by Dudley Pope
Now he could see all the men in the gig and recognized them as topmen: the Bosun had given him the survivors of the finest seamen in the Sibella: the men who reefed or furled aloft high up and out on the yards.
In the moonlight, unshaven and raggedly dressed, they looked more like the crew of a privateer's boat than King's men, and privateersmen were as bad as pirates - worse, in fact, since they usually served on a shares-in-the-prize basis, which made them much more cruel and daring than pirates, whose rewards depended on the whim of their captain.
One of the men on the nearest thwart, naked from the waist up, a rag round his brow to stop the perspiration running into his eyes, and his hair tied in a pigtail, still had his face begrimed with smoke from the guns. Why the devil didn't I tell them to put some hammocks in the boats? thought Ramage: even though they are tanned, a day half stripped under a hot sun will scorch their skin and exhaust them more than a spell at the oars, apart from an increasing thirst.
That man rowing stroke - wasn't his face streaked with blood?
'You - stroke! Have you been hurt?'
'It's nothing, sir: just a cut on the forehead. Why, is me face bloody?'
'Looks it from here.'
They were an extraordinary bunch: give them the slightest opportunity to shirk a job and they'll seize it, he thought. Give the majority of them a chance to desert and they will, even though they risk death, or the certainty of a flogging round the fleet. But in battle they are new men: the shirker, the drunkard, the fool - all become fighting demons. In an emergency each has the strength of two men. Even now, after half a day's bitter battle, they'll haul on their oars, if necessary, until they drop from exhaustion. Yet if there was a cask of wine in the boat and he went to sleep, he'd find them all blind drunk when he woke.
They were like children in many ways, and even though several of the Sibellas were old enough to be his father, he was always conscious of their basic simplicity: their sudden childlike enthusiasms, waywardness, lack of responsibility and unpredictability.
Dreaming again, Ramage ... He decided to let them rest while he gave them a word or two about their task.
'Well, men, you may be curious to know where we are going - if you haven't already heard at the scuttle butt ...'
This raised a laugh: many an officer first heard details of his captain's secret orders by way of the scuttle butt, which was the tub of water placed on deck, guarded by a Marine sentry, and from which the men could drink at set times during the day. There the day's gossip was exchanged, and although the route the news travelled from the cabin to the scuttle butt was often devious, the news itself was nearly always accurate. A captain's steward's eyes and ears rarely missed anything, and a lowly captain's writer - virtually a clerk - became someone of importance among his shipmates only if he had some information to pass on.
'In case you haven't, I'll tell you as much as I can. There are half a dozen Italian refugees - important people: important enough for the Admiral to risk a frigate - to be rescued from the mainland. That was the job the Sibella started. Well, we've got to finish it.
"We'll get as close as we can to this place tonight, but we daren't risk being seen in daylight, so we'll have to hide and finish the trip tomorrow night. Now you know about as much as I do.'
'A question, sir?'
'Yes.'
"Ow far's this Bonaparte chap got down this way? Who owns this bit o' the coast, sir?'
'Bonaparte occupied Leghorn a couple of months ago. Leghorn's a free port, but that bit of the coast and almost as far down as here belongs to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and he's signed a pact with Napoleon.
'But all along the coast there are enclaves - little countries, as it were - belonging to other people: Piombino, for instance, opposite Elba, belongs to the Buoncampagno family. Half of Elba and a narrow strip of the coast running south as far as here, and including Argentario, which you can see over there, belong to the King of Naples and Sicily.'
'Whose side is he on, sir?'
'He was on ours, but he's ceased hostilities.'
'Surrendered, sir? Why the French ain't reached Naples or Sicily, yet!'
'No, but the King's afraid they'll march on Naples, I suppose. Anyway, just beyond Argentario is the town of Orbetello and that's the capital of the King's enclave here. I'm not sure how far south it stretches. Southward of that the land belongs to the Pope.'
' 'Ow about 'im, sir?' asked the seaman with the bloodstained face. 'Is 'e on our side?'
'Well, he's signed an armistice with Bonaparte and shut his ports to British ships.'
'Looks as though we ain't got many friends round these parts, do it,' one of the seamen commented to no one in particular.
'No,' laughed Ramage. 'None we can count on. And where we are going to land we might find Bonaparte's troops, or Neapolitans - we shan't know whose side they'll be on - or even the Pope's troops.'
'Are these people we're taking off Eyetalians, sir?'
'Yes.'
'Then why ain't they put their names down in Boney's muster book like the rest on 'em, sir, begging your pardon?'
'These particular ones don't like him any more than we do: nor does he like them: in fact if he gets his hands on them, they'll end up being married to the Widow.'
The men murmured among themselves: they knew well enough the French slang for the guillotine. Ramage heard one of them say, 'They seem a rum lot, these Eyetalians. Some sign on with Boney, while the others bolt. 'Ow the hell do they know which to do?'
That, thought Ramage, sums it up fairly neatly. And now after eight years he was about to return to this beautiful, lazy, flamboyant country, which was so full of contradictions that only an insensitive fool could say with any certainty that he loved or hated it, or any stage in between.
'Beggin' your pardon, sir: you speak the lingo, don't you?'
'Yes.'
Heavens, the men either trusted him so much they felt they could ask questions without getting a savage snub, or they were taking advantage of him, "being familiar”, as some officers called it. But their interest was genuine enough.
'How's that, sir?' asked the same nasal voice.
Why not tell them? They'd all stopped talking to hear his reply, and for the next couple of days he needed every ounce of trust they'd give him.
'Well, when my father sailed in '77 to command the American Station - when your people showed signs of wanting to be independent,' he said jokingly to Jackson, 'my mother came out to Italy to stay with various friends: she loved travelling - she still does, for that matter. I was two years old. I had an Italian nurse and began to speak Italian almost as soon as I did English.
'We went back to England in '82 when I was seven. Most of you know the reason ... In '83, after my father's trial, he decided to leave England for a few years, and we came back to Italy. So I was out here again from the time I was eight until just before I was thirteen, when we returned to England and I first went to sea.'
'That was when the press caught you, was it, sir?' '
The rest of them roared with laughter at the blood-stained man's joke. A good half of the men had been hauled in by press gangs and brought on board one or other of the King's ships, where they were given the chance to 'volunteer', which meant they received a bounty of a few shillings, and had 'vol' instead of 'prest' written against their names in the muster book.
'Yes,' said Ramage, joining in the laughter, 'but I took the bounty.'
The men had rested enough and he gave the orders for them to start rowing again. Ahead, lying low in the water like a sea monster, was the flat-topped islet of Giannutri. Although the chart did not give much detail, the nearest point to the mainland, Punta Secca, had a scattering of inlets just south of it. But the name, Dry Point, did not hold out much hope of finding drinking water.
Ramage ran his fingers through his hair and winced as they caught in clotted blood at the back of his scalp. He had forgotten about the cut. At least it had dried up quickly. At Giannutri,
he thought to himself, he would have to do something towards tidying himself: at the moment he must look more like a highwayman than a naval officer.
Chapter 5
Jackson watched as the upper rim of the sun finally dropped below the low hills of Giannutri and spread a welcome cool shadow across the eastern side of the island. He glanced at the watch: another half an hour before his spell as lookout ended and he had to wake Mr Ramage.
They had been luck in finding this little inlet, which was cut out of the rock as neatly as if someone had sliced it with a knife. The boat was almost invisible to a man standing on the shore five yards away, whereas the sides of the inlet, only a few inches higher than the gunwale of the boat, meant they could keep a lookout all round them.
For much of the morning Mr Ramage had been sitting on the side of the hill, glass to his eye, studying the mainland. As soon as he had located the Tower of Buranaccio, just at the back of the beach, its base hidden by the sand dunes and the curvature of the earth, he had ordered all the seamen to be brought up, two at a time, to look at it through the glass and study the coast on either side.
In the meantime, Jackson had set one of the sailors to work scrubbing the Lieutenant's jacket to remove some of the bloodstains, carefully smoothing the cloth with his hand as he laid it out to dry. The silk stock looked far from ironed; but flattening it out on a smooth rock while still wet had given it a new lease of life. At least, thought Jackson, Mr Ramage will look smart enough in the dark when he meets these dukes and people. Pity he had lost his hat.
Looking down at the sleeping lieutenant, Jackson saw that occasionally the muscles of his face twitched. Curious, the habit he had of blinking, particularly when thinking hard, or if he was tired or excited. It seemed deliberate, as though squeezing the eyelids together helped him concentrate.
The Bosun had said Mr Ramage looked just like his father, the Earl of Blazey - old 'Blaze-Away’, as the Navy called him. Jackson felt a twinge of embarrassment as he remembered when, a few months ago, he said he hoped old 'Blaze-Away's' son had more guts than his father, and the Bosun had brought him up all standing by getting into a fury. Seemed the trial was all political ... Well, the Bosun served in the old boy's flagship at the battle, so he ought to know. Anyway, whether or not the father had been a coward, the son seemed man enough.
The lad had a good face, Jackson thought to himself; there had never been an opportunity to study it before. On the thin side, though, with the nose straight and cheekbones high. But with Mr Ramage it was always his eyes that attracted you. Deep set and brown, they were slung under a pair of bushy eyebrows, and when he was really angry they seemed to bore right through you. What was it one of the men in Mr Ramage's division had said when hauled before the captain for some crime or other, and asked if he was guilty? Something to the effect it was no use pleading not guilty as Mr Ramage knew different; and when the Captain had said Mr Ramage had not been on deck at that particular moment, the sailor replied, 'That don't signify because Mr Ramage can see through oak planks.'
Yet, mused Jackson, he had never come across an officer quite like him: none of the sarcasm and hoity-toity of so many junior lieutenants. But everyone respected him - perhaps; because the hands knew he could beat any of them up to the maintop. He could knot and splice like a rigger, and handle a boat as though he'd been born under a thwart. And, more important, he was approachable. Somehow he seemed to know instinctively how the men felt: when it was necessary to encourage them with a quiet joke, and when to threaten them with a 'starting’ - not that Jackson ever remembered actually seeing him allow a bosun's mate to hit the men with a rope's end. Nor had he ever had to take a man before the captain.
It was curious how, when he was angry or excited, he had trouble pronouncing the letter ‘r’. You could see him tensing himself to say it correctly. But Jackson remembered a topman - that fellow there with a cut forehead - making a pun once 'When you see his bloody young Lordship blinking his eyes and wobbling his "r's”, it's time to go about on the other tack!’ Why was it he never used his title on board? After all, he was a real Lord. Something to do with his father, maybe.
Christ, he thought, that lad's lying there like a worn-out hawser. Ramage was curled up on the stern sheets, arms above his head and using his hands as a pillow. Although he was obviously in a deep sleep, Jackson guessed he was not relaxed: the corners of the rather full lips were turned down slightly; his forehead was wrinkled, as if he was concentrating, and his eyebrows were lowered. If he had his eyes open, Jackson thought, you'd imagine he was trying to sight something on the horizon. And where did he collect that scar above the right eyebrow? He always rubbed it when he was tired or under a strain. Looked like a sword cut.
By now the east side of the island, which had been mauve as the sun set, was darkening in the twilight, and Jackson looked towards the mainland. Over to his left was the great hump of Argentario, and he could see one of the two semicircular causeways which joined it to the mainland. In front, he could just see a small, flat reef of rocks, the Formiche de Burano, a black spot in the sea in line with Mount Capalbio. Just to the right of Mount Capalbio was Mount Maggiore, and on the coast in line with its peak was the little square tower, which Mr Ramage said they had to visit. It was too dark against the eastern sky to see it now, and anyway half of it was below the horizon.
The chart showed there was a big oblong-shaped lake behind the tower, running parallel with the beach and less than half a mile inland. From the middle of the nearest side a little river left the lake, running towards the sea past the north side of the tower, making a dog-leg turn to flow along the west wall - so the tower had a moat on two sides - and then straight for another couple of hundred yards, parallel with the shore, before curving round to flow into the sea.
Oh well, Jackson thought to himself, it will be nice to be on shore again, even if only for an hour or two. He looked at the watch. Another five minutes before he was due to rouse Mr Ramage.
Some of the seamen had already woken. One had persuaded another to retie his pigtail, while a third leaned over the side of the boat and began to hone his knife against the rock until Jackson told him to be quiet.
The American glanced round the gig and began checking off various items. The tiller was ready to be shipped; the oars were safely stowed; the two precious breakers of water were lashed under the thwarts, as were the bags of bread; the lantern was trimmed and ready for lighting; the bag of charts and papers was at his feet.
The seaman with the cut on his forehead rolled up a trouser leg and swore viciously, pointing at the mosquito bites on his ankle. He fished a rough canvas shirt from under a thwart and pulled it over his head.
'Can't we have a drink, Jacko?' asked another sailor.
‘You heard what Mr Ramage said.'
‘You're just a damned mean Jonathan.'
'Ask Mr Ramage when he wakes.'
‘You like pushing us Limeys around.'
'All right, you're a Limey and I'm a Jonathan,' retorted Jackson, 'but that don't make me any less thirsty than you.'
'Anyway that thirsty bastard ain't a Limey, he's a Patlander,' a man lying on the bottom boards said to Jackson. 'He's so Irish he salutes when we ship a green sea.'
'Listen, the lot of you,' growled Jackson. 'Mr Ramage has two minutes' more sleep and he deserves 'em; so put a couple of reefs in your tongues.'
'Is he doing the right thing, Jacko?' one of the men whispered. 'After all, this gig ain't a bleedin' frigate.'
'Scared? Anyway, we'd have had to do this last bit in a boat even if the Sibella was still swimming.'
'Yus, but we wouldn't have to row all the way there and back like a lot of bumboatmen.'
'Well,' Jackson said crisply, 'make up your mind whether you're scared or lazy. If you're scared then you've no need to be, with him on board' - he jerked a thumb in Ramage's direction - 'and if you're lazy you'd better watch out with this one on board—' he jabbed a thumb to his own chest.
'All
right, all right, Jacko; I'd sooner 'ave 'im than you any day, so put me down as just being scared.'
Jackson glanced once again at the watch, and then climbed over a thwart to rouse Ramage.
The skin of Ramage's face felt taut and stiff, scorched by the sun despite the tan; and a band across the top of his forehead, normally protected by his hat, was hot and sore. He opened his eyes and they felt full of sand. Realizing someone was gently shaking him and calling his name, he sat up, conscious of a momentary feeling of fear as he remembered the last time he had woken.
Almost nightfall; yet he would have sworn he'd been asleep only five minutes.
'Everything all right, Jackson?'
‘Yes, sir.'
With that Ramage stripped off his clothes and climbed over the transom into the water. It was warm, but chilly enough to be refreshing. As he climbed back on board again Jackson handed him a piece of cloth.
'Do as a towel, sir.'
‘What is it?'
'His shirt, sir,' he said, pointing to one of the man and adding, 'he offered it!'
Ramage nodded his thanks, rubbed himself down and pulled on his stockings, breeches and shirt. He glanced up in surprise as Jackson said, 'We've tidied up your stock, weskit and coat, sir. If you don't want 'em yet I'll stow 'em so they don't get creased.'
'Oh - yes, do that please.'
Trust Jackson, thought Ramage: he realizes I look like a pirate. If only I had a razor, he thought, feeling his chin, which crackled as he ran his hand over it
Jackson handed him his boots and, as soon as he had pulled them on, gave him the throwing knife, which he slid into the top and did up the button which held the sheath in place.