Ramage And The Drum Beat (21 page)

‘How many men in it?’

‘Only one, sir – he’s fishing, I think.’

The old fisherman! The guns hadn’t fired and he’d be out with his nets. There was a cheery hail and Ramage stuck a finger in his mouth so the old man should not recognize his voice. ‘Good fishing – see you tomorrow. Save a big one for us!’

‘Certainly, I will!’ the old man called back. ‘It’s good fishing – the guns haven’t fired, you understand?’

By then the zebec had left him astern, cheerfully unconcerned. Ramage knew he wouldn’t raise the alarm, yet the sentries might have heard the shouting. But what if they did?

There was probably an order against ships leaving the harbour at night, but what would they make of a friendly exchange spoken in Spanish between an old fisherman and a zebec? They’d hesitate before raising the alarm – he hoped.

Now he could just make out the Fort at the end of Punta Santa Anna and then Punta Trinca Botijas opening out beyond Cala Cortina, a tiny bay cut sharply into the coast between the two points.

Pale green sparks in the water began to stream outwards from the zebec’s hull and, leaving the tiller for a moment, Ramage ran to the taffrail and looked astern. The zebec’s wake was a pale green swathe in the water and there was a wide band round the entire waterline. Damn and blast, what a time to run into phosphorescence!

The Fort was abeam to larboard, so he must have passed Punta Navidad and was now in range of the Navidad Battery beyond and approaching the one on Punta Podadera. Those two and the battery on the other headland were the only ones left.

Jackson said, as if to himself, ‘They’d never hit us now, even if they knew we were here.’

Ramage was annoyed with himself for having stayed at the tiller when Jackson could have taken over. ‘Here – take the helm.’

He sent Stafford to rummage below for lanterns, but in the meantime without a binnacle light Jackson would have to steer by the stars. Once through the entrance the course was west-south-west to cover the seventy-five miles across the huge shallow bay to Cabo de Gata. Gibraltar was 165 miles farther on. They’d cross Almeria Bay, passing three small headlands on the Plain of Almeria, and from there he’d see the six big peaks of the Sierra Nevada bearing due north, the two highest, Pico Veleta and Cerro Mulahacen, reaching up more than eleven thousand feet After that the next sight of land would be the towering rocky mass of Europa Point, the southern end of Gibraltar, with Blackstrap Bay to the north of it on the Mediterranean side, and the rounded hills of Africa across the Strait.

Poor old Blackstrap Bay, Ramage mused: its name was taken in vain by almost every sailor in the Navy. When Spanish wine was substituted for grog, the sailors contemptuously referred to it as ‘Blackstrap’ – indeed, going to the Mediterranean was often termed ‘being Blackstrapped’. And in a calm the strong east-going current always flowing from the Atlantic often carried a ship past Gibraltar into the Mediterreanean, and she had to spend days beating back both against current and wind – unless a convenient Levanter blew. That too was called being ‘Blackstrapped’, since the unfortunate ship’s company spent their time gazing at Blackstrap Bay and Europa Point, getting a slightly different view each time they tacked.

Nevertheless he’d be dam’ glad when he could see that view; and La Providencia has such a shallow draught that if the wind was light he could creep close in along the coast, where the current was much weaker and one could some times even find a counter-current.

Stafford came up with a lantern, opened the glass-fronted door in the binnacle and put it inside so its light shone on to the compass.

Punta Podadera was now on the starboard quarter and as they cleared the high land, bringing the wind on to the beam, Ramage gave more orders for trimming the sails. The sea was calm, apart from a few low swell waves, and La Providencia gave the impression of skating along on the water like a flat stone skimmed across a pond, whereas by comparison the Kathleen, with her deeper draught and vastly different rig, ploughed her way through the sea. Ramage looked at his watch. An hour ago he had been lying on his bed in the inn, wondering what to do next. He wished he’d remembered to leave a note for the American Consul.

The Convent was a five-minute walk from the Com-missioner’s office. Ramage raised a hand to hail a passing carriage, realized he had no money and began striding up the steep cobbled slope of Convent Lane. With an irritation verging on petulance he reviewed his meeting with the Commissioner. It had begun with almost effusive congratulations, but the old fool ended up being damned stuffy. After implying that delaying sailing for even half an hour to visit The Convent would certainly let Cordoba’s Fleet escape through the Strait, and probably allow Napoleon to cross the Channel as well, he’d even hinted that young officers only visited Gibraltar’s Convent ‘to keep up with the right people’.

A mixture of excitement and nervousness made Ramage begin a laugh which he only managed to choke when he saw the frightened look on the hideously wrinkled face of an old woman in a doorway. She was offering him a penn’orth of sticky dates from a greasy wicker basket that looked like an asylum for every fly on the Barbary Coast, but snatched it away when she looked into his eyes and hurriedly crossed herself with her free hand.

At the top of the lane Ramage turned left into Main Street and was promptly surrounded by a crowd of ragged higglers who with strident Spanish voices and clutching hands were peddling everything from corn cures and Crucifixes to demijohns of arrack, their fervour and glittering eyes reminding Ramage of what it must have been like to face the Inquisition.

As he walked through the Convent’s big double doors the two sentries rattled their muskets in faultless salutes which nevertheless subtly conveyed that soldiers cared little for naval officers and hardly at all for young lieutenants.

Inside the hall a wizened little man whose ancient wig had for years been a martyr to incipient moulting stood up and cautiously inquired the purpose of the young lieutenant’s visit. A lifetime at the job had obviously taught him to take nothing for granted: one elegantly dressed gentleman with languid voice and gold-topped cane might demand an audience with the Governor only to pass a forged letter of credit, while the next could be the Governor’s long-awaited cousin. The poor fellow had his carefully enunciated motto written all over him: You Cannot Be Too Careful.

Reluctantly Ramage had to give his name while explaining his business but emphasized it did not matter since he was only a messenger. The old man kept nodding like a pigeon gleaning a newly cut cornfield then, after motioning Ramage to a chair, hurried off down an apparently endless corridor.

Ramage deliberately made his thoughts wander to ease the tension. Why was the Governor’s residence called The Convent? He’d always intended to ask someone. The chapel next door was originally a Franciscan friary… In Spanish a monastery usually meant the home of a religious order whose members never went outside, while those free to travel – like the Francisans – lived in a convent. How many governors had bored their guests at dinner with weary jokes about nuns and–

The little man was beckoning him from the far end of the corridor with the nearest he dare get to a show of impatience and Ramage managed to stop himself leaping up like an eager schoolboy. Instead he rose with carefully controlled movements, composed his face in a frown he knew would make his cheek muscles ache within a couple of minutes and walked along the corridor, hat tucked under the left arm, his hand holding the scabbard of his sword. Plonk, plonk, plonk: he walked heavily, hoping the jarring of his heels on the mosaic floor would stifle the inane giggle lurking just under his Adam’s Apple.

From the moment the Commissioner had told him, Ramage had deliberately shut the picture from his mind; all the way up Convent Lane he’d forced himself to think of something else. Even waiting there in the chair he’d conjectured about The Convent. And now… The little man scurrying along ahead stopped every few paces and peered back to make sure he was following as though scared he’d bolt through a door. Ramage wanted to give him a hearty pat on the back but instead mustered an even fiercer frown and snarled: ‘Don’t walk so damned fast, I’ve only got two legs.’

‘Oh, quite, quite sir, I’m very sorry,’ the little man said sympathetically as if it was the result of battle wounds.

Up a pair of stairs and the corridor was narrower, the closely spaced doors indicating the rooms were smaller, and he guessed they were now in the private part of the residence.

The little man paused at a door, knocked and before Ramage could stop him walked into the room and announced in a neutral voice that showed he had not bothered to mention the name earlier:

‘Lieutenant Ramage.’

After the gloomy corridors the room was almost dazzlingly bright and for a moment Ramage stood blinking as the door closed softly behind him.

‘You look like an owl who’s just woken up,’ she said and ran over to fling herself into his arms. His hat went flying, the scabbard dropped with a clang, and they clung to each other with that desperate urgency reserved for lovers and those who are drowning.

It seemed hours later – hours during which he wanted to tear off the clothes separating their bodies, hours after scores of kisses on her eyes, mouth and brow, hours after he’d wiped tears surreptitiously from his eyes and openly from hers, hours after the waves of exhilarating dizziness had gone, that she looked up at him and whispered.

‘My dearest, I thought you were dead – and then that silly man…’ she sobbed but there were no tears or sadness now, only wonder, almost unbelief, ‘…that silly man tells me there’s a naval officer to see me and I…’

‘You what?’

‘I had a terrible premonition he was going to tell me they’d heard you were dead.’

‘And when you saw it was me, all you could say was I looked like an owl!’

‘An owl?’

He pushed her away and held her at arm’s length. There was no mistaking the puzzled expression. Could it…?

‘What did you say when I came in?’ he asked gently.

‘I said nothing. I was so shocked, so – well, I couldn’t believe–’

‘You don’t remember saying, “You look like an owl who’s just woken up”?’

‘Of course I didn’t say that!’

Again the picture came back to him: a picture of battle when a Marine was spun round by a shot which slashed off his hand at the wrist, and as he staggered across the deck holding the stump from which the blood spurted he said to Ramage in a conversational tone, ‘I was born out of wedlock, you see, sir; they never knew for certain who me father was…’

The irrelevant remarks of someone experiencing a severe shock. At this revelation of the intensity of her love for him he suddenly felt frightened and inadequate and unworthy, forgetting it equalled his own for her.

‘But you look like an owl now!’

He looked down at her smile which was also an impudent grin: happiness sparkled in the large brown eyes and showed in the delicate flush over the high cheekbones. The impudence was in the arch of the eyebrows and the curve of her lips. He held her tightly and at that instant there was a harsh metallic boom above and a ripping noise at his back. Giving her a violent push out of danger’s way he spun round, his hand going instinctively to the hilt of his sword. But even before he could draw it she was standing four paces away clapping her hands and laughing until tears ran down her cheeks. ‘It’s one o’clock, my love!’ she gasped. ‘The chapel bell!’

‘And I think I’ve split my new coat,’ he said ruefully.

She danced round behind him, ‘And you have! The stitching of the seam!’

Even as he joined in her laughter he realized within an hour he must sail. Within ten minutes he must say goodbye.

‘My lovely little Tuscan czarina, when you’ve stopped examining the proof of my passion, can you get someone to mend it?’

She eyed him with feigned doubt, hand to her chin, and secretly marvelling that every time she looked at him – a man she loved so desperately and pictured almost every waking moment – his face or body revealed something new – often startling, always thrilling and sometimes frightening. His eyes, set deep under the brow, sometimes let her see into his soul; at other times they were a barrier which shut her out. The scar on his brow was a weathercock to his mood – anger tautened the skin, driving out the blood, making it a hard white line. His mouth – did he realize a slight movement of his lips made him as remote and forbidding as the moon – or so close she felt they were one? A thin face – yes, but the jawbone, like the scar, became a hard, bloodless line when anger tightened the muscles and sharpened the angles so it seemed cast in steel. It was a face a woman could only love or hate with a great passion; the face of a man to whom no one could be indifferent.

She saw he was puzzled, waiting for an answer.

‘No, I like your passion as it is, even if it tears easily. But when it does want mending, I’ll do it.’

‘Gianna–’

‘Nee-co-lass,’ she mimicked the serious note, ‘let’s join the Governor: he insists on punctuality at meals. I’ll be your seamstress this afternoon. Oh, don’t look so worried – it’s only the stitching!’

He grinned nervously as he sought a way to explain and then blurted out: ‘No, it’s not that. I can’t stay.’

‘Never mind, we’ll do it this evening then.’

‘I’ll be away sometime…’

She took his hand, made him sit in an armchair and curled up at his feet, her head resting against his knees.

‘Tell me what happened,’ she said quietly, ‘and why you have to leave so soon.’

He traced with his finger the line of her eyebrows, the tiny Roman nose, the soft and moist lips and the high cheek-bones, and then she reached up to take his hand and press it to her breast, as if to comfort him.

‘Was it too awful, caro mio?’

‘No,’ he said quickly, realizing she’d misunderstood his silence. ‘No, it was perfectly simple.’ Briefly he described the Kathleen’s capture, the way Jackson had helped him pose as an American, and their release in Cartagena. He omitted the raid on Cordoba’s house and the information he discovered, and told her how they had stolen La Providencia and sailed to Gibraltar.