. Snowden could distinctly hear the suck of the sea around its base.

'Le Croix, Sir?' He consulted his watch and the tidal curve. 'It wants an hour to high water. We are just where we should be?'

'Well done, Pascoe, you've judged it nicely.' As the ship went further into the rocky estuary, Pascoe pointed to starboard. 'Île à Bois, sir, where we're to drop our passenger.'

Snowden turned to Trezeguet who was standing near him 'Are you ready?'