Ramage and the Freebooters (34 page)

With that Ramage jerked himself out of the sensuous little world he’d been briefly sharing with Claire. Damnation! Had the schooner sailed?

Suddenly he realized that the rest of the dancers were swirling past while he stood in front of Claire, who was watching him anxiously.

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘The heat – I’d like some fresh air. Would – do you think we can risk gossip and go on to the balcony?’

She laughed gaily, relieved at his explanation. ‘There’s no risk attached to gossip; one either accepts or rejects it.’

‘Or ignores it.’

‘Or ignores it,’ she repeated as they walked to the door.

‘Which do you do?’

‘I’ve never been thought important enough to be gossiped about!’

‘The Governor’s “Lord Chamberlain” is too modest. But–’

‘But if I was? I’d ignore or reject: it’s the same either way.’

As they reached the balcony he saw the schooner had sailed. The last bonfire was nearly out; the last torch fisherman had gone home. The lagoon and the harbour looked like glass; just a breath of wind rippled the surface and there was only an occasional tiny green splash as a fish jumped and stirred up phosphorescence. His watch showed it was eleven minutes past ten.

And a tom-tom, which had been beating as they came out on to the balcony, gave a few more desultory beats and stopped.

‘There’s more music in a tom-tom than in the Governor’s orchestra,’ he commented.

She shivered unexpectedly. ‘It’s cold out here!’

‘But wait a few moments – you enjoy this view year after year. In a couple of months’ time I might be in a snow storm off Newfoundland!’

There was no one else on the balcony and he kissed her, and what seemed hours later, when she’d whispered ‘Will you remember me when the snow is falling?’ the distant tom-tom had long finished beating out its message to whichever heathen god was listening.

The shout of a sentry roused Ramage before daylight. A few moments later, with more shouted challenges – apparently to an approaching boat – and the sound of men running along the deck, he was wide awake, leaping out of his cot and grabbing a pair of pistols. He flung open the cabin door just as the Marine sentry outside shouted ‘Captain, sir!’ and reached the quarterdeck in time to meet Jackson running aft to report.

‘It’s Mr Appleby, sir: he’s just arrived from Carriacou!’

A few minutes later the boat, a half-decked fishing drogher, was anchored to leeward of the
Triton
and Appleby was coming up the side. Then Southwick appeared, still half asleep, and the Corporal of Marines with four of his men stood round with lanterns, uncertain what to do.

Appleby reached the deck, saw Ramage in the lantern light and saluted.

‘Good morning, Appleby! What brings you back? Something interesting to report?’

Appleby grinned uncertainly, as if he was having second thoughts.

‘Good morning, sir: yes – at least, I hope you’ll think so.’

‘Very well – you haven’t eaten, I suppose? No? Steward – tea at once, and breakfast in ten minutes!’

In the cabin Ramage paced up and down, shoulders hunched to avoid bumping his head on the low beams, while Appleby sat nervously at the table. It had taken Ramage two or three minutes to get him started off on his story – he’d suddenly become nervous, apparently afraid at the last minute that Ramage would think his report ridiculous and blame him for leaving Carriacou.

‘We were keeping a sharp watch on the islands and the north end of Grenada, just as you told us, sir. Then last night at 8.42 exactly we saw a bonfire suddenly light up on a hill above Levera – that’s on the north-east side of Grenada.’

‘I know it,’ Ramage said. ‘Could you make out how big?’

‘Through the “bring ’em near” it looked much more than a bonfire: as if several big trees were burning.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have thought much about it – after all, sir, it could have started accidentally – but about ten minutes later another bonfire started on the north side of Kick ’em Jenny. That wasn’t so big but easy to see because it was much nearer.’

‘The Levera bonfire – could you have seen that easily from Carriacou without a telescope?’

‘It’d have been chancy, sir. Probably missed it if there’d been a bit of haze, rain squall – even a bright moonlit night.’

‘But the one on Kick ’em Jenny?’

‘Could see that plain as anything, sir, without the glass.’

Ramage nodded as he tried to recall some of the events of the previous evening at Government House.

‘Then the drum started, sir,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.

‘The
what
?’ Ramage almost shouted.

‘The drum sir – tom-tom, I mean. At the south end of Carriacou. It was about five minutes after the bonfire started at Kick ’em Jenny that this tom-tom started – well tom-tomming. As soon as it stopped another one started about six miles away – I reckon it was somewhere in the middle of the island. Seemed to beat the same sort of tune. When that one finished we thought we heard a third one at the north end, but none of us was sure.’

‘No bonfires to the north?’

‘Well, sir, that’s what bothered me. It was the first thing I thought of when I realized these tom-toms might be passing a message across the island, so we dashed up the hill and looked. We saw a red glow – just a reflection really at the north end of Carriacou, that’s for sure.

‘Then about five minutes after that I
thought
I could see the reflection of another bonfire on the north side of Union Island – you remember sir,’ he continued, ‘that’s the one between Carriacou and Bequia. But to be honest, I’m not absolutely sure. We’d all got a bit excited by then and I might have been imagining it. The men weren’t sure, either. Afraid we let you down there, sir.’

Ramage shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about that: I’d sooner know you weren’t absolutely sure than have you tell me you were when you weren’t. Go on, then.’

‘Well, we got a boat and sailed for here.’

The steward knocked and brought in two mugs of tea. ‘Breakfast’s ready now, sir.’

‘Very well – ask Mr Southwick to join us.’

As soon as the Master came down, he told Appleby to repeat his story and, sipping the tea, Ramage reviewed his evening’s activities at Government House with a mixture of shame, anger and irritation. Instead of using every minute of the time he was at the Governor’s Ball to watch and listen, he’d spent most of the time flirting with a woman – more than flirting, he thought, growing hot with the memory – just like some sailor given a night’s shore leave. Trying to dismiss the memory he pictured the scene from the balcony and suddenly remembered the schooner.

‘Did you pass a schooner going north as you came down?’ he interrupted the master’s mate.

‘Yes sir, about two o’clock this morning we passed one off Kick ’em Jenny.’

‘The wind?’

‘Stiff breeze from the east, sir – though the island blanketed us once we were in the lee.’

Moodily Ramage resumed sipping his tea, picturing the scenes on each of the islands during the night. While he’d danced at Government House, men had watched for a bonfire on their neighbour to the south, and as soon as they spotted it, got out tom-toms and passed the news northwards across their own island to other men waiting on the north side ready to light another signal fire. No wonder news travelled so fast!

He continued thinking as breakfast was served and Southwick, seeing him occasionally rubbing the scar on his brow, kept silent. When he’d finished the meal Ramage glanced up and said, ‘No doubt you’ll want to wash and shave, Appleby?’

The master’s mate took the hint, thanked Ramage and left the cabin.

As soon as the door shut Southwick asked, ‘What do you make of it, sir?’

‘It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

Unperturbed by Ramage’s surly tone, Southwick persisted. ‘It’s obvious until the news gets to the north end of St Vincent, sir. But from there it’s a long way across to St Lucia – twenty-four miles. Have to be a big bonfire for anyone in St Lucia to see it!’

‘Needn’t be a bonfire. It took Appleby five hours to get here from Carriacou in his fishing boat. That’s nearly six knots. There’s nothing to stop a fishing boat leaving St Vincent and crossing the channel to St Lucia in four or five hours. Then the tom-toms pass the message the length of St Lucia. In the meantime the schooner’s hardly reached Bequia.’

But Ramage knew he was still ignoring the vital question, and it probably hadn’t even occurred to Southwick yet. Briefly he told the Master about his previous evening’s conversations with the Governor, and the schooner-owner’s determination that his vessel should sail.

‘He deserves to have her captured,’ Southwick growled. ‘Underwriters’d never pay up if they knew.’

‘They’ll get to know eventually.’

‘Do you suspect him, sir? Some sort of fraud with the insurance?’

Ramage shook his head.

‘It wouldn’t make sense. Just think what’s shipped out of Grenada in a year – about 12,000 tons of sugar, more than a million gallons of rum, 200 tons of cotton, 100,000 gallons of molasses…with freight rates so high a schooner-owner makes an enormous profit – more in six months, I should imagine, than he could claim on the insurance for a total loss.’

‘But they’re not making profits because the schooners are being lost,’ Southwick pointed out.

‘Yes, but they’d sooner make the profits. That’s what convinces me there’s no fraud.’

‘Then where the devil
do
the privateers hang out?’ Southwick exclaimed bluntly. ‘Until we find their nest I don’t see we can do much.’

‘Our next job is to discover how the spy found out when the schooner was going to sail.’

Southwick shrugged his shoulders. ‘Anyone could have seen her leaving.’

‘At ten o’clock, yes!’ Ramage snapped. ‘But Appleby’s already told us that the first signal he saw was at 8.42. So the spy knew beforehand. Why, they knew in St Vincent by nine o’clock.’

‘I still don’t see it matters, sir,’ Southwick said doggedly. ‘If only we can catch the privateers the spy’s out of business.’

‘Yes,’ Ramage said patiently, ‘but we don’t know where they’re based and no one’s ever seen them!’

‘True,’ the Master admitted, scratching his head, ‘but I still–’

‘I don’t either at the moment. But you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope.’

Southwick looked startled. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, the spy’s given himself away.’

The Master grunted his disbelief.

‘Of course he has. Why didn’t he wait until the schooner sailed before passing the signal?’

‘Can’t see it matters, sir.’

‘Nor can I – and that’s the clue. He passed the signal soon after eight o’clock last night and the schooner sailed at ten, so he gained two hours. But two hours can’t matter to the privateers.’

‘I still don’t–’

‘Exactly! Those two hours don’t matter. So why didn’t the spy wait?’

Southwick shook his head but said nothing.

‘Because he was too confident. He didn’t think we’d ever guess the trick. He and privateersmen have been getting away with it for months. Tom-toms and bonfires – and no one’s ever noticed them!’

Southwick nodded, then said questioningly: ‘I can see that, sir; but I can’t see he’s given himself away – that’s what you just said – by making the signal before the schooner sailed.’

‘You weren’t listening properly when I told you what happened at Government House.’

It was an unfair thing to say and Ramage knew it, because he’d only realized the full significance of the timing a few minutes ago.

‘What did I miss then?’ The Master’s voice was almost truculent.

‘You missed me saying that only four people knew the schooner was going to sail.’

‘Only four? Why, it’ll be easy–’

‘No it won’t,’ Ramage interrupted bitterly. ‘Those four people are the Governor, Colonel Wilson, the schooner’s owner and, later on, the schooner’s master. Four people. Which one would you suspect?’

‘Phew! The Governor, the Colonel, the owner… Well, we’re almost back where we started!’

‘Almost. We take ten steps forward and slide back nine.’

‘The schooner-owner: must be him. It’s an insurance fraud.’

Again Ramage shook his head. ‘No – if it was, the owners of all the schooners lost so far would be in it. And they’re the losers because soon there won’t be any schooners left. Apart from that this owner signed a document taking full responsibility. That alone rules out insurance because the underwriters could refuse to pay. It means he wants the profits from the freight – and is prepared to gamble.’

‘I suppose so,’ Southwick said grudgingly. ‘But surely you don’t suspect the Governor or Colonel Wilson?’

‘Hardly. That’s what I meant about slipping nine steps back.’

Idly he tapped the table with a knife. The sky through the skylight overhead was turning from black to grey. An idea was floating round in his brain, the details for the moment blurred.

‘By the way, I gave Maxton leave yesterday afternoon. Jackson told you?’

‘Yes sir: he’s due back at dawn, I believe.’

Ramage nodded.

‘It’ll be interesting to see if he deserts,’ Southwick added.

‘You think he will?’

‘No, I’m sure he won’t. I hope not, anyway.’

The idea was beginning to take shape and he started rubbing his brow. Southwick misunderstood the reason and said: ‘It’d be disappointing, after all he went through with you in the
Kathleen
.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that. Listen, Southwick – those damned tom-toms
talk
. But who can read what they say? I wonder if Maxton can.’

‘Is it important? Surely we can guess. Last night they said the schooner was sailing!’

Ramage grinned. ‘Ever thought hard about a tom-tom, Southwick?’

The Master looked puzzled. ‘Not really. It’s a sort of drum, and these fellows use it to signal with, like shouting a long distance.’

‘Yes, but with this difference. You can recognize a man’s voice when he shouts. Can you recognize a tom-tom? Recognize whether one particular man’s beating it or another, even though the message is the same?’