Ramage's Challenge r-15 Read online

  Southwick broke the night-induced gloom. "Looks as if this wind'll veer to the north-west as we turn east into The Gut, sir."

  "Yes, it'll probably follow the mountains round and funnel past Gibraltar. Anything so long as we don't have to fight a levanter!"

  The strong easterly wind that often blew out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic kicked up vicious seas in the Strait with violent squalls, so that beating against it with a strong current (usually flowing eastward) could make the last few miles through The Gut very unpleasant.

  It was soon light enough "to see a grey goose at a mile" and then the men stood down from general quarters with the lookouts going aloft. A few men then waited on deck, looking across at the mountains of Spain, less than three miles off, and speculating about the Admiralty orders for the Calypso.

  "Blackstrapped again - who'd have guessed that a couple o' weeks ago?" one of them commented. "Still, a drop o' red wine, as long as it ain't Spanish, 'll make a nice change from rum and small beer."

  "Ah Stafford, you start to learn about the wine, eh?" said a plump, black-haired man whose accent revealed he was Italian. Alberto Rossi was (as he proudly told anyone who cared to listen) from Genova: the birthplace of Cristoforo Colombo, the man the English obstinately persisted in calling Christopher Columbus and the Spanish unforgivably Cristóbal Colon - "As though," Rossi protested, "he was a Spaniard! Accidente! He never went to Spain until he had thirty years."

  "Still, the Spanish paid his fare to America," Jackson said.

  The only American on board, he was the captain's coxswain, having served with Ramage for several years. He owned a properlyexecutedProtection, recognized by the American government and issued and attested by an American Customs collector, which certified that Jackson was an American citizen and born in Charleston, South Carolina. This meant he could not be impressed into the Royal Navy (or, if he was, an appeal to an American consul would get his release).

  However, Jackson was happy enough serving - was it George III or Captain Lord Ramage? People like Southwick often wondered; men like Stafford were certain: Jackson served the captain even if the King paid his wages. Not that Jackson needed the money. Stafford knew only too well that like all the men who had been serving with Mr Ramage for a few years, he had done well from prize money. They could all look forward to a comfortable old age - if they lived long enough! Death or prize money - they were the choice if you served under Mr Ramage, Stafford knew, and if you lived long enough you would end up a rich man . . .

  "Whatcher reckon, Jacko?" Stafford asked.

  "Well, we won't be joining a fleet, that's for certain, because there ain't one out here. I reckon Mr Ramage doesn't know himself, yet. Probably got sealed orders. Something special, anyway."

  "Why special?" Rossi asked.

  "Obvious, ain't it. There are only a few (if any) of our frigates in the Mediterranean, and the Admiralty's very short of them at home. Why not send a cutter with orders for anyone out here? Why send a frigate specially?"

  "Is sense," Rossi said grudgingly. "The Admiralty knows Mr Ramage understands Italian and Spanish, and knows the Mediterranean well. Hasn't brought him the happiness, though."

  Stafford glanced up at Rossi. "How so?"

  "The Marchesa. He rescue her, he love her, she go back to Volterra - though by now this Bonaparte probably has her locked up in a jail. Or in a grave."

  "But Mr Ramage is now married to Lady Sarah," Jackson reminded him. "Happily too, and she's a fine lady."

  "I know, I know," Rossi said impatiently waving a dismissive hand. "But you know for a long time it was always the Marchesa, and we all thought he would marry her . . ."

  "You did, but I always said no: she's a Catholic, and that matters in a Protestant country. Anyway, Lady Sarah is much more suitable as a wife, even if -" he hesitated, unwilling to say it aloud. "Even if the ship she was in is missing."

  "Accidente! Don't say anything against the Marchesa!"

  "Don't be so damned Italian," Jackson said. "You forget Mr Ramage and I rescued her. Who carried her wounded down the beach and got her into the boat, eh? That was Mr Ramage and me, and you were still skulking in Genoa at the time, slitting a throat here and there if anyone paid you the right price."

  Rossi grinned contentedly: he liked the reputation of having been a dangerous man in Genova, although glad enough to exchange it all for service in the Royal Navy after escaping from the Genovesi authorities, who had a narrow-minded outlook about life, sudden death and the ownership of property.

  "Yer know," Stafford said sadly, "seems a shame, dunnit, that a man like Mr Ramage, him been wounded a dozen times and the best frigate captain in the Navy, can't marry the first woman he falls in love with 'cos of a lot o' religious nonsense, and then loses the second one at the end of 'is 'oneymoon.

  "I wonder what did 'appen to Lady Sarah. A real lady, she was. I'm not saying nothing against the Marcheezer, Rosey, but you must admit she was a bit of an 'andful at times. Very Italian, when she got angry." He looked round warily at Rossi. "Nothing wrong with that, o' course - after all, she was used to being the ruler of Volterra, with a palace an' all. 'Ad to laugh when she used to come the empress with the captain!"

  "He had the measure of her," Jackson nodded understandingly. "He could handle her. She never did realize that however much she stamped her foot and rolled her eyes and demanded this and that, she usually ended up doing just what the captain intended all the time. But he always left her thinking she'd won the day - that was the secret of his success."

  "Ho yes, the captain was smart enough," Stafford agreed. "But Lady Sarah was always calm. A proper English lady. They're different from foreigners, you know." He nodded confidently, as if remembering the lessons learned during a long string ofamorous and cosmopolitan conquests. "They don't yelland wave their arms about an' put on airs and graces."

  "Is very dull, though, married to the calm sort. Like having sunshine every day: you need a gale occasionally for comparing," Rossi said emphatically.

  "Don't you believe it," Jackson said firmly. "That's why I like the Tropics. Always warm and most of the time sunny. I don't want to be for ever wondering if tomorrow we're going to have snow or rain or a minute's glimpse of pale sun. An English summer is like getting a sample of the year's weather all in one week!"

  Stafford patted his stomach. "Breakfast. . . and it's Louis's week as messcook."

  Louis was one of the Frenchmen who had escaped with Ramage and Sarah to join the fleet off Brest, and because the tiny group were royalists, they had accepted the bounty and now served in the Royal Navy. They had joined the trio of Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, and as a result they now spoke with the sharp vowels of a Genoese accent mingling with its English equivalent, the slang of the Cockney.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ramage stood at the taffrail looking astern. The sun had lifted clear of the eastern horizon and as the Calypso stretched into the Mediterranean, keeping to the middle of the Strait to avoid being becalmed under the Spanish cliffs, he stared at the African coast. With Gibraltar and Spain on one side and the mountains of Africa on the other, the Strait was known to the ancients as the Pillars of Hercules - and the pillars were perpetuated in the Spanish dollar sign: the Spaniards drew two vertical lines for the two pillars, and then entwined them with an "S" shaped garland.

  In the distance Ramage could now see the Ras el Xakkar of the Arabs, the north-western tip of Africa and known to British seamen as Cape Espartel, the southern gateway to the Strait and unmistakable because of a long ridge of rounded mountains which ended just behind it in a great black hummock, Jebel Quebir. Two or three miles beyond as the coast trended south, out of sight just now, was Yibila, only 450 feet high but a perfectly shaped breast with a dark-coloured cairn on top - the reason for its Arab name, The Nipple.

  The African coast lining the Strait was harsh: indented cliffs seemed to have been chewed by some great prehistoric monster, and were littered by many rocks, white-collared wh
ere the sea broke round them. The first port was Tangier, known to the Romans as Tingis and later called Tanjah by the Arabs. What a mixture of Spanish and Arab names there was along this coast: in fact both the Spanish and the Moorish sides of the Strait showed just how much the two peoples had been bound together in years past. Until, in fact, Ferdinand and Isabella drove the Moors out of Granada, their last stronghold in Spain, only a few months before Columbus sailed to discover the New World.

  The Moors had occupied Spain for seven hundred years. How much of their character, habits and morals had spread to the Spaniards, Ramage wondered. More than the Dons cared to admit, he suspected.

  Looking down at the Calypso's curling wake, Ramage was thankful that she had a fair wind and even more thankful that his preliminary orders from the Admiralty were to "proceed with all despatch" to the Mediterranean, opening his sealed orders only when Europa Point bore northwards.

  Their Lordships were not being overprecise: Europa Point is to Gibraltar what the white cliffs of the South Foreland are to Dover. Much more to the point, he was instructed not to call at Gibraltar. Why? Did the Admiralty know that port admirals delighted in sending off visiting frigates on wild goose chases of their own?

  Or were Their Lordships afraid that the contents of their secret orders might be revealed? Yet what in the Mediterranean could be so secret that the port admiral in Gibraltar (or a commander-in-chief if there happened to be a fleet at anchor there) did not know about it?

  He turned to look forward over the Calypso's bow. The ship was making good time despite a slack current. Sticking out from the Spanish shore (as though a pedlar was offering him an onion by its stalk) was Tarifa, a small island linked to the Spanish mainland by a causeway. Tarifa had for centuries been a sally port for pirates and privateers who lurked behind its steep cliffs, waiting to pounce on passing merchant ships. It was the southernmost point of Europe, beating Europa Point by five or six miles.

  Well, Ramage admitted, the Pillars of Hercules held many memories for him; it had been the gateway through which, as a young midshipman, he had first passed to see and smell the black smoke of guns in battle and hear the calico-ripping noise of passing roundshot. Promotion, fear, opportunity, boredom, excitement... the smell of pines on a hot summer day along the Tuscan coast... Gianna ... the excited chatter of Italians ... a jumble of experiences . . . and what were those secret orders going to add to the pile?

  He saw the new officer of the deck come on watch. William Martin, lieutenant and son of the master shipwright at the Chatham yard, must be about twenty-four by now. What were his thoughts on returning to the Mediterranean? His last visit brought him plenty of excitement - and had given the ship's company a good deal of pleasure, because Lieutenant Martin played a flute as though the instrument was part of his body, and its music as the sun went down at the end of a clear Mediterranean day brought cheers from the seamen who, expressing their pleasure rather than mocking, had nicknamed him "Blower".

  Martin listened carefully as the small, red-haired and freckled lieutenant he was relieving passed on such details as the course to steer, the currents to be expected, and any of the captain's orders which had not yet been executed. Lieutenant Kenton, who must be the same age as Martin, was the son of a half-pay captain in the Navy and, like Martin, was a competent and well liked officer who had also been in the Calypso when she was last in the Mediterranean. In fact as the sun lit up the Strait he and Ramage had been reminiscing about the time they had attacked Port' Ercole with bomb ketches and, in another operation, captured several of Bonaparte's signal towers dotted along the French coast.

  Now, as Kenton turned away to go below, Martin walked to the larboard side and stared at Gibraltar just coming into sight, and Ramage watched him pick up a telescope to examine the fortifications of Tarifa - a high wall with several towers.

  This was an impressive stretch of coast: the mountains rolled inland like giant petrified waves and were given the resounding name of Sierra Nuestra Señora de la Luz (and, as if to carry on the Arab tradition of Yibila, one of the peaks just east of Tarifa was named Tetas de la Luz). The next peak, Ramage noticed from the chart, had an earthier name, Gitano.

  Southwick came on deck and glanced round. Seeing Ramage walking to the quarterdeck rail he came over to join him. "We're far enough out not to have to worry about the off-lying dangers, sir," he commented.

  Ramage said teasingly: "Yes, one of the fastest ways of being put on half-pay must be to run aground on La Perla!"

  "Easy enough to do as you go into Gibraltar if you lose the wind with a strong eastgoing current, or a white squall hits you."

  "A court of inquiry will have heard it all before!"

  "True," Southwick admitted. "I wonder how many of our own ships over the years have ended up on those rocks, let alone Spanish and Moorish. But who named them? 'The Teeth' would be fitter!"

  La Perla was in fact a group of rocks usually covered and lying half a mile offshore, just where an unwary ship from the Atlantic and bound for Gibraltar might be tempted to take a short cut. Or, as Southwick had noted, where a ship losing the wind and caught in the currents and eddies (which often ran at three knots) would end up.

  The Rock: one of the most impressive places in the world, Ramage thought: perhaps the most. One can compare it with an enormous block of wood attacked by a madman with an axe. The north and east sides are almost vertical, like the end of a box; the western side, now on the larboard bow, is a steep slope, while the side facing the Strait is a series of steps, or terraces, which end at the aptly named Europa Point.

  Ramage felt hungry and thirsty, and irritated by the slack current which was slowing the Calypso:Nature was determined to make him wait and wait before opening those damned orders. "Come down and report when Europa Point bears due north," Ramage said, "and bring Aitken with you."

  Captains hated sealed orders which were to be opened at a certain position, or on a certain date. There was always the chance that one might subsequently be accused of opening them earlier. The best method was the one just adopted by Ramage: telling the first lieutenant and master to report to his cabin at the time appointed for opening the orders. Then there were witnesses and (if it could be allowed) they could read the orders and discuss the ways and means of carrying them out.

  He went down to his cabin, unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took out a canvas bag. It had brass grommets round the opening and a sturdy drawstring passed through the rings. The bag was heavy because inside there was a small pig of lead to make it sink quickly if thrown over the side in an emergency to avoid capture.

  Ramage took out the packet, secured the bag again and returned it to the drawer. Sealed orders. Well, they looked just like any other letter from the Admiralty - an outer cover of thick paper folded once from each side and the overlapping flaps joined by a large seal, the red wax covered with thin white paper before the Admiralty seal was impressed. Ramage wondered for the thousandth time how the Admiralty acquired that seal. Presumably it belonged originally to their predecessor, the Lord High Admiral, who would have used it until his office was "put into commission" - handed over to several individuals who became the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. But a fouled anchor - one with the cable twisted round the shank - was hardly suitable; in fact it would be hard to think of a more lubberly symbol.

  The Mediterranean - well, it was a change from the West Indies (and that brief foray south of the Equator). "Being blackstrapped" the sailors called it, a catch-all phrase that meant not only serving in the Mediterranean but being issued with red wine instead of rum. The word probably came from Blackstrap Bay (locally known as Mala Bahia), and referred to the fact that a ship bound for Gibraltar and losing the wind would be carried eastward past Europa Point and might then spend several days waiting for a fair wind, anchored off the bay and below an ancient watch tower, nearly one thousand feet up on a long ridge known as the Queen of Spain's Chair.

  Names - one thing about cruising in the Medit
erranean was that you quickly become aware of the sweep of history: the successive sweep of civilizations, rather. Gibraltar, for instance. Its first name (first to be recorded, anyway) was Calpe, given by the Phoenicians, and when the Romans arrived in their galleys they kept the name. Then, as the Roman Empire crumbled (after holding all the land that mattered round the Mediterranean), the Moors came and gave The Rock the name of Jebel Tarik. "Jebel" meant a hill or mountain. What about Tarik? Ramage remembered he was a Moorish leader - perhaps the man who first captured The Rock and had the mountain named after him. Then the Spaniards drove out the Moors seven hundred years later and named it Monte deGibraltar. Presumably this was a Spanish corruption of Jebel Tarik, particularly as the Dons rendered "Jebel" as "Hebel". He rolledthe words round with his tongue. Yes, "Hebel Tarik" could eventually emerge as "Hebeltara".

  He heard the clatter of shoes coming down the companion ladder and then the Marine sentry at the door announced the first lieutenant and the master.

  As soon as they came in he gestured to them to sit down. Southwick sat in a creaky armchair to one side of the desk while the first lieutenant, Aitken, sat on the sofa. This was an arrangement which respected Southwick's spasms of rheumatism rather than his seniority, since as master he was only a warrant officer (holding his rank by virtue of an Admiralty warrant), while Aitken held the King's commission.

  "Europa Point bears due north, sir," Aitken reported formally.

  Both men looked expectantly at Ramage, who held up the packet so that they could both see that the seal was unbroken. "My new orders from the Admiralty, to be opened as we pass Gibraltar."

  Southwick sniffed. He had a repertoire of a dozen or more different sniffs, and anyone knowing him well could translate each into a word or a phrase, even an attitude. This particular sniff, Ramage recognized, had two meanings: first, it's time Their Lordships stopped play-acting with sealed orders, and second, a return to the Mediterranean at this time can only mean trouble.