Ramage's Challenge r-15

by Dudley Pope

  They had just come in sight of the cypress grove when Rossi laughed and pointed ahead. Coming towards them in the distance was a donkey, and on its back the same hunched figure they had first seen going the other way.

  "He's sold his own wine," Orsini said, "and from the look of it he spent some of the money sampling the wine of Orbetello."

  "Let's hope he's sober enough to talk sense," Ramage growled, "otherwise you can dip him in the river a few times. Though come to think of it, that won't put him in the right frame of mind to help us!"

  The man turned out to be tired, not drunk, but he was extremely nervous, though there seemed to be no obvious reason. Ramage gestured to his men to fall out and rest along the side of the track, and then, with Orsini and Rossi, squatted down on the ground, offering the man some wine from a flask. He shook his head.

  "You sold your wine for a good price?"

  "Yes," he said abruptly, as though he did not want to discuss it.

  "Is Orbetello crowded?" Ramage asked casually.

  "No more than usual."

  "You stayed longer than you expected?"

  "Yes," the man said and rubbed his head as though trying to erase an unpleasant memory. "Mamma mia, when my wife hears . . ."

  "What happened?" Rossi asked sympathetically, responding at once to Ramage's wink.

  "Gambling," the man muttered. "I can't resist it. I used the wine money."

  "But you won!" Rossi said jovially.

  "Yes - to begin with. The first night I doubled it."

  "Why are you so miserable, then?"

  "You know scopa. I lost nearly all of it the next night. Scopa ... Mamma mia, they swept me up." The man still had a sense of humour. Scopa, the name of a card game, also meant broom.

  "Anyway, you still have some soldi left, so cheer up!"

  Again the man shook his head. "I felt so badly - I knew my wife would be angry. Miserable, I was, and so I started drinking . . ."

  "And that's where the rest of the money went," Rossi commented.

  "No, only some of it. But I drank so much I went to sleep in the road outside the taverna, and when I woke up . . ."

  "Your pockets were empty."

  "Yes, some thieving stronzo . . ."

  Rossi looked at the man and rubbed the side of his nose with a forefinger. "Perhaps your wife would not be so angry if she thought that ladrone stole all the wine money."

  The man thought for a few moments and then shook his head. "No, I've been away too long for that. If I had come back the next day with that story it would have been all right, but I stayed longer . . . she knows."

  "Not the first time, eh?" Ramage said understandingly. "Is this why your father-in-law speaks so badly of you?"

  "You know about that, then?"

  "At Pitigliano, at the sign of the scissors? Yes, of course. By the way, one of those falegnami has closed."

  "I'm not surprised," the man said, shaking his head. "The one on the gate side? Yes, well, he drinks, you know."

  And now, Ramage thought, we are all friends together. Time to ask some more questions without arousing the man's suspicions. "You didn't play scopa with any of the French soldiers, then?"

  The man looked up at him, his eyes bloodshot and squinting as though the light was too bright. "The French soldiers went two weeks ago. The ones that came from Pitigliano, that is. The usual garrison is still there, but they don't play scopa. Some French game they have, with different cards from ours."

  "So the taverns are quieter now," Ramage commented. "Where have the French taken their money to now, I wonder?"

  The man looked directly at Ramage. "Signore, I don't know what you are doing, but if you are on the side of the French, surely you would know the answers to all these questions?"

  "The Army of Italy is a big one," Ramage said vaguely. "Orders go astray, mistakes are made . . ."

  "Permesso?"Rossi asked.

  Ramage nodded, giving the Genovese permission to say what he wanted. Rossi understood people instinctively; he had a knack probably learned in the stews of Genoa, and it was a knack which would still work in the open fields of Tuscany.

  "Amico mio," he said, "I think you have guessed."

  "I never make guesses, I'm always wrong. And just now -" he looked at the pistols tucked in Ramage's belt, "- making guesses could be dangerous."

  "All right, don't guess," Rossi said. "All we ask is that you answer our questions if you wish, but if you want to remain silent, then please don't betray us the minute you get to Manciano."

  "You mean I could betray you? That you are not with the French? What about those men?" He gestured to where Gilbert was sitting.

  "Yes, you could betray us, and they are not French. They are simply dressed in French uniforms."

  The man turned from Rossi and looked directly at Ramage, paused a moment as though reassessing him, and then said: "You are the leader, eh?"

  Ramage nodded.

  "You are Italian?"

  Ramage shook his head. "I was not born an Italian, but these two were."

  "That I can tell. Once a Genovese always a Genovese. And the youngster, he is Tuscan. Allora, I help you. You have my word. Not," he added, "that that means much to you, but I am known as an honest man."

  "Yes," Ramage said, "I see that. We are looking for the French soldiers who were in Pitigliano."

  "The French soldiers or the Inglesi prisoners?"

  "If they are still together, does it matter?"

  The man grinned and shook his head. "Two weeks ago - I know the date because I had to go to Orbetello to do some shopping - the French took their hostages to Santo Stefano. As I rode back along the road (along the Via Aurelia, before taking this turning) I saw a French ship sailing into the port. I think it took them all away."

  "You don't know the destination?"

  The man shrugged his shoulders. "No. It was not a big ship, but there are many places. Giglio, Elba, Montecristo . . . Even Corsica or Sardinia."

  "Thank you," Ramage said. "I know you have told us this because we are paesani, but I wish we could help you with soldi, so that your wife is not so angry, but unfortunately we have neither French nor local money in our pockets."

  "I guessed that," the man said, "and I would not have accepted it anyway. I am not a soldier or -" he winked at Ramage, "- a sailor, but I am a proprio Toscano, even if my father-in-law says bad things about me. Tell me, did all go well in Pitigliano?"

  "Quiet. The few people we saw helped us. We were there only a few minutes."

  The peasant nodded. "When I first met you, I wondered but dare not risk saying anything. Even now, you could shoot me, saying I am a traitor."

  Ramage pulled one of the pistols from his belt, flicked open the pan so the man could see the powder, and shut it again. Then he cocked the gun and gave it butt-first to the man. "If you think you are going to be shot, you can take me with you."

  The man handed back the gun. "Grazie, signore, but let us both try to stay alive - me to face my wife, you to find the prisoners . . ."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Back on board the Calypso, once more dressed in breeches and stockings, shirt, stock and uniform coat, Ramage again reflected wryly that as far as he was concerned the one benefit brought about by the French Revolution was substituting trousers for kneebreeches.

  The sans culotte, the "without breeches", could kneel or sit in comfort. Breeches were one of the most uncomfortable, confining garments yet devised for men, and the revolutionaries were sensible to dispose of them, thus ensuring a liberty not envisaged in their windy rhetoric. And, from what he and Sarah had seen during their honeymoon, French women had achieved a similar freedom in refusing to wear corsets. However, this often gave men an unfair advantage: a fellow with skinny shanks or bow legs looked much better in trousers: the tubes of cloth hid the defects. Women in abandoning corsets all too often looked - well, abandoned! Those lucky enough to have slim figures looked very beautiful in the new Grecian style now popular, but the plump
women looked like barrels draped in sheets of muslin.

  Looking around his cabin at Aitken, Southwick and Hill, all of whom were watching him attentively, waiting to hear his plan for their next move in finding the missing hostages, he wondered what their reaction would be if they knew he had been thinking of sans culottes, and how he hated having to wear breeches, and how plump Frenchwomen fared badly in the Revolution.

  "They might be kept prisoner in Santo Stefano despite what our gambling friend said," he commented, "but I doubt it. The Fortezza is the only place big enough to hold them and the guards - and the obvious question to ask ourselves is: 'Why there?' The Orsini Palace in Pitigliano is large, much more comfortable and in every way more suitable. This makes me certain that Santo Stefano was being used simply as a port and that by now a ship has called and taken them somewhere else."

  "Dare we risk sailing off to look for them somewhere else when they might still be at the Fortezza, sir?" Southwick asked, adding one of his you-might-be-mistaken sniffs.

  Ramage recognized the sniff and smiled. "No, we daren't: I was just coming to that. Because I know Santo Stefano quite well, the cutter will land me tonight on a stretch of beach about a mile east of the port and I'll go in and find out."

  "Sir!" Aitken exclaimed. "Surely that's too big a risk compared with what we could possibly gain. Rossi could easily find out. Or young Orsini - it's just the sort of job he'd be good at."

  "You'd sooner risk the probable ruler of Volterra than me?"

  "Most certainly, sir," Aitken said flatly. "We've Admiralty orders to carry out, and losing you means risking that we can't complete them. It's unfortunate that Orsini might have inherited Volterra at this particular time, but he's simply a midshipman in the King's service. And," he added as an afterthought, "we've never worried before about risking his life."

  That was true enough and Ramage imagined Orsini's reaction if he thought he was deliberately being kept out of danger. "Very well, we'll send him in tonight with Rossi."

  "May I command the cutter, sir?" Hill asked quickly. "I've a lot to learn about this sort of work. I'm afraid being a lieutenant on board the Salvador del Mundo didn't help much."

  "Made you a very good escort for accused officers," Ramage said teasingly.

  Hill sighed and then grinned: "With respect, sir, your court-martial changed my life. If I hadn't been your escort and asked if I could serve with you, I'd still be in Plymouth Sound chasing after the admiral and worrying that my stock wasn't properly ironed."

  "You're more likely to reach a ripe old age serving in a guardship, waiting on an admiral, than serving as the second lieutenant in a frigate," Ramage said ironically.

  Hill shook his head. "No sir, guardships are much more dangerous than frigates."

  Ramage raised a questioning eyebrow.

  "Yes, sir: every day in a guardship you risk dying of boredom!"

  "At least that's painless," Ramage said. "Now, tell the sentry to pass the word for Orsini and Rossi. In the meantime, Hill, let's look at our rough chart of Santo Stefano: I'll show you where the beach is. You have to land there because there are rocks and cliffs everywhere else."

  "Jackson, sir," Southwick said.

  Ramage stared blankly, then realized what the old master meant. "He'd never have forgiven me!"

  When Aitken looked puzzled, Ramage explained. "Some years ago, when we were rescuing Orsini's aunt, Jackson and I had to walk round Santo Stefano without anyone realizing who we were. You'd better take Jackson in the cutter - he'll be able to point out various landmarks to Orsini and Rossi, though there's no need for him to land." He looked round at Hill. "Pass the word for Jackson as well."

  When Orsini and the two seamen arrived, Ramage explained what they were to do. When he had finished, Orsini asked: "What arms do we carry?"

  Ramage shook his head. "None. As I've just explained, the pair of you are supposed to be from Lucca: you spend half the year traipsing round Tuscany, just pruning olive trees. That story will be convincing to the French provided your clothes are ragged enough, your hands grimy enough, and your pruning knife sharp enough. And you have a sharpening stone tucked in your belt, too."

  "We're out of pruning knives, sir," Southwick said ironically. "A few handstones, yes; pruning knives no. You didn't tell me about the olive trees when we were commissioning . . ."

  "Do you know what a pruning knife for olive trees looks like?"

  "Well, no, sir. I suppose it's a short knife with a curved end."

  "That's for pruning grape vines, and disembowelling rabbits; it'd take you a month to prune an olive tree with a small blade like that. No, you need something like a short cutlass, or the machete they use in the West Indies for cutting sugarcane."

  "We're out of them, too," Southwick said lugubriously. "You didn't mention sugarcane, either."

  Ramage sighed, as though despairing. "I need a new master for this ship. A young man with imagination."

  "Maybe," grunted Southwick, "but all that's the gunner's job." With that Southwick knew he had played a trump card, because the Calypso's gunner was a useless man who fled to his cabin rather than accept responsibility for anything. Because he was appointed by the Board of Ordnance (which was controlled by the Army), it was almost impossible to replace him, so Ramage simply ignored him.

  Ramage, remembering it was early in the season for pruning but guessing that French soldiers would not know that, looked up at the deckhead, as though thinking. "Ah yes. That two-handed sword of yours. We could put that on the grindstone and grind it down to half its length, and then shape it up."

  In a moment Southwick was on his feet, remembering just in time to duck so that he did not bang his head. "Sir! You can't be ..." His voice tapered off as he realized the other officers were laughing. He had made the rare mistake of taking Ramage seriously when he made a straight-faced joke. To recover himself he said: "But of course, for the King's service I'd be willing to sacrifice it."

  "Good, thanks: that settles it," Ramage said. "Rossi can have that. Now Orsini, your midshipman's dirk is about the right length."

  "It will be fine, sir," Orsini assured him. "Wrapped in a greasy cloth, it'll look just right."

  By now Southwick had sat down again and was scratching his head. "I'm sure we could find something like Mr Orsini's dirk ... the cook must have a big knife. The butcher, too."

  "But they need them so that we can eat," Ramage said. "No, don't bother your head: your sword will do, and you might get the men to hoist the grindstone up on deck: I expect most of the cutlasses need sharpening as well."

  "If you say so, sir," Southwick said, knowing he was beaten.

  He had owned the sword for many years; it was the only one he had ever found that had just the right balance. "If you'll excuse me, I'll see to the grindstone now."

  Ramage nodded, and Southwick made for the door. Just as he was going through, Ramage said: "Oh, Southwick. It'll take hours of grinding to shorten your sword. Have some men grind down a cutlass to a couple of feet, and round up the point."

  The master grinned: it was not often the captain caught him twice ...

  "We'll go up on deck and survey Argentario's beaches with the glass, and it'd be a good idea," Ramage said to Hill, Orsini, Rossi and Jackson, "if you get those little headlands fixed in your memory."

  For the next half an hour the five men passed the telescope between them. Ramage found the names came back easily. From where the northern causeway joined Argentario, as the telescope swung to the right towards Santo Stefano, there was the Torre Santa Liberata at the end of a small headland; then still going westward the land cut back into a small bay next to a larger one, Cala del Pozzarello, with Torre Calvello guarding it. Then came three small headlands, the last of which was Punta Nera, and then the land sloped sharply down into Santo Stefano itself.

  The little port was scooped out of the hills, with several fishing boats hauled up on the only stretch of beach, and looking down on it was the bulky, four-square and
curiously dignified Fortezza di Filippo Secundo. And then, at the western end of Argentario (or as far west as they could see from the Calypso), was Punta Lividonia.

  Ramage let his memory take over. Just round that headland, the third or fourth bay to the south, was Cala Grande. Some years ago he and Jackson and a few men in an open boat had rowed into there from the Torre di Buranaccio on the mainland with Gianna, badly wounded, a pistol or musket ball still lodged in her. They had put into Cala Grande in the darkness and he and Jackson had climbed up the cliffs and over the hills to Santo Stefano, looking for a doctor to kidnap and take down to the beach ... Was that doctor, who had in fact proved to be a loyal Italian, still alive and living in his house just by the Fortezza? What was it called - ah yes, the Casa di Leone. Yes, that plump little doctor had a lion's heart; his house was aptly named.

  Ramage caught Jackson's eye. The American seaman had guessed where his thoughts were. "That doctor, sir. Casa di Leone, wasn't it?"

  Ramage nodded. But it was all years ago. Gianna had recovered, spent years in England, and then left for Volterra at the signing of that wretched peace treaty. Now her nephew was going back to Argentario - like Ramage and Jackson he would be disguised. It was curious how Argentario played such a frequent part in all their lives.

  The cutter's stem grated as it nosed up on the sand and Rossi jumped over the bow, boots and cutlass in hand. He turned to make sure that Paolo Orsini did not slip as he too jumped. The two of them, after putting their gear higher up the beach out of reach of the wavelets, returned and helped shove off the cutter. The arrangement was simple: the cutter would stay a hundred yards off the beach, out of sight in the darkness, until Hill heard a nightjar call four times, pause and then call again. Paolo was very proud of his imitation of a nightjar, a trick he had learned as a boy in Volterra, where a nightjar regularly hooted from a tree below his bedroom window.