by Dudley Pope
It all passed in a moment and Ramage said in a humorous apology: “My card case is in another uniform, which I forgot to bring with me.”
“Think nothing of it,” the Marquis said, pushing his cup towards Rossi, who was unused to wrestling with a large urn and its two taps. “We half expected you. In fact your arrival has cost me a guinea.”
Ramage raised his eyebrows questioningly and Sarah said: “My father didn’t think you could rescue us before the pirates cut our throats …”
“The guinea?”
“Oh, I bet him a guinea you would find a way.”
“Obviously you are an optimist! If he won he could hardly collect!”
She shrugged her shoulders as though dismissing any such thoughts of losing. “After all, you did find a way.”
Her matter-of-fact acceptance of it all irritated him; too much was being taken for granted.
“We shan’t know if we’ve been successful until nightfall.”
The Marquis was quick to spot that Ramage had not spoken out of pique. “In what way, Captain? After all, we’re free and our former guards are your prisoners.”
“Yes, but supposing a boat comes from the Lynx and they find they have neither guards nor hostages now in this ship or the Amethyst …”
“What will they do?” the Marchioness asked.
“I can only guess, ma’am. Certainly raise the alarm, which will mean the hostages in the Heliotrope and Friesland will be murdered, then probably the Lynx will try to escape.”
“Will she succeed?” Sarah’s voice was almost a whisper.
“I doubt it. My Second Lieutenant, now in command of the Calypso, has his orders.”
“But has he enough experience?”
Her question was so harshly spoken that her father murmured: “Sarah!”
Ramage suddenly found he had lost all appetite for breakfast. “All my officers have been in action many times. The two left on board the Calypso have been in battle more times, I imagine, than the people in this cabin have seen a full moon rise. Now, if you’ll excuse—”
He put his hands on the table and began pushing back his chair. She touched his left hand with her fingertips and murmured: “I’m sorry: please stay. Don’t spoil our first breakfast.”
“Our only one,” Ramage muttered, “and I feel none too comfortable in these absurd clothes.”
She was the only one to hear him, and she went pale, withdrawing her hand. “That was unworthy of you.”
The Marquis, sensing currents he did not understand, turned to talk to his wife. Ramage then realized that to leave the table now would puzzle or embarrass everyone present, quite apart from taking him away from the immediate presence of the one woman he wanted to be with at the moment. What made him behave like this? Normally he did not take offence at what were obviously intended as ordinary remarks. Why now? he asked himself. The answer was almost stunningly simple: he was behaving like a spoiled child because he had thought that, however obliquely and however mildly, Sarah was criticizing him. Not even that—almost questioning his judgement. Not even that, he had to admit, repeating the phrase as though deliberately nagging himself: because she knew nothing of the way a ship-of-war was run, and nothing of the Calypso’s officers (except himself and Paolo, whose name must have lodged in her memory). She did not know, and could not know, that Wagstaffe and Southwick were more used to being in battle than in a drawing-room.
“Am I forgiven?” she asked quietly, and the tone of her voice showed it mattered to her.
“There’s nothing to forgive, but I forgive you twice, so that you have two in reserve, like Papal dispensations.”
She smiled with her eyes. “We are making progress from our first meeting!”
Quite involuntarily Ramage glanced down at her bosom: the scene of the first meeting, he thought to himself, is now modestly covered. He looked up to find her blushing slightly. Her eyes flickered down to his left hand, as though she had momentarily lost control of them, and he knew she was thinking the same, and the memory was not as displeasing as it might have been.
Stafford came round with a napkin-covered basket of hot rolls. “Bit ‘ard, sir and madam,” he apologized, “but they’re yesterday’s bake, ‘otted up. No time to make fresh this morning.”
“Thank you, Stafford,” she said with a smile that made Ramage feel unreasonably jealous of the Cockney, who went on to the other tables.
“You know Stafford?”
“Oh yes—remember, we were all slaving away in the galley: Jackson, Rossi, and Stafford. They’re very proud of themselves, too.”
“Oh? In what way?”
“They were boasting that they’d served with you longer than any of the others in the Calypso. They were telling Mrs Donaldson and me how they helped you rescue Midshipman Orsini’s—is she his aunt, the Marchesa di Volterra?”
“Yes, aunt,” he said, his voice as neutral as he could manage. “I had the impression she was much younger. And very beautiful.”
“She is young. Only a few years older than Paolo.”
“And he is her heir?”
“At present, yes.”
“You mean, if she doesn’t marry and have a son of her own.”
“Yes,” he said. “A son or daughter. If she dies childless.”
“Is that likely?”
“She left England recently to return to Volterra, so I don’t know what she’s doing.”
“Travelling through France? Isn’t that dangerous? I wouldn’t have thought Bonaparte …”
“We tried to warn her.”
“But noblesse oblige.” It was a comment, an acknowledgement rather than a judgement.
“Noblesse hardly obliges you to put your head in a noose,” he said sourly.
“Perhaps the Marchesa knows her own people best.”
“No, she has yet to learn Non ogni giorno e festa.”
“My Italian is sketchy but from Latin, ‘Not every day is a festa’?”
“Yes, now try, Non ogni fiore fa buon odore.”
“Hmm … ‘Not every flower makes a good odour’?”
“‘Not every flower smells sweet’—yes, it’s impossible to make direct translations, but she trusts Bonaparte’s treaty.”
“Your Italian sounds fluent.”
Was she changing the subject from Gianna? “It should be: I was brought up there as a child.”
“And you love the country.”
“Yes, that helps, too. But my French and Spanish are good enough, although at the moment they are not my favourite peoples.”
A sudden smell of hot food made him turn, and he saw his three seamen placing covered dishes on the sideboard. Jackson came over and whispered to Ramage, who spoke to Sarah. She nodded. “We always do help ourselves. It all smells delicious.”
Rossi came up the companion-way to the half-deck holding several shirts in one hand. He saluted Ramage and said: “For the ‘guards,’ sir. I took the brightest the prisoners were wearing, so they’ll be seen from the Lynx.”
Ramage gestured to the five Calypsos who would be pretending to be guards while exercising the hostages. “I hope they’re watching from the Lynx, so that your acting won’t be wasted. And by the way: you are supposed to be privateersmen. Don’t hit any of the ‘hostages’ but don’t behave in a friendly fashion either. Keep two or three yards away from them.”
He tried to remember the wording of Bowen’s report on the days he had spent watching the Earl of Dodsworth. Eight women walking the deck for half an hour, followed by eight men for half an hour. They used the after companion-way. The guards had cutlasses and Bowen presumed pistols, though they were too far away for him to see.
The sun was high over the island now and beginning to heat up the deck. Ramage could see half a dozen tropic birds soaring over the northern headland and the shadows were shortening on the western side of the hills. The Earl of Dodsworth’s decks had not been scrubbed for many days, and her Captain would be shocked if he could see the stains wher
e the guards had been swilling rum and spitting tobacco juice. He went down the companion-way and called for the women to go on deck.
He could see that to an onlooker everything was normal in the Calypso: the two boats used by the surveyors were anchored off the beach and he had watched the men, tiny ants in the distance, start their long climb into the hills. The boat making the soundings was slowly crossing the bay, stopping every few yards for a man to heave the lead. The bosun would be commanding Martin and Paolo’s boat today, dressed up in officer’s breeches, coat and hat. Some time this morning the boat would, apparently by chance, pass close to the Earl of Dodsworth, in case there were messages to be passed.
Sarah was as good as her word, calling instructions to the Calypsos. “One of you should spit over the side—well, not exactly spit … they delighted in trying to embarrass us.”
“Spurgeon,” Ramage called. “Relieve yourself at the larboard entry port.”
“Well, sir … I … er, well, I don’t think I can, sir, I just went a’fore the ladies …”
“Pretend,” Ramage growled.
After a few minutes, Sarah walked past where Ramage was waiting in the lee of the half-deck. “As soon as we spread out, the guards would get excited and make us bunch up together.”
Riley had heard her words and began shouting: “Come on, you women! Keep together; this ain’t a parade to church, yer know!”
“Perfect,” Sarah said. “That’s just the sort of thing they used to say.”
Jackson suddenly called urgently: “There’s a boat leaving the Lynx!”
It had to happen, Ramage thought bitterly, pulling off his uniform jacket. A man in a white shirt could be a guard because the bulwarks hid his breeches. He stared at the Lynx through the gun ports, using a telescope he had found in the binnacle drawer. Four men at the oars, a couple of men sitting in the sternsheets. Not Tomás, nor Hart. Nor was the boat in any rush: whatever she was doing and wherever she was going, it was something routine. If she came to the Earl of Dodsworth …
With the exception of the Marchioness, who was sitting in a chair right aft, the women were in a bunch, Sarah being closest to him. She had very quickly worked out a way of talking to him.
“Er, Captain …”
He turned, lowering the telescope.
“Yes, ‘Miss for now’?”
“Lady Sarah, actually, Captain …” Ramage recognized the querulous voice of Mrs Donaldson, a big-boned woman who was the wife of the owner of jute factories in Madras. “Her father is a marquis, you know.”
“Forgive me, Lady Sarah,” Ramage said, and from the impatient shake of the head knew he had not added to his knowledge of her. As Lady Sarah she could be the unmarried daughter of the Marquis, but if she had married someone without a title, she would still be Lady Sarah. Only if she had married someone with a title of his own could she have become “Lady Blank.” But … the devil take it, he could not even remember the Rockleys’ family name!
“Is the boat coming here?” demanded Mrs Donaldson.
“To us or the Commerce. I can’t tell yet because the Commerce is almost between us and the privateer.”
“The hostages in the Commerce—your men have not rescued them yet?”
“The Commerce has no passengers, as far as we can make out.” “What happens if the boat comes here?”
“If the men come on board, then we have lost the game.”
“Why? How ridiculous! There can only be a dozen men in that boat!”
“Half a dozen,” he could not resist correcting her, particularly since the number had no relevance.
“Well, you have two dozen! You can easily capture them,” Mrs Donaldson declared. “Why, we women could deal with them!”
“I’m sure you could,” Ramage said gently. “And having killed or secured them, then what happens?”
As Mrs Donaldson gave her views Ramage saw that Sarah had at last realized the problem: she bit her lower lip between her teeth, but Mrs Donaldson, in a patronizing voice, announced: “Why, we add them to our prisoners and tell that horrible privateer man that now we have hostages, and if he doesn’t go away we’ll hang them all! Won’t we, ladies!” She looked round her for agreement. A couple said, “Yes, of course,” with the eagerness of nitwits, while the others were watching Sarah, perhaps unsure of what was making her doubtful but, after having her as a neighbour for so long, aware of Mrs Donaldson’s intellectual shortcomings.
“I assure you, madam, that the privateer Captain would not jib at the sight of a dozen of his men dangling by their necks from nooses: privateers are desperate men, and if only a few survive the action, it means their share of the spoils is bigger.”
“Don’t you believe it, Mr Ramage—”
“Lord Ramage,” Sarah corrected, ignoring Ramage’s request in her exasperation.
“Oh, indeed? One of the Blazeys, then? How interesting. St Kew, in Cornwall, isn’t it? You must be the Earl of Blazey’s son—”
“If that boat does not return safely to the Lynx, madam,” Ramage interrupted her, “the privateer captain will give a signal which will result in all the passengers in the Friesland and Heliotrope being killed by the guards. Four men and four women in the Dutch ship, two men, two women and two children in the French.”
“Oh dear me, what will happen? You must do something, young man; do something at once!”
“He is trying to decide now, and he doesn’t need your help,” one of the women said. “Come on, leave the Captain to his business.” With that the woman walked aft, followed by several of the others. Mrs Donaldson, however, stood where she was, twirling her parasol and tapping a foot.
“Young man, I demand to know what you intend doing!”
Ramage nodded to Rossi, who politely but firmly took Mrs Donaldson’s arm. “Signora, is down to your cabin now, the sun is too strong.”
“But I don’t wish—”
“This way,” Rossi said, “is dangerous, too much sun.” He took Mrs Donaldson’s parasol and held it so low she could hardly see and, with her protesting that she liked the sun, the Italian had her almost trotting along the deck.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah murmured, “I continually underestimate you.”
“Not now you don’t; I’ve no idea what we do if that boat comes here. Kill or capture them to save ourselves, and kill the passengers in both the remaining ships—or surrender ourselves and save the others.”
“How many passengers in the Heliotrope and Friesland?”
“Fourteen.”
“Compared with sixteen here and how many in the Amethyst?”
“You have to balance twenty-six freed with fourteen still held hostage.”
“So you’ve already considered it from that point of view,” she said. “Like a butcher weighing up meat.”
He sighed and lifted the telescope. “I happened to know the figures; I’ve been living with them for the last few days. You were the first hostages to be released only because you were the nearest to the Calypso,” he added brutally, “and the Amethyst was the next nearest.”
“I should have thought you would have considered it your duty to rescue the largest British ship first anyway,” she said, a cold flatness in her voice.
“I’m not rescuing any particular ship. My men and I are saving lives of innocent people—or trying to.”
“Don’t say that to my father—he was the Governor General of Bengal.”
“I know—I remembered that at breakfast.”
“So that had no bearing on your rescuing us first?” Obviously she found it hard to believe.
He snapped the telescope shut with a vicious movement. “You are at liberty to question my officers when you have the chance. We knew nothing of the identity of any of the hostages.”
“You mean the privateersmen said nothing to you?”
“Do they know?”
“Well, I’m sure they do. Someone must have told them!”
“I doubt it. I believe that they don’t know for
the simple reason that they could get almost a king’s ransom for your father. A Governor General’s ransom, anyway. How much would the British government pay to free him? Or the directors of the East India Company? They’d pay whatever was demanded.”
“Well, you’ve saved them the expense,” she said. “It has cost you what must be a very irritating encounter with me. And if that boat comes here, I suppose everything is wasted anyway.”
“The boat isn’t coming here.”
“How do you know?”
Ramage stared at her and then gave her the telescope. “Give it to Mrs Donaldson when you’ve finished. The rectangular boxes they are lifting from the water are lobster pots.” He bowed and went down the companion-way, knowing that his hands were shaking with anger but both surprised and pleased with himself for not showing it. Mrs Donaldson—thank goodness Rossi had understood that unspoken order. But Sarah—there was no way of lowering a parasol over her. He wondered what she looked like, lying naked on a bed. Well, he would never know, but one thing was certain: she could be damned annoying fully dressed on the upper deck.
He could just make out the first stars in Orion’s Belt as they rose over the hills, and he glanced across at the black shape which was the Heliotrope. It was going to be a long swim tonight: the Heliotrope was much farther from the Earl of Dodsworth than the East Indiaman was from the Calypso, and his own job was going to be a lot more difficult because he would be warning French passengers. Still, he spoke good enough French to deal with that. Much worse was the problem facing Aitken, who had to board the Friesland and warn a number of Dutch men and women.
It was so peaceful—and so improbable that Captain Ramage, commanding the Calypso frigate, should be sitting here on number four gun, starboard side, in a John Company ship anchored off an Atlantic island so small few had heard of it. And thinking so many random thoughts his head seemed to be a mill stream in flood.
His fingers traced the “GR II” cast into the gun between the trunnions. Not a new gun, by any means, but not used enough times to make a gun from the previous reign less useful. Well cared for, of course; he could feel the smoothness revealing many coats of gun lacquer, and in daylight he had seen that the ropes of the breeching, side and train tackles were in good condition: one could tell that without twisting the rope to see if the heart was still a golden brown, even though the outside had weathered grey.