Ramage & the Saracens (30 page)

“After hearing about this, the king has asked that we make an attempt to rescue the men and women taken to Sidi Rezegh, and that is what we are about to attempt. We are to get three hundred soldiers to help us—they will embark this evening, a hundred and fifty on board the
Calypso,
and a hundred and fifty for the
Amalie.

“Now, you know what soldiers are like in boats: they are not used to them. I don't know if we'll be landing on a beach or at a quay, but we have to exercise the troops in the boats as frequently as we get an opportunity. It's probably more important to train them to embark from the ships.”

“When shall we get the opportunity?” Roper asked.

“Ah,” Ramage said. “You'll soon see. At present we have no chart or map of Sidi Rezegh. Being a port along a sandy coast, it may well be shallow. The only way we can get any information is to question the men we freed from the galleys, since they've been to Sidi Rezegh. So we'll call in at Empedocle, Sciacca, Mazara, and Marsala to question them.

“All of these ports have both quays and beaches, so while I am on shore questioning the men, you will hoist out your boats and exercise the troops.”

“When shall we get the charts, sir?” asked King.

“Empedocle is the last port. By then my master, Southwick, should have a decent chart drawn up, and something of a map of the town showing where the barracks are, and the brothel.”

“Supposing some of the galleys are at sea?” asked Payne.

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “Unless we can capture them, there's nothing we can do. Let's just hope that they're all in port and the slaves are in the barracks. Which reminds me, I hope you are well provisioned and watered—you'll be getting a number of freed prisoners, of course.”

All three men assured him they were.

“The troops will be on full rations, of course. Make sure they don't use too much water: prisoners when they are released may need plenty. Fresh water is probably rare in Sidi Rezegh, and you can bet that the slaves will get only enough to keep them alive.”

“You don't know yet how you will attack?” asked Roper.

“I've no idea, and until we have a chart drawn up, I'm not even thinking of it. But judging from what happened at Licata, I warn you, don't underestimate these people: they fight bravely and wildly. To them we are infidels, and their religion tells them that to die in battle means they go straight to Paradise. So they have no fear.

“But fortunately for us, they probably don't have many guns or small arms. With them it is spears and scimitars. Our tactics,” Ramage said, “are to keep them at a distance and pound them with our guns. And, of course, the marines and seamen will have muskets and pistols, and the soldiers will add another three hundred muskets.”

Roper, thinking aloud, said: “Three hundred soldiers, plus say one hundred and fifty seamen and marines from each frigate, make six hundred, and fifty from each sloop means seven hundred altogether. That should be enough.”

“I very much doubt it,” Ramage said. “They had four hundred men at Licata. Now we're attacking the nest; the home of these Saracens. And don't forget that men will fight desperately in defence of their homes. Not only that, they'll know every street and alley. I'm thinking more of fighting a thousand of them.”

“That makes formidable odds,” observed Roper.

“Indeed it does. But we mustn't fight a pitched battle with them—if we have to do that, I don't think we'll stand a chance. No, we make two concentrated attacks—on the barracks and on the brothel. We are not interested in capturing the town—though we might be able to set fire to it, if it will burn. No, we have limited objectives, which is a big help. And I hope we can get in close with the ships: as many broadsides as possible will mean fewer Saracens for our men to fight. If need be, we can pound ‘em for hours before making our attacks on the barracks and the brothel. No one is going to come to the help of the Saracens, thank goodness, so we needn't hurry.”

Ramage looked round at the three men. “Are there any more questions?”

All three of them shook their heads.

“Very well, written orders will be in your hands by this evening. They will be brief; final orders will come at Empedocle, when we have the chart. So off you go and get ready to receive the troops.”

R
AMAGE'S little flotilla got under way at noon next day, the
Calypso
leading the way out of Naples Bay, followed by the
Amalie
and with the two sloops astern of her.

Southwick, standing next to Ramage at the quarterdeck rail, was in bubbling good humour. “Congratulations, sir; this is the biggest flotilla you've ever commanded. It'll be a fleet before long, mark my words.”

The remarkable thing about Southwick, Ramage thought, is that the man does not understand the word “flattery.” His comment about a fleet was a genuine expression of his feelings, and given that when he had first met him Ramage had been a very junior lieutenant (and since then they had been in action together dozens of times, and Southwick had become quite a wealthy man from prize-money) it meant the remark came from the heart.

“I'm glad I made charts of Licata and the rest of those ports,” Southwick said. “Admittedly, I never thought I'd be using them again so soon.”

“If only we'd made notes from what the prisoners said after we freed them from the galleys,” Ramage said. “Still, I must admit I never thought we'd need a chart of Sidi Rezegh.”

“Let's hope this decent weather lasts: I don't fancy trying to get in there with a
scirocco
blowing.”

“We can wait for good weather,” Ramage said. “For once we're not in a hurry. We can wait for the weather, and we can stand off and pound them for a couple of days, if necessary.”

Southwick gave one of his doubting sniffs. “We'll probably find that the town lies a couple of miles back from the beach, out of range of our guns.”

Ramage shook his head. “Perhaps, but I doubt it: that wasn't the way the Romans built ports. Very practical people, the Romans; they'd decide there's no point in carrying supplies a couple of miles from ships … they'd build warehouses right next to the quays.”

“That was then,” growled Southwick. “The Saracens could have spread out since then.”

“I doubt if they have any more wish to carry supplies unnecessarily.”

“We will soon know, once we start questioning our former galley slaves,” Southwick said. “That's one thing they'll know about, even if they aren't sure about depths in the harbour.”

For the rest of the day it continued to blow a good breeze from the north-west as the little flotilla stretched its way southwest towards the western tip of Sicily, leaving Ischia and Procida to the north and Capri to the south. And it was a simple course: the first land they would sight would be the tooth-shaped volcanic island of Ustica, forty miles north of Sicily and directly on the line to Cape San Vito, where they started turning to larboard to pass Trapani and then Marsala, Mazara, Sciacca, and Empedocle.

Would it be necessary to visit every one of the ports, or would they get enough information from the first two? Ramage knew that although there was no great hurry, he did not want to waste too much time sailing up and down the Sicilian coast. Way to the south was the challenge of Sidi Rezegh, at present an unknown quantity. Unknown but not necessarily unwelcome. Not having the faintest idea of what was ahead, the operation had a tinge of mystery.

Supposing, Ramage thought to himself, the Saracens so outnumber us that they capture the two frigates and two sloops: would all the ships' companies and the troops be sent to galleys? The Saracens would probably have too many slaves for the number of galleys they now possessed. Well, Ramage thought harshly, they would have a spare set.

He had thought a lot about the slaves in the galleys. Theirs was a terrible fate. Kept on shore in what were no doubt terrible conditions, they were (according to the prisoners they had released) taken to the galleys as needed and then held in position at the oars by chains round the ankle, so their bodies were free to work at the oars but they could not leave their seats.

They were kept in time as they rowed by one of the Saracens beating a gong (some of the galleys had bells), and to make sure that they rowed with all their strength one or two Saracens walked along the catwalk on the centreline of the galley lashing them with long-tailed leather whips.

They were fed in the morning and at night; there was no midday meal. Water was issued three times a day, half a gourd for each man, and it was handed out so clumsily that often half of the water spilled.

If a man collapsed over his oar—from exhaustion or sickness—the master of the galley, who lived in a small open-sided cabin aft, came and inspected the man. If it was exhaustion he was left an hour to recover and then roused with a flogging, but if the man was ill (fevers were very common) the man was freed from the manacle round his ankle, and then he was thrown over the side. There was no fuss or ceremony; the manacle was unlocked, the man lifted out of his seat, and then he was pushed out through the oar port.

This meant, of course, that there was one man less at the oar: there were usually two, but in the bigger galleys three. If there were only two, the other man was put on another oar as an extra; if there were three, then the remaining two had to carry on rowing alone.

The most common cause of a man collapsing was gangrene: two manacles round the ankles caused hideous sores which turned gangrenous. There was no attempt to treat any of the sick men; they were worked until they collapsed and if there was no chance of them recovering, they were hove over the side. It was brutal, but it was in line with the Arab attitude towards death, with the difference that infidels did not go to Paradise.

So a man captured and sent to the galleys was, in effect, sentenced to row until he was no longer fit to pull on the oar, then he drowned. How long did a man last? Was it weeks, months or years? Obviously not long; the Saracens were always looking for slaves; presumably they were the replacements.

They reached Marsala the following afternoon and the
Calypso
anchored. A cutter was hoisted out and Ramage and Southwick were rowed ashore, the master equipped with pencil and paper. The mayor was delighted at seeing Ramage again but at first was nervous, afraid that Ramage's sudden arrival off the port meant that another Saracen raid was expected.

As soon as Ramage explained the reason for his visit the mayor sent several small boys off through the town to collect up the former prisoners and bring them in for Ramage to question.

When the men arrived they too were excited at seeing Ramage again, anxious to shake his hand and assure him that they had recovered from their ordeal in the galleys. When he explained the reason for his visit he met with an excited chorus. He then divided his questions into sections, starting off with the general shape of the harbour and town of Sidi Rezegh. All the men agreed on that and they drew a large diagram in the dust outside the mayor's house, each of them adding to it as he remembered something.

Finally Southwick said to Ramage: “Ask them about the channel in and see if they know any depths.”

To Ramage's surprise, several of the men not only remembered how the channel ran, but could give reasonably accurate estimates of depths. These men were the fishermen among the former prisoners, and although they did not remember all the facts immediately, they soon scratched in details in the dust as Ramage questioned them and they recalled details which they did not realize they knew.

The greatest difficulty was in agreeing to a scale: the men had varying ideas about distance. Finally it was agreed when they worked out how many paces they walked from their barracks to the galleys. They all agreed on the size of the barracks and the brothel and were able to describe where the doors were. They also agreed that the population of Sidi Rezegh was about six thousand, a figure they could visualize because they compared it with Marsala.

There was a small fort on the seaward end of the quay and the men argued whether there were three or four guns on the top. Certainly no more: they were all agreed on that.

Muskets? Their guards at the barracks had a couple of muskets. Very old and elaborate, and engraved with complex designs. They estimated that there might be half a dozen muskets in the town. And no, they had never heard the cannon on the little fort fire. Nor, for that matter, had they ever noticed any men up there; they could not remember seeing any lookouts.

The one thing that they all remembered vividly was the frequency with which the men prayed. Several times a day—one man said five—they flung themselves to the ground and prayed, the signal being given by a horn blown from the mosque at the back of the town.

Finally, with no more details to be added to the diagram drawn in the dust, Southwick made a copy of it, carefully scaling it off. After he had completed the drawings, they were shown round for the men to inspect. Southwick had done two, one of a chart of the harbour, with as many depths as the men could remember, and a map of the town, showing the important buildings. Most of the men had never seen a chart or a map before, and none could add any more details.