Ramage's Signal r-11

by Dudley Pope

  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 ... 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 peculation 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 southwest. He could see nothing; from where he stood the ships were still hidden below the curvature of the earth.

  He had been so sure he had missed the convoy that even now he suspected the sails belonged to a flock of coasters which, after sheltering in the same port from the recent mistral, were now sailing together out of habit; the old routine of 'Let us proceed together for mutual protection'.

  Aitken was perched comfortably aloft and Ramage had to walk out from under the awning to watch him. Now he was pulling out the tubes of the telescope, checking that they were lined up with the marks giving the right focus for his eye, and then looking out to the southwest. He seemed to be taking an age and it was as much as Ramage could do to avoid calling up to him. Finally the telescope was lowered.

  'Deck there, sir.'

  'Deck here.'

  'Fifteen ships, sir, and all apparently steering for this bay.'

  'No escorts?'

  'None in sight, sir; just merchantmen jogging along under easy sail. They've a soldier's wind out there; south from the look of it. We might be lying to a local breeze in here.'

  'Very well, Mr Aitken, come down when you're satisfied. Lookout! Report any change of course or increase or reduction of sail.'

  'Aye aye, sir.'

  By now Southwick, roused from below by the shouting, was standing beside him, a happy grin on his face.

  'So our signal did get through, sir!'

  'Seems so', Ramage said, mildly irritated that Southwick had said from the start that it would, an example of the master's usual optimism swamping logic. 'We'd better change into trousers and shirts and join the ranks of the sans culottes because this is supposed to be a French frigate and we may get a visit from the senior master of the merchantmen.'

  'Do you think we could fool him, sir?'

  'No, which is why I want to spot him early and, if necessary, pay him a visit.'

  'He'll probably be flying some sort of pendant and throwing his weight about', Southwick said.

  Aitken walked up, rubbing his hands on a piece of cloth, trying to remove tar stains picked up from the rigging and balancing his telescope under his arm.

  'Half a dozen of them are fair-sized ships, sir', he reported. 'The rest range from large coasting brigs to tartanes and a small xebec. They're in no sort of formation, although they're following what seems the largest ship. She probably wants to get into the bay first to find a good depth. There'll be a few foul berths and fouled anchors in here before the night's out!'

  Aitken's words reminded Ramage that he had many decisions to make before the merchantmen arrived, and he went aft to the taffrail and began striding athwartships, still protected from the glare of the setting sun by the awning, and able - for what it was worth - to look at the semaphore tower.

  Twenty short paces from the larboard side to the starboard let him form in his mind the question of the semaphore tower. Leave it or cut it down? In favour of leaving it was - well, nothing: the French Army would find out soon enough that its garrison at Foix had vanished, and perhaps Aspet would mention the French frigate that had been at anchor near by. Would the Army put the two together? It was unlikely; there were no signs of a struggle; the French would just find the barracks empty and the tower unmanned. And the cows missing, providing they knew about the cows. The villagers would be no help - they would be hiding (and regularly milking) the cows, and from what that despicable lieutenant had said, would be delighted that all those robbers had vanished. No doubt the older folk who did not agree with the Revolution would regard it as intervention of Divine Providence and say a few prayers of thanks - until the replacement garrison arrived.

  So cutting down the tower would raise the alarm with the French Army authorities; leaving the tower and the rest of the camp intact would puzzle them as well. And, Ramage realized, he knew enough now about semaphore camps to attack a dozen of them once he had disposed of the convoy.

  Five turns back and forth across the quarterdeck was a hundred paces, and had been enough to make up his mind about the tower. The cutters could go over at sunset - which would be before the merchantmen were close enough to see what was going on, but the time when sending semaphore signals stopped for the day - and bring back the Marines, leaving them enough time to tidy up the camp and remove any sign of their visit. The idea of the French Army (through the men at Aspet and Le Chesne) slowly discovering that their Foix camp was deserted appealed to him; he knew it would have a ghostly effect on many French soldiers who, though atheism was the official creed, had been born and bred as Catholics, and no matter what Revolutionary talk had subsequently been dinned into them, still retained enough of their childhood training to cross themselves in moments of extreme danger and have a healthy fear when nearly forty men suddenly vanished without trace.

  He turned once again - the sun was lower now and peeping under the forward side of the awning - and considered the convoy now approaching under orders (his orders!) to anchor in the Baie de Foix to await an escort.

  One 36-gun frigate should be enough of an escort, though a few cautious masters would no doubt complain. The longer theships stayed at anchor the more chance there was that people from the merchantmen could discover that the Calypso was British: men might row to the camp at Foix, planning a night's carousing with the garrison, and raise the alarm.

  It would take a day or two for Aspet or Le Chesne to react to having no answer to their flags - Ramage realized that Foix had no horse, so it was reasonable to suppose the other two were without horses too, so they would have either to march to Foix or commandeer a horse from a village (more likely adonkey or mule) to find out why the answering flag was not hoisted. He could just imagine a soldier sitting astride a donkey, feet nearly touching the ground, and jolting his way to Foix. The poor fellow would probably prefer to walk; in fact from Ramage's own experience walking was always preferable to riding bareback on a donkey.

  That made eleven more double crossings of the quarterdeck; 220 paces to decide about the merchantmen. He realized he had examined the problem in detail and from every angle, but had made no decision. His feet ached, his eyes ached, his head ached. And the Calypso had swung close enough to the shore to have mosquitoes arriving any moment, each demanding their pint (it seemed) of blood. Very well, the merchantmen would have to come into the Baie and anchor while Orsini was rowed to each of them to hand over the written orders.

  So that was decided, and it had taken another forty paces, a total of 260.

&n
bsp; What was he to do with the convoy once he had control of it? He could not expect them to sail to Gibraltar and deliver themselves up to the prize marshal, but he could not spare fifteen prize crews - and guards for all the prisoners.

  Would they sail to the place he really wanted to have them anchored, where he could deal with them at his leisure? For three turns across the quarterdeck he repeated the place's name, as an infatuated lover might say the name of his mistress. It might work, and he had nothing to lose (except for fifteen merchant ships) if it did not. He went down to his cabin for one more look at the chart before the light went.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Paolo climbed back on board the Calypso in the darkness, and while the cutter was being hoisted in under Jackson's directions he decided that the last hour and a half had been the strangest in his life - so far, anyway. Serving with the man he hoped would one day become his uncle by marriage produced more surprises than did a Three Kings' party every January when he was a little boy in Volterra.

  He patted his coat pocket to make sure his notes were dry - there was always a slop thrown up when a boat went alongside a ship, and the cutter had just done that fifteen times: sixteen counting her return.

  'The captain is waiting for you in his cabin', Aitken said, his figure shadowy in the lantern light.

  'Aye aye, sir.' First lieutenants do not waste time, Paolo grumbled to himself: three hours ago, he and Martin were shifting their gear out of the signalmen's hut and making sure they had left nothing behind that could reveal the British had been there. Since then he had boarded fifteen enemy ships...

  Paolo could not get used to trousers and a white shirt, open at the throat, even if it did have lace at the cuffs. The Frenchman for whom it had been made - that miserable lieutenant - was too thin; Paolo was afraid that any exertion expanding his chest would rip it in half.

  'Orsini! The captain!'

  'Aye aye, sir.' Mr Aitken was such an impatient man. One could not report to the captain wearing sodden boots.

  A bellow from the captain coming up the skylights from the cabin proved him wrong, and he scuttled and squelched down the companionway, ignoring the sentry's salute in his agitation, and burst into the cabin without knocking.