Brown on Resolution by C.S. Forester — Read

The steam pinnace, towing empty boats this time, suddenly shot into view through the break in the cliffs and dashed up to Ziethen; in a quarter of an hour she shot out again with the boats full of men once more. Machine guns and rifles opened again from the ship upon the cliffs to prevent him from firing, but, as before, he had no intention of doing so. But he saw the boats turn to port as they had done the first time before the cliffs cut them from his view. That meant that the sweep across the island by a line of men, which Brown keenly foresaw, would only take place across a limited length; if he could only move along the island sufficiently far he would evade the sweep. Two hundred men, which was Brown's accurate estimate of their number, at ten-yard intervals cover two thousand yards and the outside edge of Resolution is about four thousand yards in circumference. Brown realized that he must transfer himself to a point rather more than halfway round the island if he were to have any chance of escape.

Yet he could not move at all till nightfall. He waited on with anxious patience, not knowing from one minute's end to another when fire would be opened upon him from the crest of the island. Even Brown, with his sturdy, thoughtless resignation of Fate and Duty, cast anxious glances upward at the sun as it sank steadily in his face.