Ramage & the Renegades (31 page)

“I don't use my title,” he said, suddenly bumping into her. To stop falling they both held each other tight as though embracing.

“Good morning, Captain,” she said, gently disengaging herself, “you are really not properly dressed for paying social calls.”

Ramage took her arm and led her to the door. “I'm tempted to take you hostage.”

“You'll have to make an exchange with the privateersmen. At the moment they claim me.”

He opened the door but she was through it and turning left to the other cabins before he could glimpse her face, and before he could catch up she had unlocked the first door and slipped inside.

The best thing he could do was wait beside the guards' cabin until she returned. A minute or two later he saw a blur of white as she came out of the cabin and went to the next. Finally, after she left the last cabin, he walked across the corridor to wait at the door of her cabin, but she slipped into the next one and a minute or two later a middle-aged man with muttonchop whiskers came out, faintly absurd in a gown, and whispered: “Ramage—everyone has been warned. We'll wait in our cabins with the doors locked. And—thank you!”

With that the man went back into his cabin after removing the key. Ramage then saw that all along the corridor people were removing the keys, to lock the doors from the inside.

He hurried back up the companion-way and went to the ship's side, listening for the sound of swimmers. There was no sound and no swirls of phosphorescence. A rolled-up rope ladder lay on top of the bulwark; he untied the lashing, let it unroll and heard the end land in the water with a splash. On the other side he found a similar ladder and unrolled that.

Then he picked up the lantern and walked over to stand at the starboard entry port. He was out of sight of all the ships but the
Calypso,
and he held the lantern so that he could be seen by the swimmers. Almost at once he felt a tug on the bottom of the ladder and heard a faint swishing of water. A minute later Rossi was jumping down from the top of the bulwark, waving an acknowledgement of Ramage's signal warning him to be silent.

“The rest of the men are close behind, sir,” Rossi whispered. “We went slowly, as you said, so we are not without the breath.” He looked round and said, a disappointed note in his voice: “
Mamma mia,
you have not made the capture alone,
Commandante?
”

“No, I've left the easy part for you.” Ramage smiled and looked down to see two more men already climbing the ladder.

Within three minutes he was counting his boarding party and found them all present, with Martin and Paolo. He looked round for Jackson, pointed to the two men under the barrel of the guns, and whispered: “They might be coming round soon. Gag them, please.”

The American waved to Rossi and Stafford, pulling his sodden shirt over his head and tearing two strips off the tail. Out of the corner of his eye Ramage saw Jackson lift the first man and bang his head on the deck, and then proceed to gag him. In the meantime another seaman was cleaning the wick of the lantern and stirring the molten wax with the tip of his finger to level it out. The lantern suddenly gave a brighter light and Ramage glanced round nervously: someone watching from the
Lynx
might well become suspicious of the shadows thrown by the group of men. “Put the lantern down on deck, under the table,” he said hurriedly.

As soon as Jackson came back to report both men unconscious and gagged—not bothering to mention that one had given signs of recovering—Ramage gathered the men round and in a whisper now getting hoarse explained the position.

“If the total of eight guards is correct, then the six off watch are sleeping in a cabin below. I've locked the door on them. They'll probably be in hammocks because they prefer them and the passenger cabins are each fitted with one large bed.

“We've got to rush them and make sure they don't fire pistols. You see the two pistols on this table: the two men on watch were sitting here drinking, their guns within easy reach.

“The doorway into the cabin is the standard width. This is how we do it. You, Orsini, will carry this lantern; I'll take the one that's hanging from the deckhead outside the cabin door. Riley,” he said to one of the seamen, “you will stand by the key of the door. When I signal, you'll unlock the door and pull it open—towards you: it opens outwards.

“I will go in first holding my lantern high and Orsini will follow with his. As soon as I go through the door I want you all to start shouting—anything to make a noise: I just want to confuse those men as they start waking up. Confuse their brains and dazzle their eyes.

“Martin, Stafford, Rossi, Riley—you'll have had time to see into the cabin by now—follow us. Orsini and I will take the two hammocks to the right, the rest of you take the four on the left. Aft, in other words.

“Cut the hammocks down. A good slash with a cutlass should cut the lanyards at the foot or head and tip the occupant out.”

“And then, sir?” Orsini inquired.

“There are so few of them that we can take prisoners,” Ramage said regretfully, “but kill a man if there's a risk he'll otherwise use a pistol. Now,” he said as Orsini picked up the lantern and turned towards the companion-way, “follow me. And watch your cutlasses—don't let them bang anything.”

The steps of the companion-way creaked, and as he crept down Ramage felt that the ship was suddenly holding her breath and listening: she had stopped her gentle pitching so that there were no groans from the hull and spars to mask the sounds they made.

The lantern below was burning steadily, the air having the faint sooty smell of untrimmed wick. Glancing down the line of doors he saw that all the keys were now missing except for the first on each side. The key was still on the outside of the cabin in which the “Miss for now” had been sleeping. He knew the shape of one bare breast; he had not the faintest idea whether she was ugly, plain or beautiful. An intriguing voice, a good sense of humour, and very self-possessed in an emergency. She was probably coming home from India after being a teacher, or some old woman's companion. But for the “Miss” he would have assumed she had been sent out to India to find a husband, succeeded and was now on her way home again …

Why the devil was he thinking about her at a time like this? He unhooked the second lantern and turned to Orsini and waited while Riley crept to the door and reached out for the key with his right hand, holding the brass knob with his left and glancing over his shoulder to make sure he would not bump into anything as he flung open the door.

Ramage checked the men behind him: Martin, Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and then the seamen not specifically chosen for the cabin. The cutlass blades shone dully in the lantern light; he noticed Orsini was using his dirk in his right hand but had a long, thin dagger in a sheath at his waist. Jackson had a cutlass and a knife—he had developed Paolo Orsini's liking for a
maingauche.

He found himself staring at the grain in the mahogany door. “Miss for now.” The passengers were in for a rude shock in a few moments: the bellowing of his men would echo in this confined space, although no one outside the ship would hear. How was Aitken getting on with the capture of the
Amethyst?
At least he had heard no shots …

He pointed at Riley, who turned the key with a loud click and flung back the door with a bang. Ramage plunged into the black space as the men behind him started shouting. In a moment the lantern showed hammocks slung from the deck beams at various angles, bulging like enormous bananas.

He slashed at the lanyards of the nearest one on his right, took a pace to one side to avoid the body that slid out of the canvas tube as it suddenly hung almost vertically, and reached across to cut the lanyards at one end of the next one.

Orsini, cheated out of a hammock, crouched over the body of the first man, managing to hold up his lantern while pointing his dirk at the privateersman's throat and shouting blood-curdling threats down at the staring eyes.

Ramage's man, caught up in the folds of the canvas, began swearing and obviously thought his shipmates were playing a joke on him until the point of Ramage's cutlass prodded the fleshy part of his right thigh.

From the left-hand side of the cabin he heard above the yelling an angry shout end in a liquid gurgle, as though someone's throat had been cut. The noise made Ramage's victim try to scramble up, attempting to pull something from the folds of a blanket he had been using as a pillow. Ramage gave him another jab with the cutlass. “Keep still, or you're dead!”

The man gave a grunt of pain and flopped back flat on the deck. “Wha's going on?”

The yelling was dying as the last of the hammocks was cut down, but the thud of a cutlass blade being driven into the deck was followed immediately by a scream of pain, which cut off as sharply as it began.

Ramage's lantern was too dim to show him what was going on, and all he could do was to wait for his own men to report. To encourage them he called: “Calypsos—have we secured them all?”

“I've got your man, sir,” said Martin.

“I've got mine, sir,” Orsini muttered. “Alive,” he added, “at the moment.”

“This
stronzo
here, I have to kill him,” Rossi grunted. “He have a pistol in his hammock.”

“Prisoner, sir,” Jackson said, followed by Stafford's “‘Ad to prod my fellah, sir, but ‘e'll live.”

“Prisoner, sir,” Riley said and added, raising his voice in warning, “a
dead
prisoner, if ‘e don't keep still.”

Ramage turned to Orsini, who was nearest the door. “Get your man out into the corridor where the others can secure him.”

The privateersman yelped as the midshipman prodded him to his feet. “Ow! You'll do me ‘arm,” the man complained.

“Yes, I just want an excuse!”

“You're just a bloody murderer!”

“You were ready to kill the hostages,” Orsini said, and to judge from the short, sharp scream the man gave, he must have punctuated his remark with another and stronger prod.

Ramage watched as Orsini, lantern held up, followed his prisoner through the door, where the man was seized by eager Calypsos.

“Now you, Jackson …” The American coxswain had an armlock on his prisoner, so the man lurched out of the cabin bent double. “Rossi, you wait a minute. Stafford, are you ready?”

“Aye aye, sir. Up, you murderous bastard. No, you're not,” he said in answer to a muttered complaint Ramage could not quite hear, “that was only a prick. Get movin', or I'll spit you like a sucklin' pig ready for the fire!”

Riley followed with his prisoner and by then Ramage's man was scrambling to his feet, assuring Martin and Ramage that he too had surrendered, and his pistol was still in the folds of his hammock.

Outside, in what was in fact a lobby, Ramage saw several prisoners lying crumpled on the deck and before he could say a word one of the Calypsos had landed Martin's prisoner a savage punch that drove him to his knees, as though praying for mercy. A moment later a second punch sent him sprawling.

Ramage stood and watched. Eight guards captured and only one of them killed. He knew that every one of the Calypsos was filled with a fierce hatred for the privateersmen because they knew the eight men were on board the
Earl of Dodsworth
for one reason only—to murder the hostages if they thought it necessary. Men who could murder women in cold blood, Jackson had commented hours ago, should not expect too much mercy when their turn came …

A Calypso hurried down the companion-way, dragging the end of a rope. “Here, cut off what lengths you want: the rest of the coil's on deck—it'll kink if I pitch it down.”

It took about five minutes to tie up the men. Ramage was just going to call to the passengers that all was well and they could leave their cabins if they wished, when they remembered the dead man.

“Rossi—take a couple of men and get your privateersman up on deck. Wrap him in a hammock so you don't spill blood everywhere.”

“When we have him on deck, sir?”

“I'm not reading a burial service over a man waiting to murder women,” Ramage said bluntly.

“Si, va bene;—capito Commandante.”

“Orsini, take three or four men and bring down those two privateersmen stowed under the guns. Jackson, drag these men back into the cabin as soon as they're secured: we'll use it as a cell for the time being. Martin, unhook the ends of those hammocks and collect up any pistols you find. I'll hold this lantern so you can see what you are doing.”

The cabin was a strange sight: six hammocks, each suspended at one end but with the other hanging down on the deck, looked like sides of beef suspended from hooks in a slaughterhouse—an effect heightened by the large black stain surrounding the body lying among them, and which Rossi was beginning to turn over.

Suddenly Ramage began to shiver, his body feeling frozen although he had only just wiped perspiration from his brow and upper lip.

“It's cold, sir,” Jackson commented conversationally, and Ramage realized that several of the men were also shivering. The long swim, the excitement, the relief that now it was all over? Ramage began chafing his body with his hands; it was enough that they felt cold; the devil take the reasons.

“The
Amethyst
…”

“Yes, sir, I was wondering about her,” Jackson said, and Ramage realized he had spoken his thoughts aloud. “If anything went wrong, I think we'd have heard shots by now. Nothing else for us to do tonight. Let's hope tomorrow night goes as well as this.”

A
RATHER embarrassed Ramage, after carefully adjusting his stock, walked nearly naked along the corridor and, knocking on each door, repeated like a litany: “This is Captain Ramage, of the
Calypso
frigate: you are all free now, but please do not go up on deck.”