by Dudley Pope
Ramage stared along the track, trying to glimpse a hint of movement in the distance. Realizing he was too close to the boat to make an effective diversion which would give the Italians time to get over the dunes, he ran fifty yards along the track.
He pulled the throwing knife from his boot and waited in the shadows of a big bush. God, except for the thumping of his heart it was now as silent as the grave. Even the cicadas had stopped their buzzing. Just shadows, and the moonlight, which bleached colours and courage alike.
A crackle of branches up the track: a faint rhythmic thumping of running feet. Another flash - someone shooting towards the track, from the seaward side this time. Then another shot, from landward. Now shouts - in French, calling on people to halt. Another flash and bang: a pistol shot, fired back up the track - the refugees were defending themselves. People running, calling desperately to each other in Italian, cursing breathlessly.
Now he could just distinguish a small group running towards him, jinking from one side of the track to the other to make themselves more elusive targets.
There was a jangle of horses' harness on the seaward side of the track - more cavalry coming along the beach?
'Jackson.'
‘Here, sir!'
The American was up on the dune, thirty yards ahead.
'You divert the Frogs - I'll help the Italians: they must be all in!'
'Aye aye, sir.'
Ramage ran along the track calling. 'Qui, siamo qui!’
'Where?' It was Nino's voice.
‘Here - ahead of you: keep running!'
'Madonna, we are nearly finished! The Marchesa is wounded!'
In a few moments he was among them: two men, presumably the refugees, were carrying the girl by the arms, her legs dragging in the sand. She was conscious. Nino and his brother were behind, guarding the rear.
Ramage thrust the two strangers aside, grabbed the girl's right hand in his left and pulled it towards him as he bent down, doubling her body over his right shoulder. Straightening himself up he gripped her right ankle as well with his left hand, leaving his right hand free, and still holding the knife. He began running along the track, towards the Tower.
‘How near are the French?'
'Not fifty paces behind - a dozen cavalry or more,' one of the men gasped: 'We had pistols – that’s why they aren't getting too close - but they're empty.'
She was light, thank God, but how badly hurt? Her head was hanging down over his back.
'In pain?'
'A little: I can bear it.'
'Madonna!' shouted Nino, 'look out!'
A sudden thudding of hooves close behind sent him bolting sideways into a gap between the bushes. He flung the girl clear and spun round to find two horsemen plunging after him through the gap, one behind the other, sabre blades glinting in the moonlight. They'd fired their muskets and had no time to reload.
Six yards, five . . . Ramage stood blocking the horsemen's path, deliberately showing himself. Four yards - up went the Frenchman's sabre . . . Ramage gripped the knife and swung his arm over his shoulder . . . The horse turned slightly as the rider reined it to one side, giving himself room to slash with the sabre. Ramage's arm swung down and the knife blade flashed for a second in the moonlight.
The sabre dropped and the man gurgled as he fell backwards, still holding the reins in one hand. The horse reared up, whinnying in fear, and the following horse ran into it; but the second rider pulled it round and galloped back out of the gap. The first horse turned and followed as its rider fell to the ground.
Ramage ran to the body, pulled the knife from the man's shoulder, slung the girl over his shoulder once again, and went back to the track. The second horseman had disappeared into the darkness and he called to the Italians, who emerged from the bushes near by.
'Come on!' Ramage yelled and ran along the track.
He heard a whistle to his right: Jackson was imitating the reedy note of a boatswain's call.
‘We're carrying on to the boat, Jackson: hold on and cover us!'
'Aye aye, sir. Sorry about those two: they cut in ahead of me.'
The girl's getting heavy: it'll be almost impossible running along soft sand on the top of the dunes. Should he risk the water's edge, where the sand is hard?
'Nino!'
'Yes, Commandante?
*We must split up: take your people along the track. I'm going over the dunes and along the beach - I can't manage the soft sand!'
'Yes, Cammandante, I understand!'
This is as good a place to cross as anywhere. Hold tight,' he told the girl, and ran up the side of the dune, managing to use the momentum of their bodies to reach the top without stopping. He plunged on down the other side, but suddenly his feet sank too deep in the sand and he pitched over, sending the girl flying.
Hurriedly he untangled himself. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes - I can walk: it is easier in this sand. I've been trying to tell you that ever since you picked me up.'
'You're sure?'
‘Yes,' she said impatiently, and he took her hand. She shook it free and a moment later he realized she had to hold up her skirts.
'My left elbow!'
He grasped it and together they reached the top of the next dune: now there was only one more valley and one more crest. Down they plunged and up again, then down the shallower slope to the water's edge. A moment later they were running along the tide-line, splashing through occasional shallow pools of water.
He glanced back along the beach: oh Christ! Four dark shapes, men on horseback, galloping straight towards them, fifty yards away. Obviously they'd both been seen. Could they get back up the dune in time?
'Quick, back up there and hide in the bushes.'
He pushed her when she paused for a second.
'You, too!'
'No - go on, hurry, for God's sake!'
'If you stay, I stay!'
He pushed her again: 'Go on or we'll both be killed.'
Two people arguing while four horsemen galloped up to kill them. Ludicrous, but anyway it was too late - she'd never make the bushes: the horsemen need swerve only slightly to cut her down. The sea? Not a chance - the horses could plunge out farther and faster.
Forty yards away, perhaps less. Ramage gripped his knife: one of them would die with him, he vowed viciously.
‘When I say "Go", duck and run round the horsemen, then up to the dunes.'
He'd go for the leading horse and hope she could dart past in the confusion, escaping before they could rein round and give chase. If he leapt low, knife at the horse's throat, perhaps he could escape the sabre; but anyway the hooves would get him. Jesus, what a way to die.
Suddenly from the top of the dunes above and just ahead of the horsemen a dark shape appeared: a strange figure uttering weird cries which made Ramage's blood run cold.
The leading horse promptly reared up on its hind legs, sending the rider crashing backwards to the ground: the second horse, unable to stop in time, cannoned into it, and the rider slid over its head. The third horse shied and then bolted back the way it had come, hitting the fourth horse a glancing blow and apparently unseating the rider, who fell off but, with one foot tangled in the stirrup, was dragged along the ground as all four horses galloped back along the beach, leaving three men lying on the sand.
It had taken perhaps ten seconds and it was Jackson again -waving branches he'd wrenched off the bushes. The American ran down to the three men, cutlass in hand. Ramage shuddered, but it had to be done.
'Quick!' Ramage grabbed the girl's arm, and ran towards the boat. A few moments later he could see the break in the line of the beach where the river met the sea: there was the gig.
'Not far now!'
But she was staggering from side to side, swaying as if about to faint. He hurriedly stuck the knife in his boot, picked her up, and ran to the boat where eager hands waited to lift her on board.
'We've got one Italian here already, sir,' called Smith. 'Another co
uple of chaps came and went away again.'
'Right - I'll be back in a moment.'
Jackson and one refugee to come. But what about Nino and his brother? He could not leave them here - they'd never escape.
He ran up the side of the dune. A few hours earlier he'd been lying there in the shade of a juniper, day-dreaming... 'Nino! Nino!'
‘Here, Commandante!’
The Italian was by the river bank, thirty yards away, towards the Tower.
Ramage ran towards him.
'Commandante- Count Pitti is lost!'
‘What happened?'
Shots rang out farther back along the dunes as Nino explained.
'He was with us as we ran to the boat. But when we got there he was missing. Count Pisano is on board.'
'So is the Marchesa. Nino - do you and your brother want to come with us?'
'No, thank you, Commandante: we can escape.'
'How?'
'Over there.' He gestured across the river.
'Go now, then, and hurry!'
He held out his hand and each man shook it.
'But Count Pitti, Commandante!’
'I'll find him - now go, quickly!'
More shots, closer now. 'You can do no more: now go, and God be with you.'
'And you, Commandante. Farewell then, and buon viaggio.'
With that they ran down the bank and plunged across the river.
Ramage could hear harness rattling to his left, the seaward side of the dunes. He ran along the ridge but a flash only twenty yards away made him fling himself sideways into the shelter of some bushes. The Frenchman must be a poor shot to miss at that range.
As Ramage broke through the other side of the bushes he heard more shots and suddenly five yards ahead of him saw a body sprawled face downwards in the sand. He ran over and found it was a man wearing a long cape. He knelt down, pulling the man over on to his back.
The shock made his head spin: in the moonlight he could see there was no face, just pulp: a shot through the back of the head...
So that was the remains of Count Pitti. Now there was only Jackson to account for.
He ran to the top of the ridge and yelled:
'Jackson - boat! Jackson - boat!'
'Aye aye, sir.'
The American was still back there among the dunes.
Ramage knew his responsibility was now with the boat and its precious passengers, and ran down the river bank. A few moments later Smith was hauling him on board.
'Just Jackson to come. Haul her off the bar - ship the tiller. Now, inboard you men,' he said to the seamen in the water as soon as he felt the boat floating free of the bottom.
When they had scrambled over the gunwale and reached their places on the thwarts he snapped, 'Oars ready! Oars out! When I say "Give way", give way smartly: our lives depend on it.'
Where the hell was Jackson? He spotted a group of men fifty yards away along the beach: they were kneeling - French soldiers taking aim! Choose, man: Jackson's life or the lives of six seamen and two Italian aristocrats highly valued by Admiral Jervis? What a bloody choice.
Wait, though: the soldiers had been galloping hard: they won't be able to take a steady aim.
He saw a man silhouetted for a moment against the top of the nearest dune, but the glimpse was enough for him to recognize Jackson's thin, loose-limbed figure.
‘Hurry, blast you!'
He unshipped the tiller again, put it on the thwart, and swivelled round, leaning over the transom ready to grab him. The American reached the water's edge and ran with the high step of a trotting horse as the water deepened.
Ramage was conscious of a stream of oaths babbled almost hysterically in Italian behind him just as he realized the French troops farther along the beach were firing. Someone was tugging his coat and pummelling him. Jackson had four yards to go.
The tugging and pummelling was more insistent: then he noticed a relationship between the Italian curses and the tugs. Now the man was pleading in high-pitched Italian. ‘For God's sake let us get away: hurry for the love of God.'
Three yards, two yards, one - he grabbed Jackson's wrists and yelled, 'Right men, give way together - handsomely now!' He gave an enormous heave which brought Jackson sprawling inboard over the transom, and from the grunt the American gave it was obvious the rudder head had caught him in the groin.
'Come on, out of the way!'
Ramage helped him with a shove and hurriedly shipped the tiller: the men had been rowing straight out to sea, which would keep them in range of the French that much longer. He put the tiller over, steering directly away from the soldiers, so the boat presented a smaller target. Just as he glanced back there were three flashes at the water's edge and one of the seamen groaned and fell forward, letting go of his oar.
Jackson leapt across just in time to grab the oar before it went over the side.
'Fix him up, Jackson, then take his place.'
By the time the French had reloaded, the boat would be almost out of sight, down-moon and against the darker western horizon.
The Italian was now squatting down on the floor boards, almost at his feet: Ramage realized he was there only after hearing a low, monotonous, gabbling of prayers in Latin and noticing some of the seamen muttering uneasily, not understanding what was going on. Prayers are all right in their place, he thought, but if gabbling them like a panic-stricken priest upsets the seamen, then the boat isn't the right place - fear spreads like fire.
He prodded the man with his foot and snapped in Italian,
'Basta! Enough of that: pray later, or in silence.'
The moaning stopped. The soldiers would have reloaded by now. Ramage looked back and could still distinguish the beach.
He sensed the men were jumpy and it was hardly surprising, since they'd been sitting in the boat, or standing beside it up to their waists in water, while a good deal of shooting was going on near by.
'Jackson,' he said conversationally, to reassure the men, 'that was a frightful noise you made on the beach. Where did you pick up the trick of charging cavalry single-handed?'
'Well, sir,' Jackson replied, an apologetic note in his voice, 'I was with Colonel Pickens at Cowpens in the last war, sir, and it was mighty effective in the woods against your dragoons: they hadn't met that sort of thing before.'
'I imagine not,' Ramage said politely, turning the boat half a point to starboard.
'No, sir,' Jackson said emphatically. 'Only the last time I did it, 'twas against a whole troop of 'em in a narrow lane. They were chasing me, you see.'
'Is that so? Did it work?' he asked, conscious the men were listening to the conversation as they rowed.
'Most effective, sir: I had 'em all off, except one or two at the rear.'
'How did you learn this sort of - er, business?'
'Woodsman, sir; I was brought up in South Carolina.'
'Madonna!' exclaimed a voice in heavy-accented English from under the thwarts. 'Madonna! They talk of horses and cow pens at a time like this.'
Ramage looked round at the girl, conscious he had not given her a thought since he climbed on board the boat.
'Would you please tell your friend to hold his tongue.’
She leant down to the man, who was almost at her feet; but he already understood.
'Hold my tongue?' he exclaimed in Italian. "How can I hold my tongue? And why should I?'
Ramage said coldly in Italian: ‘I did not mean "hold your tongue" literally. I was telling you to stop talking.'
'Stop talking! When you run away and leave my cousin lying wounded on the beach! When you desert him! When you bolt like a rabbit and your friend screams with fright like a woman! Madonna, so I am to stop talking, eh?'
The girl bent down and hissed something at him, keeping her voice low. Ramage, tensed with cold rage, was thankful the seamen did not understand: then suddenly the Italian scrambled out from under the thwarts and stood up in the boat, making one of the oarsmen lose his balance and miss a stroke.
'Sit down!' Ramage said sharply in Italian.
The man ignored him and began swearing.
Ramage said curtly: 'I order you to sit down. If you do not obey, one of the men will force you.'
Ramage looked at the girl and asked in Italian: Who is he? Why is he behaving like this?'
‘He is Count Pisano. He blames you for leaving his cousin behind.'
‘His cousin is dead.'
'But he called out: he shouted for help.'
‘He couldn't have done.'
'Count Pisano said he did.'
Did she believe Pisano? She turned away from him, so that once again the hood of her cape hid her face. Clearly she did. - He remembered the Tower: did she think he cheated at cards, too?
‘Well, he didn't go back to help his cousin,' Ramage said defensively.
She turned and faced him. 'Why should he? You are supposed to be rescuing us.'
How could one argue against that sort of attitude? He felt too sick at heart even to try, shrugged his shoulders, and then remembered to say: 'Any further conversation about that episode will also be in Italian: tell Pisano that. I don't want the discipline in this boat upset.'
‘How can it upset discipline?'
‘You must take my word for it. Apart from anything else, if these men understood what he was saying, they'd throw him over the side.'
‘How barbarous!'
'Possibly,' he said bitterly. "You forget what they've been through to rescue you.'
He lapsed into gloomy silence, then said: 'Jackson - the compass: how are we heading? Don't use the lantern.'
The American leaned over the bowl of the boat compass for several seconds, twisting his head one way and then the other, trying to see the compass needle in the moonlight
'About south-west by west, sir.'
'Tell me when I'm on west.'
Ramage slowly put the tiller over.
'Now!'
'Right.' He noted a few stars to steer by. They had ten miles to go before passing a couple of miles off the south-western tip of Argentario. The wounded oarsman argued with Jackson, who finally let him row again and climbed aft to sit on the sternsheets opposite the Marchesa.
The girl suddenly said quietly, as if to herself, 'Count Pitti was my cousin, too,' and wrapped the cape round her more closely.