Ramage and the Saracens r-17 Read online

  "You seem to have plenty of excuses even before you start," Arbuthnot sneered.

  "No, but it shouldn't be too difficult to round up the Frenchmen with all the troops you have at your disposal."

  Clearly Arbuthnot did not want to be reminded of that. "Rounding them up will not be difficult," he said. "But first they must be found."

  "Indeed," Ramage agreed. "I can't see them staying in the village after two British 74s and a frigate come and anchor in the bay. If they have any sense they'll take to the hills, and there are plenty of them on Capraia."

  "Well, you find them and tell us where they are, and the troops will come and capture them."

  And that, thought Ramage, is just too blatant.

  "If you'll excuse me," he said, standing up, "I must go and see Admiral Rudd and get my orders clarified. My orders from him state that I pilot you to where in Capraia I landed the French. You now say you expect me to find the French and lead the troops to them. I am not a soldier, nor do I command any of the troops. I think I need Admiral Rudd's views on the point."

  As Ramage turned to leave the cabin he saw that he had taken the wind out of Arbuthnot's sails. Immediately he too stood up. stretching out a hand placatingly.

  "Do sit down again, Ramage; there is no need to bother the Admiral over a small point like this!"

  "That's why I want to speak to him: to me it is not a small point. in fact it concerns the whole aim of the operation."

  "Now, now, Ramage," said Arbuthnot, "tell me what is bothering you. Do you want some troops to command?"

  "The troops are your concern," Ramage said, determined not to fall into that trap. "I am just saying that my orders are to show you where I landed the French. I can't be expectecd - nor am I ordered - to comb the island looking for the French: that is why you are carrying five hundred troops, quite apart from your Marines."

  Clearly Arbuthnot did not want the question referred to Rear-Admiral Rudd: obviously his own orders from the Admiral were more in line with how Ramage saw the situation.

  "Very well, Ramage, you point out the landing areas and the troops will be landed to round up these fellows," he said. "Mind you, I shall expect you to co-operate as best you can."

  "I assure you I will," Ramage said. "It's simply that I can't search an island the size of Capraia, with all those mountains, with a handful of Marines and a score of seamen."

  "No, indeed not," Arbuthnot said. "You just carry out your orders from the Admiral and co-operate with me and Captain Slade - he commands the Phoenix." Back in his day cabin on board the Calypso Ramage described the meeting with Arbuthnot to Aitken and Southwick. Aitken, by virtue of being the first lieutenant, was the second-in-command of the frigate and entitled to know what was going on if only because he would take over command if anything happened to Ramage. Southwick, on the other hand, was only a warrant, not a commission officer: he held his rank by warrant, not a commission, and officially he ranked below the fourth lieutenant, the most junior of the commission officers.

  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 Admira
l, as well!"

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ramage 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 Jo 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 foil 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 entryport 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 wo
uld 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?"

  "At first fishermen on the quay, but when I heard what they had to say, I made them take me to the mayor. He confirmed it. He's a fisherman too and his boat was commandeered to help take out the French, so he saw the name of the frigate: the Marie." "There's no doubt that all the French were taken off?"

  "None at all, sir: the mayor had counted them up from the number of boats that were used. His figure is within a dozen or so of ours."

  Ramage thought for a moment or two. Martin, Kenton and Rennick could wait: right now he had to go over and report to Arbuthnot.

  "Wait here: I want you to take me over to the Intrepid." Ramage hurried down to his cabin to collect his sword and straighten up his stock. He came back on deck and sent for Aitken telling him where he was going and why.

  Then he' climbed down the ship's side after Orsini and settled down in the sternsheets. He felt very cheerful at the news he was going to give Arbuthnot, not because he gave a damn whether the French were still on the island or not but because he felt a spiteful delight that there was no head money. He found that Admiral Rudd's decision over the head money was what really rankled; it was a petty piece of twisting the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions so that the Calypso's men were cheated after a particularly hard-fought battle against Le Jason. Ten minutes later Ramage was sitting opposite Arbuthnot in his cabin. The senior captain had pedantically stopped Ramage making his report on the quarterdeck; instead he had insisted that Ramage follow him down to his cabin, where he had carefully seated himself at a desk, waving Ramage to a chair opposite.

  "Well, Ramage, what have you to report?" Arbuthnot fiddled with his stock, as though it had suddenly tightened. "I see that all but one of your boats are still at the quay."

  "The French have gone," Ramage said bluntly. "All of them. They have left the island."