Ramage

by Pope, Dudley

  He heard a man puffing and grunting and as Jackson leapt to his feet, cutlass in hand, Nino came into the clearing.

  ‘Ah, Commandante,’ he said, ‘this heat!’ He rubbed his face vigorously with a piece of cloth, smearing the soot which always begrimed a carbonaio’s face across the areas of skin which had been washed clean by streams of perspiration. ‘Your sentry was not asleep this time!’

  ‘What news, Nino? Sit down – we have no wine, only water.’

  Nino grinned. ‘In the name of my uncle at Port’ Ercole, Commandante, I took the liberty of bringing you something.’

  He untied the neck of a small sack and took out three bottles of the deep golden white wine for which the district was famous, followed by several cheeses and half a dozen long, thin loaves of bread.

  ‘Those biscuits,’ he said. ‘The Marchesa told me of your ship’s biscuits, and so I found you some bread.’

  ‘It was kind of you, Nino.’

  ‘Prego, Commandante; it was nothing, you are welcome. The bread is made from my uncle’s grain.’

  Drinking wine in the heat of the sun always gave Ramage a headache; but he knew Nino would be hurt if he did not. ‘We’ll have a little now and keep the rest for the voyage.’

  ‘Drink it all now, Commandante; the two gentlemen will be bringing supplies for the voyage.’

  Ramage glanced up at the peasant. ‘The two gentlemen, Nino?’

  ‘I have a message from the Marchesa, Commandante. She said to tell you that three of the gentlemen have decided their duty keeps them here.’

  Nino’s voice was polite, but there was no mistaking his views on the reluctant trio.

  ‘The two gentlemen: who are they?’

  ‘I do not know their names: they are young and I think they are cousins. Now, Commandante, I must leave you: I have work to do before I meet you again at nine o’clock. Permesso, Commandante?’

  ‘Yes, and thank you, Nino: my greetings to your brother and your mother and your wife, and my apologies for disturbing them last night.’

  ‘It was nothing, Commandante.’

  With that he was gone. Ramage told Jackson to take some wine and food to the seamen and then lay back on the sand again, watching the insects zig-zagging among the spines of the junipers. The air was alive with the buzzing of the cicadas; the noise seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere; almost as though it was being produced inside one’s head.

  The sleep had done Ramage good: now he felt restless and full of energy. With the immediate problems solved, he found himself thinking of the girl: he recreated a dozen times the episode in the Tower, dwelling again and again on the quality of her voice. It was hard to define – soft, yet it had the ring of authority; precise in the way she spoke, but musical to the ear. Clear – and yet always on the verge of huskiness. He started to wonder how husky it would become when she made love, and hurriedly forced the idea out of his mind: the sun was hot enough without thinking of that: he’d already disturbed himself enough with memories of Ghiberti’s naked Eve and speculations about the body beneath the black cape.

  He felt a deep and powerful longing to roam free over the Tuscan hills once again: to ride the tracks and stir up the white dust; to see the lines of dark green cypress growing up the side of hills, stark against the hard blue sky. To watch a pair of creamy oxen plodding along, tails lazily flicking the flies from their flanks, and the owner asleep in the cart. To see a walled hill town, ride up the twisting path to the gate, his horse’s hooves clattering on the cobbles of the narrow streets, and glance up at a window to see a pair of beautiful eyes watching him curiously. To go back in time, to his boyhood, when Gianna was a little girl the Marchesa brought to the house…

  The cicadas still buzzed in the darkness – did they never sleep? – as Ramage watched the moon rising over Mount Capalbio. Earlier in the day, looking at a flat stone set high in the south wall of the Tower, Ramage had just been able to distinguish some Latin words, a name and a date carved into it, recording that a certain Alfiero Nicolo Verdeco was ‘the architect of this edifice’ in ad1606. Had Signor Verdeco stood on this spot nearly two centuries earlier and seen his ‘edifice’ bathed in the warm, oyster-pink glow of a full moon – a harvest moon?

  Ramage heard some splashing near by and from the top of the dune looked down at the mouth of the river: the boat was being held by three seamen, up to their knees in water, so that the after end of the keel rested on the sand bar. The rest of the men were already in the boat, waiting to help the refugees on board.

  He called down to Smith, asking the time.

  He saw a faint glow as Smith lifted up the canvas shield over the lantern and held the watch close to the light. Thank God someone had brought a good supply of candles.

  ‘Five minutes short o’ nine o’clock, sir.’

  Time to walk along the top of the dunes towards the Tower, to keep an eye open for the refugees. Let’s hope they’ll be punctual. Nine o’clock in Italy could mean anything between ten o’clock and midnight.

  He guessed they had been hiding somewhere near the little hill town of Capalbio, inland on the far side of the lake. Their shortest route to the boat would be round the northern edge of the lake, where they would pick up the track running parallel with the beach, forty yards or so inland, and linking the Tower with the little village of Ansedonia, farther up the coast towards the causeways. Nino had said it was called the Strada di Cavalleggeri, the Road of the Horsemen, but no one used it now. The track was hard sand, built up with an underlay of rocks where it crossed patches of marshy ground, and it ended at the bridge of narrow planks over the river by the Tower. The refugees need only walk along it until they met the bridge, turn right and climb up on top of the dunes, then carry on beside the river until they reached its mouth, where the boat waited.

  The moon was coming up fast, losing its pinkness the higher it rose, and seeming to shrink in size. Damn, thought Ramage, it must be nearly half past nine.

  Jackson seemed to sense his mounting annoyance and anxiety.

  ‘Reckon they’re all right, sir?’

  ‘I imagine so: I’ve never yet met a punctual Italian.’

  ‘Still, she said half an hour. If they left at dusk they’ve been nearly an hour, sir.’

  ‘I know, man,’ Ramage said impatiently. ‘But we don’t know whether they left on time, or where they started from or how they’re coming, so we can only wait.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Reckon those men with her ladyship have had a rough time today.’

  ‘Why? How do you mean?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like admitting to her I was scared of doing something…’

  ‘No.’

  Jackson was in a talkative mood, and obviously nothing short of a direct order would stop him.

  ‘…I guess she could make a man feel pretty small, sir.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But there’s another side to it, sir…’

  Ramage guessed Jackson knew he was anxious and was deliberately making conversation to help him over the waiting.

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘Yes – if a man had a woman like that to encourage him, he could push the world over.’

  ‘She’d push it for him, more likely.’

  ‘No, sir. Although she’s small and dainty, I reckon she’s – well, tough like a man; not all “fetch my smelling salts, Willy” as you might say. But I reckon it’s only because she’s boss of the family and has to be like that. I guess that inside her she’s all woman.’

  He wanted Jackson to talk. The American was not being familiar: dammit, he was old enough to be his father, and his salty wisdom obviously came from experience. But more important, Ramage realized, that low-pitched nasal voice was helping beat off the waves of loneliness and despair that were threatening to drown him. He looked once again over the flat marshes of the Maremma to the distant mountains silhouetted by the moonlight; then he stared up at the moon itself, now looking with all its pockmarks like a polished silver coin; and
the stars, so clear and so close together it’d be hard to jab the sky with the point of a sword without touching one of them. They all seemed to be saying ‘You are very insignificant, very inexperienced, very frightened… What little you know; and what a short time you have in which to learn…’

  A musket shot whiplashed over to his left, a thousand yards or more along the Strada di Cavalleggeri. And another – and a third.

  ‘There!’ exclaimed Jackson, pointing. ‘Did you see the flash?’

  ‘No.’

  Damn, damn, damn! He was helpless: he’d left his cutlass in the boat.

  Another flash and a moment later the sound of the shot.

  ‘I saw that one: just near the track. Must be a French patrol chasing them.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jackson, ‘the flashes are scattered.’

  Realizing he could not help from where he was, Ramage snapped: ‘Come on, we’ll make for the end of the track and pilot ’em in!’

  They dashed along the top of the dunes but every dozen or so paces one or other of them toppled over as his feet sank into a patch of particularly soft sand. The juniper and sea holly tore at their legs and thighs, and they had to dodge round the bigger bushes.

  Then, almost sobbing for breath, they were level with the Tower and running down the side of the dunes to follow the river’s sudden curve inland towards the lake.

  As the land flattened out they burst through a wall of bushes and found themselves at the edge of the hard track: to the right it ended abruptly at the little bridge; to the left it ran straight, disappearing into the darkness towards Ansedonia.

  Three more shots rang out and Ramage saw the flashes – all inland of the track. Jackson suddenly dropped on all fours and for a moment Ramage thought he had been hit by a stray ball, then realized the American had an ear to the ground.

  ‘Cavalry – a dozen horses, at a guess, but scattered,’ he said.

  ‘Can you hear people running?’

  ‘No, sir: sound don’t travel well through this sandy stuff.’

  Should they both run along the track and try to fight off the pursuers? No, they’d only add to the refugees’ confusion: better wait here. No – make a diversion and draw the fire: that was the only hope.

  ‘Jackson!’ In his enthusiasm he seized the American by the shoulder. ‘Listen – they can get to the boat either along this track or by crossing the dunes farther up there and then along the beach. I’ll stay on the track and you go up on the dunes. As the Italians pass we make sure they’re going in the right direction, then make a diversion as the cavalry reach us. When I shout “boat” bolt back and get on board: horses won’t be able to gallop on the dunes. Understand?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  With that Jackson was scrambling up the side of the dune. An American who, a few years ago, was fighting the British, was now serving in the British Navy risking his neck on Tuscan soil to save some Italians from the French, who were once his allies against the British. It didn’t make sense.

  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, Commandante, 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.