Ramage's Signal (28 page)

It was, he thought, a splendidly offhand remark; it was the kind of thing that Mr Ramage said so well.

“Aye aye, sir,” Jackson said, but hesitated a moment as Rossi and Stafford led the way down to the gig.

What was Jackson waiting for? Oh yes, the
Passe Partout
could not be left without someone in command of her, and the Captain had left the choice of a man to him.

He turned forward. “Reynolds!” As soon as the red-haired seaman was standing to attention in front of him, he said: “I am leaving you in command of the
Passe Partout
until you receive further orders from Captain Ramage. Keep a good anchor watch, and pump the bilge every hour.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Reynolds said, almost numbly, and Orsini knew just how he felt. “You goin' somewhere, then, sir?”

Orsini pointed to the brig. “Yes, I've been given command of the
Caroline.
”

The news braced Reynolds, who grinned cheerfully. “Well, sir, if you've got to command ‘er, I s'pose it's up to me to do me best with this old girl!”

Impulsively Orsini shook him by the hand. “Thanks—and the best of luck.”

As the gig approached the
Caroline,
Orsini could see a man on deck. Finally, when the gig was forty or fifty yards away, an unshaven man, shirtless and covered in rolls of fat, came to the entry port and emptied a bucket of rubbish over the side, spat and disappeared.

“I could just see that happening in the
Calypso,
sir,” Jackson murmured. “Mr Southwick would shoot him with a blunt bullet.”

“A blunt—oh, I see what you mean!”

Then the gig was alongside and Orsini led the way up the side. He pictured the signature “Ramage” on his orders and knew that his hands were not trembling, nor would they. There was no one on deck, not even the grubby man with the bucket.

“Come with me,” he said to Stafford and Rossi, and to Jackson he said: “Take your men and secure the ship's company: we'll make do with the master!”

As he went down the companion-way, Orsini pulled a pistol from his belt, then changed his mind, thrust it back and drew the cutlass, because close by he could hear heavy snoring.

They found the master of the
Caroline
deep asleep in an armchair; it took more than a minute to waken him. As soon as it looked as though he could haul in the fact that he had just lost his ship, Paolo said conversationally in French:

“
M'sieu,
forgive me for waking you, but your ship is now a prize to His Britannic Majesty's frigate the
Calypso
…”

He could have said it more briefly but he liked the way the words flowed. Now the poor fellow was wide awake. Dressed only in a long pair of underpants—he was obviously from the south of France where, as in Italy, they believed it was medically perilous not to wear wool next to the skin at all times—he had the trapped look of a calf in a slaughterhouse.

“Can I move?” the man asked cautiously.

“Certainly, stand up and dress, because in a few minutes you must leave the ship.”

“To go where?” The man was used to people being taken away in tumbrils to guillotines set up in town squares.

“To a firing squad, eh? Or to a noose dangling from a yardarm? Or a push over the side with a heavy piece of ballast tied on your back?” It was a macabre sort of teasing, but in escaping from Volterra and making his way to Naples, Paolo had seen thirty or forty guillotines set up in small towns, and beside most of them the rusty iron replica of a tree of liberty.

“Do I choose?” the man whispered, as though invisible hands were trying to strangle him.

“You had better dress first,” Orsini said, and while the man pulled on his clothes he told Jackson of the conversation so far.

“I wondered why he suddenly went white and started perspiring, sir. Has he said which he prefers?”

“Not yet; he's probably making up his mind now.”

Finally the
Caroline
's master was dressed and Paolo said: “The ship's papers—where are they?”

The man went to a cupboard and took out several documents. “They are here—ship's certificate of registry, charter party, bills of lading, manifest …”

“Muster book, log … ?”

The man put his hand back in the cupboard. “All in here, with my quadrant, tables, almanac.”

“Put them back,” Paolo ordered and, as the man shut the cupboard door again, asked casually: “Have you made up your mind?”

The man took a deep breath which ended in a sob. “Firing squad. Not the noose nor drowning, I beg of you … And
m'sieu,
is there any way I can send a message to my wife? You see, I hid some money in the garden: buried it—for security, you understand.”

“Oh yes, it will be secure enough—unless your wife's new husband begins to plant potatoes …”

The thought of it brought tears to the man's eyes and Paolo, glancing at his watch, decided the joke had gone far enough. “You may yet be lucky enough to dig it up yourself; go down into the boat alongside. You and your men are going to be put on shore. You will at once start making your way inland: if any of you stay near the beach you will be hunted down and shot.”

The man hurried out of the cabin as though afraid this crazy youth would change his mind.

Ramage walked from one side of the
Calypso
's quarterdeck to the other, listening to the “thunk … thunk” of the capstan pawls on board the five ships and the clacking of the schooner's windlass. All six were weighing on time, and Southwick was cursing the
Sarazine.
In hauling up to her anchor she was coming very close to the
Calypso,
just as he had feared when her original French captain anchored her.

Ramage looked across at the
Golondrina,
which was on the other side: she was creeping ahead and in three or four minutes would be clear of the
Calypso.
He picked up the speaking-trumpet and hailed the
Sarazine.

“Mr Aitken …”

As soon as the Scot answered, Ramage called, keeping his voice low: “‘Vast heaving for a few minutes, until the
Golondrina
is clear of us. Then I'll let fall our mizen topsail so we can give our stern a sheer to starboard out of your way. But have them step out lively at the capstan!”

“Aye aye, sir. The way these Frenchmen anchored, you'd think they were leaving haycarts in a farmyard for the night.”

Southwick looked at the Spanish brig with his glass and saw Kenton watching the
Calypso
warily. Suddenly her topsails were let fall while the headsails soared up the stays.

“Kenton had lashings in place of gaskets on those topsails,” Southwick commented to Ramage. “Good idea when you're shorthanded and there's not much room.”

“As long as the topmen have sharp knives.” Ramage looked round again. “I think we can let fall our mizen topsail and back it, Mr Southwick.”

The Master gave the orders for the topmen, had the quartermaster put the wheel over, and watched as the yard was braced round until the sail was backed, the wind pressing on its forward side and pushing the
Calypso
's stern away from the
Sarazine,
whose capstan once again continued its rhythmic clanking.

Then Ramage saw one of the other ships already under way: a brig, the
Caroline.
She was making the first tack to leave the gulf under topsails. He guessed Aitken would be cross; but for the pause to avoid the
Calypso
he would have led out his convoy.

“Orsini's lads were determined they'd be first,” Southwick commented. “It'll do him good: build up his confidence for when it gets dark.”

How right the Master was. For a moment Ramage was surprised that Southwick, who must be sixty or more, could remember, although Ramage himself recalled as though it was yesterday the first prize he commanded as a midshipman, and how his courage had gone down with the setting sun—or, to be more honest, his cowardice arrived with the dusk.

The
Golondrina
was under way, and Martin had the
Bergère
tacking under topsails—Ramage could imagine him being pleasantly annoyed at being beaten by Orsini. Now Rennick was tacking across the gulf with the
Matilda,
and he saw that the main and foresails of the
Rosette
schooner had been hoisted, with the headsails following. There was a pause as the peaks of both gaffs were hoisted another foot or two to give a tighter leech and take out some creases; then the schooner bore away as the bosun confidently hardened in sheets and set off after the
Caroline.

Now the
Sarazine
's anchor was being catted as her topsails were sheeted home and she headed for the southern end of Sant' Antioco island, where the other five ships would join her.

“I wonder what the rest of these Frenchmen are thinking now,” Southwick said, half to himself, and gesturing at the remaining anchored ships. “Just imagine, eight left—nine, rather; I keep forgetting we have the
Passe Partout—
and not one of the masters suspicious or coming across to ask us questions.”

“Not one of them bothering to watch, as far as I can see,” Ramage said, closing his telescope, “and that's just as well.”

Southwick nodded happily. “Yes, we've a busy night ahead.”

“Have you that anchorage diagram?”

“Yes, here it is,” Southwick said, opening the binnacle box drawer and taking out a sheet of paper. He put it down on the top of the binnacle, holding two sides of it against the wind as Ramage put an arm across the other.

Eight ships were drawn at the precise positions in which they were anchored. They were all linked to the
Calypso
by lines radiating from her like spokes from an axle, and along each line was written the particular ship's bearing, so that at night a boat with a compass could be sent from the
Calypso
to find her.

“According to Orsini's list,” Southwick said, “there are about one hundred men on board them.”

Ramage shook his head crossly. “You know, it's my own fault. There's Aitken setting off for Gibraltar with his convoy of ships, and I've had to use my First, acting Second and acting Third Lieutenants, midshipman, bosun and Lieutenant of Marines to command them, just because we carry only one midshipman, instead of half a dozen.”

Southwick gave one of his particularly disapproving sniffs. “Orsini's an exception, but midshipmen can be a mixed blessing, sir. What's more trouble in a ship than a thirty-year-old midshipman who's spent ten years trying and failing his lieutenant's examination? He's bitter and usually a troublemaker and drinker, and if you send him off in command of a prize, then you'd best use it as an opportunity of getting rid of all your bad men and search ‘em all for liquor.”

“Well, we're lucky in
that
respect.”

“Aye, sir, not a man I'd want to get rid of—except that damned gunner.”

The gunner, a warrant officer, should have been in command of one of the prizes; instead he was the only person in the
Calypso
to whom Ramage found it hard to be civil, because he was incompetent and sly. The man dodged any responsibility, did not know his job—Ramage often wondered how he obtained his warrant from the Board of Ordnance in the first place—and was more than content to leave everything to his mate. Fortunately for the
Calypso
the young gunner's mate was both enthusiastic and competent. Ramage usually managed to get rid of incompetent men or anyone who had an abrasive character, but the gunner was appointed by the Ordnance Board and, as Southwick had once bitterly complained: “It takes an Act of Parliament to get rid of any of
their
people.”

The gunner treated powder as though it was his own personal property and he had paid for it, and when he first joined the
Calypso
he had tried to avoid allowing powder or shot for the men to exercise muskets and the upper-deck guns. Finally Ramage had the man brought down to his cabin and, with Aitken and Southwick present, had read him number eleven in the Admiralty's Printed Instructions for the Gunner:

By direction of the captain, he is to allow a proper quantity of powder and shot for exercise, viz. once a week for the first two months, and once a month afterwards, six charges of powder to each man for exercise of small arms, and once a fortnight four pounds of musket shot for them all, and once a month five charges of powder and five of shot for the exercise of the upper-deck guns.

Faced with the Admiralty instructions, the wretched fellow had, within a fortnight, then claimed that “each man” did not include idlers, such as the cook and his mate, the captain's clerk, sailmaker and others whose name came from the fact that they did not stand a watch.

Once again Ramage had taken him down to his cabin and pointed out there was nothing in anyone's instructions that said the cook had to cook food for him, that the purser had to provide him with water, or the clerk with quills, ink or paper. In the meantime there were precisely forty individual instructions covering the gunner's duty, and it was up to the captain to make sure, with suitable strictness, that they were obeyed. Number twenty, for example, which in its entirety said of the gunner: “He is to observe upon the guns, the notches or sights on the base, or muzzle rings, for the better guiding the aim.”

Ramage had asked the gunner what he thought that meant and, getting an evasive answer, had asked Aitken to give his opinion as the ship's First Lieutenant. The Scotsman, who detested the gunner, said flatly: “It means he is to stand and observe the notches. ‘Observe' means ‘to keep a watch on,' the dictionary tells us that, so obviously the gunner must stand and watch the notches on all the guns every day during the hours of daylight.”

By now the gunner was becoming very nervous, his fear of authority overcoming his meanness with the Board of Ordnance's powder and shot, and before dismissing him Ramage said: “You will report to the First Lieutenant every Monday, in the forenoon, with a copy of your Instructions, and he will check with you that you have done your duty the preceding week. In the meantime every man in this ship, watchkeeper, idler or waister, must be proficient with a musket. That is one of your responsibilities.”