Ramage & the Saracens (17 page)

Southwick's strength—why he was brought into many discussions to which his rank did not entitle him—was that he had been master of the little
Kathleen
cutter when Ramage was given her as his first command. Over the following years—when Ramage had been promoted from commanding a cutter to a brig, and then from a brig to a frigate—Southwick had always gone with him as master. Ramage had pulled many strings to arrange it, but to him having Southwick with him was almost as important as the promotion itself.

With his mop of white hair and benign manner of a country parson, Southwick combined common sense and the courage to express it (particularly when his views might not be popular). If Ramage had been asked to describe Southwick's role, he would probably have said he was a benevolent grandfather who, given the chance to board a French ship wielding his great two-handed sword, was given to bouts of violence.

Now, Southwick was comfortably seated in the armchair while Aitken sprawled on the sofa, and Ramage said: “It seems to me that in the end Arbuthnot is going to expect us to find these damned Frenchmen.”

“What's he going to do with all those soldiers?” Southwick asked. “We can muster a couple of dozen marines and a score of sailors: doesn't seem much compared with five hundred soldiers, as well as the marines from two 74s and a couple of hundred or so seamen.”

Aitken said: “I don't think Captain Arbuthnot has any faith in the soldiers.”

“That would explain it,” Ramage agreed. “He doesn't want to risk his reputation on five hundred men from the 38th Regiment of Foot.”

“I can't say I blame him,” Southwick admitted. “Those men have been parading round Naples and getting soft. Suddenly they are going to have to scramble over those hills and mountains of Capraia in the heat and the dust. These French seamen will probably be the first enemy they've ever seen.”

“At least they're not Neapolitan troops,” Ramage said jokingly. “If they were, I could understand Arbuthnot's nervousness.”

“Aye,” Southwick said with a contemptuous sniff. “I wouldn't match five hundred Neapolitans against fifty French seamen. Fifty
unarmed
French seamen.”

“That's quite a point,” Ramage said. “These seamen will be unarmed, unless they've been able to find some old blunderbusses and fowling pieces in the port.”

“Did this Captain Arbuthnot strike you as a bit of an old woman, sir?” asked Southwick.

Ramage nodded. “Yes, and querulous too. I'm inclined to think he's suffering from nervousness at the prospect of handling soldiers.”

“It'd be a joke,” Aitken said, “if we arrive and find out all the Frenchmen had billeted themselves on houses in the village. It's quite likely because they'll all want a roof over their heads, and the only roofs will be in the village.”

Ramage laughed and said: “There'll be a few donkey shelters up in the hills. Flea infested and smelly, but they'd keep the rain out.”

“So what do we do, sir?” enquired Aitken.

“If we have to, we'll send out Rennick with one party of marines and Sergeant Ferris with another, and Martin and Kenton can take a dozen seamen each—the exercise will do them good. Oh yes, and we'll send off Orsini with a dozen men, too. That'll use up some of his surplus energy.”

“Two parties of marines and three of seamen,” Aitken said. “Five search parties. They ought to turn up something.”

“Orsini should be useful: he speaks Italian and French, so he'll be able to question local people if necessary.”

“And bully them, too,” Southwick added. “They might want encouraging to talk, even though it's for their own good. Very stubborn, these Italian islanders. They hate everyone not born on their island.”

“Very true,” Ramage agreed. “They probably put the British in the same category as the French:
stranieri
, and not to be trusted.”

“What with the islanders, the French and Captain Arbuthnot, it seems to me we're in for a busy few hours. And we don't get a penn'orth of head-money, either,” Southwick grumbled.

“That's the admiral looking after his favourites,” Ramage said bitterly. “It's not the first time something like this has happened and it won't be the last, but it's hard on our chaps.”

“It's certainly hard on our chaps,” Southwick said, “though thanks to Mr Ramage and prizes, I don't need the money.”

“Yes, when are you going to retire,” Ramage asked teasingly, “and live the life of a wealthy country squire?”

“Ah, a few years yet. Live in the country and you get rheumaticks, and I don't want to have to listen to the same parson preaching the same sermon. Gets monotonous, I should reckon. One thing about this life, it doesn't often get monotonous.”

“Don't you reckon slogging to windward for a month against a Levanter is monotonous?” asked Aitken sarcastically.

“Oh yes, but then I never did like going to windward,” Southwick said. “Going to windward is for fools and those without an option.”

“Well spoken,” Ramage said. “I'll try and make sure you're never bothered by anything more strenuous than a reach or a run.”

“Thank ‘ee,” Southwick said. “Tell the admiral, as well!”

R
AMAGE led the way into the bay and turned the
Calypso
into the wind before anchoring as close as he could to the beach where he had landed the
Le Tigre
's ship's company. The
Intrepid
followed, rounded up and dropped an anchor a cable to the northward while the
Phoenix
came in and anchored the same distance to the south.

Ramage had been watching the shore with his telescope. There was no sign of anyone on the beach or walking about the land at the back of it. There was no sign that a single man had ever landed.

“You were right,” Southwick said. “They didn't stay here. Why Captain Arbuthnot insisted we search here first I don't know; it was obvious they would move on to the village.”

“Well, we'll put a cutter ashore with a dozen marines, just to be able to reassure Arbuthnot. Mr Aitken, hoist out one of the cutters if you please.”

Within fifteen minutes the cutter was pulling for the shore carrying a dozen marines and Lieutenant Rennick, with Kenton in command of the boat. Ramage's orders to Rennick were brief: he was to follow any tracks from the beach, and when he was absolutely sure of the direction in which the French had gone, he was to return to the ship and report.

It took less than two hours for Rennick to return and report that the French had gone off towards the village: Rennick had followed their tracks until he had stood on a hill a mile from the village and looking down on it.

“I didn't feel justified in going after so many Frenchmen with only a dozen marines,” he said matter-of-factly, “but they made for the village all right: they skirted the side of a mountain on their left and they kept to the right, following the flatter land along the edge of the sea.”

Ramage said: “Go over to the
Intrepid
and report to Captain Arbuthnot, and tell him that I propose going up to the village now.”

Rennick was back from the
Intrepid
within half an hour with instructions for Ramage: he was to proceed north to the village and land and investigate.

Rennick's manner showed that he had not enjoyed his meeting with Arbuthnot. “He asked so many questions I began to doubt whether or not I had been ashore,” he told Ramage. “What sort of tracks, how could I be sure they were made by the French—he even suggested they might be goat tracks!”

Southwick went to the fo'c'sle and soon the men were singing as they turned the capstan and brought the anchor cable home. Then the reports came quickly: the cable was at long stay, short stay, up and down—when the cable led vertically into the sea from the stem—and finally aweigh, when the anchor was off the bottom.

Then, at a signal from Southwick, Aitken gave the orders to let fall the fore and maintopsails and the topmen swarmed out along the yards to cast off the gaskets. The sails dropped like huge curtains and as soon as the men were back in the top others hauled on the halyards to hoist the yards so that the sails could be trimmed.

Both the
Intrepid
and the
Phoenix
were also weighing, and Ramage took the
Calypso
out from between them to head north. It took less than half an hour to reach the village. Once again the
Calypso
anchored and this time Ramage ordered all the boom-boats to be hoisted out and the quarter-boats lowered.

“I hope you have your marines standing by,” he said to Rennick, and to Aitken he said: “Your three parties of seamen are ready?”

“Fallen in on the gangway with Kenton, Martin, and Orsini, sir.”

“Right, get them into the boats as soon as possible.”

Within ten minutes the two cutters, named and painted the red and the green to distinguish them, the gig and the jolly-boat were rowing for the port: the two parties of marines and one of seamen under Kenton were divided up in the two cutters, Martin was in the gig with his seamen, and Orsini was in the jolly-boat with his dozen men.

In the meantime Ramage and Aitken had been examining the port with their telescope. Finally Ramage snapped his shut and said crossly: “There seem to be fewer people about than one would expect on a normal day.”

“Can't blame them, sir,” Aitken said. “They saw two 74s and a frigate approaching, and they know it can only mean trouble for them.”

“Damn this waiting,” Ramage grumbled. “It's all I seem to be doing today.”

“Better than traipsing across dusty hills being stung by insects,” Southwick said cheerfully. “And in that village it'll be the stink of rotting cabbage, sewage and pigs.”

“Even that would be a change from the smell of our bilgewater,” Ramage said sourly. “One day I'll invent a way of getting the pump to suck out those last few inches of water.”

“The ship wouldn't be the same without that stink,” Aitken commented. “Makes it seem like home!”

“It doesn't say much for the way you live in Scotland!” Ramage commented.

He pulled out the tube of his telescope and adjusted it to the mark for the right focus. Then he looked at the boats as they made their way to the shore. The
Intrepid
and
Phoenix
were just coming into the bay, Ramage was pleased to see: Arbuthnot could not complain that he had been kept waiting.

Waiting—he was the one who was having to wait. Ramage cursed that he had not gone with one of the boats, but leading a search party was not the job for a post captain commanding a frigate: let junior lieutenants get blistered heels!

He began pacing up and down the quarterdeck, impatience fighting with the knowledge that he should not show it. This was the part of command that he hated: it emphasized just how alone he had to be; he could talk with his officers, but ultimately he had to stay remote, never indulging in the sort of small talk which passed the hours at a time like this.

He looked again with the telescope. The boats were now lying at the quay, and he could just catch sight of the marines' jackets as they moved about the streets. Well, they were not being attacked by an angry crowd of Frenchmen armed with sticks and staves. Where the devil had the French gone? Further north? That seemed unlikely because there were no more villages. Well, he would have to wait for one of the boats to return.

Ten paces aft, turn and ten paces forward again. The sun was bright but compared with what he was used to in the West Indies, there was no heat in it: there was no need for an awning, and the pitch in the deck seams was not soft. The wind was a little more than a gentle breeze, and there were few clouds. It was, Ramage thought, a typical spring day in the Mediterranean, although one always had to bear in mind that the weather could be treacherous; that a vicious gale could spring up in less than twelve hours, or a
scirocco
could set in and blow hard for three days, bringing a depressing effect which seemed uncomfortably humid but which seared the leaves of shrubs and bushes.

So, he thought to himself as he turned again, make the best of today. Finally he stopped by the quarterdeck rail and took up his telescope for yet another search of the shore.

He was startled to see the jolly-boat being rowed out fast. There were only the men at the oars in the boat. In fact they looked as though they were racing another boat, and he could see Paolo standing up in the sternsheets, apparently urging the men on.

What on earth was happening? Bad news? But what bad news could there be, and what urgency? An emergency? But what emergency? There was no sign of shooting round the quay; in fact he could clearly see boat-minders sitting in the cutters. He shrugged: once again the answer was to wait and see.

Finally the jolly-boat came alongside and Orsini scrambled up the ship's side. By then Ramage was waiting for him at the entry port and Paolo, after a hasty salute, said breathlessly: “They've gone, sir!”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Gone completely, sir: they've escaped from the island. The local people tell me that a French frigate arrived two days ago—the day after we landed the prisoners—and took them all off.”

Ramage swore. Three frigates in the area within such a short time.

“In which direction did the frigate go?”

“To the north, sir.”

“Hmm, going northabout to Toulon, I suppose.”

“With all those men on board, she'd want to get into a French port fairly quickly.”

Paolo was right about that: she would have many more than double her normal complement and may well have run short of water and provisions. Ramage suddenly wanted to laugh: the errant French frigate had done Arbuthnot and Slade out of their head-money!

“Who did you speak to ashore?”