Ramage's Signal

by Dudley Pope

  “Yes, indeed, four children!”

  “—and no doubt the poacher had, too.”

  Louis nodded miserably, understanding only too well the parallel Ramage had drawn. “Yes, two children.”

  “Very well,” Ramage said crisply, “I want honest and quick answers. You have guards on the track to Foix. Who, in the next week or two, do you expect to visit you from Foix—to come along that track?”

  “No one,” Louis said. “The month’s provisions arrived five days ago, no inspection is due. And now the village knows we shot the poacher, no local people.”

  “Good. Now for signals. How does the system work?”

  “Well, at daylight the men go on watch, with the chief signalman taking the telescope to the platform on top, and looking at Station Eleven—that’s at Le Chesne, just to the east—and Station Thirteen, Aspet, just to the west. If one or other has the signal flag up he indicates he is ready to receive.”

  “The signal flag?”

  “Yes, that is a recent idea. There is a flagpole on the platform now, and when a station has a signal it hoists a yellow flag. The next station hoists a yellow flag in answer and the first station begins sending when the second lowers its flag.”

  “How is the signal actually sent?”

  “By opening the shutters to make the patterns in the book.” He pointed to the small volume.

  “The whole signal is sent without acknowledging it word by word?”

  “Yes. If there is any misunderstanding the receiver hoists the flag and the sender repeats the last word until the receiver lowers the flag.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, the receiver passes on the signal to the next station beyond.”

  “But surely hoisting a yellow flag can be confusing.”

  “Oh no!” Louis said, anxious to avoid any misunderstanding. “Each station uses a square yellow flag to communicate with the next one to the east of it, and a triangular red flag for the one to the west.”

  Ramage nodded, giving the man a reassuring smile. “You pass on a message immediately?”

  “Not always,” Louis admitted guiltily. “An unimportant one received while the men are having bread and cheese and a glass of wine might be left for perhaps half an hour, or until they’ve finished a game of cards. Not anything important, of course.”

  “So yesterday there were just these signals: that was all that the signalmen did yesterday?”

  “Yes. It was a quiet day.”

  “You do not report passing ships?” He had deliberately taken his time in leading up to that question in case the man was sharper than he seemed.

  “Oh, no, we have no orders to do that. Nor,” he said, anticipating Ramage’s next question and anxious to help, “do we keep a watch to seaward, in case you wondered why the guardhouse is on the landward side of the camp.”

  “So when you saw the frigate passing to the westward about noon, you merely noted that she flew French colours and then ignored her?”

  “Did she fly French colours? I did not look. Most passing ships fly no colours, you understand; this is an isolated part of the coast.”

  “Do many ships anchor in this bay?”

  “Some—occasionally a ship-of-war stays for a week or two, sometimes a privateer. Of course, we have convoys in here; especially when one is forming up, with ships joining from many ports near here. You know merchant ships—they’re always late.”

  “Yes,” Ramage said, and called for the sentry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RAMAGE managed to get two hours’ sleep before washing and shaving and then going on shore at daybreak with Aitken to inspect the semaphore station. The insects were still whining and the metallic buzz of the cigales was loud. An occasional startled bird bolted into the maquis, squawking its alarm. Rennick was waiting on the beach, self-conscious and bulging in a French soldier’s uniform made for a slimmer man.

  He saluted as Ramage, holding the leather pouch, jumped down from the boat. “Welcome to the Foix semaphore station, sir. Everything is under control—except the semaphore!”

  “I’m sure it is,” Ramage said. “I’ve come over to inspect the tower and see how the semaphore works, and give our signal-men their instructions.”

  “You have the code, sir?” the Marine said eagerly. “It was among those papers we found?”

  “It was, and you must have made a clean sweep!”

  Ramage and Rennick, who led the way, went up the narrow track to the semaphore tower perched on the hill, followed by Orsini, Jackson, Rossi and Stafford, all dressed in French uniforms.

  “Too dark when I was up there a few minutes ago to see how it works, sir,” Rennick said. “Looks very complicated.”

  “It’ll give Orsini and Jackson something to do,” Ramage said and opened the pouch. He selected a sheet of paper and gave it to Rennick. “That’s your copy of the semaphore alphabet. There’s no code, as you’ll see. Orsini and Jackson must make a copy: that one should be kept up on the platform.”

  Rennick glanced over the diagram of the twenty squares as he walked. “There’s a note here about flags.”

  Ramage explained how the red and yellow flags were used and by the time he had finished they had arrived at the base of the tower. Apart from big baulks of timber sunk into the ground and the bracing holding it vertical, the only thing that could be said about it was, Ramage realized, that it was not a tower. A section of wooden wall, a huge, wooden door with no doorway or walls … As he glanced up he could see the five shutters, closed now like blank sash windows, but each raised and lowered by tackles.

  The rope tails of the tackles all led to the ground at the middle of the eastern side and were made up separately on large cleats, each of which had numbers from one to five painted on it corresponding to the shutter it controlled. One series of numbers was in red; the other in yellow. Ramage was puzzled for a moment, and then realized that a signal to Aspet would have to be reversed, as though seen in a mirror, for Le Chesne to read it properly.

  The three seamen and Orsini were examining the ropes and the shutters, and Ramage pointed out the reason for the different positions for the red numbers and the yellow. Then Orsini found a ladder fixed to the framework and leading up to the small platform which, as the sun rose, they could now see quite clearly fixed on top. Orsini scrambled up and a minute or two later called down: “There’s a small flagpole and a couple of flags bundled up, one red and the other yellow. Just as the book says.”

  “Stay up there,” Ramage said. “You have the telescope. Can you see the tower to the east yet?”

  “Yes, sir, but I wouldn’t be able to distinguish the flag.”

  Ramage looked at his watch. “What about the one to the west, Aspet?”

  “I can make out the tower clearly, sir, but the flags would be difficult. Both towers have high land behind them in the distance. It won’t affect seeing the shutters, but a waving flag …”

  “Very well. We’d better try out these shutters before the other towers start their watch. You stay up there and keep a lookout,” he told Orsini. “You—” he pointed at Stafford and Jackson—”haul on the purchase marked in yellow with ‘1.’”

  The two men gave a prodigious heave, there was a heavy thud and Rennick, who was standing farther back and was looking up, shouted: “That’s the top one—you’re showing ‘A,’ but remember you’re only hoisting up a light shutter, not a maintop yard!”

  “Lower gently,” Ramage added. “We don’t want to spend the rest of the morning doing repairs.”

  “Flag, sir!” Orsini yelled, “from Aspet.”

  “Hoist your yellow one,” Ramage called, “only don’t be too quick about it.”

  After Orsini had it hoisted Ramage said: “Are you ready with your telescope and the crib for the alphabet? Very well, lower your flag and call down the signal letter by letter.”

  “C … I … N … PQ …” Orsini called. “Now a space—ah, it starts again, UVW … A … I … S … S … E …
A … UVW … XYZ, … S … 0 … N … T, … A … R … R … I … UVW … E … S … , space, figures signal, 3 … 4. Now the flag hoisted and dipped twice, so it’s the end of the message.”

  “Hoist your yellow one once,” Ramage said, turning to Jackson. “Well, that’s an easy signal for you to start with. ‘Cinq vaisseaux sont arrivés,’ Barcelona is telling Toulon ‘Five ships have now arrived,’ and don’t forget the ‘34,’ which identifies the station. You saw how the single signals PQ and UVW were used for the Q in ‘cinq’ and the V in ‘arrivés?’”

  “Yes, sir, and they don’t seem to hurry, do they?”

  “Just as well,” Ramage said, and called up to Paolo: “Hoist your red flag and watch for Le Chesne to answer.”

  A full five minutes elapsed before an exasperated Paolo shouted: “They’re answering now; they’ve just hoisted a yellow.”

  “Lower yours,” Ramage said, and to Jackson he said: “Have you the correct halyard for ‘C?’” Then, before Jackson had time to answer he shouted to Orsini: “Did Aspet’s shutters open simultaneously when there was more than one?”

  “It varied, sir. A very slack crowd over there.”

  Maybe so, Ramage thought, but Foix is not suddenly going to become the fastest station in the whole chain. He walked back a few paces and joined Rennick, looking up at the shutters.

  “Very well, let’s have ‘C.’”

  The shutter slid up and opened at the bottom right-hand corner.

  “Now ‘I.’”

  Ramage noticed that the pattern for “I” was the opposite of “F”—the top one and the upper of the two on the left.

  Jackson and his team had just finished “vaisseaux” when Ramage looked at his watch.

  “Slow down, you’re sending twice as fast as Aspet.”

  The American laughed at some comment from Stafford. “I was just telling Staff, sir, that this is a good way to teach him how to spell, and he was saying it was too fast.”

  Ramage took a small book from the leather pouch and handed it to Rennick. “Give that to Orsini when he’s finished: that’s his signal log. All messages to be signed and the time of receipt and sending noted down. And make sure he records whether the signal is going east or west.”

  With that he looked round to see Aitken coming up to the mound, having just finished his inspection of the camp. Although Ramage did not know whether the seamen and Marines would be occupying them for a few hours, days or weeks, he wanted to examine the huts and, confident that Paolo and Jackson would be able to transmit the message, walked with Aitken towards the nearest hut, the most westerly, and the nearest to where the gig had landed.

  Almost at once he noticed a well-cultivated garden, fifteen yards square and with a big cask at one corner and a watering can beside it. Some vegetable that Ramage did not recognize was growing in neat rows.

  “The Lieutenant said they provided everything for themselves except dried goods,” Ramage commented. “They must enjoy gardening.”

  “There are four plots like this, sir,” Aitken said. “And the well is thirty or forty yards along the track past the guardhouse. Three cows live in a fenced-in meadow along with the powder magazine.”

  Ramage was not sure whether Aitken saw any irony in that. It was not that the Scot lacked a sense of humour; rather that it took a lot to surprise him.

  By now they had reached the first hut, walking along a roughly paved path, and Aitken held open the door. The building, the lower half stone and the upper wood, but substantial and cool, held six beds. This must be the quarters of the signalmen. There was a locker beside each bed, and Ramage remembered the French Lieutenant saying that the chief signal-man kept the station’s telescope under lock and key.

  He glanced at the windows and door to determine which was the coolest bed, looked at the padlock on its locker and then noted that none of the other lockers could be secured.

  He saw Aitken was wearing a cutlass. “Prise off the door, please,” he said, and the startled Scot slid the blade into the gap on the hinge side of the door while Ramage held the locker steady between his knees. The door flung open with a crash and Ramage, without looking down, said: “Take out the telescope. If it’s better than the one Orsini has, let him have it.”

  Aitken grinned as he examined the glass. “You’d make a good magician, sir.” He noted the tripod fitting, pulled out the tubes, adjusted the focus by looking out through the door and up at Orsini perched on his platform, and then slid them shut with a snap. “It’s a very good glass; much better than the one the boy has.”

  He tucked it under his arm as Ramage finished inspecting the room. The beds were strong but crude, the mattresses were stuffed with straw, and there was a table and two long forms.

  “I was thinking about these gardens, sir,” Aitken said cautiously.

  “You feel like an hour’s weeding?” Ramage joked.

  “No, sir, but if we’re not staying long we might as well collect the fresh vegetables, and milk the cows, and if we’re staying a mite longer, it’d be worth watering the plants.”

  “I’ve no idea,” Ramage said, but went to the door, followed by Aitken, and pointed up to wispy clouds which were beginning to come in from the north-east. “I have a feeling the mistral will be blowing in a few hours, and all this low land over there to the north-west isn’t going to give the Calypso a scrap of shelter.”

  “I’d spotted the clouds but that’s the first sign of a mistral I’ve ever seen,” Aitken said. “It’s a strong wind, isn’t it?”

  “Too strong for us to stay at anchor in here. Well, let’s finish our inspection.”

  The next hut, the southernmost on the headland, was twice as large and had twelve beds, table, forms and a single chair at the head of the table.

  “For the sergeant, no doubt,” Aitken said, pointing to the chair. “And you’ll notice the wine, sir …” he nodded towards a demijohn of red wine in one corner.

  “Are the other huts—er, similarly equipped?”

  Aitken nodded gravely.

  “Well, have them all taken to the signalmen’s hut. Orsini can issue the men their ration and be responsible for the rest.”

  The two men went on to inspect the cookhouse, which was surprisingly clean and, compared with a ship’s galley, very well equipped: copper saucepans, well polished, hung on hooks from the wall, several different types of carving knives were in a rack over a heavy, wooden table, the top of which was several inches thick, and along one wall were demijohns of olive oil.

  “They have plenty of hens running among the cattle,” Aitken said, “and they probably had boiled or roast chicken yesterday.” He pointed at a large box half full of feathers. “Looks as though the cook wants to make a feather mattress.”

  “For the Lieutenant,” Ramage said, remembering how thin he was and thinking of bony hips trying to get comfortable on a straw mattress.

  At the magazine, a low, stone building little more than a large chest with a door big enough for a man to crawl through and then squat down inside, Aitken produced a heavy key to open the padlock. “Watch out for scorpions if you go in, sir: there’s one under every stone, and the floor is made of loose pebbles.”

  “Much powder?”

  “Just enough for the sentries’ muskets. Rennick worked out there was enough for each of the Frenchmen to have fired twenty rounds.”

  “If we’re going to stay a while we’ll need to bring over more powder,” Ramage said, half to himself. Aitken glanced at him, hoping to get some clue to the Captain’s intentions.

  Ramage sat on top of the magazine for a few minutes, facing eastward with the beach and sea a few yards away, the guardhouse thirty yards behind him and the well twenty yards farther along the track. The cows gave discontented moos and Ramage, noticing the swollen udders, said suddenly: “See if we have any men who can milk cows. These poor beasts haven’t been milked since yesterday.”

  “Well, I can, sir,” Aitken said.

  “No doubt,” Ram
age answered amiably, “but it’s hardly the job for the first lieutenant of one of the King’s ships. Ask Jackson; he’s bound to know someone.”

  As Aitken walked away towards the signal tower, Ramage added: “Make sure they scour out the milking pails. Boil up some water if necessary—I see there’s stacks of firewood at the back of the kitchen.”

  The waves were becoming larger and the time between them breaking on the beach longer; the wisps of cloud of a quarter of an hour ago were already collecting like pieces of wool, and by noon the sky would be overcast. Unmilked cows behind him, he thought, semaphore stations to left and right, quite apart from the one here on the Foix peninsula, and the Calypso swinging quietly at anchor. And in the drawer of his desk Admiralty orders to capture, sink or destroy as many enemy ships as he could.

  He had been lucky off the Italian coast, meeting three French frigates, but this swing westward along the French coast towards Spain had, so far, been disastrous. His strongest card, of course, gave him a weak hand for most of the game: the fact that the Calypso was a former French frigate with a distinctive sheer, and still using the original French sails with their very recognizable cut, meant she could cruise along the coast flying French colours, a perfectly legitimate ruse de guerre, which she would drop and hoist British colours before opening fire. So—and he was quite sure of this, particularly after questioning the French Lieutenant—the French had no idea that a British frigate was patrolling the coast.

  They had sighted several small coasting vessels which he could have sunk: xebecs with their gull-wing rig, tartanes with the lateen sail, heavily-laden galliots carrying wine or olive oil, even caiques that came round with cargoes from the Adriatic and Aegean to ports like Marseilles. Small—fifty or a hundred tons of cargo at the most and five men in the crew. Far too small to waste his men by putting prize crews on board, and far too insignificant to sink and reveal his disguised presence to the French authorities. A couple of good plump merchantmen (though preferably a convoy) would be worth it; he could strike and then make off to some other part of the Mediterranean. But one could not lure fat merchantmen over the horizon with the same tricks that caught hens pecking and scratching in dried grass, or brought the cows to the post where the French soldiers moored them for milking.