by Dudley Pope
“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.”
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 200 seamen and 24 marines. Against how many Saracens? One thing he had failed 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 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 castle?”
“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 on how to toll the bells of San Angelo. The mayor assured him that the tolling of San Angelo could be heard all 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 gun port.
As soon as the gun was in the stable Jackson set them to work hammering a hole in the wall on each side of the door into which would be fixed big eyebolts to fit the thick rope, the breeching, which would hold the carronade when it recoiled. The noise of the hammering and the dust soon upset Rossi.
“Staff is not a farm labourer, I am not a stone mason. And this noise; it is driving me mad.”
“Don’t worry, Rosey, no one will notice,” Stafford said. “Dung spreading and stone work is all part of chasing Saracens. Very strange people, Saracens; they only hide in manure heaps and behind piles of rocks.”
Finally the carronade was ready to be trained left or right. Jackson settled himself behind the gun and gave training and elevating instructions. When he was satisfied that it would sweep the killing ground the gun was loaded and laid and trained again. Now Stafford, as second captain, unwrapped the lock from the piece of cloth in which he kept it and checked the flint. As soon as he was satisfied that it was making a strong spark, he bolted the lock on to the gun, threaded the lanyard through the trigger and then coiled it up and placed the line on top of the breech.
“It’s going to make a bang when we fire it in here,” he observed. “I’m not sure my sensitive little ears will stand it.”
“I shouldn’t worry,” Jackson said. “I’ve noticed how deaf you get when you don’t want to hear something.”
Stafford looked through the door across at the quay. “Where we’re going to shoot, the Saracens will be a hundred yards or more from their ships.”
“Exactly,” Jackson said. “That’s why Mr Ramage chose it. We want to kill them in a surprise attack, so that they don’t have time to get back to their vessels. Take ‘em by surprise: Mr Ramage says surprise doubles the number of your men and guns.”
“I ‘ope he’s right,” Stafford said miserably. “I don’t want an ‘undred or so of these Saracens whooping round me and trying to cut my head off with those skimitars of theirs.”
“Scimitars,” Jackson corrected automatically.
“I don’t care what you call ‘em,” Stafford said sulkily. “I saw one once and it was big and ‘orrible.”
“Just think of them as overgrown cutlasses,” Jackson said.
“‘S’no good,” Stafford said. “I shall never think of them with ‘ffection: those Saracens are wild men.”
“No wilder than a panicky Frenchman fighting for his life,” Jackson said reassuringly.
“We’ll see,” Stafford said gloomily.
“Well, let’s get the powder stowed properly; at the moment the cartridges look as though they’ve been abandoned by a retreating army. And the case shot: we want that in a handy pile here, just where the muzzle will be when the gun recoils.”
“How many rounds do you reckon we’ll be able to fire?” Gilbert asked.
Jackson looked at him quizzically. “Depends how long the Saracens wait there, and how fast you load! From here, though, we shall also be able to fire into their vessels as they lie along-side the quay. Perhaps a dozen rounds. Maybe more, if we’re quick: after all, it doesn’t take long to load a carronade.”
“If those Saracens have any sense they’ll run towards the guns to slice up the infidels,” Stafford said. “Yelling ‘orrible things and waving those skimitars. Is it true, Jacko, that if they get killed fighting they go straight to Paradise?”
“Where’s Paradise?” Jackson said. “It’s not Heaven because they’re not Christians; they’re just benighted heathens. They might think they’re going to a special heathen Paradise, and good luck to ‘em as long as they’re dead. If they’re in Paradise they’re not bothering us,” he added.
Up on the battlements of Castel San Angelo Ramage watched seaward as the Calypso sailed away south-eastward. In half an hour she would be out of sight. Ramage had to admit to himself that he felt nervous; never before had he been out of sight of the Calypso with someone else commanding her. It was not that he did not trust Aitken and Southwick; his feelings, he suspected, were more like those of a mother whose young son was away staying with an ancient and unreliable grandmother: there was a nervousness with no definable reason for it.
The castle was strongly built. The only thing it lacked, Ramage thought crossly, was guns. It had been built to protect the port, and it was well positioned. If only it had a few guns it would be able to rake the quay. He had considered landing some twelve-pounders from th
e Calypso and hauling them up to the castle, but had finally decided that the carronades would be sufficient. The track up to the castle was so bad that it was hard climbing up it, let alone hauling up heavy guns with only manpower; Licata boasted only a few donkeys: it was too poor for horses.
But the view from the battlements was fine: it was a view he would like to share with Sarah. What was she doing at this moment? Either at the house at Aldington, enjoying the Kentish spring, or staying with her parents. He decided she would be at Aldington: they both loved the house they had inherited from his uncle, and it was reassuring to think that she would be well looked after by the staff there.
How he longed for her company. He tried to think of her only at night: there was usually enough work—especially these last few days—to keep his mind occupied in the daytime. But the night was different: he could fill it with fantasies, except that her absence was painful: it was not nostalgia, it was a painful longing.
Paolo Orsini was standing beside him, and the young Italian said: “Excuse me, sir, but we don’t know how long it takes a man to get from here to the church: it might be useful to know if they come in the dark. And perhaps the men ought to get used to it, in case they have to find their way at night.”
Ramage smiled. “Good thinking, my lad. You take the men now and time yourselves. It took about ten minutes from the quay to the church, but it should be less from up here.”
Once the young midshipman had gone off with two men of the six who would be acting as lookouts, messengers, and bell-ringers, Ramage paced up and down the battlements. Supposing the Saracens had decided not to bother with Licata and instead went on to the next port, Gela, which was bigger?
But why should they? he argued with himself: Sciacca and Empedocle were hardly bigger than Licata, but they had been raided. And, perhaps relevant, Licata would be easier to identify from seaward because of the castle.
Very well, but supposing there are more than two hundred Saracens? Supposing he was underestimating their strength by a half? Since he had not been able to get estimates of their strength from any of the ports, his guess was entirely based on the number of boats he estimated they had. But they had been capturing more boats as they worked their way along the coast. Had they picked up more Saracens when they went back to their base to unload the prisoners? It was possible; indeed, it was more than possible, it was most likely.