Ramage & the Saracens (38 page)

Aitken was standing at the fore end of the quarterdeck with the speaking-trumpet in his hand, and Ramage looked across at Jackson, who was the quartermaster for what was going to be a very difficult operation. For the moment there was nothing for Jackson to do, since without headway on the frigate the rudder was not acting. And it was a good thing that the frigate was sliding off the shoal by the bow, otherwise there would have been a risk that the sand could tear the rudder off.

The wind was fluking: it was blowing generally at ten knots or so but occasionally there were stronger puffs, and each puff put more pressure on the backed sails. Gradually the bow came round so that the frigate was lying at an angle of forty-five degrees to the quay and a glance at the slate showed that she must be almost off the shoal.

“Stand by,” he said quietly to Aitken and then called to Jackson: “Ready at the wheel there—we'll be off in a few moments!”

And then suddenly the
Calypso
was free: she swung even more to larboard and the fore-topsail and topgallant gave a bang as the ship turned and the sails filled with the wind on the after side. Ramage felt the frigate come alive as she refloated, the deck moving under his feet, and he shouted to Aitken: “Sheet home those after sails!”

It was a strange order but as the sails were set and had been shivering it saved time. Yards were braced and sheets trimmed and as Ramage snapped a helm order at Jackson the frigate luffed up slightly until she was heading for the entrance, well clear of the
Amalie
and under complete control. The feared swing out to the shoal in the middle of the harbour had not happened; the
Calypso
had come off the shoal smoothly enough for Ramage to keep control.

The ship started pitching slightly as she passed through the entrance into the open sea and Ramage looked back to see the Saracens running along the quay, waving their scimitars, angry but helpless now that their erstwhile victims were sailing out. Ramage said a silent prayer of thanks that the Arabs had not used their cannons: if the fort had been equipped with four effective 18-pounders they could have pounded the two frigates all the time that they were stuck on the shoal. Not only that, the frigates would not have been able to bring a gun to bear to fire back.

Ramage looked astern and saw that the
Amalie
now had her fore-topgallant set in addition to the topsail, and she was already half off the shoal.

The
Betty
and the
Rose
were lying hove-to a mile from the entrance and Ramage told Aitken to steer for them. “We need a course for Marsala, Mr Southwick,” he said to the master, who bustled below to consult his charts.

“We've never had so many men on board, sir,” Aitken commented. “I don't know how many Italians there are, but it must be getting on for three hundred and then we have a hundred and fifty soldiers. With more than two hundred of our ship's company, we are carrying upwards of six hundred and fifty men.”

“Well, Admiral Rudd will be pleased. We've carried out his orders, and now all we have to do is deliver these Italians back to their homes—and reunite them with their families. Many of their wives will be in the sloops. It'll be a series of tearful reunions. Brace yourself for an emotional time!”

“I shall burst into tears on every occasion,” Aitken said laconically. “I can never resist an excuse for a good cry.”

A few minutes later Ramage looked over the taffrail to see the
Amalie
sailing out through the entrance under all plain sail. He pointed at Orsini. “Make the signal for captains to come on board,” he said. It was necessary to make some plans, otherwise their arrival at Marsala and the other ports would be chaos.

As soon as Orsini had attended to hoisting the signal and seeing it answered, Ramage said to him: “I have a tedious job for you. I want you to board the
Amalie
and then the
Betty
and
Rose
to sort out where the Italians come from. I don't want to go to Marsala, for instance, and then find out we have no one on board from there.”

“I understand, sir,” Orsini said. “I only wish these Sicilians didn't have such thick accents: I find it hard to understand them.”

“What about me?” Ramage protested. “Italian is not even my native language.”

“Sicily is a long way from Tuscany, sir,” Orsini said apologetically. “Still, it could be worse; they could be from Bergamo, and then no one would understand them.”

Ramage laughed: the accent of Bergamo, in northern Italy, was reckoned to be the hardest to understand. “We'll keep away from there.”

He gave orders for the
Calypso
to heave-to near the sloops and wait for the
Amalie
. Half an hour later the other three captains were coming on board, all cheerful and, as King said, glad to be out of Sidi Rezegh.

Ramage sat them down in his cabin and said: “I hope you have totals of the number of Italians you have on board? I am sending one of my officers who speaks Italian round to each ship so that he can see where they all come from and draw up lists. Otherwise we shall have problems sending them to their homes.”

Roper said: “I have 228 Italians on board: all very excited, but we can control them.”

“Good,” Ramage said. “We have 303, so that is 531 men altogether.”

“I have 97 women,” King said. “All hysterical but they are settling down now we have given them some food.”

“I have 77 women,” Payne reported. “Much the same condition but giving them food and water quietened them down.”

“Ah, 531 men and 174 women—more than I expected. No wonder the people were so upset in the ports—they must have lost just about every able-bodied man and nubile woman. The Saracens were very thorough.”

“What sort of conditions were they keeping them in?” King asked.

Ramage shook his head. “Unbelievable. The stench in the barracks and the brothel was incredible: there were no sanitary arrangements at all. I should think the Saracens lose a lot of men and women from disease.”

Ramage unrolled a chart in front of him at his desk. “Now we have to take all these people home, so we'll go to Marsala first, and then work our way along the coast. It's going to take time, because I do not imagine you have any Italian-speaking officers.”

The three captains agreed they had not.

“Well, I have one, so he is going to have to do all the translating. Once we anchor off a port the men should recognize where they are, but the women probably won't. So my officer will have to sort them out.

“They'll all be very excited, so make sure the boats you use to send them on shore are not crowded. And give strict orders to your boats' crews—there will be plenty of wine flowing. If the Italians invite you to any reception or anything like that, they'll have to do it through my officer—a young midshipman called Orsini—and you can accept, sending men whom you can trust not to desert or get beastly drunk. Any man misbehaving himself will be punished severely; I don't want all we have been through for these people spoiled by a few drunken scenes.”

Roper asked: “Would it be better if we sent just a token number of men to any festivities?”

The
Amalie
and the two sloops probably faced the risk that men would desert at the first opportunity and end up having “R,” for “Run,” put against their names in the muster book. Ramage was thankful that he could even send the
Calypso
's men away on leave and have them all return on time, but they had served with him a long time and earned a lot of prize-money. He knew that he was lucky: not many ships could trust all their men, either not to desert or to stay sober. Not that he could trust all the Calypsos to stay sober; that would be asking too much.

“Each captain must make up his own mind,” he told Roper. “I shall hold each one of you responsible for the behaviour of your men, so it will be up to you. But if the mayors give out invitations I want at least some men at any festivities, if only out of politeness. I am sure all of you have enough men you trust to make some sort of showing.”

Looking round at the three captains, Ramage had his doubts. It was probably not desertion but drunkenness they were worried about: there were few seamen that could safely be left to drink a reasonable amount: for too many of them wine or spirits represented oblivion, to them a blessed state even if it resulted in a flogging.

“Right,” Ramage said, “Marsala will be our first port. Are there any questions?”

There was none and the captains left the cabin and returned to their boats, and fifteen minutes later the
Calypso
hoisted the signal to get under way. The wind had backed a little, to northwest, and as the ships began to roll slightly the wailing started as the rescued men and women in the flotilla began being seasick.

Major Golightly joined Ramage on the quarterdeck. “I am a lucky man,” he commented.

Ramage raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Seasickness. I am one of the lucky ones who seem to be immune.”

“How about your men?”

Golightly shrugged his shoulders. “About a third of them suffer from it. And having all these Italians retching and wailing isn't helping much.”

Ramage grimaced sympathetically. “It won't be for long,” he said. “Only a few hours, and we shall be anchored off Marsala.”

“I have three men who are so seasick at anchor that they cannot function. They could not even take part in the landing at Sidi Rezegh.”

“The poor devils: they're going to suffer until we get back to Naples.”

“Yes, they didn't bargain for sea passages when they took the king's shilling.”

Golightly was silent for a while, and then asked: “Tell me, Ramage, are you satisfied with the way we carried out the attack?”

Ramage was not quite sure what Golightly meant. “I was more than satisfied with your soldiers,” he said. “I am angry with myself that this ship went aground, although there was always such a risk since we did not have proper charts.”

“I think you did brilliantly,” Golightly said, suddenly and spontaneously. “Particularly the way you used the ship's guns to drive off the last attack. I thought at first the damned Saracens had us trapped. I hadn't realized you could train your guns round so far.”

“We were lucky,” Ramage admitted. “That was one of the reasons why I was angry with myself for going aground—we could not haul the ship round to bring all the guns to bear where we wanted them.”

“You didn't do too badly!” Golightly said.

“I know, but if we'd been able to bring our broadside to bear on the square in front of the barracks we wouldn't have lost so many men.”

“How many did you lose in the end?”

“Eighteen dead and twenty-six wounded,” Ramage said. “About the same for the
Amalie
. A high price.”

“Yes, add them to my seventeen dead and twenty-three wounded and it gets less of a bargain.”

“About fifty-three dead—I am not sure about the
Amalie
's figures—and some seventy-five wounded. More than 125 dead and wounded.”

“When you look at it like that it doesn't seem such a great victory,” Golightly said soberly.

“I don't know about your general, but my admiral will be satisfied: we rescued the Italians, and that is what we were sent to do. Admirals tend not to worry about the price as long as their orders are carried out.”

“Generals are the same: I shan't be blamed. In fact it often works the other way—the bigger the butcher's bill, the higher the praise.”

“It's the same in the Navy. Any captain fighting a ship-to-ship action in which he loses half his ship's company is regarded as a hero. No one asks if he fought the ship properly and could have avoided such casualties.”

“Well, we've killed enough of our men to be secure from blame,” Golightly said bitterly.

W
HEN the flotilla arrived off Marsala, Ramage signalled to the two sloops to anchor as close in as possible, wanting to avoid a long trip in open boats for the women.

The Marsala men on board the
Calypso
had been separated and now waited on deck. As soon as a boat could be hoisted out, Orsini was sent off to the
Amalie,
and after he had separated the Marsala men there, he went on to the
Betty
and the
Rose,
to check up on the women. In the meantime Ramage ordered the cutter prepared, with Jackson as coxswain, and had himself rowed ashore.

He was met on the quay by an anxious mayor and many other leading citizens of Marsala, all agitated and puzzled at the sudden reappearance of the flotilla. The only explanation they could think of was that they came to warn of another attack by the Saracens.

Ramage heard the mayor's excited questions and then smiled. “Yes, I have returned,” he said, speaking very clearly so that the whole crowd could hear him, “but not to warn you that the Saracens are coming. No, the Saracens will not be back for a long time. No, I bring you your men and women back again. They are thin and frightened, but they are alive and unharmed.”

For several moments the mayor stood transfixed, unable to believe his ears. “You have … brought back … our men and women?”

Ramage patted him on the shoulder, hoping that physical contact would reassure the old man. “Yes, our boats will be bringing them to this quay in the next half an hour. You have time to warn your people to be down here to welcome them.”

The old man suddenly burst into tears, and then he embraced Ramage, enveloping him in the smell of garlic. “Do you hear that?” he cried to the crowd. “He brings back our people!
Mamma mia,
what a man! Did you kill many
Saraceni?
”

“Enough,” Ramage said shortly. “We taught them a lesson. And now you can have a big celebration.”