by Dudley Pope
There is only one way out of it, he thought miserably. Boarding parties will have to swim over on a dark night and deal with the guards.
Suddenly he sat up. There were enough swimmers in the ship’s company. It might work—it depended how often the guards were inspected by people from the Lynx. It would take a day or two of observation to find out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE FIRST SURVEY BOAT to come back, commanded by Wagstaffe and with Williams’s party, carried two excited men: Garret and Wilkins both came up to Ramage, who was walking up and down the quarterdeck hoping a practical plan would suddenly emerge from the tiderace of ideas coursing through his mind.
Garret’s grey hair looked as though it was going to compete with Southwick’s white mop, and his boots were dusty and his breeches torn. “Splendid, splendid!” he exclaimed. “There’s water, and anyway I estimate there’s enough rainfall for the crops we want to plant.”
“What about clearing land?”
“Several flat areas—we’ll need a few men to cut down some bushes, but I recommend burning. Burn and then dig. A few heavy showers and then we can plant. Then we can go home!”
Ramage turned to Wilkins. “I trust your notebooks are full!”
“Full enough,” Wilkins said. “The sight of the ships anchored in the bay. Why, we could see a big reef lying along here—” he pointed over the larboard side. “If we’d gone outside the prizes, we’d have run into it. A wonderful effect it gives, seen from the hills. It’ll be a challenge to get it on to canvas.”
“The Irish potatoes will do well,” Garret said, as though he had been spending the time Wilkins was talking coming to a decision about it. “Not sure about the sweet potatoes, though.”
“The sailors will shed no tears if you can’t make the yams grow,” Ramage said. “They were brought up on Irish potatoes and most of them hate yams. Same goes for soldiers, I imagine. I mean, they’ll hate yams,” he added for the sake of the literalminded botanist.
“What about the wildlife?” he asked both men.
Wilkins grimaced and Garret said: “Very little that we saw. Some turtles. The land birds you’d expect (and very tame), the usual sea birds of course, but no sign of coneys. I’d have expected some wild dogs—a couple landed from a ship would breed and quickly turn wild—but saw none. Signs of goats, but they’re a mixed blessing because they rip out everything.”
Wagstaffe said: “I saw half a dozen tortoises walking about, and a turtle swimming near the beach, so we might catch one to give us a tasty dinner, sir. There is a fantastic amount of fish.”
Wilkins interrupted excitedly: “The water is so clear you could see them from the boat, especially round rocks. I’ve never seen fish like them before—bright colours, gaudy designs, odd shapes.”
Garret shook his head mournfully. “All colour and no taste, typical tropical fish. Same in the Mediterranean; the French disguise the lack of taste with spicy sauces. Hot-water fish has to end up as a foreign kickshaw, I say. You can’t beat cold-water fish for taste. And I know the Captain agrees with me.”
It would be a brave man who disagreed with Garret, Ramage thought, but the botanist was right and he nodded, remembering too late that Garret was in fact repeating a comment of his.
He beckoned to Williams, who hurried up the quarterdeck ladder, dusty yet happy, like a man who had had a successful day’s rough shooting.
“Did you see enough today to set your draughtsmen to work?”
The Welshman waved a handful of papers he was carrying. “There’s a week’s work for them here, sir, and I expect White has as much or more.”
“What have you done today, then?”
“We’ve established where the signal station will be. Mr Rennick and Mr Wagstaffe agree on it, and we are using that as the base for all our calculations. We agreed on the site for two batteries, covering this bay, and one at the signal station. All subject to your approval, sir,” he added hurriedly.
“If Mr Rennick approves, I’m sure I shall,” Ramage said, reminding himself that the gunner, the one man whose opinion should have been of most value, was in fact keeping watch on the French Commerce—precisely because everyone knew that his opinion, if he could ever be persuaded or trapped into expressing it, would be worthless.
He caught sight of Rossi and Stafford walking forward and called to the main-deck: “Pass the word for Mr Martin and Mr Orsini.”
The Fourth Lieutenant arrived first, the skin of his face red from the day’s sun, his hat having protected his brow so that his hair seemed to be sprouting from a white skull cap. Ramage guessed the sunburn was painful; the skin of Martin’s face seemed stiff and his eyes were bloodshot.
“A successful day’s soundings, Martin?”
“I was just coming to report, sir. Yes, four fathoms over most of the inner half of the bay, we’ve sounded round that reef on our larboard beam. I have the depths where the privateer’s anchored, and depths close to the nearest prize to her, the Commerce.”
“Was the privateer at all suspicious?”
“No, sir. Some of the men gave us a wave as we passed them soon after we began; otherwise they took no notice. I let the men make plenty of noise and sing out the soundings, so there was no doubt what we were doing.”
“Where’s Orsini?” Ramage asked impatiently, for no reason other than to relieve an impatience which was born of frustration. The Calypsos are going to have to pay for what should be charged to the Lynx, he thought sourly.
“He took his quadrant below to wipe off the salt spray and clean the shades and mirrors, sir. There was plenty of spray about. Er, there seems to be about thirty men on board the privateer.”
“‘About’?”
Martin, suddenly remembering how the Captain hated vagueness, said hurriedly: “We counted 36 during the morning. I recognized the men who came on board yesterday. The tall man and the Negro were walking together for five minutes, watching our survey parties landing. They did not seem very interested and didn’t bother to look with a glass.”
Twenty-four guards in the prizes, 36 men in the Lynx. He still reckoned she would carry a round hundred. So forty men must be on shore guarding the officers and seamen taken from the prizes. Forty to guard a hundred? Anyway, how and where were the Lynx men keeping their prisoners?
Wagstaffe was walking towards him. He saluted and said: “I waited because I saw one of the surveyors was describing his work.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about the potato patch. Tell me about the prisoners.”
“Well, you can’t see from here, sir, but just south-east from where we landed that line of hills goes round in a tight circle to make a sort of amphitheatre. All the prisoners are camped in the bottom with the guards round the top looking down on them. Both guards and prisoners have rigged up scraps of canvas to make awnings. The prisoners cook over a fireplace made up of rocks.”
“What are the chances of escaping?”
“None, sir: the only way out is over the rim, which means climbing up the side of the hills. There are only a few bushes and rocks. We counted about forty guards.”
Ramage nodded, thankful that the details he had so far did not rule out the sketchy plan beginning to take shape in his mind. “By the way,” he told Wagstaffe, “you’ll have to make do tomorrow without Stafford and Rossi, and any other good swimmers.”
Soon after dawn next morning the sentry called that Aitken was at the door of Ramage’s cabin and a moment later the First Lieutenant arrived holding a sheet of paper.
“The list of swimmers you asked for, sir. I started with the twenty men you gave prizes to in Gibraltar. I didn’t expect the five-times-round-the-Calypso race to have results a year later! If you remember, sir, Rennick won, Martin was second, Rossi third, Orsini and Jackson tied for fourth position and the gunner nearly drowned!”
“And five guineas cost me six,” Ramage said.
Aitken grinned at the memory. “Ah yes, the judge’s interpretation of ‘the first fi
ve positions,’ and nothing being laid down about ties.”
“Yes, Judge Aitken and his interpretation of Scottish law! Well, what sort of list do we have?”
“The totals are quite good, sir. Twenty-three are powerful swimmers, fourteen more are good for a steady mile, another eight are fine for a fast half-mile but no good over a long distance, while sixty-eight are weak but can swim. In fact all but fifteen of the ship’s company can swim. Of the supernumeraries, one draughtsman, Garret, and the four masons can’t swim at all. Wilkins is a powerful swimmer—I’ve seen him, and when I spoke to him this morning he asked if you’d consider him for—well, whatever you have in mind.”
“Oh, just another swimming competition,” Ramage said innocently. “I thought we could practise on the larboard side.”
“Yes, we’ll be out of sight of the privateersmen and the prizes, so the women hostages won’t be offended at the sight of dozens of naked seamen splashing about.”
“Exactly,” Ramage said. “I want a boarding net slung over the side, so the men can hold on to it when they want a rest. And three or four Marines with muskets, in case of sharks.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Aitken said, thankful that the first moves were being taken against the privateersmen.
“And Aitken,” Ramage said quietly, “don’t look so cheerful. I’d just as soon have everyone looking miserable. It shows with a good telescope, you know, and we’d better assume those scoundrels Tomás and Hart are keeping an eye on us. A cheerful man has a jaunty walk. Those scoundrels think that none of the Calypsos have anything to be jaunty about—the officers, anyway.”
“I understand, sir,” Aitken said. “I can get very miserable at the mere thought of our problems, let alone solving them.”
“That’s the spirit,” Ramage said. “Looking sad may keep us alive—and those passengers too.”
He folded Aitken’s list of swimmers and put it in his pocket, after taking out another folded sheet of paper which he smoothed out on top of his desk and gestured to Aitken to come across and look at.
The First Lieutenant was puzzled by what he saw. “A raft, sir, or one of those South Sea things? A proa, isn’t that the word?”
“A cross between the two. Two stout pieces of wood form the floats, and light planks join them and make a sort of deck. And an eyebolt at each end—one for towing, the other for steering.”
“Ah, yes sir,” Aitken said, obviously puzzled not by the raft but by its purpose. “About—” he looked at the dimensions which Ramage had scribbled in “—five feet long and two and a half feet wide.”
“I want two, each with eyebolts,” Ramage said.
“Indeed, with eyebolts,” the Scotsman echoed and then looked up. He smiled and said: “Maybe I could better explain to the carpenter what’s needed if I understood its purpose, sir.”
“I’m sure you would,” Ramage said and explained it.
As the rising sun neared the horizon in the east, Ramage went up to the quarterdeck and watched the island turn from a vague grey blur into a heavily-shadowed shape that Wilkins would no doubt call an exercise in the use of black. A sudden movement by the taffrail made Ramage swing round, to be startled by the sight of Wilkins himself perched on the breech of a carronade, legs astride the barrel, a pad in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other.
“Good morning to you, Captain,” the artist said breezily. “Sorry I made you jump. I hope you don’t mind me making free with your quarterdeck, but these fat carronades are more comfortable than the twelve-pounders.”
“Go wherever you wish. What are you doing now?”
“A study for a dawn painting of the island, with the prizes in the foreground. Curious how you can really only see the shape of hilly or mountainous land when the sun is low, rising or setting.”
“Yes, a high sun washes out the shapes,” Ramage said.
“Ah, ‘washes out’—the exact phrase. You’ve noticed it, then?”
Ramage gave a short laugh. “Not living in a house means I’ve seen nearly every dawn and sunset for the past few years, most of them in the Mediterranean, or the West Indies, so I’ve watched shadows spreading across flat islands and mountainous islands, across the Pyrenees and the Atlas mountains, the Sierras of Spain and the Spanish Main. And at the end of it, Wilkins, I’ve a confession to make.”
“A confession?” The startled artist swung round, lifting a leg so that both feet were on the top of the carriage.
“Yes, they total more than a thousand wasted dawns, because I am no artist and I haven’t been able to record even the dullest of them.”
“Except in your memory,” Wilkins said. “Don’t envy me,” he added, almost a bitter note in his voice.
“But I do. Not just landscapes, but your portraits as well.”
“Well, perhaps a dozen portraits, but no landscapes. With portraits rarely does the sitter, and never his relatives or friends (but particularly his wife) see him through the artist’s eyes, or brush. The more worthwhile the landscape, the less popular it is. How many ‘patrons of the arts’ have ever seen dawn breaking from seaward of a West Indian island, or a Tuscan hill town as the first sun of the day washes it with pink? Or the sun setting through the Strait, with your Atlas mountains on the African side and Gibraltar or the High Sierras on the other? Wonderful sights, beautiful enough to make an artist weep for sheer joy—and weep, too, because no visitor to an exhibition of his work, no patron with the money to buy it, is going to believe what he sees on the canvas. ‘Very imaginative,’ the patron will say, keeping a firm hand on the strings of his purse. And he will move along the line and buy some miserable daub showing a wet sun setting over the damp Norfolk Broads—a sun looking as though it had been drowned a few times before setting through all that cloud.”
Fascinated at this glimpse of the world of objects, subjects and patrons seen through the eyes of a painter, Ramage said: “If you can capture Trinidade on canvas just after dawn, noon and sunset, I’ll be the first to buy them!”
“That’s good of you,” Wilkins said politely, “but it’s not the point I’m making. You’ve seen it: you know what it’s like. I’m grumbling about the people who don’t know and refuse to let the painter show them. You probably know the early Florentine painters were laughed at because no one in the north could believe that the light they painted actually existed in Tuscany. Finally, enough people visited Tuscany and saw for themselves, and the Florentines were accepted. But that was a long time ago, and I assure you that Tuscany is still the southern limit of people’s credulity!”
“When we get back to London we’ll hold an exhibition, showing all your paintings of this expedition—like the paintings of Captain Cook’s voyages.”
Wilkins slid off the gun and stood in front of Ramage, the sun’s rays giving him a ruddy complexion which did not disguise the serious look in his face.
“Do you really think we’ll ever see London again, Captain?”
The sudden question startled Ramage. “Yes, why ever not?”
Wilkins gestured towards the Lynx and the anchored prizes. “Those fellows seem to hold all the aces.”
Ramage’s harsh laugh was not one intended to reassure Wilkins; it came quite naturally as his memory flickered back over the past few years, when a variety of men had seemed to hold enough aces, yet …
“I’m not a gambler, Wilkins; none of the Calypso’s officers is. But we’ve all learned one thing—three aces can be taken by the two of trumps!”
“So we have a two of trumps?”
“I didn’t say that; just that we need to find only the two or three if we want to see London again, not necessarily an ace.”
Wilkins laughed, a cheerful laugh which also revealed the relief he felt. “Tell me, Captain, all those actions of yours described in I don’t know how many London Gazettes: how many of those were games won with a two of trumps and how many with an ace?”
“You’d better ask Southwick, he watches the games more closely than I. But I don
’t remember any aces—or court cards—at all. We always seem to get dealt fives or under!”
Ramage saw the soundings and survey teams assembling on the main-deck and went down to give instructions to Martin.
“Don’t be obvious about it, but each day I want you to take three or four soundings and get a rough idea of the depths between us and the Lynx. You’ll soon have that reef on the western side of the bay charted, but make sure you cover the eastern side, too.”
Martin grinned and he said: “Aye aye, sir; it’d be easier to tack than wear to get out of the bay!”
“Indeed?” Ramage said, his face expressionless.
He found Wagstaffe with Kenton cursing the tardiness of Williams, one of the surveyors.
“Once you can look down on the Lynx, I want you to give someone the glass—perhaps you had better do it yourself; it’ll be a welcome change from tramping up and down the hills—and watch the Lynx for a few hours. See what you can tell me about the state of discipline, condition of her sails and rigging, check her armament and see if she can mount swivels, and try to see exactly how many men she has on board. Tomorrow I want to know exactly how many men are guarding the prisoners. And, of course, note the boats leaving or arriving at the Lynx.”
Wagstaffe saluted. “Surveying is a very boring job; I seem to end up holding these striped poles and measuring angles. By the way, sir, once the draughtsmen really get to work, we’re going to have to give names to the bays, headlands and peaks. I mention it, sir, in case you want to state your preferences.”
Ramage was still absorbing Wagstaffe’s tact when Southwick came bustling up, holding a slate. “You want the same watch on the prizes, sir?”
“Yes. Not a boat visited any one of them yesterday.”