Ramage

by Pope, Dudley

  They had been lucky in finding this little inlet, which was cut out of the rock as neatly as if someone had sliced it with a knife. The boat was almost invisible to a man standing on the shore five yards away, whereas the sides of the inlet, only a few inches higher than the gunwale of the boat, meant they could keep a lookout all round them.

  For much of the morning Mr Ramage had been sitting on the side of the hill, glass to his eye, studying the mainland. As soon as he had located the Tower of Buranaccio, just at the back of the beach, its base hidden by the sand dunes and the curvature of the earth, he had ordered all the seamen to be brought up, two at a time, to look at it through the glass and study the coast on either side.

  In the meantime, Jackson had set one of the sailors to work scrubbing the Lieutenant’s jacket to remove some of the bloodstains, carefully smoothing the cloth with his hand as he laid it out to dry. The silk stock looked far from ironed; but flattening it out on a smooth rock while still wet had given it a new lease of life. At least, thought Jackson, Mr Ramage will look smart enough in the dark when he meets these dukes and people. Pity he had lost his hat.

  Looking down at the sleeping lieutenant, Jackson saw that occasionally the muscles of his face twitched. Curious, the habit he had of blinking, particularly when thinking hard, or if he was tired or excited. It seemed deliberate, as though squeezing the eyelids together helped him concentrate.

  The Bosun had said Mr Ramage looked just like his father, the Earl of Blazey – old ‘Blaze-Away’, as the Navy called him. Jackson felt a twinge of embarrassment as he remembered when, a few months ago, he said he hoped old ‘Blaze-Away’s’ son had more guts than his father, and the Bosun had brought him up all standing by getting into a fury. Seemed the trial was all political… Well, the Bosun served in the old boy’s flagship at the battle, so he ought to know. Anyway, whether or not the father had been a coward, the son seemed man enough.

  The lad had a good face, Jackson thought to himself; there had never been an opportunity to study it before. On the thin side, though, with the nose straight and cheekbones high. But with Mr Ramage it was always his eyes that attracted you. Deep set and brown, they were slung under a pair of bushy eyebrows, and when he was really angry they seemed to bore right through you. What was it one of the men in Mr Ramage’s division had said when hauled before the captain for some crime or other, and asked if he was guilty? Something to the effect it was no use pleading not guilty as Mr Ramage knew different; and when the Captain had said Mr Ramage had not been on deck at that particular moment, the sailor replied, ‘That don’t signify because Mr Ramage can see through oak planks.’

  Yet, mused Jackson, he had never come across an officer quite like him: none of the sarcasm and hoity-toity of so many junior lieutenants. But everyone respected him – perhaps because the hands knew he could beat any of them up to the maintop. He could knot and splice like a rigger, and handle a boat as though he’d been born under a thwart. And, more important, he was approachable. Somehow he seemed to know instinctively how the men felt: when it was necessary to encourage them with a quiet joke, and when to threaten them with a ‘starting’ – not that Jackson ever remembered actually seeing him allow a bosun’s mate to hit the men with a rope’s end. Nor had he ever had to take a man before the captain.

  It was curious how, when he was angry or excited, he had trouble pronouncing the letter ‘r’. You could see him tensing himself to say it correctly. But Jackson remembered a topman – that fellow there with a cut forehead – making a pun once, ‘When you see his bloody young Lordship blinking his eyes and wobbling his “r’s”, it’s time to go about on the other tack!’ Why was it he never used his title on board? After all, he was a real Lord. Something to do with his father, maybe.

  Christ, he thought, that lad’s lying there like a worn-out hawser. Ramage was curled up on the stern sheets, arms above his head and using his hands as a pillow. Although he was obviously in a deep sleep, Jackson guessed he was not relaxed: the corners of the rather full lips were turned down slightly; his forehead was wrinkled, as if he was concentrating, and his eyebrows were lowered. If he had his eyes open, Jackson thought, you’d imagine he was trying to sight something on the horizon. And where did he collect that scar above the right eyebrow? He always rubbed it when he was tired or under a strain. Looked like a sword cut.

  By now the east side of the island, which had been mauve as the sun set, was darkening in the twilight, and Jackson looked towards the mainland. Over to his left was the great hump of Argentario, and he could see one of the two semicircular causeways which joined it to the mainland. In front, he could just see a small, flat reef of rocks, the Formiche de Burano, a black spot in the sea in line with Mount Capalbio. Just to the right of Mount Capalbio was Mount Maggiore, and on the coast in line with its peak was the little square tower, which Mr Ramage said they had to visit. It was too dark against the eastern sky to see it now, and anyway half of it was below the horizon.

  The chart showed there was a big oblong-shaped lake behind the tower, running parallel with the beach and less than half a mile inland. From the middle of the nearest side a little river left the lake, running towards the sea past the north side of the tower, making a dog-leg turn to flow along the west wall – so the tower had a moat on two sides – and then straight for another couple of hundred yards, parallel with the shore, before curving round to flow into the sea.

  Oh well, Jackson thought to himself, it will be nice to be on shore again, even if only for an hour or two. He looked at the watch. Another five minutes before he was due to rouse Mr Ramage.

  Some of the seamen had already woken. One had persuaded another to retie his pigtail, while a third leaned over the side of the boat and began to hone his knife against the rock until Jackson told him to be quiet.

  The American glanced round the gig and began checking off various items. The tiller was ready to be shipped; the oars were safely stowed; the two precious breakers of water were lashed under the thwarts, as were the bags of bread; the lantern was trimmed and ready for lighting; the bag of charts and papers was at his feet.

  The seaman with the cut on his forehead rolled up a trouser leg and swore viciously, pointing at the mosquito bites on his ankle. He fished a rough canvas shirt from under a thwart and pulled it over his head.

  ‘Can’t we have a drink, Jacko?’ asked another sailor.

  ‘You heard what Mr Ramage said.’

  ‘You’re just a damned mean Jonathan.’

  ‘Ask Mr Ramage when he wakes.’

  ‘You like pushing us Limeys around.’

  ‘All right, you’re a Limey and I’m a Jonathan,’ retorted Jackson, ‘but that don’t make me any less thirsty than you.’

  ‘Anyway that thirsty bastard ain’t a Limey, he’s a Patlander,’ a man lying on the bottom boards said to Jackson. ‘He’s so Irish he salutes when we ship a green sea.’

  ‘Listen, the lot of you,’ growled Jackson. ‘Mr Ramage has two minutes’ more sleep and he deserves ’em; so put a couple of reefs in your tongues.’

  ‘Is he doing the right thing, Jacko?’ one of the men whispered. ‘After all, this gig ain’t a bleedin’ frigate.’

  ‘Scared? Anyway, we’d have had to do this last bit in a boat even if the Sibella was still swimming.’

  ‘Yus, but we wouldn’t have to row all the way there and back like a lot of bumboatmen.’

  ‘Well,’ Jackson said crisply, ‘make up your mind whether you’re scared or lazy. If you’re scared then you’ve no need to be with him on board’ – he jerked a thumb in Ramage’s direction – ‘and if you’re lazy you’d better watch out with this one on board–’ he jabbed a thumb to his own chest.

  ‘All right, all right, Jacko; I’d sooner ’ave ’im than you any day, so put me down as just being scared.’

  Jackson glanced once again at the watch, and then climbed over a thwart to rouse Ramage.

  The skin of Ramage’s face felt taut and stiff, scorched by the sun despi
te the tan; and a band across the top of his forehead, normally protected by his hat, was hot and sore. He opened his eyes and they felt full of sand. Realizing someone was gently shaking him and calling his name, he sat up, conscious of a momentary feeling of fear as he remembered the last time he had woken.

  Almost nightfall; yet he would have sworn he’d been asleep only five minutes.

  ‘Everything all right, Jackson?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  With that Ramage stripped off his clothes and climbed over the transom into the water. It was warm, but chilly enough to be refreshing. As he climbed back on board again Jackson handed him a piece of cloth.

  ‘Do as a towel, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘His shirt, sir,’ he said, pointing to one of the men and adding, ‘he offered it!’

  Ramage nodded his thanks, rubbed himself down and pulled on his stockings, breeches and shirt. He glanced up in surprise as Jackson said, ‘We’ve tidied up your stock, weskit and coat, sir. If you don’t want ’em yet I’ll stow ’em so they don’t get creased.’

  ‘Oh – yes, do that please.’

  Trust Jackson, thought Ramage: he realizes I look like a pirate. If only I had a razor, he thought, feeling his chin, which crackled as he ran his hand over it.

  Jackson handed him his boots and, as soon as he had pulled them on, gave him the throwing knife, which he slid into the top and did up the button which held the sheath in place.

  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 nearby 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 wavel
ets 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 of 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’ 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.