Ramage's Challenge (21 page)

Ramage stepped forward and released a torrent of abusive Italian, but the man stood helpless, his hands held down, palms outwards as though submitting. With feigned ill-grace Ramage gestured to Gilbert, who snapped out crisply, “You've had no orders? No orders—I can't believe it! What about your hostages?”

Ramage could hardly breathe as he waited for the reply.

“But Major, they are well enough. I feed them properly and let them exercise. Why, I've even given them playing cards, and they gamble and drink wine like—well, like my soldiers.”

Gilbert turned to Ramage. In a few moments the whole position had changed. Was the commandant still half asleep? It was worth a chance. Ramage stepped forward and began speaking to the commandant in Italian, mixing in enough halting French that Gilbert would be able to repeat once he had grasped the idea.

“The orders … they said a frigate with other hostages would— how do you say—collect your hostages to take them all away, to Toulon. Look!” He turned and, with as much drama as he could summon without laughing, gestured towards Aitken and his men. “There you have some of the cream of the English aristocracy who were in Italy when the emperor went to war again, and whom I'm exercising. You have some here. At Toulon are many more caught in France. I do not know what the emperor intends, but he wants them all assembled in Toulon.

“Which is why we arrived in the frigate. Clearly, you have not even noticed that a frigate waits just off the harbour. Where are your sentries—asleep in the clouds?”

The commandant had understood perhaps a quarter of what Ramage had said and looked appealingly at Gilbert, who repeated everything in rapid French.

The commandant finally took his hat from the corporal and put it on. “Major, I have not received any orders, but we are a long way from Florence and it is not unknown for messengers to be delayed. But I understand what the emperor intends, and I will prepare my hostages at once for the voyage. You won't want provisions for them, will you?”

Gilbert, seeing the man's greedy eyes already calculating for how much he could sell the food to the villagers, shook his head. “No, we have provisions enough on board.”

“It is hot out here,” Ramage grumbled in Italian. “Let us get into the shade. A drink would be welcome.”

Gilbert translated, and the commandant led the way into the square. The streets were narrow, with the houses crowding each other. It was, Ramage saw, still a medieval town: nothing had changed in the last four or five centuries, except the stucco peeled and was never repaired and paint flaked off. Tiles were replaced after a storm—though, judging from a few houses, some people did not bother. On one side of the square there was a shallow stone bath used as the laundry place; close by, a well had a cranked handle for winding up the bucket, which looked worn enough to be the original. Beside many doorways were eyebolts for tethering donkeys and, he guessed, where there were no piles of manure, the owners of the houses owned strips of land on the slopes.

There was the butcher's shop, an open-fronted house with two strings of dead wild birds hanging up for sale—birds whose feathers were red and black, green and yellow, their beaks revealing they were finches and caught in traps. Two doors further down was the
verdura,
but not much produce was on display— half a dozen cabbages, the outer leaves yellowing, and strings of garlic (regarded by Italians as the best protection against the evil eye). At the far side of the square, draped over a brick wall but facing the sun, were what looked like hundreds of short lengths of white string: the
pasta
made early that morning and now hung out to dry in the sun. Spaghetti had the same importance to Italians as potatoes to the poor in northern France and Britain. The difference being, Ramage reflected, that the Italians had the good sense to disguise the taste with various sauces.

A raucous screaming suddenly froze everyone except the commandant who, after finding himself walking on alone, turned back and explained. “It's Monday so the garrison's butcher is slaughtering a pig.”

“Of course,” Gilbert said, “I was thinking it was Thursday.”

They followed the little commandant to the far end of town, where a sentry sat on a chair inside a crudely-made sentry box.

“The hostages live in the last five houses in this row. I commandeered them because there was nowhere else suitable. My soldiers live in billets, of course.”

“The owners of the houses will be thankful we are taking the hostages away,” Ramage said in atrocious French.

“So shall I,” the commandant said fervently. “It is a grave responsibility. English generals and admirals, nobility—supposing they escaped! I would be a private soldier again—if I was not shot!”

Ramage nodded his head judiciously. “So now you will have the opportunity of being a field marshal.”

“Just leave me alone, I am quite content,” the commandant confided. “Giglio has good wine and is far enough from Florence.”

“But your wife … ?”

“It's far enough from Paris, too,” he said with a wink. He banged the side of the sentry box and woke the soldier who, without being asked and showing no curiosity about the strangers behind the commandant, handed over a large bunch of keys.

“None of the houses had locks on the doors, so we had to fit them,” he explained. “At least, those were my orders. But no one can escape from this island. Still, I made the owners of the houses pay me, and Florence sent me locks for ten houses.” He winked again.

“Tell him to parade his hostages here,” Ramage said to Gilbert. “Keep talking to him; I don't want him to wonder why we marched
our
hostages up the hill for exercise when we could have had them running around on deck.”

“He's so thankful to be rid of them, I don't think he'd do anything,” Gilbert said. “As long as we sign his receipt, he'll be quite happy.”

By now the commandant was unlocking the door of the first house and shouting orders to the people inside. Then he went on to the other houses, and by the time he reached the last the hostages were emerging from the first.

They all gathered at the sentry box, obviously conforming to a drill established when they first arrived. Ramage looked at them carefully. Yes, they were well dressed, though here and there breeches and coats were patched, clearly sewn by the owners because the stitching was more workmanlike than neat. Boots and shoes—clean, though not polished, but it had not rained for three or four weeks so all they needed was a flick of a cloth to remove dust.

And all the hostages looked fit. Three or four men, although portly and red-faced, had obviously benefited from a year's frugal wine ration in place of unlimited brandy and port, and a more frugal diet than they had previously enjoyed. Only one man walked with a stick though, Ramage guessed, from habit rather than disability, because the stick was a Malacca cane with a gold top: anyone with a walking problem used a stick with a handle.

It was devilish difficult to distinguish between the admirals and generals, since they were not in uniform. Certainly, the one man who stood so erect he might be tied to a post must be a general, and those two might be admirals, while that foppish fellow would come under the commandant's description of an aristocrat.

Only one of the hostages, coming from the last house, showed the slightest interest in Ramage's men. Or, Ramage corrected himself, only one man
revealed
any interest. The admirals and the generals had long ago learned the art of apparent disinterest; it was not easy to watch the world tumbling about one's ears and merely comment, “By Jove!”

Finally the commandant came back, returned the bunch of keys to the sentry, and with a stentorian
“Messieurs!”
gestured towards Gilbert. Obviously, with the hostages about to be taken off his hands, he was not going to strain himself trying to explain things in English—or even in French, which a good half of the hostages probably spoke.

Ramage beckoned to them, muttering to Gilbert to wait until they were gathered round. Then, with the commandant talking to the sentry, who was still seated in his box, Ramage began speaking to the hostages in Italian. With every fifth or sixth word English and together making complete sentences, he explained that they were being rescued but must act as though they were about to be transferred to France. Above all, they must show no excitement. “Fall in behind those men, who are also acting as hostages,” Ramage said, the English words interspersed with what was another long burst of Italian.

The real hostages walked, slouched, or ambled. Ramage guessed this was how they formed up for roll call and was an expression of defiance. Two of them winked as they passed close. There was no doubt that they all understood what was going on, and Ramage was thankful that they could adapt themselves so quickly.

Suddenly the commandant came scurrying over, a hand uplifted to halt everything. “You must sign for them!” he exclaimed to Gilbert. “I must have a receipt. My adjutant will write it out, but we must list all the names.”

“And those of their wives, children, mistresses, and grandparents!” Gilbert exclaimed disgustedly. “No wonder the emperor fears for France's future. The Republic, One and Indivisible, will sink under the weight of the paper, and we shall all drown in a sea of ink. That's what the emperor told my general, who told my colonel, and now I tell you.”

“And I'll tell the goats,” the commandant sneered, “but you don't leave Castello until the receipt is signed.”

“Well, go away and write it out,” Gilbert snapped impatiently. “We will be waiting in the piazza. But bring pen and ink—I left my desk on board the frigate.”

R
AMAGE'S CABIN on board the
Calypso
had never been so crowded and, he thought, never would the occupants look so strange. At the moment they were all standing and each had his head bent—some to the left, some to the right, some forward so that they seemed to be glowering from under lowered eyebrows, and all looking like bodies cut down from gibbets. Occasionally one of them would forget and, straightening his neck, would bang his head against the low deck beams.

Ramage had purposely left introductions until all the eleven hostages were safely on board. They had marched down the hill from Castello behind Aitken's group. At the beach which comprised Giglio's harbour they were still (as far as an onlooker was concerned) carefully guarded by a few French soldiers and the three men of the King of Etruria's army. And the frigate's two boats had to make two trips to ferry everyone on board.

Ramage had come out with the first boat and gone straight down to his cabin to strip off his gaudy uniform and dress himself once again as a post captain with less than three years' seniority (revealed by the single epaulet he wore on his right shoulder). It felt strange (and constricting) to be wearing knee-breeches and silk stockings again, and the stock seemed like a hangman's noose about his neck. But the eleven hostages would, he surmised, provide enough problems with precedence and authority for the captain of the
Calypso
to need all the symbols of authority he could muster.

He had left the hostages waiting on the quarterdeck under the awning, where they seemed happy enough chatting and exclaiming on the sudden change in their fortune. Finally he passed the word for Aitken to invite them all to join him.

The sentry, already given his instructions, formally announced each arrival, and the time he took getting the names and the titles right allowed Ramage to greet them one by one and note who they were.

“Sir Henry Faversham, Admiral of the White, sir,” the sentry bellowed.

The admiral came through the door, bent almost double. He was tall and thin, and clearly had not been in a ship as small as a frigate for a long time. Carefully, almost warily, he stood more upright until he was sure he had enough clearance above him.

“Ramage? Ramage, eh, must be Blazey's son? Well, thank you m'boy. Very well executed, that operation. Fooled the French, eh? And damn nearly fooled me!”

By that time the next person was being announced, and Ramage excused himself.

“Vice-Admiral the Earl Smarden, sir.”

Ramage found that the old Marquis of Folkestone's son looked more like a cheerful and successful farmer than heir to one of the country's oldest marquisates.

“Splendid, Ramage, splendid! I should have recognized you— like your father when he was younger!”

The next person was Vice-Admiral Sir William Keeler, who was one of the most colourless men Ramage could remember meeting. He squeaked his word of thanks and then had to move aside as the sentry announced the first of the two soldiers.

“Lieutenant-General the Earl of Innes,” the marine said carefully, as though not fully convinced that a lieutenant could also be a general.

Ramage could not remember any campaigns with which the earl was associated, and when he came into the cabin he guessed why: the earl must be at least 75 years old, although when the hostages had marched he had not given the impression of being an old man. His voice was brisk, but his eyes were watery.

“Thank you, young man,” he said, shaking Ramage's hand with unexpected vigour. “I don't know where you collected that gang of gipsies, but they fooled the commandant!”

The next man who came into the cabin a minute or two after the sentry announced Major-General Alfred Cargill looked as though he had spent the time in front of a looking glass, combing his hair, trimming his moustaches, and wetting his eyebrows to make them bristle more fiercely. Apart from that, General Cargill had the carefully tended look of a haberdasher and the ingratiating smile of a man trying to conceal from his creditors that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. But his voice (surprisingly soft but unsurprisingly querulous, once one studied the narrow face and beaky nose) was unfriendly.