by Dudley Pope
It would be safer to wait a few more minutes, until it was completely dark: anyone on Giannutri who saw them leaving could swiftly light the pile of firewood he had seen on the platform of the signal tower at the north side of the island.
He was surprised by the number of signal towers on Argentario: from its nearest point to Giannutri there was one on every headland along the coast northwards, presumably round as far as Santo Stefano, the little port on the north-east side, and also round the south coast, probably to link with Port’ Ercole. Some of the towers looked Spanish; others Arab: tall warnings of the threats of Barbary pirates, who were still busy in the Mediterranean.
Finally it was dark enough to get under way, but as he gave the order Ramage felt nervousness sweeping over him, like a chill from a sudden cold breeze.
In the darkness the sea, the boat and even Ramage's own body, seemed remote. To seaward it was impossible to see where horizon ended and night sky began, despite the glittering stars and the light from the sharply etched moon, which had just risen over the mainland. The boat seemed to be gliding along like a gull, suspended between sea and sky.
Ramage found it hard to believe the crazy attempt he was making with seven men in a small boat was reality. Was this gig supposed to be a suitable substitute for a frigate to rescue men of great political influence so that they could rally their people to carry on — start, in some cases — a war against Bonaparte?
Was Ramage himself a suitable substitute for a post captain, welcoming them on board amid grandiose assurances for their future? Was he the man to inspire and overawe them with Britain's sea power in the Mediterranean? The whole situation was either tragic or ludicrous.
Jackson's lean face, dancing with strange shadows as he lifted the canvas shade of the lantern to glance at the compass, brought Ramage's thoughts back to the immediate present. He noticed Jackson was going bald: the sandy-coloured hair was receding... in the darkness the American's head reminded him of the rounded low-lying rocks of the Formiche de Burano, which they had passed an hour ago.
If his estimate of the current was correct, they were less than a mile from the beach and it was time to get rid of the Admiral's orders and the secret signal book - in fact everything but the charts - since the chances of capture were increasing rapidly.
He gave instructions to Jackson, then spoke to the seamen. Should he and Jackson be caught or killed it would be criminal to leave the seamen in ignorance of their position.
‘You all saw the Tower through the glass this morning,' he told them. 'There's a small stream just south of it, and we may be able to hide the boat there. Jackson and I will try to find these people, and it may take the rest of the night. If we haven't returned by sunset tomorrow - that's Saturday - you'll leave in the boat at nightfall and make your way to a point five miles north of Giglio, where a frigate should be there to meet you at dawn on Sunday and again on Monday. If it doesn't turn up, you'll have to make for Bastia.'
A splash near by showed Jackson had flung the weighted canvas bag overboard, and Ramage told him to go forward with the lead line - the American had fashioned one from a length of marline and a smooth, heavy pebble - ready to give a cast.
Ramage took the tiller. "Right men: steady strokes and no noise: give way together.'
The boat's erratic rolling and pitching stopped as the blades of the oars bit and thrust it ahead once again; the tiller came to life as the water surged past the rudder and bubbled away astern, talking to itself.
They were lucky it was calm: a wind with any west or south in it - a maestrale libeccio or scirocco, for instance - whipped up such a sea along this coast that beaching the boat or getting into the river would be impossible. And the same went for launching again afterwards: any of these winds, which often came up suddenly with little or no warning, could maroon them on shore for several days, so that they would miss the frigate off Giglio.
'A cast, Jackson.'
'Two fathoms, sir.'
The beach was now very close. The noise on board a ship or boat was usually sharp and clear, not muffled by echoes and deadened by trees or buildings; but now the creak of the gig and the slop of the sea were becoming overladen with the faint - for the moment - mechanical buzzing of thousands of cicadas and the squawks, barks and grunts of wild animals and birds. The heavy yet astringent, austere resin smell of the juniper and pines, floating seaward like an invisible fog, permeated everything, its sharpness emphasized for Ramage because for years he had been accustomed to the ever-present, sickly odours of sweat, reeking bilges, tarred rope, damp wood and damp clothing.
The dark green pines - their smell was as sharp in the nostrils as burnt gunpowder and as unforgettable. It was odd how smell, much more than sight or sound, brought back memories. What could he remember best of the years in Tuscany? The pines, larches and cicadas, of course; and the white dust clouds trailing behind carriages; the dark and heavy green of the cypress trees growing narrow and pointed, jutting up along the side of a hill like boarding pikes stowed in racks. He particularly remembered the sharp contrast between the deep green of pine and cypress, with their sturdy solidity which no wind could ruffle, and the silver-green scattering of leaves which seemed too young, too fluttering, to grow from the tortured, twisted olive trunks. And the creamy-skinned oxen with their huge horns, so massive and so gentle; he could picture their steady plodding, a pair always working together, so accustomed to leaning in towards each other that they could never be changed round. And the poverty of the peasants, the contadini, who lived like the slaves he had seen labouring in the plantations in the West Indies, but who were in many ways worse off, because a plantation owner who had paid several pounds a head for slaves was careful to keep them alive, while the Tuscan peasants, breeding and dying like flies, were free labour for the landowners....
'Another cast, Jackson.'
'Fathom and a half, sir.'
In a few minutes, Ramage thought, he would be on Tuscan soil. Was it Tuscan, though? Or did the King of Naples' enclave stretch as far south as this? What a patchwork quilt Italy was: a dozen or so small, self-centred states, kingdoms, princedoms, dukedoms or republics, each jealous of the other, each a centre of intrigue and villainy, where politicians made more use of an assassin's dagger than a vote in council. They'd long since learned that sharpened steel always beat logic.
'Jackson!'
'A fathom, sir.'
Yes, he could see the beach now: the little wavelets were reflecting in the moonlight as they danced towards the shore and sprawled on the sand. He heard a buzzing round his head: they'd all provide a feast for the mosquitoes which made life a misery in this area. And he only hoped none of the men would pick up the ague which was part of the normal life on the marshy Maremma, the flat plain stretching from here down to Rome and beyond.
'Five feet, sir.'
The water was shoaling fast and the beach was perhaps fifty yards away. The cicadas were making the night ring, sounding like the ticking of a million clocks; and occasionally a frog gave a hoarse croak, as if complaining about the cicadas. From farther inland he heard a series of deep grunts: a wild boar grouting around under the pines and cork oaks.
Where the devil was the Tower? The narrow strip of sandy beach was clear enough, and he could make out the dunes behind, topped by a dark band formed of masses of juniper bushes and rock roses, and the thick carpet-like plant sprouting thousands of podgy green fingers - what did they call it? some odd name: fico degli Ottentoti, fig of the Hottentots.
'My boy,' his mother had said when he was much younger, 'you must go back to Italy one day when you are older; old enough to understand and judge her.' And now he was doing just that; though his mother's judgement was that of a woman born into a family which for centuries had wielded power and influence, and a friend of several similar families in Italy who had seen their rights and power usurped and, in their view, anyway, wrongly used by upstarts and degenerate, half-witted Hapsburg or Bourbon second sons, with a following o
f Austrians and Spanish grandees who had been given estates in Italy to get them out of the way. Or they had seen their land given away as a king's payment to a temporary mistress's family. Worse still, they had seen their own and Church lands fall into the clutches of papal princelings, the bastard offspring of ostensibly celibate popes who had been born of broken sacred vows, made noble by the twitch of the same popes' bejewelled little fingers, and given vast estates: a nobility created from deceitful lust and made rich by corruption.
But this was nothing to do with the job on hand: his thoughts were only the reflection, or the echo, rather, of his mother's often, and usually strongly, expressed opinions. He did not know if she was always right in her judgements; but she and her friend Lady Roddam were women famous for their outspoken and advanced views - they had even been labelled, as republicans by their enemies.
To the devil with advanced views, he told himself: how far are we from the Tower? Suddenly he saw it quite close, squat and square, the stonework pale in the moonlight, and half hidden by the sand dunes at the back of the beach. How had he missed seeing it before? He realized he'd been looking for something dark and shadowy, not thinking of the effect the moonlight would have. Hell! If the French had only a couple of guns and even a sleepy lookout on top of that Tower ...
He pulled the tiller towards him to turn the boat southward, parallel to the beach: they were so vulnerable, even to pistol fire, that he wanted to spot the entrance to the river first, so they could run straight in without delay. At that moment he saw a wide but short band of silver spread inland across the beach like a carpet over the sand: the river, with the moonlight on it. He promptly altered course straight for it.
'Jackson, a cast!' he called as loud as he dare.
'A fathom, sir... five feet... four... four...
' Blast, it was shoaling fast
‘Keep it going.'
'Four feet... four... three...'
Damn, damn - they'd touch in a moment, but they were a good thirty yards from the beach: a long way for the men to haul the boat. He saw that Jackson was dropping the lead line like a boy fishing from the quay: there was not room, need nor time to heave it.
Four feet:.. four... five... four... five ... a fathom.'
Ramage breathed a sigh of relief: they must have been crossing a sandbank running parallel with the beach. Twenty yards to go and they'd be in the river, which seemed to get narrower the nearer they approached. With this flat sandy coastline there was certain to be a bar across the mouth.
'Four feet, sir... three...'
And this was it.
‘Three... three...'
They might just as well wade the last few yards, hauling the boat along by hand. He was just going to order the men over the side when he remembered the wretched riccio, the prickly sea urchin which looked like a rich brown chestnut husk, and whose spines broke off when they stuck into bare flesh, causing suppuration if not pulled out at once. It was rare to find them on sand; but there'd be small rocks around and they would be covered with them.
'Avast there with that lead, Jackson,' he called, keeping his voice low. 'Lay in on your oars, men. Who are wearing shoes?'
Four or five men answered and he ordered: 'Right, over the side with you and haul the boat up. Watch out for small rocks. The rest of you come aft.'
Their weight in the stern would cock the bow up a little, enabling the men in the water to run the boat farther over the bar before her keel dug into the sand.
'Unship the rudder,' he told Jackson, and jumped over the side.
Leaving the men to haul the boat, he splashed through the last few feet of water and reached the beach on the left bank of the river. As he stepped on to the hard sand at the water's edge his boots squelched; but after three or four paces, beyond where the waves lapped, the sand was so soft that at every step he sank in almost up to his ankles. The beach was steep, and as he looked over to the left he noticed the Tower was out of sight behind the dunes: no prying eyes could see the boat now.
By the time Ramage had walked and scrambled thirty paces he was five or six feet above sea level, with the rounded tops of the dunes still some twenty feet above him, but it suddenly became steeper and as he climbed upwards his feet kicked aside tufts of sharp-spined sea holly. Halfway up the side of the dune he met the first of the waist-high clumps of juniper bushes and rock roses and had to thread his way round them to avoid tearing his clothes.
He reached the top of the dune only to find it was the first of several which extended inland for fifty yards, looking like vast waves, until they dropped down to form one bank of the river curving round behind them.
Ah - now he could just see the top of the Tower: the stonework gleamed in the moonlight and he could see the hard, angular shadows formed by the embrasures. The top of the Tower was so sharply etched against the blue-black night sky he was sure that had there been any sentries he could see them, but there was no sign of movement; nor did there seem to be any cannon poking their muzzles through the embrasures.
Well, he had to know just where the river went. Between him and the next juniper-capped dune was a deep depression, like the trough between two big waves. He began running down the side, but after half a dozen paces his feet sank deep into the sand and the momentum of his body sent him sprawling. Not the place to be chased by cavalry, he thought as he picked himself up, spitting sand from his mouth and slapping his clothes to shake off the worst of it.
As he stood up again it seemed he had suddenly gone deaf: the dune behind deadened all sound of the waves on the beach, and for the first time for many months he could hear nothing connected with the sea: he might be a hundred miles inland. From the top of the next dune Ramage could see a little more of the Tower, and he walked down the side and up to the top of the third and last dune. Several feet below, to his right as he stood with his back to the sea, the river came straight inland for about fifty yards and then turned left to pass in front of him, rushes growing in thick clumps along the banks. It went on for two hundred yards, parallel with the sea, passing within a few yards of the seaward side of the Tower before turning sharply inland again, close against the north wall.
The Tower had been built in a good place, Ramage realized: with the river guarding it on the north and west sides, and the lake beyond covering it to the east, any attackers could approach only along the beaches.
And it was a solid construction, designed like a chessman castle, only square instead of round. From the ground the walls sloped gently inward until just below the embrasures, then sloped outward again for the last few feet, like the nipped-in waist of a woman's dress.
Ramage had seen enough for the moment. How deep was the river? He climbed down the steep bank to the rushes. The fact they grew there at all indicated the water was at worst brackish and ran from the fresh-water lake to the sea. For a second he froze with fear, then realized the sudden movement was a coot or moorhen which streaked out from almost underfoot, flying so low its wings beat the water. Gingerly he walked through the rushes, the water pouring over the tops of his boots, and turned right to follow the river round to its mouth and meet the men with the gig.
Rounding the corner, he found the men had pulled the boat over the bar. Jackson splashed over towards him.
"Where do you want it, sir?'
"Here,' Ramage said, indicating the northern bank. 'Snug it in close among the reeds.'
There was no point trying to hide it under branches of bushes: a pile of juniper among the reeds would be more conspicuous than the boat itself.
Well, there was no time to waste: the charcoal burner's hut mentioned in the Admiral's orders was half a mile southward down the coast and five hundred yards inland, and the sooner they found it the better, although a nagging question kept popping up in his mind.
Ramage splashed over to the men and glanced at the boat. That's fine. I want one of you to act as a sentry up there. The rest can sleep in the boat or very near it.' He indicated the sloping side of the
dune. Hand me out a couple of cutlasses... Thank you. Now, come on Jackson.'
'Good luck, sir,' one of the seamen said, and the rest echoed his words.
Ramage walked along the river's edge to the sea, followed by Jackson, wading out thigh-deep until he felt the sand bar under his feet. He then walked across it to the far bank.
'We'll walk along here just in the water to avoid making footprints,' he said. 'Anyway, it'll take too long if we climb up and down the dunes.'
Chapter 6
RAMAGE STROLLED along a path of silver foam: the wavelets lazed their way up to the beach and gently rolled over in orderly rows, shattering into myriads of droplets, each sparkling in the moonlight. The droplets then joined together and gurgled back in little cascades.
The sand along the water's edge was littered with branches of trees which must have been washed out to sea when a sudden storm flooded a river, and months later thrown up on the beach again, stripped of their bark, bleached by the sun, and polished by the sand, so they looked like the bones of a sea-monster. Twigs which had suffered the same fate were like twisted slivers of ivory, and occasionally he passed scatterings of sea shells which crunched beneath his feet.
The seamen should be all right: they had food and water, but no money or liquor, so with wine and women eliminated the only risk was discovery by French patrols or peasants, That was unlikely: this macchia would not attract many peasants, and as for French patrols - well, the town of Orbetello, between the two causeways leading to Argentario, was near by. But the main road to the south, the Via Aurelia, along which Caesar had marched back to Rome, was four or five miles inland, and he doubted if the French would bother to patrol the swamps and sand dunes between the Via Aurelia and the sea.
Ramage was thankful he had brought Jackson along, because the dangerous part was just about to begin, and there was no point in pushing the nagging question out of his mind any longer.