by Dudley Pope
Followed by Orsini, Ramage slashed his way towards the party led by George Hill, which was the nearest, and was amused to hear the jaunty way that Hill was encouraging his men. Ramage lunged at an Arab who parried, shouting at the top of his voice. As his cutlass slid down the curved scimitar Ramage snatched it back and stabbed again and the Saracen collapsed. So much for the lessons learned as a boy from an Italian fencing master, Ramage thought grimly. But there was no question that the Saracens wielded their scimitars crudely; they were no match for the seamen, who had cutlass drill at least twice a week.
A screaming Saracen dashed at Ramage with his scimitar held high over his head and before he had time to slice down Ramage lunged with his cutlass, which penetrated the man's stomach so that he collapsed gurgling, almost disembowelled.
The Saracens were holding their ground: they were standing and fighting, instead of making a bolt for their boats, and Ramage saw that by now eight or ten seamen and a couple of Marines were lying among the Saracens dead or badly wounded. Then in the distance he heard the cough of a carronade and for a moment wondered if it was firing into the middle of the swirling mass of Saracens and Calypsos.
In fact it was Jackson's gun. The American had realized that the Saracens' boats, secured alongside the quay, made a perfect target, and he had guessed that the captain would want them destroyed or damaged. He had therefore ordered his men to train round the carronade so that it raked the craft. It took him only a moment to decide that the slaves in the galleys would have to take their chance, and he fired the first round. After each round Stafford ran to the smoke-filled doorway to see if any more Saracens were coming to attack them, but they all seemed to be occupied fighting the seamen.
After six rounds Jackson went to the doorway himself to inspect the boats and he was satisfied to note that the masts and yards of three tartanes were now slewed down over the deck.
"If only we had some roundshot!" he exclaimed to Stafford. "This caseshot is only pecking at 'em!"
"It's cutting the running rigging, and that's all that matters: we're trying to put 'em out of action for an hour or two, not sink 'em!" the Cockney replied, coughing from the gun smoke.
The Frenchmen and Rossi were also coughing and spluttering from the smoke that filled the stable, and they were loading and running out the gun more by feel and instinct rather than being able to see what they were doing. After another six rounds, when he was coughing so much his eyes were streaming and he was gasping for breath, Jackson went to the doorway again. This time he could see that the carronade was having a considerable effect on the boats: of the twenty or so craft, only four or five still had masts standing; the slanting yards of the tartanes had all fallen to the deck, probably because their halyards had been cut, and the squaresail yards of two of the galleys were slewed round drunkenly and no sail could be set on them.
"Let some of this smoke clear," he told his men, "we can't go on like this: the damned gun'll get doubleshotted or something stupid."
The smoke cleared quickly and after a quick glance at the confused fight going on across the quay, Jackson set his men back to work. In two minutes the stable was once more full of smoke as the carronade fired and Jackson again adjusted the aim, having to wipe streaming eyes as he gave new elevating and training instructions that set the men busy with handspikes and had them turning the wormscrew that took the place of a wedge-shaped quoin.
By now Ramage had the desperate feeling that his men were being overwhelmed by the Saracens, who fought like madmen. The Calypsos were too spread out to take advantage of their training: they needed to be concentrated so they could make an organized attack. But getting them into any sort of formation meant several minutes that they would be vulnerable while they reformed. Ramage quickly decided to take the risk; it was a lesser one than having his men overwhelmed.
He ran to one side and shouted at the top of his voice: "To me, Calypsos; tome!"
Many of the men heard him above the yelling and screaming and, led by Rennick, Ken ton, Martin and Hill, the men ran to his side. As he waited for them he continued to hear the sporadic cough of a carronade and his eye caught sight of the twisted lateen yards of the tartanes. He realized that someone, probably Jackson, had seen how vulnerable were the Saracens' craft.
With the Calypsos collected round him, Ramage shouted at the lieutenants: "Form into sections; attack from different directions."
They were not orders that would be approved by the Marines but they were the best he could do shouting at the top of his voice in the middle of a battle. The men collected round their officers, choosing the lieutenant commanding their divisions of guns on board the Calypso. The sudden movement by the seamen and Marines had puzzled the Saracens, who stood nonplussed. Then Ramage, satisfied that his men were in some sort of order, bellowed: "Charge!"
Now the motley collection of Saracens were attacked by four separate columns and, lacking any discipline, were quickly broken into large and small groups. Ramage joined Hill's men, who were the nearest, and parried a scimitar as it sliced down on to the back of a seaman. The rasping of metal against metal made the seaman turn in time to slash the Saracen with his cutlass.
Orsini was shouting something at Ramage which he could not hear and pointing seaward. Ramage glanced up to see the Calypso sailing in through the harbour entrance: she must have spotted the smoke, since the flag had not been hoisted at the castle flagpole. But what could an undermanned frigate do? She could not open fire with her guns because she would kill more Calypsos than Saracens.
But Ramage had not realized the effect the great frigate - she seemed enormous in the tiny port compared with the Saracens' boats - would have on the Arabs: at that moment several of them spotted her and started a wild, demented howl which was quickly taken up by the rest of them. The moment they turned to look at the frigate the Calypsos redoubled their efforts, slashing at the Arabs in a desperate attempt to take advantage of their momentary preoccupation.
Suddenly the Saracens broke away and started running across the quay and back to their boats. At the same time they seemed to notice for the first time the twisted yards and this provoked more howling, as they realized that they were trapped.
At that moment Ramage heard a gigantic splash as the Calypso let go an anchor and then, as her sails were furled, began to .wing round head to wind, to lie parallel with the quay and the Saracen craft, which were fifty yards away from her.
As the Calypsos ran after the Saracens, chasing them back to their boats, they hurled curses after them, slashing with their cutlasses at the unprotected backs of men who had at last panicked and were only concerned with getting aboard their boats.
Ramage paused a moment. Aitken had enough seamen to man a few of the 12-pounders; in fact Ramage was certain that as many guns as possible would at this very moment be in the act of being loaded and trained. And if and when the Calypso's broadsides crashed into the boats, he did not want any of his men near.
He shouted to the lieutenants to halt the men. Hill and Rennick heard him and stopped their sections, and then the rest of the Calypsos, realizing that some of their comrades had stopped, halted and looked back. In the meantime the Arabs continued their headlong dash to the boats and started scrambling on board, despite the damage caused by Jackson's carronade.
At that moment the carronade barked out again and Ramage saw its caseshot cut a swathe through the running Saracens. By now there were few of them left on the quay: most had piled into the boats and were beginning frantically to cast them off.
Suddenly the Calypso's side was a flicker of winking red eyes and a moment later plumes of smoke streamed out. Then the erratic crash of the broadside rattled across the quay as at least eight 12-pounders fired into the massed boats.
Ramage stood with his lieutenants and the seamen and Marines to watch as the Calypso fired a second broadside and then a third. Two tartanes began to, sink, one of the galleys suddenly heeled over and filled, taking the slaves with it, and two of th
e captured fishing boats capsized.
"What a slaughter!" Hill commented. "What timing!"
Ramage suddenly felt rather weak; his knees no longer wanted to support him, and he wanted to giggle. Well, that was how relief took you because, he admitted, but for the Calypso he wondered if they would have been able to deal with all the Saracens.
"We'll wait and let Aitken finish them off," Ramage said. At that moment the carronade coughed again, and Ramage added: "And Jackson, too!"
Another two tartanes suddenly heeled over as water poured in through their shattered hulls and they slowly filled, and Ramage saw men floundering in the water. The Saracens could fight well enough, but they could not swim. The Calypso's fourth broadside smashed into the remaining boats and Orsini commented: "There go two more of them!" as two fishing boats suddenly sank, their masts vanishing as they disappeared into what Ramage guessed was five fathoms of water.
Yet again Jackson's carronade fired, and Ramage could imagine the American's glee at having caught the Saracens in such a crossfire. And the Arabs' own haste to escape had doomed them: they had cast off the craft alongside the quay, and all the rest of the vessels were secured to them. Slowly they drifted away from the quay so there was no chance for any of the Saracens to get back on to the land; instead they were doomed to drift closer under the Calypso's guns.
Ramage noticed that the Calypso was not firing at the two galleys: obviously Aitken had thought about the galley slaves chained to the oars and decided to give them a chance. But Ramage wondered how they were going to get at the Saracens -fighting across the galleys' decks would be risky as far as the slaves were concerned.
Now the Saracens' vessels had stopped drifting: those left afloat were being held by the lines of those that had been secured to them and then sunk. Which meant that they were perfect for the Calypso's guns, which had stationary targets at less than fifty yards' range.
In ten minutes the only craft left afloat were the two galleys, and the Calypso stopped firing, and so did Jackson's carronade. Ramage saw the frigate hoist out boats and through his telescope saw Aitken climbing down into one of the cutters, which then made for the quay. Ramage stood to one side and waved, and the cutter altered course towards him.
Aitken was jubilant. "I hope you approve of the timing, sir!"
Ramage smiled and said: "You were early - thank goodness."
"I saw all the masts and as soon as I could see the flag was not flying I guessed they were attacking. Then we saw the smoke of the carronade. Just one, sir."
"That was Jackson and his men firing on the boats. I had to stop the rest because the Saracens attacked them."
"I hope they didn't spike any," Aitken said anxiously.
"No - they didn't get near them, in fact. I had to let the seamen and Marines drive them off, which meant stopping the carronades firing. All except Jackson's gun: he took no notice and kept on firing at the boats."
"The galleys," Aitken said. "I didn't fire into them because of the slaves."
"Quite right, but now we have to hook out the Saracens."
"We can board them from the boats, sir."
"Ramage shook his head. "No, these fellows are madmen; our casualties would be enormous. I'm not prepared to lose that many men just to save slaves."
Damnation, it was a rotten dilemma. How was he to save the slaves without losing dozens of his men? The only way would be to swamp the Saracens; somehow attack them with a couple of hundred men.
It was easy. The idea came to him so quickly that at first he was suspicious of it, and tried to work out what could go wrong. But there seemed to be nothing wrong with it and he described it to Aitken.
"We want the two galleys back alongside the quay, so that we can board them from the land and completely outnumber them."
"I don't see any problem," Aitken said. "We just tow them back alongside."
"Yes, our boats with grapnels. Let them get close enough to heave grapnels on board and then tow them to the quay."
"Musketry," Aitken said doubtfully. "The men in the boats will be vulnerable for a long time."
Again Ramage shook his head. "The Saracens don't seem to have many muskets: they didn't use them when they attacked us, and I doubt if they'd have many in the galleys."
"Very well, sir, I'll go and give the boats their orders if you'll get your men ready."
"You'll be using just about all your men," Ramage commented.
"Yes, sir, but we've managed so far - thanks to Southwick!"
"What's he been doing?"
"Well, I had him dancing all over the quarterdeck, cursing and foaming when we guessed what was happening here. Then I suggested he went and helped at the guns, because we were so short of men, and he went off like a pistol shot. Enjoyed himself enormously. The last I saw of him just before I got into the cutter he no longer had white hair: it was grey from smoke and powder!"
With that Aitken jumped down into the cutter which was quickly rowed back to the frigate. It took fifteen minutes to get all the boats ready and surrounding the galleys, and by then Ramage had all his surviving seamen and Marines lining the quay two deep where the galleys would be towed alongside.
The grapnels were flung up from Aitken's boats and before the screaming Saracens realized what was happening all the Calypso's boats were hauling the galleys back alongside the quay.
They had only ten yards to go, and while the Saracens lined the landward side of the nearest galley shouting what Ramage assumed were threats intended to curdle the blood, the seamen and Marines waited patiently to fight their way on board.
It was while watching the prancing Saracens that Ramage suddenly realized that these were the only survivors of the four hundred or so that had landed: the rest had either been killed in the fighting on shore or drowned as the boats had been sunk by the Calypso's relentless fire. How many were there in the galleys? Thirty in each; not more. Sixty left out of more than four hundred. There were going to be many widows in whatever town they called home. More widows than one would at first suppose, Ramage thought, because most men probably had more than one wife. . .
Ramage saw that the galleys were sufficiently small for his men to line up four and five deep, and he shouted orders to Rennick, Kenton, Martin and Hill. Had Aitken brought over the blacksmith to free the slaves from their chains?
And then the galleys were alongside and the British seamen and Marines were pouring over the bulwarks, shouting and slashing with their cutlasses. It was such a violent and concerted attack, with Ramage and Orsini in the front row, that the Saracens quickly retreated into the second galley.
Ramage, noticing that Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and the Frenchmen had appeared from somewhere and were surrounding him like a bodyguard, was appalled by the stench: the galleys smelled like middens, and as he found his way from one galley to the next, Ramage just glimpsed the slaves hunched down, seated on benches.
As he slashed and parried, Ramage had to watch his footing: the galley, with its double row of oarsmen each side, had no deck in the accepted sense; the ship seemed to comprise catwalks, a central one down which the men in charge of the slaves presumably walked with their whips.
He scrambled across to the second galley, noting in the red haze of fighting that they had taken the first, and then he saw that several of the Saracens - in fact many of them, those trapped against the bulwarks - were jumping into the sea, a flurry of long robes, turbans and long hair. And then suddenly the fighting was all over; the sudden silence was almost unnerving.
Ramage scrambled back on to the quay again, found Kenton and Martin and said: "Take a couple of dozen seamen and go back towards the guns and bring back our wounded here: the sooner we get them out to the ship so that Bowen can have a go at them, the better."
"What about the Saracens, sir?" Hill asked.
"Our men first," Ramage said abruptly.
As the first of the wounded were brought along the quay and made ready to be lowered into the Calypso's boats, Kenton g
ave Ramage the butcher's bill: seventeen Calypsos had been killed and thirteen wounded. There were fifty-seven dead Saracens - many of them killed by the carronades, boat guns and musketry -and forty-four wounded, most of the men so seriously that they would not last out the night.
Just as Kenton finished his report - after adding that many of the men and women from the town were out helping the wounded - the mayor came up to Ramage, his face serious. He took Ramage's hand and said emotionally: "You saved us - but at what a cost to your men!"
"It was inevitable," Ramage said. "We were heavily outnumbered."
The mayor looked across at the galleys, startled by the banging of metal as the blacksmith got to work.
"Go on board and look," Ramage said. "We're freeing the men who had been taken as slaves. Once we find out where they come from we'll take them back home again."
The mayor clambered on board the first galley but was soon back, white-faced and clearly shaken by what he had seen.
"What our men have escaped!" he said apologetically. "It turns the stomach ..." and before he could say any more he was violently sick. "The stench," he said apologetically. "But, Commandante," he added, "I was going to tell you that our people are doing what they can for your wounded over there. Unfortunately, we do not have medical supplies. But the dead, we will give them a great funeral - it is the least we can do," he said when he saw Ramage about to protest. "The Saraceni we put in a pit, all of them."
It took a moment for Ramage to realize the significance of what the mayor had said.
"Not all of them," he said. "Just the dead."
"They'll all be dead," the mayor said grimly. "They would have killed us- but for you. And if we let them escape alive, who knows, they might come back one day, looking for revenge. And you won't be here to protect us. No, Commandante, we do it our way; it is safer for us."
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. Much as the idea of slaughtering wounded men repulsed him, there was no arguing with the mayor's logic: there would not always be a British frigate to protect Licata; the little port would be defenceless in two or three days' time, once the Calypso left.