The Ramage Touch Read online

  Ramage was at first hard put to know why he and the Calypso had been chosen: it was unlikely that Their Lordships were concerned that he spoke French and Italian fluently and sufficient Spanish. Perhaps they remembered that he knew the Italian coast very well – but Their Lordships rarely bothered themselves with such considerations, reckoning that any officer with a decent chart was as well off as someone who had sailed the coast a hundred times. Or – and he guessed this was the real reason – they wanted a former French frigate.

  The Calypso was French built, with a distinctive French sheer and the French cut of sails. With French colours hoisted, a French sailor fifty yards away would not know that the British now owned her. She could pass through a French fleet without arousing suspicion; she could sail into a French-held port and anchor and no one would think anything of it, recognizing the cut of her sails. Signals would be no problem because Ramage had recently captured another French ship and secured a copy of the latest French signal book.

  Ramage had captured the Calypso frigate, making her present ship’s company (most of whom had sailed with him for two or three years and more) comparatively wealthy, thanks to the prize money. It was appropriate therefore that he should command her for this freebooting expedition into the Mediterranean, although Their Lordships would never let any sentimental considerations affect their decision. In fact, he guessed as he held his cloak closer round him, the answer was probably that they could take a frigate away from the commander-in-chief at Jamaica without too much fuss (Admirals always let out a howl of dismay when they lost a frigate) because the Calypso, being a recent capture, was an extra, a consolation prize. If the commander-in-chief grumbled, the Admiralty could quite reasonably reply that he still had the usual number of frigates.

  Slowly, as the Calypso steered inshore, a dark headland which he could just make out to the south divided into four sections. The eastern one was Punta Ala itself, and the three smaller were the islets extending westwards, as though a giant had rolled three great boulders off the end of the peninsula. The Calypso had sailed in just far enough to reveal the gaps between them.

  A figure approached him in the darkness, padding along the deck like a tame bear. He recognized the bulky shape of Southwick, the Calypso’s master.

  ‘The islands have just opened up, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I saw them.’

  ‘The moon should be up in twenty minutes or so. In fact I’m sure I can see a hint of it behind the mountains.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ramage said, lifting his nightglass again. ‘I can just about make out Monte Amiata over there. It’s three or four thousand feet high and must be thirty miles inland of us.’

  Southwick gave a characteristic sniff. He had various sorts which described different attitudes and each of which, for anyone who knew him well, represented a whole sentence, sometimes a paragraph. Ramage recognized this one as a prelude to a nostalgic remark; even the preliminary to some sentimental reminiscence. Southwick, now well into his sixties, was tending to become more sentimental as the years passed, and a return to somewhere like the Tuscan coast was sure to stir up old memories.

  ‘Deck there! Foremast here!’ came a hail from aloft.

  ‘Deck here!’ Southwick shouted back, before he had time to make his remark and Ramage was thankful he had kept a couple of lookouts aloft throughout the night, though it was customary to bring them down at nightfall and station them round the deck with more men, six pairs of eyes searching the darkness for enemy ships (there was little chance of sighting a friendly one) or breakers on a shoreline.

  ‘I think I can make out two ships anchored in the lee of that headland, sir.’

  ‘Very well – someone’ll be up with a bring-’em-near.’

  Ramage realized that he was mellowing; a couple of years ago he would have reprimanded a man for the ‘I think’, telling him either he could or he could not.

  The master looked round and an American seaman, Thomas Jackson, seemed to materialize from the darkness. Ramage held out the nightglass. ‘Aloft, m’lad; you know what to look for.’

  He then murmured to Aitken: ‘Send the men to quarters – but do it quietly.’

  The usual beat of drum would carry for miles on a quiet night like this and the regular ‘Heart of Oak’ could hardly be mistaken for a French Revolutionary song.

  ‘Guns run out, sir?’

  ‘No, loaded but don’t trice up the port lids.’

  Ramage was not quite sure why he wanted the port lids left down. A vague idea was lurking in the back of his mind, like a half-remembered dream, so vague that he knew there was no point in trying to hurry it out.

  ‘Quarterdeck – masthead!’

  It was Jackson’s voice and Southwick answered.

  ‘Two ships, sir: both anchored close inshore, just a few hundred yards from the beach.’

  ‘North or south side of the headland?’ Ramage asked. The little castle of La Rocchette stood on another small headland to the south and the French might have a garrison there and a few guns. If the ships were lying on the north side of Punta Ala then the headland itself hid them from La Rocchette.

  ‘North side, sir, but I can’t make out the type of ships. Two masts, but they’re not brigs. The foremast is set so far aft. It may be the way they’re lying to the wind,’ he added doubtfully.

  ‘Very well,’ Ramage shouted back, ‘stay up there and report anything else…’

  Round him men were gliding to their places for battle: water was being sluiced over the deck and men sprinkled sand on it in the ritual that would soak any stray grains of gunpowder and prevent men slipping on the deck planking. Gun captains were tightening the two wing nuts securing each flintlock and attaching the trigger lanyards, careful then to coil up the long lines and place them on the breeches of the guns.

  Aitken, the Scots first-lieutenant, hurried up to ask: ‘Roundshot, grape or case, sir?’

  ‘Grape in the carronades, roundshot in the rest,’ Ramage said briefly. It was going to be interesting trying out the carronades; they had only just been fitted in Gibraltar, six 12-pounders with the new slides that (so the master armourer in the dockyard assured him) made them easier to run in and out and doubled the rate of fire. They certainly looked effective, each sitting on a sliding wooden bed, instead of being fitted on a carriage with wide tracks like small cartwheels. Everyone on board was familiar with the effectiveness of carronades – they were devastating at short range but useless at anything over five hundred yards.

  Young boys were hurrying past, clutching the wooden cylinders with close-fitting lids in which were carried the powder cartridges for the guns. They had collected them from the magazine and now each boy would squat along the centreline out of the way behind his gun, waiting for the gun captain to call him.

  Meanwhile the quartermaster kept an eye on the two men at the wheel, frequently glancing down at the binnacle window, where a shaded candle lit the compass, and then up at the luffs of the sails. East by south was the course given to Ramage by Southwick, and east by south the man steered, neither knowing nor caring that the Calypso’s jib boom now pointed towards places whose names sounded like music or were famous from Roman days and earlier – Vetulonia and Montepescali, Roselle and Vallerona, the mountain named Elmo with Acquapendente beyond it, and the hill town of Orvieto, perhaps the loveliest of them all.

  For Ramage the names along the coast had a magic ring, even though he knew them by heart: just beyond La Rocchette was Castiglione della Pescaia, the Portus Traianus of the Romans, and overlooked by a medieval castle with square towers. Then Talamone, then Argentario, almost an island but connected to the mainland by narrow causeways. Beyond the causeways was the old Etruscan town of Ansedonia, now ruined, and close to the Lago di Burano, the lake with the tower beside it, the Torre di Buranaccio.

  Neatly spaced all along this coast were the fortified lookout towers watching seaward, built by the Spaniards two centuries ago (mostly by Philip II, who sent the Armada against
England); and even now perhaps keeping a lookout for Barbary pirates, Arabs from the northern coast of Africa and still known to the Italians generally as Saraceni. A coast of memories! His own would not be really strong until he was down towards the Torre di Buranaccio, where there was the memory of an enemy musket shot for almost every foot of beach.

  In the meantime the downdraught from the mainsail was now chilly on his neck, telling him that the breeze was increasing, and the ship, whose deck had been almost deserted a few minutes ago, was teeming with men, soft-footed and certain in their movements despite the darkness. Watching the topsails and topgallants as black squares stark against the star-spattered sky, Ramage tried to recognize some of the constellations which were now partly obliterated. Orion’s Belt was very low in these latitudes; in the West Indies it passed almost overhead.

  Aitken came up to report: ‘The ship’s at general quarters, sir; all guns loaded but none run out.’

  Ramage led him to the binnacle, took the chart from the binnacle drawer, and unrolled enough in front of the candle-lit window to show the first-lieutenant the stretch of coast ahead of them.

  ‘Jackson reports two ships here – just beyond Punta Ala and behind this second little headland, Punta Hidalgo. You see how the bay then makes a great sweep inland – sandy beach, good bottom? Just the place to anchor and wait for a fair wind.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ the young Scot agreed. ‘And it tells us yon ships are even less weatherly than we thought: there’s enough breeze come up now for us to make a couple of knots…’

  ‘I expect these Frenchmen like a good night’s sleep at anchor,’ Ramage said, ‘and you can’t blame ’em for not wanting to tack down this stretch of coast at night. Here–’ he pointed with a finger, ‘you can see this reef between Castiglione and the island of Giglio, the Formiche di Grosseto. They wouldn’t want to run into that. Formiche means ants, so you can guess how many rocks there are. And if they reached that far south before the moon rose they’d find it difficult to round Argentario – the mountain is big enough to throw a large wind shadow, and they’d get becalmed in the lee of it…’

  ‘So you don’t think they’ve anchored inshore because they’re suspicious of us, sir?’

  Ramage shook his head. ‘I don’t think they even saw us: don’t forget, only our masthead lookouts first sighted them – we never saw a thing from the deck. I doubt if the French keep lookouts aloft at night in whatever vessels they are. If we had frightened them, they’d have anchored here, under the guns of La Rocchette – the castle covers the anchorage on either side of the headland – not off Punta Hidalgo.’

  There were faint shadows across the deck now and Ramage glanced up from the chart to see the top edge of the moon just peeping up to the east, the hills and mountains of Tuscany making a horizon jagged like torn paper. With the anchored ships and Punta Hidalgo over to the east, they would soon show up well against the moonlight while the Calypso, approaching from the dark west, would not be seen until the last moment. When it was brighter in fifteen minutes or so the golden disc of the moon would make enough light to pick up the Calypso’s sails, but what sort of lookout would the French be keeping?

  As if reading his thoughts, Aitken said in his soft Highland voice: ‘We can hope they all had a good tipple of wine before they turned in for the night. With a bit o’ luck any lookouts will be stretched out on the hatches, fast asleep.’

  ‘If they have lookouts…We’re probably the only British ship within a thousand miles. They can treat every ship they see as a friend. Of course, that makes it much easier for us – every ship we see is an enemy.’

  ‘Deck there!’ Jackson hailed, and when Ramage answered he reported: ‘Now the moon’s up I can see both ships anchored abreast of each other, sir, a cable or so between ’em, and a cable from the beach. Can’t make out what they are, though; just that the foremast is set well aft. Maybe it gives a bigger forehatch for cargo.’

  Ramage could just make out the vessels now, so there was no need for Jackson to stay aloft with the nightglass. At general quarters he was usually the quartermaster, watching the men at the wheel, the wind direction and the set of the sails. Ramage called the American down on deck again.

  Two enemy ships anchored off the beach and a couple of hundred yards apart…Even if they were keeping a lookout, the men would see only a French frigate approaching out of the darkness. The moon would show enough for them to recognize the cut of the sails and the sweep of the sheer. They would have no suspicions.

  He looked at the chart to get some idea of the depth in which the ships were anchored and then put it back in the drawer, motioned Aitken to stay and called to Renwick, the Marine lieutenant, who was just inspecting his file of Marines now drawn up at the after end of the quarterdeck. Even in the darkness the difference between the two men was striking: Renwick was stocky, round-faced and bustling. His every movement seemed military, like the jerkiness of a wooden puppet on strings. Aitken was slim and moved quietly – Ramage had no trouble imagining him stalking a deer in the hills of his native Perthshire, moving silently to avoid breaking a twig and always making sure he kept the animal to windward. Or even hanging silently over the bank of the Tay, reaching down into the chilly water to tickle a trout and knowing the water bailiff was close by.

  Both Renwick and Aitken were brave men, one a fine soldier and the other a fine seaman. Both had sailed with Ramage for long enough to know that he hated gambling with his men’s lives: he would take a chance when necessary but only after reducing the odds as much as possible. Many captains of frigates reckoned promotion depended on the size of the butcher’s bill after a successful action – losing a third of their men killed could mean getting a larger and newer frigate, or even a pat on the back from the commander-in-chief.

  One good thing about Mr Ramage, Renwick thought to himself, his last year in the West Indies had been quite fantastic – frigates and schooners captured, a whole French convoy seized, the surrender of the Dutch island of Curaçao taken and a Dutch frigate blown up – and all without losing more than about a dozen men killed. Mr Ramage himself had nearly been killed in the Dutch business, though; and the scars of the two other wounds still showed. Apart from those lucky captains capturing an enemy ship carrying bullion, few had made so much prize money as Mr Ramage in so short a time. All the Calypso’s officers now had enough money put by in the Funds so that when the war ended (if it ever ended and if they survived it) they could retire and live comfortably. Every seaman, marine, petty officer, warrant and commission officer had more money than he had ever dreamed of. Mr Ramage always made sure that the prize agents he chose were honest. All too often one heard of a capture earning a lot of prize money, but when the division was made the prize agent had managed so many ‘deductions’ that he was the only one left satisfied.

  The irony was that Mr Ramage was not really interested in prize money for himself. Too many captains (particularly of frigates) thought only of capturing the kind of enemy ships that yielded a good haul in prize money. Renwick had heard of several cases where they had avoided action with French men o’ war, preferring to go after the rich merchantmen they were escorting. They were often tacitly encouraged by their commanders-in-chief. The ‘commander-in-chief upon the station’ and his second-in-command took an eighth of the total prize money, so that it was only human nature for an admiral to send his favourite young frigate captains cruising where they were most likely to take the prizes that would increase the wealth of both admiral and captains at no cost to the government. Indeed, both could always claim to be fighting the King’s enemies.

  At first Mr Ramage had been far from popular with the two commanders-in-chief under whom he had been serving in the Caribbean, at Jamaica and the Leeward Islands. They gave him the unpleasant jobs while sending their favourites after the prizes. But time and time again Mr Ramage had returned to port with rich prizes. It had been luck half the time, good planning the other. The commanders-in-chief had had to put a good face on
it because although Mr Ramage was not a favourite, they had their share of the money…

  Renwick listened carefully as the Captain gave him his orders for the Marines. They were straightforward enough, and thank goodness it was going to be almost entirely a Marine action. There was nothing wrong with the Calypso’s seamen, of course, but he found it very satisfying for the Marines to be left alone to do a job. With a sergeant, two corporals and thirty-two men, he had a reasonable force; more than enough for the job in hand. The sergeant, a corporal and sixteen men would go in the green cutter; himself, the other corporal and sixteen men in the red. No muskets, Mr Ramage was most emphatic about that, and Renwick had to admit he was probably right: muskets were clumsy weapons and for close-range work a pistol was easier to handle, quite as lethal, and just as accurate in a mêlée.

  Aitken was thankful that Renwick had grasped Mr Ramage’s plan so quickly, even though the Captain seemed to be placing overmuch reliance on the Marines. They were good enough fellows, but he had never met one that was not possessed of three left feet the moment he climbed down into an open boat; and whose uniform was not covered with loops and beckets which caught the triggers or cocks of muskets or pistols and made them fire prematurely, or sent a cutlass clattering on a dark night, so that the enemy was alarmed and all surprise was lost. Brave enough fellows, but for an operation like this one he could not help thinking it was like sending a young bullock along a burn to stalk a wary deer.

  At least Mr Ramage’s plan was simple; that was the beauty of most of his plans. Double the number of details, Mr Ramage said, and you quadrupled the chance of mistakes. Men became excited going into action, and excited men had bad memories. Aitken had already learned an important lesson – never put a plan down in writing. By all means give written orders, otherwise officers might suspect their captain was trying to avoid responsibility if anything went wrong later, but if the plan was so complicated that its execution required to be written, it was too complicated. All too often the bulk of any plan had to be carried out by seamen and Marines who lacked nothing in courage or initiative but who might not be able to read or write. They acted instinctively; usually they could be relied on to do the sensible thing. But, as Southwick once said emphatically: ‘Don’t stitch up anything fancy.’