The Ramage Touch (23 page)

One thing is certain, he told himself brutally, it is far too late to worry now; the
Brutus
and the
Fructidor
have their orders. They know the whole objective is so important that even if the forts are crammed with France’s most skilled artillerymen and bristling with excellent guns, the bomb ketches must carry out their orders, or sink in the attempt. You sent ’em; you get the credit if they succeed; you get the blame if they fail.

Aitken was shouting orders. Idly Ramage watched black figures swarming sure-footed up the ratlines of the mainmast in the darkness the moment Aitken bellowed: ‘Away aloft!’

After that there was a stream of orders aimed at the men on the maintopsail yard, Aitken’s mild Scottish accent amplified and distorted by the speaking-trumpet: ‘Trice up…lay out!’ The men triced up the studdingsail booms out of the way, and then scrambled out along the yard.

‘Man the topsail sheets!’ This was directed to the men down on deck, and then the speaking-trumpet was aimed aloft again. ‘Let fall!’

The topmen, who had already begun to loosen the knots of the gaskets in anticipation of the order, knowing that they could not be seen from the quarterdeck and anxious to save a few seconds, untied the strips of canvas and the sail unrolled, a great canvas sheet which hissed and scraped in the quiet night as it flopped like a curtain before the wind had a chance to fill it.

‘Sheet home!’ Aitken shouted across the deck, and then to the men aloft: ‘Lower booms!’ The studdingsail booms were lowered back into place, and Aitken followed that with the final order to the topmen: ‘Down from aloft!’

There were still more orders for the men on deck. ‘Man the maintopsail halyards – now then, haul taut!’ That took up the slack ready for the next string of orders. ‘Tend the braces there, and now, all together, hoist the maintopsail!’

As the yard was trimmed sharp up the
Calypso
began to forge ahead, slowly standing in towards Talamone, on the mainland, as the quartermaster brought the ship as close to the wind as she would sail with only one topsail. Then the mizentopsail was let fall and sheeted home and, as the jibs were hoisted, the foretopsail was let fall and the
Calypso
, gathering speed, sailed closed to the wind.

‘We’ll tack about a mile off Talamone,’ Ramage said, ‘Then if anyone in Santo Stefano saw us get under way, they’ll assume we’re heading up to the north, unless they have the patience to continue watching…’

‘We’ll give the fishermen a scare,’ Aitken commented, because the
Calypso
was now heading within a point or two of the light of the fishing boat which had been on the mainland side of the bay for the past few hours.

‘They’ll know we can see them,’ Ramage said. ‘Anyway, they’re probably asleep, with their lines hitched round their big toes so that they feel the twitch the minute a fish bites.’

He bent down over the binnacle and looked at the weather side compass. The
Calypso
was comfortably laying a course of north-east, so the wind must be about north-west by north. They would clear Punta Lividonia on the next tack and then slowly bear away as they sailed down the west side of Argentario with a soldier’s wind. The stars were bright enough to make the land clear; there was nothing to do now but wait – for almost twelve hours. The
Calypso
under topsails alone was, in this breeze, almost as much trouble to handle as a rowing boat…

‘We’ll lose the wind here,’ Southwick grumbled, shielding his eyes with his hand as he looked up in the bright sunshine at the jagged cliffs of the headland on the larboard side and then inspected the tower perched on the top, having to raise his telescope to an unusually high angle. ‘Another one of those towers…that’s the ninth or tenth since we passed Punta Lividonia. All the same design.’

‘Spanish,’ Ramage commented absent-mindedly. ‘This one here on Punta Avoltore is the last before we reach Porte Ercole, isn’t it? They should be able to see it. In the old days it would pass the word when a ship was sighted…’

Southwick snapped his telescope shut and walked over to the binnacle drawer, pulling out the chart and inspecting it. ‘Yes, it’s the last one marked on this chart, sir. We should – ah!’ Once more he shaded his eyes against the bright sun as he looked over the larboard bow. ‘There–’ he pointed at a tiny island just beginning to show as the
Calypso
worked round the Point ‘–that’s Isolotto. We have plenty of water to within a few yards of the cliffs over here,’ he added, pointing to a long, shallow bay opening up between Punta Avoltore and Isolotto. ‘There’s a narrow channel between Isolotto and the shore, but it has an isolated rock at the far end and it isn’t worth the risk of using it because we can just as easily go outside the island.’

Ramage nodded. He had already spent an hour going over the chart, reminding himself of a coast he had once known very well. Southwick took a bearing of the tower and looked at his watch before scribbling a note on the slate: ‘We’re just fifteen minutes early, sir.’

‘Very good,’ Ramage said. ‘I assume you’re keeping your fingers crossed that we don’t lose the wind.’

Southwick grinned as he took off his hat and shook his head, his flowing white hair streaming out. ‘We’re just getting out of the wind shadow of the big mountains; it should freshen a little once we round this point. I was just afraid that we were in too close, but I think the wind is also funnelling round both sides of the island and meeting here: we’ll catch the other – ah, there!’ The luffs of the topsails began to flap and the quartermaster gave a hurried order to the men at the wheel to bear away. ‘See, it’s veered a whole point. Still, we can lay Isolotto nicely.’

Ramage picked up his telescope and examined the coast as it came into sight, the view taking him back to a land of memories. Cala dei Santi – that was the next inlet just beyond Punta Avoltore as the land began to trend round to Porto Ercole. Steep cliffs, vertically slashed grey rock, patches of soil here and there where bushes and a scattering of grass could grow, and higher up rounded hills with jagged cones of grey stone poking through. Brown, black and white specks moved slowly just above the cliffs – goats, some grazing, others jumping with surprisingly nimble grace from rock to rock and several walking sedately in line like parishioners going to Sunday matins. The water was a deep blue, white-fringed where it lapped at the cliffs. There were no beaches; it would be impossible to land from a boat even on a calm day. Apart from the towers, it seemed no one had disturbed this part of Argentario for a thousand years…Looked at from seaward, but never walked on.

The bay swept on until, above low cliffs, he could make out the angular shape of Fortino Stella, old now, looking as though it had been let go to ruin and not to be confused with the one at the harbour entrance. In the old days, he guessed, the Spaniards had built it there well outside the harbour to prevent any hostile ships anchoring in the lee of Isolotto to land men and attack Porto Ercole from the rear. Or perhaps the Spaniards used the channel between Isolotto and the shore as an anchorage, and the small fort protected it. He shrugged, because it was not often one came across a fortification whose purpose was not obvious, even putting the clock back two centuries and seeing the conditions and problems existing then.

Finally he reached the end of the land, as far as he could see and fine on the frigate’s larboard bow. That distant point must be the little headland forming the south side of Porto Ercole, with the harbour beyond and out of sight. He could just make out a straight line of stonework – that was La Rocca, the village at the southern side, while there was another village, Grotte, in the north-western corner. At this distance there was no chance of seeing if there were gun barrels poking through embrasures in that wall – the
Calypso
would have to get a good deal closer.

Suddenly a fleck of white caught his eyes, beyond and to the right of Isolotto, and a few moments later, as the
Calypso
’s course opened up the view behind Isolotto, he saw another. Even as he watched they disappeared – for they were sails, now being furled, brailed up or lowered on board the bomb ketches, which were both now visible coming head to wind and at this distance seeming smaller than water beetles on the far side of a village pond.

Southwick had seen them and slapped his knee. ‘They’re on time, too! Those two lads probably used this stretch here to waste a little time so they weren’t too early.’

Aitken came up to Ramage, squinting in the bright sunlight. ‘I can’t get used to those colours, sir,’ he said, gesturing up at the Tricolour. Then, when he saw that Southwick and Ramage were watching the two bomb ketches anchoring, he grinned and took out his watch. ‘Two minutes early. Who knows, the four of them might become admirals yet!’

He then glanced questioningly at Ramage, who nodded. ‘Yes, general quarters, but leave the port lids down; don’t forget we’re a French frigate just paying a routine visit – probably to get fresh water. Our own colours are also bent on? Ah, I see you have them there already,’ he said as he saw a carefully folded bundle of coloured cloth secured to a halyard and made up to a cleat.

The bosun’s mates went through the ship, their calls shrill as they shouted to the men to go to quarters, and Ramage was thankful he had a well-trained ship’s company. Normally there was one lieutenant to each division of guns, and when the
Calypso
was fighting one side – half her guns – this meant three lieutenants and a midshipman to supervise eighteen guns. Now all the broadside guns would be handled only by their captains, who were chosen because they were steady able seamen. They were going to have to be careful that in the excitement a gun was not accidentally loaded with two charges of powder. This was the most frequent reason for a gun blowing up.

He could not spare Southwick to keep an eye on the guns – an impossible task for one man anyway – and Aitken would have to take over command of the ship at a moment’s notice if a roundshot removed the Captain’s head. Still, the three lieutenants and midshipman would be doing more than their share in the bomb ketches, and he was far from clear what the
Calypso
would have to do, if anything. Although the bomb ketches had set roles to play, the
Calypso
was little more than a terrier lurking round to see which way an escaping rat would bolt.

Southwick was again looking at his watch, at a sheet of paper which Ramage recognized as the timetable he had written out for the
Calypso
, and then picking up his quadrant and, holding it horizontally, looking over at Isolotto and adjusting the vernier screw. Then he examined the angle shown, the horizontal angle made by each end of Isolotto. Again he consulted a piece of paper and nodded to himself, obviously satisfied at the distance it revealed. Ramage managed to restrain himself from asking the old master if they would arrive on time; if they would not, then Southwick would be doing something about it – requesting topgallants to be set if they were late, asking for permission to clew up the maintopsail if they were too early.

The slowly increasing tension was making Ramage look for faults, and he realized that any minute now he would start asking Aitken quite unnecessary questions – was this all right, had he forgotten that, what about the other? He leaned against the quarterdeck rail, in defiance of his own rule that no one ever rested his elbows on its capping, and told himself that it helped steady the telescope. It did, of course, but there was no earthly reason why he should be squinting through the glass; he had already examined the coast, and they had not gone far enough to make any appreciable difference to the appearance of the walls and embrasures at La Rocca. The hills on the south side of the harbour were, from this angle, too high for him to be able to glimpse the masts of the frigates – supposing they were still there.

He felt perspiration soaking into the band of his hat at the sudden thought that they might have left, and used the back of his hand to wipe some away from his upper lip. The three frigates could have sailed during the night. They might not have gone into Porto Ercole. Don’t be such a damned fool, he told himself, you saw them there yesterday as you walked along the Feniglia. But they could have sailed at sunset, after he and his motley quartet had punted across the lagoon. But why should they? They could not have embarked the troops in that time. Supposing they had brought, or received, new orders, to leave the troops there and go on to join this fleet, wherever it was?

He felt himself flushing with annoyance and embarrass-ment together, angry both for his nervousness and his stupidity: the two bomb ketches had anchored in what seemed to be the exact spot and at the exact time. He had not put anything in his orders to cover the fact that the frigates might not be there because it had never occurred to him, but Wagstaffe had initiative. If the harbour was empty he would never have anchored the
Brutus
, and Kenton would certainly not have disobeyed any order from Wagstaffe. Anyway the
Calypso
’s second-lieutenant knew that the frigate was close, and in an emergency he would have turned back to report.

So, Ramage told himself angrily, all is well; stop fretting. The ship’s company always boast about how calm you are going into action (which only proves what a good actor you are), so try to live up to your reputation. If battle is an opera, then the orchestra is now just beginning to tune up for the overture, with some of the players still arriving late with their instruments.

Instruments reminded him of Martin and his flute. The lad was likely to have been giving the
Brutus
’s men a tune or two as they sailed round Argentario. How did ‘Heart of Oak’ sound on a flute? The men would love some of the more popular tunes like ‘Black-eyed Susan’, because they seized any opportunity to dance. He must encourage Martin to play more often, especially in these long summer evenings, so that the men could dance. They were bored with John Harris’ fiddle; the man had a complete repertory of about a dozen tunes, at least four of which were forebitters, played when the capstan was being worked. Always supposing, he thought with a touch of bitterness, that Martin, the
Brutus
, and the
Calypso
survive the next couple of hours. Then, ashamed of the dark thoughts that scurried about his mind like a North Sea fog suddenly springing up off the Texel, he hoped that Martin had stowed his flute somewhere safe, so that a French roundshot would not splinter it.