Ramage's Signal Read online

  After Rennick dismissed the men, he led the way to the guardhouse where the second corporal and six men were drawn up outside the hut. Knowing their muskets would be loaded,

  Ramage confined himself to inspecting the French uniforms the men were wearing.

  “They were never as smart with Frenchmen inside ‘em,” he commented to Rennick. “Even if the Frenchmen were shorter.”

  “Yes. I’ve been trying to persuade the sergeant that although a couple of inches of ankle showing at the trouser leg would cause a sensation at Portsmouth, it doesn’t matter here. He now agrees. He issued the uniforms,” he added, “so it’s hardly surprising his own is the only perfect fit.”

  Suddenly Ramage heard Jackson hailing from the top of the tower. “Captain, sir! Captain, sir!”

  Ramage, knowing the limitations of his own voice, nodded to Rennick, who bellowed: “The Captain is here, at the guardhouse.”

  “Signal coming from Aspet, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  Ramage looked towards the corporal. “Your men are a credit. Don’t forget though, if anyone arrives, no talking, and blow the whistle for Mr Orsini.”

  With that Ramage hurried over to the tower, noting that Rennick and the sergeant were heading for one of the huts, presumably to deal with the unfortunate corporal whose flint refused to spark.

  By now the sun was well above the horizon, bringing warmth with it and putting new vigour into the insects which were beginning to buzz about the yellow flecks of flower among the gorse bushes. Feeling he needed the exercise, Ramage climbed the ladder, although he did it at a speed which made it clear to any onlooker that the Captain was simply climbing the ladder to get to the top of the platform, not to demonstrate how topmen should go up the ratlines wearing breeches.

  Paolo, eye glued to the telescope on its stand, and aimed at Aspet, was calling out letters of the alphabet which Jackson was writing down on a slate. Ramage looked over the American’s shoulder and saw it was a signal from Barcelona to Toulon.

  “That’s all,” Paolo said briskly, “now dip the flag twice and then they can go to sleep again over there, happy in the knowledge we have the signal.”

  “I wonder where that signal spent the night,” Ramage reflected. “It started off from Barcelona in broad daylight yesterday, for certain, but it was benighted before it travelled very far. It can’t have travelled through only two or three stations today.”

  “Probably delayed by rain, sir,” Jackson offered, “especially when you remember how the thunderstorms roll down the side of the Pyrenees. Cuts visibility to a few yards.”

  Paolo took the slate from Jackson and held it out for Ramage to finish reading. Then he asked: “Do we pass it on, sir?”

  Ramage shook his head. “No, put it in the log and add a translation.”

  “The fools may have trumped your ace, sir,” he said sympathetically. “One can never trust the Spanish.”

  The signal when translated said quite simply: “Convoy now fifteen ships refuses await escort and sails tomorrow.” Obviously “tomorrow” meant today, because it was now only half past eight in the morning.

  Ramage knew that only one question needed an answer now: would the Spanish (and probably French) merchantmen have left Barcelona before his faked order arrived telling them to make for Foix?

  Most British convoys Ramage had ever seen—admittedly large West Indian ones, often comprising more than one hundred ships—took all day to get out of the harbour and sometimes all the next day to form up properly.

  With Aitken, Southwick and Kenton on board the Calypso Ramage could spend the day at the semaphore station, although apart from giving an immediate answer to any questions concerning signals there seemed little else for him to do, and he enjoyed the atmosphere of the maquis.

  Thirty-six hours from noon: that was about the earliest he could hope to sight the convoy, providing his signal arrived in time—and providing the real escort had not reached Barcelona. It was a sequence of events, he reflected gloomily, in which the word “providing” appeared too frequently.

  Idly he watched the Calypso and saw the red and green cutters being hoisted out. As soon as they were in the water they would be filled with water casks—Aitken’s men were to spend the rest of the day “wooding and watering”: parties would be collecting firewood for the Calypso’s coppers within the limits of the camp while others were filling casks with fresh water from the well. With luck the Calypso by the end of the day would again have thirty tons on board, the amount with which she had left Gibraltar to begin the present cruise. The cook was not going to be pleased with the wood, though; most of the trees were stunted and would yield logs more suitable for brightening the hearth of a cottage than heating a frigate’s big coppers.

  “Le Chesne, sir,” Jackson reported to Orsini. “They’ve got their flag up.”

  “Answer and stand by,” Orsini said, swinging the telescope round to the eastward and focusing it on the Le Chesne tower. Jackson hoisted and lowered the red flag and then picked up the slate. The signal was from Toulon and directed to station sixteen, which Ramage guessed was Séte. As Orsini called out the letters and Jackson wrote them down, Ramage realized the signal was a routine one about a discrepancy between stores reported used and the amount actually found in a recent inventory, and the commanding officer was required …

  As he climbed down the ladder and recalled the contents of the original French signal log, he decided that pilfering, selling government stores and taking inventories were the main occupations of the commanding officers of the various semaphore stations.

  Two days later Ramage sat on the Calypso’s quarterdeck in a canvas-backed chair in the shade of the awning, which was rigged again to provide shelter from the blazing sun returning after the mistral. The sea was calm with a gentle breeze from the west so that the frigate was lying parallel with the beach. Over at the semaphore tower, which he could see on the larboard quarter, the tiny awning was rigged on the platform and he could just make out two figures, Paolo and Jackson, swinging the telescope round from time to time, keeping a watch on Aspet and Le Chesne.

  Aloft in the Calypso seamen kept watch seaward, but by now he was sure that the convoy had sailed from Barcelona direct for their destinations before his signal had arrived ordering them to Foix, and no doubt the French escort had joined them.

  Tonight, he decided, the Calypso would sail to look for the convoy—though he was uncertain whether to head eastward, close along the coast, on the assumption that it had passed in the darkness, or south-east because perhaps it had found a different wind once it left Barcelona and could comfortably lay Marseilles, its first destination.

  He was not sure whether his semaphore signal had been a wild idea and a waste of time, or whether it had been a good idea unluckily ruined by the impatience of the French masters of merchantmen. Anyway tonight, as soon as it was dark, the tower would topple under the Marines’ axes, the barrack huts would be wrecked, the powder casks rolled into the sea, and the cattle turned loose—the villagers would soon find and appropriate them. Burning down the whole place would attract far too much attention to the Calypso—the flames would be seen for miles—and to the French the important part of the camp as a link in the signal chain was not the accommodation (which could be replaced by tents) but the tower, which was as easily destroyed by axes as flames.

  A fruitless chase after the convoy, he thought miserably, then a few weeks’ cruising along the French and Spanish coasts sinking xebecs, tartanes and suchlike small coasting vessels, and then back to Gibraltar because the time limit for his orders would have run out. He could destroy a few of the semaphore towers, every fourth one, say, but he could not see their Lordships (or even the port admiral at Gibraltar) realizing what a blow that would be to the French naval communication system. The Board and admirals could understand ships captured or sunk; signals were dull affairs.

  A few seamen in the waist were exercising French prisoners, allowing them up a doze
n at a time. They were made to run round the fore and mainmasts a few times (they showed a great reluctance to exercise themselves voluntarily) and before they were sent below had to be inspected by Southwick.

  Although the old Master spoke not a word of French, he always made himself clear: a tug at a shirt collar and a growl told the man it needed washing; an accusing finger pointing at uncombed hair or a badly tied queue was enough of a warning.

  The French Lieutenant was proving a worry to Ramage: the man had sunk into a deep gloom, convinced that if the British did not shoot him they would hand him back to his own people, who would lop off his head, although for what crime Ramage could not discover, because being taken prisoner was no offence on either side.

  He decided to have another talk with the wretched fellow: he was still irritated at having more than thirty French prisoners on board and was thinking of releasing them as the Calypso sailed. However, doing that meant the Calypso’s French disguise would be revealed.

  Ramage called to a seaman to fetch another canvas deckchair and signalled to Aitken, whom he told to send a reliable seaman to bring the French Lieutenant who, once he was seated in the chair, was to be guarded only from a distance.

  “He’s a sad puir fellow,” Aitken said after the seaman had departed. “Lost a louis and found a centime. I canna believe it’s just because he’s a prisoner.”

  The “sad puir fellow” came up the ladder from below, squinting with his eyes almost closed from the glare, and shuffling his feet as if on his way to the scaffold. The seaman guided him to the chair and when the man stood as though puzzled what to do next, gave him an unceremonious shove to make him sit.

  Ramage nodded to him and said in French: “The sun is strong.” The French Lieutenant said sadly: “Yes, and my eyes are weak.” He looked incuriously round the Calypso’s deck, appeared to notice the big hill in the centre of the bay, and equally incuriously looked farther round to the semaphore tower and the camp which for a year, until a few days ago, he had commanded. Now, Ramage was certain, he had no interest in it at all; he looked at it just as a sleepy dog looks up when roused in front of a fire.

  “You are satisfied with the way your men are being treated?”

  “My men?” He paused, obviously puzzled, and then said: “Oh yes, they are all right, or so the sergeant tells me.”

  “And yourself?”

  The Lieutenant shrugged. “It is all a farce, m’sieur, and the sooner it is over the better.”

  “What is a farce?” Ramage asked casually.

  “Treating me as a prisoner.”

  “What do I intend to do, then?”

  “Shoot me.”

  “I do not shoot my prisoners.”

  “Then hand me back to the French authorities, which will be the same thing.”

  “Why should setting you free—for that’s what it would be—amount to the same as shooting you?”

  “I shall be punished.”

  “For what?” The man seemed to be almost in tears and Ramage was reminded of stories of penitents submitting to the Inquisition.

  “There’s … a … deficiency … they had an inventory … when they return to Sète and compare what we have in our stores with what the inventory shows …”

  “There will be a difference?”

  “A big difference.”

  “In what materials?” Ramage was curious now; the scope for speculation seemed limited.

  “Rice, flour, olive oil, wine …”

  “How did it happen? Where did it go?”

  “The villagers paid a good price: their crops failed this year and they were hungry.”

  “So you sold them Army stores?”

  “It was not quite like that,” the Lieutenant said lamely. “They were starving, you understand.”

  “You could have given them food.”

  “It came from them in the first place, all except the rice,” the Lieutenant explained.

  “From them?” Ramage was puzzled but a suspicion was forming in his mind.

  “Yes—you see, we requisition what we need for the troops.”

  “But what did you sell to the starving villagers?”

  “Well, the surplus.”

  “How could there be a surplus if you requisitioned only what you needed?”

  The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. “It was hard to estimate.”

  “So—having deliberately stolen—not requisitioned, but stolen—more than you needed, you then made a cash profit by selling it back to the villagers?”

  Ramage’s voice was so cold and his eyes seemed but slits, like sword blades viewed from the point, that the Lieutenant said nothing.

  “How did the Army authorities find a deficit?”

  “We kept two sets of books and the wrong ones were given to the quartermaster’s department at the time of the survey.”

  Ramage stood up and stared down at the Lieutenant, trying to control his anger. “You rob your own people of their food and sell it back to them, and when your quartermaster’s department find out, you feel sorry for yourself and fear the guillotine, eh? Well, I’d hang you—slowly. Get out of my sight”—he pointed to the ladder leading below and the seaman escort hurried back—”in case I decide to do the job for your authorities.”

  As soon as the man had gone below—bolting like a rabbit, in comparison with the way he had shambled up—Aitken came over to find his Captain sitting down again and shaking with rage.

  The Scot, who had never seen Ramage like this before, asked bluntly: “What happened, sir?”

  Ramage told him, and Aitken commented: “It’s a temptation to hand him over, isn’t it, sir. But it’d give ourselves away. Of course,” he added slowly, “we could keep the French seamen and hand him over to the villagers. They’d probably string him up from a tree.”

  Ramage shook his head. “There’s always a government informer in every village. It’d end up with the people of Foix being massacred.”

  “We’ll just make his life a bluidy misery then,” Aitken said. “We’ll have him wakened every half an hour at night for a start, with someone asking him if he’s hungry.”

  Ramage told him the phrase to use, and the Scot repeated it to himself a few times. “That’s not too difficult; I’ll have some men from each watch practise it. His water ration can be a bit smelly. And his wine issue vinegary. And if he finds more weevils in his bread than usual, well …”

  Ramage nodded. “But this sort of requisitioning is going on all over France where there’s a garrison: the French Army lives off the land—even in France.”

  The sun was dropping so low now its rays were coming under the awning. Down on his desk were fifteen sheets of paper, each intended for the master of one of the ships in the convoy, and each neatly written in French by Paolo last night. Paolo’s handwriting was typically that of a Latin: he wrote French easily, his pen flowing without the hesitation of someone pausing to check the spelling of a difficult word.

  Had the convoy arrived, Paolo would have been rowed to each of the ships in his French Army uniform and delivered a letter to the captain—in fact a brief paragraph of new orders—and the convoy’s departure and subsequent capture would have been assured without a shot being fired. But Paolo’s time—and the candle consumed in the lantern at the signalmen’s hut—had been wasted.

  Aitken said tactfully: “Should I take over the saws and axes to the camp and arrange what the men have to do tonight, sir?”

  “Yes. Make sure they destroy completely the mechanism of the tower, once they’ve brought it down.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “And don’t forget to make sure the cattle are freed.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “And make sure Orsini brings back the signal log and the copies of the semaphore code.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Aitken said patiently, sensing how his Captain’s disappointment over the convoy was now mixed with anger over the despicable French Lieutenant. It would be unfortunate if any
of the Calypso’s officers or seamen made a bad mistake today—at least, within sight of the Captain.

  Aitken was just climbing down into the red cutter when there was a bellow from aloft, and out of habit he paused to listen.

  “Quarterdeck there—foremast here!”

  “Deck here!” Ramage shouted back, not bothering to use the speaking-trumpet.

  “Sail ho, being sou’-sou’-west, sir.”

  “How distant?”

  “Just sighted her topsails. And there’s another—there’s two of ‘em, sir.”

  “Very well, keep a sharp lookout.”

  Two ships. He could sail out, seize them and be back in Foix to take off the Marines at nightfall. Olive oil, grain and that sickly, sweet, red wine from Banyuls that’s as bad as Marsala, Ramage thought crossly. Perhaps some hides, just to add their hideous stench to everything. Well, xebecs, tartanes, droghers, caiques, fishing boats—he did not give a damn; from now on they would be captured and sent in as prizes, or scuttled. He might keep a fast little xebec to act as a tender; young Martin could command it and he and Orsini would learn fast about the xebec’s extraordinary rig. It could act as a scout and get into shallow places where the Calypso dare not venture.

  “Deck there, foremast here. Three ships, sir, and maybe more: I need a bring-’em-near up here.”

  Ramage realized he was becoming lethargic; a few days ago a lookout’s hail of a single ship would have meant someone immediately going aloft with a telescope. And now Aitken was coming back on board again.

  “Deck there!” the lookout bawled. “There’s dozens of the buggers, sir! Stretching from sou’-sou’-west to west by south.”

  “It must be the convoy, sir,” Aitken murmured, and as Ramage nodded doubtfully he said: “I’ll get aloft with the glass. Fifteen ships, wasn’t it?”

  “Fifteen. Any extra might mean the escorts found them.”

  Aitken grabbed a telescope from the binnacle box drawer and ran to the ratlines while Ramage turned his own glass to the south-west. He could see nothing; from where he stood the ships were still hidden below the curvature of the earth.