Ramage and the Saracens r-17

by Dudley Pope

  Southwick gave an enormous sniff, and Ramage recognized it as the warning that he had an important pronouncement to make.

  "We can't do it," he said. "There's no way. I don't usually say something is impossible, but there is no way we can stop forty boats - or even twenty - and destroy them, even if they are drawn up in a regular line of battle, which of course they won't be, being Saracens."

  "I've been thinking the same thing for days," Ramage admitted.

  "But so far I can see no alternative but to wade right into the middle of them and sink as many as we can."

  "I don't think we'll sink many," Southwick said. "They're all fast and weatherly craft. Tartanes can eat their way to windward and those damned galleys can turn on a penny piece."

  "Makes me think we shouldn't be at sea," Ramage said enigmatically.

  The little port of Licata, some thirty miles along the coast, was the next place to visit. Nor was it difficult to find: it stood at the mouth of the Fiume Salso and a big castle, Castel San Angelo, was built on Monte Ecnomo on the western side of the town with the church of San Angelo, which had a very prominent cupola, on the eastern side.

  The Calypso anchored off and Ramage went in with the cutter. He was surprised how small was Licata, and it seemed too unimportant for the Saraceni to raid. Nor had it been attacked. The mayor was a sturdy, grey-haired man who regarded Ramage as a saviour.

  "When we heard every port had been attacked between here and Marsala," he said, "we gave ourselves up for lost. But then at the last minute you arrive with your great ship, Commandante. Our prayers have been answered just in time."

  Ramage held up his hand to stop the man. "We can't do much against so many of their vessels," Ramage said. "We think they'll have about forty or more, and how can just one ship destroy them?"

  The mayor looked crestfallen. "But you have such a big ship, and all they have will be tartanes and galleys."

  "Yes, I know," Ramage said patiently, "but they are very agile. It would be like a man in a large boat with a trident trying to spear little fishes. You spear one but there are many more ..."

  "Then send your men on shore and help us fight the Saraceni in the streets," the mayor said, and immediately Ramage knew his idea was a practical one, and he wished he had discussed it with Aitken and Southwick.

  "How many people are there in Licata?" Ramage asked.

  The mayor shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? Perhaps four thousand, but maybe only three."

  "How many men have you who can fight?"

  "Fight? It will be mostly with swords and cudgels: I doubt if there are fifty fowling pieces in the whole town, and the powder for them is probably damp."

  "Very well, how many with swords and cudgels?"

  "Young men who can fight, perhaps two hundred. Most of our men are now old and decrepit; not fit for much more than sitting in the sun and puffing a pipe."

  "And what about water?"

  "Plenty - we have two good wells. Why?"

  "If I land a hundred men they can bring provisions but they'll need water. Not just for a day or two but every day until the Saraceni arrive. If they arrive, that is."

  "They'll come," the mayor said grimly. "They're picking off the ports like ripe oranges. We're the next to last one along this south coast. They'll come all right."

  He is right, Ramage told himself, and nodded. "Yes, I think they'll come - in six or seven days."

  The mayor looked puzzled. "What makes you so sure? Why not tomorrow, or the next day?"

  Ramage explained the timetable for the previous raids, and how it seemed that the Saraceni needed twelve days or so to take the prisoners back to their base and return to the coast of Sicily. Empedocle had been raided three days before the Calypso arrived, and the frigate had taken a day to get here because of light winds, making four days in all since the raid on Empedocle.

  The mayor was now getting excited: he had been living with the thought of a Saracen raid for so long that he had given up hope; now Ramage's arrival had changed everything.

  Ramage interrupted his spate of excited speculation with a harsh remark. "We must destroy these men, every one of them. There is no point in driving them off. Drive them off and they'll be back again in days or weeks."

  "Yes, yes, we must trap them," the mayor exclaimed.

  Ramage nodded. "I am going back to my ship to make plans," he said. "Be patient; I shall return."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ramage's cabin was crowded: as usual Southwick sat in the armchair, Aitken, Kenton and Martin were crowded together on the settee and Hill and Rennick stood either side of the door, their beads canted because of the low headroom.

  Ram age looked up from his desk and said without any preliminaries: "There's little doubt that Licata will be the next target for the Saracens, probably in about eight days' time."

  With the exception of the first lieutenant and master, the rest of the officers looked startled; as though their captain had started fortune telling. Ramage immediately noticed and went on to explain how he had reached that conclusion.

  As Ramage finished with his estimate of the number of vessels that the Saracens would have, Hill said: "How are we going to tackle that number, sir?"

  "We aren't," Ramage said shortly. "There's no way we can. In other words we can't deal with them at sea."

  He stopped with that remark and it was left to Hill to echo, questioningly, the phrase: "At sea?"

  "Yes," Ramage said briskly. "We've got to destroy these damned pirates, and the only way we can do it is trap them on shore. They might outnumber us - probably will - but we'll have to make up for that with surprise.

  "I intend landing every Marine and seaman that can be spared, and every carronade and boat gun we have. We will mount the guns where they will do the most harm - in houses covering quays, places like that - and the men will be billeted in the houses, armed with muskets and pistols, along with pikes and cutlasses.

  "The Calypso will then disappear over the horizon: we don't want her presence to frighten off the Saracens. She will return every few days and look for a signal flying from the Castel San Angelo - that's the big castle you can see on the hill overlooking the town - but unless the signal is flying, to show that it's all over, she will go out to sea again and disappear over the horizon."

  He put his hands flat on the desk. "I have had a difficult time selecting officers because some of you are bound to be disappointed. But we must remember that our primary concern is the safety of the ship; the operation against the Saracens is our secondary concern. Therefore, Mr Aitken will command the ship and Mr Southwick will go with him.

  "Mr Rennick will, of course, command the detachment of Marines and Sergeant Ferris will be his second-in-command. Lieutenants Kenton, Martin and Hill will command detachments of seamen and the guns they will handle.

  "My headquarters will be in the castle because that is the best place for seeing what's going on. And there's no doubt I will be able to see - the Saracens raid in daylight; or at least they have so far.

  "One last thing for now," Ramage added harshly. "We are dealing with barbarians. I am not interested in prisoners. I warn you, if you are taken prisoner by the Saracens, then you'll spend the rest of your life chained to the oar of a galley. Any questions?"

  "Are the local people here on our side, sir?" asked Martin.

  "Completely. They regard it as a miracle that we arrived when we did. By the way," he asked Aitken, "do we have any musketoons on board?"

  "About half a dozen, sir," Aitken said. "I'll tell the gunner to get them out." He knew Ramage's dislike of the gunner, which was why the man was not at the meeting. "Grapeshot for the carronades?"

  Ramage thought a moment and then said: "No, I think case will be more lethal. The object is to kill as many Saracens as possible with every round. That's why I don't want to use grapeshot: they're too big; they're all right for damaging ships and sending up showers of splinters, but we are going to be shooting at men out in the open."r />
  His officers were excited at the prospect: Ramage could feel the tension in the cabin - all except Southwick. The old man was sitting in the armchair like a sack of potatoes, his hair sticking out like a dry mop. The prospect of being out at sea while there was a good fight going on ashore was almost more than he could bear, but Ramage had warned him that street fighting was a young man's sport, and anyway Aitken needed a responsible second-in-command because they would be standing watch and watch about for several days and they would both be very short of sleep.

  "Any more questions?" Ramage asked. "No? Well, let's make a start then: we have to get six carronades ashore and six boat guns, along with powder, shot and provisions. And rockets for signalling. That reminds me, we need provisions for all the men but not water; the mayor tells me they have a couple of good wells. Mr Aitken, I want you to stay behind: we have to work out what men you can spare."

  As soon as the others had gone, Aitken sat at one side of the desk and Ramage the other. Together they worked out the minimum number of men Aitken needed to work the ship and both men were surprised at how few were needed. Aitken, saying that he would not be sailing under courses but would probably stay under topsails, decided that six topmen and twelve afterguard would be sufficient for sail handling while half a dozen idlers would be enough to do the rest of the jobs on board, ranging from providing meals - the normal mess system could not be used because it would waste men - to scrubbing the decks.

  This left Ramage with nearly two hundred seamen and twenty-four Marines. Against how many Saracens? One thing he had foiled to get from the mayors had been reliable estimates of the number of Saracens attacking them. The only thing he had been able to do was to find out the number of vessels attacking the first port, Marsala, and then guess how many men they were carrying.

  The mathematics did not change the fact that the British would be outnumbered, and quite heavily too. Against that was their advantage of surprise and the carronades, and probably the musketry. The Saracens would certainly have muskets, but would they have the training in loading? He doubted it.

  Later that afternoon Ramage was rowed ashore to meet the mayor of Licata on the quay and he took Rennick, Kenton and Martin with him. As they walked in the hot sun along the dusty quay, which glinted with fish scales and reeked of rotted fish, Ramage and Rennick discussed the siting of the carronades. Where possible they wanted a good crossfire. Not at the actual point of disembarkation - that would give the Saracens time to scramble back into their boats and escape. No, the crossfire should be at a point where they had left their vessels and were making their way along the quay to raid the town. Within range of the carronades and the muskets.

  Ramage pointed out forty or fifty square yards on the jetty. "Here," he said. "This is where we kill them. If we haven't killed them by the time they are crossing this point, then there's a chance that they will get past us and into the town. Then they might think of taking hostages, and if they do much of that we're done for; we can't do anything that would lead to the killing of hostages."

  He and Rennick agreed on the siting of the first carronade: there was a narrow alley between two houses, and a carronade placed there would cover what Ramage had called "the killing ground". There were seven houses along the edge of the harbour near the alley, and Rennick agreed they were a fine place for his Marines with their muskets. Each Marine would have two loaded muskets beside him, in addition to the one he was holding, so that providing every man stayed calm they would be firing three times twenty-four aimed shots into the killing ground before having to pause to reload.

  The second carronade, they decided, would be placed in the donkey stable next to the third house in the row: built of stone, the stable had a wide doorway to allow a donkey laden with panniers to come in or out, and this would give more than enough traverse for the gun.

  The mayor explained patiently to the owner of the house and stable, and the man, although fearful at the sound of the word "gun", agreed once he realized it would mean extra protection against the Saraceni. There was another stable beside the sixth house in the row, and the owner agreed that his donkey should be tethered outside for a few nights so that the carronade and its crew could be housed. Ramage, inspecting the stable and checking the field of fire, decided he did not envy the gun crew who would have to live there: it was ankle deep in foul-smelling straw and had obviously not been cleaned out properly for years.

  With the mayor very competently explaining to the owners the reason, Ramage and Rennick soon sited the other three carronades, and arranged for seamen to be billeted in the nineteen houses from whose windows it was possible to fire muskets to cover the killing ground. Then it was a question of distributing the remaining men among houses close to the quay, where the men would have to run only a short distance to open fire on the approaching Saracens.

  "Now," Ramage announced, "I want to go up and look down from my headquarters." He pointed up to the Castel San Angelo. "That will also be our lookout tower. I see you have a flagpole," he said to the mayor. "Does it have a halyard so that you can hoist flags?"

  "Why, of course," exclaimed the mayor, as though shocked at the idea that it might not. "We hoist flags on saints' days."

  "Ah, once the frigate has sailed you must not hoist any more flags: she will return from time to time and look at the castle with a telescope. As soon as they see a flag flying they will know the Saracens have attacked, and they will come in and anchor."

  "But it will be too late for her to help," the mayor protested.

  Ramage patiently explained that the frigate's task was to stay out of sight and, because she could do nothing against a swarm of Saraceni vessels, be sure she did nothing to frighten them away.

  "We want them to come here," Ramage told the mayor grimly. "Here we shall be well prepared to meet them."

  "I hope so," the mayor said doubtfully. "There will be so many of them, and they move like snakes."

  "But we have the guns," Ramage said, trying to reassure him.

  But the mayor could not distinguish between a carronade and an ordinary gun; he did not know that another name for it was "the Smasher".

  "The guns are so small," he said. "We want long guns!"

  Ramage knew it was impossible to explain, and contented himself with saying to Kenton and Martin: "You fit the boat guns wherever you've got room. Try not to damage the houses too much. But don't forget they don't throw musket balls very far."

  The ship's company of the Calypso were kept busy until well after nightfall hoisting out the carronades and lowering the barrels into the boats to be ferried ashore, and then when they had returned alongside, lowering down the carriages.

  Once the guns were assembled on the quay the men fitted traces and hauled them into their prearranged positions. Then powder and shot had to be carried ashore and put in position. Finally at midnight a weary Aitken came into Ramage's cabin and reported that all the carronades and boat guns had been landed, and with them shot, powder, rammers and sponges. And Marines were now patrolling where the guns were sited.

  He did not add that the men were worn out, but Ramage said: "Very well, let's call it a night. We'll ferry all the men ashore tomorrow after they've had a good night's sleep, and then you can hoist in the boats and disappear to the eastward."

  "Don't forget to take that white ensign with you, sir," Aitken said. "We shall be watching out for that!"

  "You'll be no more anxious than I will to hoist it!"

  Ramage thought awhile and then said: "I must emphasize that you should not approach before the late afternoon, and then come in perpendicular to the coast, so that you are in sight for the shortest time possible."

  "You're expecting the attack to be in the morning, sir?"

  "Yes, probably soon after dawn. The Saracens won't have any difficulty identifying the place, thanks to Castel San Angelo and the church. They'll probably expect to catch the people while they're still in their beds."

  "And you'll be up in the cast
le?"

  "Yes, me, Orsini and half a dozen seamen who will act as messengers as soon as we sight anything."

  "Supposing they come at night, sir?"

  "Well, the carronades will be sited already and the messengers can raise the alarm. I'd prefer it in daylight, so that we can see who we're shooting at, but a night attack isn't impossible to deal with."

  Jackson and his gun's crew shovelled and cursed as they cleaned out the stable. The carronade stood in the road outside the door because Lieutenant Kenton had agreed that apart from the dangers of the gun capsizing itself as it recoiled over so much straw, the stench was appalling, a dreadful mixture of donkey manure and urine which had collected over the years. Ramage, thinking of the practical effect of keeping men shut up in houses and stables for days on end, had finally arranged with the mayor that the town should go about its ordinary business - which meant that the seamen and Marines were allowed out in the street -until the bells of the church, also called San Angelo, should start tolling. Because Ramage knew that ringing church bells was a skilled job, he sent two seamen - whom he would have with him in the castle as messengers - with the mayor to find one of the bellringers and to get instructions how to toll the bells of San Angelo. The mayor assured him that the tolling of San Angelo could be heard ail over the port; they were loud enough to wake sleeping people, if the Saraceni should be sighted at night. The mayor agreed to warn all the people, and to tell the priest.

  Jackson and his men were hot and tired and far from pleased at the sort of work. "I'm a sailor, not a farm labourer," grumbled Stafford. "These damned people have never cleaned this stable out since it was built."

  "And it was built on a manure heap to start with," Gilbert said.

  Finally Jackson agreed that the stable was clean enough to move in the carronade. The gun just fitted; they managed to haul it in through the doorway with only a few inches to spare, so that the muzzle protruded as though through a gunport.