The Ramage Touch r-10

by Dudley Pope

  By now the Calypso was sailing along almost parallel to one end of the great semi-lune of beach towards the two ships lying head to wind at anchor, fine on the starboard bow. The wind - still little more than a breeze in here - was broad on the beam, so the frigate could stretch along comfortably. There was plenty of water; the Frenchmen were anchored in at least six fathoms, and there were three and four fathoms to within a hundred yards of the shore.

  Then, like a pickpocket leaving a crowd, the idea that had been lurking at the back of his mind, crowded in there but mercifully not lost, managed to slip out. He examined it carefully, as a parson might consider a subject for next Sunday's sermon; he looked across at the anchored ships and the gap between them. He knew the depth of water in which they were anchored; he guessed that by now the Calypso would be in sight of them if they had any lookouts.

  Tense at the quarterdeck rail and looking over the whole forward part of the Calypso, he could now see every detail in the moonlight. His men were standing to the guns, with tubs of water between them ready for mops to be soaked, the trigger lanyards were coiled on the breeches like springs, the topsails were drawing well with just enough wind to press them into gentle curves with the silver of the moonlight making the cloth of the sails look white instead of the warm sepia and raw umber of Admiralty flax. The waist was clearer now, with the two cutters which had been stowed there towing astern.

  There was only one question, which was how deeply did drunken men sleep, and the answer to that was it depended how deeply they had drunk. He could only guess that French seamen after a few days' beating in light airs would, the moment they were safely anchored in a secure lee like Punta Ala, drink deeply. Anyway, he found his mind was made up, and it meant scrapping entirely his plan and cancelling the orders he had already given. Later he might be accused of risking his men's lives in a joke - that would be if he failed.

  He called to Aitken, Renwick and Southwick, explained what he intended trying to do, and after the three men had considered it for a few moments, he knew they liked the idea. From the point of view of discipline it mattered not at all whether they liked it or not, but Ramage had long ago learned that men put their hearts into a plan they liked, whereas only their bodies went into something in which they did not have much confidence.

  Southwick, although the oldest of the trio, was always the one who was first to accept some unusual idea, and just as Ramage had guessed, Renwick was the last to see the merits of this one. Hardly surprising, Ramage admitted, since it took whatever glory there might be away from Renwick's Marines ...

  The three men left Ramage at the rail and moved about the ship, giving new orders. As he stood there alone, draped in his boatcloak, he listened idly as the bow wave chuckled under the cutwater. It was a chuckling: Ramage could always imagine a group of small boys down there chuckling away at some trick they had played. The ship seemed to be happy at this comfortable progress and wanted to share the fun.

  The French vessels were approaching fast, or rather the Calypso was approaching them quickly. No lights, no sudden shouts, no startled challenges - either the Frenchmen were all asleep or it was a well-planned trap. Which was it?

  They were asleep, he decided. They were damned odd ships, and all the men were asleep, snoring in that strangled and staccato way of men who had been drunk when they toppled into their hammocks. They seemed to have less than six gun ports a side. Yet dare he risk what Their Lordships would regard as an irresponsible joke if it failed? Always the second thoughts ... It would do the Calypsos good. They had somehow lost the edge they had had in the West Indies. It was not slackness - they still reefed and furled as though an admiral was watching - it was rather that they were slowly losing their zest. There was less skylarking now, fewer jokes, a heavier atmosphere. This was true of their captain, too, Ramage admitted; he too found the Mediterranean chilly and damp after the tropics. The moonlight view over the Calypso's bow was some compensation: the sea and landscape combined looked like a painting by an artist, one of the more imaginative of the early Italians who fully understood that strange and (if you have not seen it) unbelievable Tuscan light and managed to capture it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Calypso seemed to be gathering speed in the moonlight but he knew it was an illusion: time was playing tricks, as it always did when there was a whiff of danger in the air. Sometimes it speeded up and at others it slowed down. This time it was speeding up. Ramage watched the dogvanes, a string of corks on a stick, each cork with white feathers stuck into it. Flying from above the hammock nettings, they were fluttering just enough to show that the breeze, which was even more fitful in the lee of the cone-shaped peak called Peroni, was still from the south. Perhaps it was an offshore breeze distorted by the mountains because the sky looked settled enough, with no hint of a sirocco.

  The two vessels, lying near the beach at the end of their anchor cables, were like cattle standing almost side by side facing the hedge and waiting to be milked. Two hundred yards to go to the first one and the Calypso was moving almost silently: the occasional creak of the rudder, the squeak of a sheet or brace rendering through a block, the unavoidable flap of a sail, like a massive dowager puffing out a candle.

  Ramage stared at the space between the two ships, now on the starboard bow, estimated it at two hundred yards, and held up a warning finger to the quartermaster, who hissed towards the men at the wheel to attract their attention. Southwick was now standing on the fo'c'sle, facing aft and watching Ramage, whose shadowy figure he could see through the network of cordage made by the rigging. Men stood by at every port lid, holding the lanyard that would trice it up, allowing the guns to be run out. The Marines, instead of waiting at the taffrail to stream down the rope ladders into the cutters, were now lined up on either side of the quarterdeck, ready to act as sharpshooters. The plan was all changed but the Calypso was ready.

  One hundred yards ... seventy-five ... fifty ... you needed to know precisely the turning circle of your ship when only the rudder was acting... twenty-five yards and Aitken was glancing sideways at him: he could just see the movement out of the corner of his eye ... ten yards: then he snapped the order to the quartermaster and the great wheel began to spin as the men clawed down at the spokes.

  The Calypso, her sails starting to flap but the yards creaking as they were braced sharp up, began to turn to starboard, heading straight for the beach and for the gap between the two anchored French ships. Not a word was being spoken; language might not have been invented as far as the Calypso was concerned.

  As the frigate carried her way and glided in a curve towards the gap between the two French ships, Ramage watched carefully while the foretopsail was backed, the yard being hauled round so that the wind now blew on the forward side, slowing down the ship instead of driving her forward.

  He continued watching as the Calypso's stem came level between the two French ships and the frigate continued her glide towards the beach. Was she making a knot now? Barely, and slowing down fast. She would stop in just about the right place - there, she had: the bowsprits of the two ships were just abaft each quarter of the Calypso, and he could see Southwick gesticulating to the boatswain at the starboard bower anchor: it was already hanging down only a few feet above the water. Suddenly it was let go and the cable began racing out, and within moments Ramage smelled scorching from the friction of the rope against the wooden rim of the hawsehole.

  By now Aitken was standing beside the binnacle to give whispered instructions to the men at the wheel because as the cable ran free the foretopsail remained aback, pushing the Calypso astern and reversing the action of the rudder. The bows of most ships paid off to leeward as they anchored and Ramage wanted to be careful not to alarm (or intimidate) the French ships by getting the Calypso stuck athwart the bow of either of them, causing a splintering crash which would smash the bowsprit and jibboom.

  Now men aloft were furling the maintopsail, leaving only the foretopsail moving the Calypso astern, and at t
hat moment Southwick on the fo'c'sle gave the order for the cable to be snubbed, digging the anchor in by dragging on it and forcing one of the flukes down into the sandy bottom.

  Ramage had told Aitken and Southwick that he would be listening to the French ships, rather than watching them. In fact he had done both because the whole operation had, so far, gone very smoothly. But listen as carefully as he might there had been no hail, no challenge, no shouted question - nor any greeting, for that matter: it was as though both vessels were deserted.

  The Calypso's anchor was holding, and at a signal from one of the lieutenants close to Southwick, topmen swarmed along the yard and furled the foretopsail as the Calypso came back on the full scope of her cable to lie abreast the two French ships. From the shore the Calypso must look like a large dog with a half grown but plump pup on each side.

  Aitken came up to Ramage and said softly: "It's almost unbelievable, sir. I'd have thought that at least the splash of the anchor would rouse 'em out." He shook his head. "They must be sodden with the wine," he pronounced. Coming from Aitken, being sodden with the wine was akin to standing in the antechamber to Hell with Lucifer topping up the glasses.

  While Ramage examined the vessel to larboard with his nightglass, still trying to decide why both the masts were set so far aft, Aitken looked over the other one. Ramage could see no sign of movement but just as Aitken gave a warning hiss, a sudden intake of breath, Ramage turned to see a man at the taffrail of the ship to starboard. The man seemed to be trying to scramble over the taffrail, as though making a hurried escape, but he paused after a few moments and began relieving himself. He then hiccupped and went to turn forward to return again whence he came, but in turning he caught sight of the Calypso's great bulk almost alongside and lurched to the main shrouds, holding on to one of the ropes as if it was all that stopped him falling over the edge of a cliff. After a couple of minutes' bleary inspection he asked in French, his voice slurred and barely raised above conversation level: "When did you arrive?"

  "Half an hour ago," Ramage answered in French. "Is the captain asleep ?"

  "I am the captain," the man said, struggling with his dignity as he swayed.

  "I look forward to your company," Ramage said. "For dinner tomorrow, perhaps? I have a saddle of lamb that might interest you ..."

  As he had hoped, the Frenchman took the bait. "I am at your service, m'sieur, but we have to sail south at daylight," he said vaguely, adding: "We are several days late with these light winds. Have you found any winds to the north? I mean the south."

  "I've come from the north," Ramage said. "I must have been close behind you. I couldn't see any point in continuing to chase after puffs of wind, so I decided to anchor in the lee here and wait for the weather to change."

  "It's never going to change," the Frenchman said gloomily, his voice becoming more slurred. "Becalmed . . . we're all becalmed . . . sleeping close to the beach . . ."

  His voice died away and now Ramage could not see the man any more: he must have quietly subsided on the deck. But his voice had not roused anyone else.

  Ramage saw Southwick coming up the quarterdeck ladder, white hair flowing in the moonlight and seeming silver. He was still wearing his sword but from the grin on his face he must have guessed the last part of the conversation with the Frenchman.

  "I can't see them getting under way at daylight, sir," the master said cheerfully. "Their heads will be throbbing so badly they'll think it's drums beating to quarters! Shall we send away our boarders?"

  Ramage had been considering it carefully. He pictured Renwick and his Marines trying to force twenty or thirty drunken Frenchmen to wake up, stand upright, and then climb down into a boat to be ferried over to the Calypso as prisoners. It would be like trying to shovel up smoke.

  "No. I think we'll wait for the Frenchmen to wake up. They'll have such bad headaches, they'll think they've been wounded. Trying to get them under control now means sobering 'em up ... they'll be falling over like skittles. A really drunken one may want to fight. They'll wake up eventually and find a French frigate between them."

  Aitken gave a dry laugh. "Aye - the Calypso looks French enough and they won't be able to see the name on the transom anyway. I'll tell the men not to shout, so the Frenchmen won't hear any English."

  Ramage nodded when asked if the men should stay at general quarters, with permission to sleep beside the guns.

  At number six gun on the starboard side, sitting down on the deck below the level of the bulwark and with his back resting against the carriage, a Cockney seaman, Will Stafford, was finding a ready audience for his stories about three people, Captain Lord Ramage, the Marchesa di Volterra, and her nephew, Paolo Orsini, serving as a midshipman in the Calypso.

  "Yers," he said with an airy wave of an arm towards the north-east, "all that land over there belongs to the Marchesa, and if she don't 'ave no sons, then 'er nevvy, Mr Orsini, inherits the lot. When we get it back from Bonaparte, o' course."

  "What akshully 'appened, Staff?" inquired one of the seamen who knew something of the legend but realized he now had a chance of hearing the true story from Stafford. If not the true story, then one which would pass for true once the trimmings had been removed, like pulling off the outer leaves of a cabbage.

  "With the Marchesa? Oh, we rescued 'er," the Cockney said matter-of-factly. "Jackson, the Capting, a few others and me. This 'ere Bonaparte was marching 'is army down Italy and the Marchesa - she rules this state of Volterra, yer know - she an' some uvvers was escaping. Our frigate was sent to rescue 'er, got sunk by a French ship o' the line, and Mr Ramage - he was the only orficer left alive - took us in one of the boats to finish the job. Rescue the Marchesa, I mean."

  "Is it true she's very beautiful?"

  "My oath," Stafford exclaimed, and for a moment it seemed he might be at a loss for words, but he managed to get a grip on himself. "Well, she's about five feet 'igh, long black 'air, the air of an empress when she feels like it, she teases everybody, always seems to be laughing and her face - well, it ain't beautiful like they 'ave in paintings; it's - well, she's all that a woman should be only she's the only one I've ever seen who akshully is."

  "Where's she now, then? Where'd you take her after you rescued her in the boat?"

  "Oh, all that's too long a story for now, but she's living with the Capting's family in Cornwall."

  "'E's supposed to be in love with 'er, ain't 'e?" another seaman asked.

  " 'E is," Stafford said firmly. " 'E don't seem ter be doin' much abart it yet, but -" he lowered his voice and tapped his nose with his index finger "- there's problems. One is she's a Catholic, I think. The other is 'is father, the admiral. 'E's the Earl of Blazey, and when 'e dies the Capting inherits the title and a big estate."

  "What's that got to do wiv 'im marrying this Marchesa?" the seaman persisted.

  "I dunno," Stafford admitted frankly, lost in the aristocracy of Volterra and of the United Kingdom. "All I know is, if it was me I wouldn't 'esitate. She still remembers us - whenever she writes to the Capting, she mentions me an' Rossi, an' Jackson an' Mr Southwick. Funny, she speaks ever so good English but she can't get 'is name right; 'Souswick' it was at the start and 'Souswick' it remains."

  "Where did all this rescuing 'appen, then?"

  "Why, just down the coast 'ere a few miles. There's a big sort of island - well, it's not a real island, 'cos a couple o' causeways join it to the mainland - but just beyond, on the coast, there's a tower. We picked 'er up there."

  "So yer been along this bit o' the coast. But what are we doin' 'ere, Staff? Ain't many o' our ships around, not from wot they said in Gibraltar . . ."

  "Why, the Capting knows this coast like the back of 'is 'and," Stafford said contemptuously, baffled that anyone could be stupid enough to ask such a question, but unable to deal with two aitches in succession. " 'E speaks the lingo, and that's why we got these orders," he added mysteriously.

  "Wot orders, Staff?" At that moment Rossi joined the group, ju
st in time to hear Stafford's answer.

  "My oath, you chaps don't know nothink. Our orders are to capture or sink every French or Spanish ship we find. We got to make a bleedin' nuisance o' ourselves, like a fox in an 'en run."

  "Well, we've 'ad it quiet enough all the way up from the Gut," another seaman said. "We seemed to be keeping away from the Spanish coast to avoid trouble, not make it."

  "Ah, that's just it," Stafford said triumphantly, accidentally guessing that it had been part of Ramage's orders. "We got to get well into the Mediterranington afore we start cutting up rough. That way it takes longer for the Frogs and the Dons to get the glad news and send ships from Cartagena and Toulon, and it gives us more time to break the crockery."

  "I say, Staff," said a timid voice, "do they 'ave poisonous snakes 'ere?"

  "Snakes?" Stafford exclaimed scornfully but stumped for a moment. "Why, they 'ave 'em ten feet long. Not all of them are poisonous," he added reassuringly. "Some just bite and crush the bone."

  "Accidente!" Rossi commented calmly, "what a liar you are, Staff. If only you sing like you tell stories - ah, the opera we should have. La Scala would be the nothing by comparison!"

  "La Scala?" Stafford asked suspiciously.

  "An opera house in Milan," Rossi explained. "They sing there."

  "Yus, they do in opera 'ouses in England, too," Stafford said sarcastically.

  "Belay all that talking," a boatswain's mate growled, his interest now waning, "you're at general quarters."

  An hour later, with the Calypso lying to her anchor cable and occasionally swinging gently in unison with the vessel on each side as the breeze changed direction slightly, Ramage stood on the quarterdeck alone with his thoughts, the ship's officers purposely keeping clear of him and the men lying beside the carronades remaining silent.

  The Calypso seemed to envelop him: the decks beneath his feet, the masts overhead, the guns loaded and with scores of men waiting beside them. The ship was silent and there was no movement, yet it needed only one shout from him and thirty-six guns and the carronades would be blasting the darkness.