by Dudley Pope
Then suddenly she recognized one of the seamen. “Rossi! Come sta!” She held out her hand and the Italian lifted it to his lips, suddenly too shy to speak.
Then she saw who the other man was. “Stafford! What a wonderful surprise, the pair of you dropping out of the sky on me! Where is Jackson?”
Rossi pointed upwards at the deck and turned the chair, flipping back the arm but waiting for the Countess to sit in it first.
“I’ll go first, dear,” the Countess said tactfully, “then you’ll see how it is done.” The remark was spoken softly, and Gianna was grateful, realizing that in the Navy’s table of precedence the Countess of Blazey came first.
The Countess settled herself in the chair. Ramage quickly inspected it and swung over the bar to secure it. She smiled at the two seamen and spoke to them for a few moments while Ramage climbed up the ship’s side.
Rossi, watching him disappear through the entry port, whispered something to the Countess, and then made a circular movement with his raised hand. Slowly but steadily the chair rose, taking the Countess with it. “I love this,” she called down to Gianna, “it gives one such an unusual view of everything!”
The chair swung slowly inboard once it had been raised clear of the bulwarks and entry port and was then lowered until it was two or three feet above the deck.
“Jackson!” the Countess said delightedly as the seaman stepped forward with two other men to steady the chair, open the bar and help the Countess out. In a moment the chair had been pulled clear and men bustled about tactfully as she shook out her skirt, adjusted her hair and acknowledged her son’s salute.
While the chair soared up and was then lowered over the side again for Gianna, Ramage said formally: “Madam, allow me to present my officers.”
Ramage guessed he had about three minutes for the presentation before Gianna soared on board, and knew his mother was accustomed to all the ritual and timing of Court and naval etiquette.
“Ah, Mr Aitken—my son’s right hand! Will you have time to visit Perth? … Mr Wagstaffe—you had a good voyage to Gibraltar with that prize-frigate? … Mr Kenton, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you before, but I’ve read and heard all about your adventures … So you are Mr Martin. May I call you by your nickname and ask you to play for us—it is not often we can listen to a flute. My husband has known your father for years, of course … Mr Rennick, I’ve heard so much about you and your Marines that I feel I’ve known you for years! … Mr Orsini—Paolo!” She kissed him. “You left us a boy and you’ve come back a man! Your aunt will be with us in a moment! … Mr Southwick—not a day older. What is your secret? You have a recipe for eternal youth! … Mr Bowen, I hope my son has not been giving you too many patients! Oh, so few? That’s the way it should be in every action!”
She had just spoken to all the officers, with the Earl walking beside her, when seamen hoisting on the fall of the rope brought the red chair up above the bulwarks and Jackson hauled gently on the guy, fitted to an eyebolt beneath the seat, to make sure Gianna landed in exactly the right place. She was smiling with pleasure and recognized Jackson at once, laughing as he steadied the chair while Aitken appeared, apparently from nowhere, to swing back the bar and help her stand up.
“Blower” Martin, fourth in the line of officers waiting to be introduced to her, was suddenly finding it hard to breathe: he seemed to have an invisible band round his throat, like the Spanish garotte, and it happened the moment he first saw the Marchesa’s face as the chair rose above the level of the hammock nettings on top of the bulwarks. He realized that without any qualification or argument she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes widely spaced and—from this distance—seeming black. Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing. As she stepped out of the chair, he saw she was tiny. Her dress was a very pale green, probably silk. Laughing over something Mr Aitken had said, she was pointing to Jackson. Now she was pointing at Southwick and hurrying—to Martin it seemed like dancing—over to embrace the old man. Embrace be damned, she had just given him a smacking kiss on the cheek. He was laughing and now they were dancing a jig—and from aloft the ship’s company were cheering and singing!
Martin glanced round nervously: such behaviour with Admiral the Earl of Blazey on board, quite apart from the Countess of Blazey, could get Mr Ramage into trouble … Then he saw them both laughing, obviously delighted, and remembered that the Marchesa lived with them, was young Paolo’s aunt, and that she and Mr Ramage were in love.
Now he understood why seamen like Jackson, Stafford and Rossi talked so much about her: she had more life and high spirits in her little finger than any woman William Martin had previously seen had in her whole body. Jackson and another seaman with Mr Ramage had saved her life. That was some years ago now, but Martin remembered he had seen the spot where it had happened: someone had pointed it out during the attack on Port Ercole with the bomb ketches. He felt a sudden jealousy: to have helped rescue such a lady, and to know her so that when she kissed your cheek the whole ship’s company spontaneously cheered.
Five minutes later, as she was formally introduced to the Calypso’s officers, “Blower” Martin was tongue-tied, able only to stare and then to bow, and it was Paolo who stepped forward and described how they had been in action together “tante volte,” which Martin guessed must mean several times, and how Lieutenant Martin had commanded the bomb ketch. The Marchesa knew all about it, and made him describe how they had aimed the mortars.
With all the introductions over, Ramage murmured to Aitken, and later repeated to Southwick, his thanks for the reception. When the men were piped down from aloft and descended like swarming starlings, excited at the presence of the Marchesa and the Captain’s parents, Ramage said to Aitken: “You aren’t going to get much work out of them until we leave!”
“We’re only doing the dockyard’s work, sir,” he said sourly. “Eighty dockyard men were allocated to get the guns and round shot out. I haven’t seen one of them. It took me three days of bullying at the Commissioner’s office to get the hoys, and I began swaying the guns over the side with my own men just to get the job done. That damned Commissioner probably has those eighty men building a house for one of his friends—using Navy Board wood.”
“Probably,” Ramage said. He had seen long ago that corrupt transactions would be rated normal by the Navy Board; honest work was the exception. “Now, all the officers are invited to lunch with us—providing you can supply enough chairs from the gunroom. Kenton, Martin and Orsini could use a form. And was that hamper of food brought on board from the yawl? Ah, there it is; Jackson and Rossi are carrying it below. My mother has packed enough for a ship o’ the line.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE family’s visit to Chatham was still being talked about by Gianna, who had been excited at seeing again the men who had rescued her from the Tuscan shores and then sailed with her in Ramage’s first command, the Kathleen cutter.
The Times and the Morning Post were delivered early that morning and Hanson brought them in on a silver salver, offering the Earl his choice. He took The Times, saying: “I know you prefer the Post, Nicholas.”
The Countess pushed back her chair and stood up. “You men will want to read your papers. Gianna wishes to visit her dressmaker again, so unless you want it, John, we’ll use the carriage.”
“Good Heavens!” the Earl muttered. “Sit down a moment dear … Does the Post mention this?” he said to Nicholas without raising his head.
Ramage nodded but was engrossed in what he was reading. The Countess looked surprised and then slightly alarmed, but when she saw that Gianna was about to ask questions she held her finger to her lips.
Finally the Earl said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice: “Bonaparte’s done it, the scoundrel!”
The Countess sighed, needing no more explanation, but Gianna said excitedly: “What is it? Read it out!”
The Admiral looked across at his son. “You read it,
Nicholas: I’d like to compare it with The Times report.”
Nicholas flattened the page of the paper. “Well, peace has been signed. The Post says:
“‘We are officially informed that yesterday, the 1st day of October, the preliminary articles for a peace between Great Britain and France were signed in London between Lord Hawkesbury, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and M. Louis-Guillaume Otto, Commissioner for the Exchange of French Prisoners in England.
“‘It is understood that ratifications will be exchanged within two weeks, and that they will be followed by a Royal proclamation in which His Majesty will order a cessation of arms by sea and land.
“‘According to the preliminary articles, five months from the date of the exchange of ratifications will be the longest period during which hostilities can exist in the most distant parts of the globe.’”
As soon as he stopped reading, Gianna said: “It gives no actual details, then? Just that the preliminaries have been signed?”
“There is a second article, which may or may not be official. The writer simply says ‘We understand …’ That’s often a way the government flies a kite to see how Parliament will react; sometimes it is simply gossip.”
“Read it out, anyway,” his mother said.
“I’ll just tell you the main points. As far as I can see, we return to Bonaparte and his allies everything we’ve taken and he keeps everything—except Egypt. Anyway, starting with the West Indies: we return every island we’ve captured from the Dutch except Dutch Guiana but we don’t return Trinidad to the Spanish.”
The Earl sniffed: “That’s Bonaparte punishing the Dons for making peace with Portugal without his permission!”
Nicholas nodded. His father understood the broader sweep of world affairs better than he. “Denmark gets back the islands of St Thomas, St Croix and St John …” For a moment his memory flicked back to the Triton brig, his second command, drifting dismasted in the Caribbean after a hurricane, with St Thomas and St Croix in the distance.
“The Swedes get back St Bartholomew.”
A tiny island north of Antigua but one of the most beautiful in the Leeward Islands.
“France—well, Bonaparte gets back all the sugar islands except Guadeloupe. We lost thousands of soldiers and hundreds of seamen from sickness to capture them. Every capture raised a cheer in Parliament for the government. Now Bonaparte gets them back—by bluffing Hawkesbury, I suppose.”
Every one of those islands was as familiar to Ramage as Whitehall: St Lucia, and his attack with the Triton brig; Martinique, where he had seized Diamond Rock and captured a convoy, and his present command, the Calypso frigate, raiding Fort Royal—or Fort de France, as the Republicans had renamed it; Antigua with its mosquitoes and corruption …
“Now,” he continued, “the Atlantic. We return the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch, and Portugal gets Madeira.”
“So we lose provisioning ports on the way to India,” his father said. “Hawkesbury is a bigger fool than anyone believed.”
“You flatter him,” Nicholas said dryly, “because, in the East Indies, Malacca, Amboyna, Banda and Ternate are returned to the Dutch, although we keep Ceylon. But in India Bonaparte gets back Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and various settlements along the Ganges.”
“It’s unbelievable,” the Admiral said, his voice revealing his despair. “We’ve lost so many lives and beggared ourselves and now we sign a peace treaty which would be harsh even if we’d lost the war.”
“We won the war and Hawkesbury and Addington have lost the peace,” Nicholas said bitterly.
Gianna said quietly: “There is no mention of Italy?”
“Not of Volterra, but I’m just coming to Europe,” Nicholas said. “We return the island of St Marcouf, Egypt goes back to the Sublime Porte, and the Order of St John of Jerusalem have Malta, Gozo and Comino restored to them. France has to evacuate Naples and Roman territory—that is the only reference to Italy—while Britain evacuates Corsica, which means Portoferraio, and ‘all other islands and fortresses she has occupied in the Adriatic and Mediterranean.’ And, across the Atlantic, we restore St Pierre and Miquelon to Bonaparte so his fishermen have a base …”
“Can I return to Volterra?” Gianna asked flatly.
Ramage gestured at his father, who was obviously leaving him to answer. “Well, once the ratifications are signed, legally we are at peace with France and British subjects will be free to travel. Dozens will flock to Paris and Rome, I expect. But Bonaparte is going to keep the Republic of Genoa, Piedmont, Tuscany … all the Italian states, including Volterra. At least, that’s what the newspapers say, and I think they must have been given special information.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, caro …”
He knew it did not; he was trying to evade it. “You are the ruler of Volterra by right, custom, tradition and the will of the people. But Bonaparte invaded it—along with most of the rest of Italy—and this peace they are signing still leaves the French in occupation. I can’t see Bonaparte allowing the rightful ruler back into any country he is occupying.”
“Why not? It is my Kingdom!”
“That would be sufficient reason for him to refuse …” “This Bonaparte—he would be afraid that I would rally my people and throw out the French?”
“Darling, you might—and would, I am sure—rally your people, but you could never throw out the French.” He loved the way she always referred disdainfully to “this Bonaparte,” but the habit could be dangerous. “You must not underestimate ‘this Bonaparte.’ His armies probably total a million men. You’d be lucky to raise an army of a thousand—”
“Nico!” she said angrily. “Many more than that!”
“Cara, you must be realistic,” he said, choosing his words very carefully: he wanted to convince her, but if she lost her temper it was impossible to reason with her. “While you have been in exile, the French will have set up a government, as they did in Genoa, and new leaders will have emerged in Volterra prepared to work with them. There—”
“You are not suggesting my people would cooperate—”
“I am not suggesting it, I am telling you. There are always men who cooperate with an occupation army. If Bonaparte had ever occupied Britain there would be men—perhaps even people you know—eager to cooperate to get some personal advantage. It is the same in Volterra. Some of those who did not choose to escape with you when Bonaparte’s Army of Italy marched in—why did they stay?”
He waited for the question to sink in. After several long moments she said: “They had land, family, responsibilities …”
The Countess said: “Gianna, you know that’s not entirely true; you’ve complained to me about some that you suspected were staying to collaborate with the French.”
Gianna nodded miserably. “Yes, but it is hard to believe people can be so wicked!”
Ramage said harshly: “They can be and they are. Bonaparte obviously set up a puppet government in Volterra formed by people you know. If they heard you were coming down the Via Aurelia in your carriage, you’d meet with a fatal accident before you were within a hundred miles of the city gates.”
“But supposing I keep my arrival secret?”
“Assassins would find you in the palace corridors.”
“Then why did not the British insist that Bonaparte withdraw his armies from Italy?”
“We’re not strong enough. When a peace treaty is negotiated, the country with the biggest army and navy has the most say.”
“But you have just been saying that Hawkesbury—”
“Yes,” Nicholas interrupted, “Bonaparte has the biggest army, but we have the biggest navy, and our blockade of France has left his dockyards empty of timber to build and repair ships, rope and canvas. France is short of food. That’s why Bonaparte started the peace talks: he wants a year or two of peace.”
“A year or two?” Gianna exclaimed. “Then what happens?”
“As soon as his warehouses
are restocked Bonaparte will declare war again. There are still places for him to conquer. Britain, for example, quite apart from Egypt and India.”
“Then why does Britain accept his terms? Why negotiate? Why not continue the war?”
“Because this present government is weak and doesn’t believe we can finance the war any longer.”
“Finance it! Which would Addington and Hawkesbury prefer—to be bankrupt or prisoners of Bonaparte?”
The Admiral coughed and everyone glanced at him. “The fact is,” he said, “most of the present government don’t have the imagination to see that ultimately that’s the choice. The people in the country towns and villages can understand it but not the Addingtons and Hawkesburys. Pitt has many faults, but when he’s sober he is a brilliant treasurer.”
By now Gianna was weeping and both had the embarrassed attitude of men facing tears. Nicholas deliberately avoided saying anything to comfort her because the “this Bonaparte” attitude had to be changed, for her own peace of mind and safety.
“So traitors rule Volterra,” she sobbed. “Perhaps even my own cousins … Yes, they would do anything to hold on to their wealth and lands …”
“And get control of yours, too,” the Admiral said quietly. “That is why people collaborate with an enemy—for power and material gain.”
Two days later a letter arrived at Palace Street from the Secretary of the Admiralty, telling Ramage to report to the First Lord next morning at ten o’clock. Evan Nepean, the Secretary, gave no hint at what Earl St Vincent wanted to see Captain the Lord Ramage about, but it was typical of the irascible old Admiral that he insisted on using Ramage’s title.
Gianna was sure Ramage was to be sent to some distant part of the world with news of the peace, but both Ramage and the Admiral thought it more likely that the First Lord, as a gesture towards Admiral the Earl of Blazey, was seeing his son personally to tell him that once the ratifications had been exchanged—within two weeks at most, unless Bonaparte thought of more outrageous demands—half the Navy’s ships were to be paid off and their officers put on half-pay.