Ramage & the Saracens (31 page)

Ramage thanked them for their help and said good-bye to the mayor who, Ramage realized, was so proud of the diagram drawn in the dust outside his front door that he would have liked to have it framed.

Back on board the
Calypso
the two men went down to Ramage's cabin and examined the chart and map more carefully, and Southwick drew in a compass rose. “I wonder how much more detail we're going to get from the other places,” he said.

“Not much, I fear,” Ramage said. “These men remembered the obvious things, and I don't think anyone else will be able to add much.”

“Well, at a pinch we have enough already. We know what the place looks like now, and we know how to get in. And we know where our objectives are. We're lucky that both the barracks and the brothel are near the quay.”

“We're lucky that there is a quay,” Ramage commented. “I was afraid we might have to land on a beach some distance from the town and storm the place.”

“I would not give much for our chances if we did: we could not do it without raising the alarm, and a couple of thousand of those Saracens ready to drive us off does not sound like the recipe for victory.”

The
Calypso
weighed and they sailed along to Mazara, at the mouth of the Torrente Mazara. The frigate anchored off the silted-up harbour and once again Ramage and Southwick went ashore in the cutter, Southwick holding his chart and map. The master gestured up at the clear sky and commented: “I don't think we shall be bothered by
Il Marrobbio.
They say it only occurs when it's hot and humid.”

Ramage, who had no wish to experience the small tidal wave for which the port was famous, nodded his head. “Certainly, it doesn't seem the weather for it.”

Once they had landed on the quay, Ramage led the way up towards the domed cathedral and the bishop's palace, sending a man on ahead to warn the mayor that they were coming. The man, recognizing Ramage, was only too anxious to carry the message after being reassured that Ramage's arrival was not a warning that the
Saraceni
were coming.

The mayor, like his counterpart at Marsala, was pleased to see Ramage after being reassured that the
Saraceni
were not coming, and once Ramage explained the reason for his call, he sent off a crowd of small boys to collect up the former prisoners.

“We still miss our four tartanes that those
Saraceni
stole,” he said. “And as for the men who did not return—well, we say a Mass for them every Sunday, but losing so many men—not to mention the women—is a grievous loss. Not,” he added hastily, “that we aren't grateful for the return of those of our men the
Commandante
rescued at Licata.”

The first of the former prisoners soon arrived and greeted Ramage like a long-lost father, their attitude being a mixture of awe and respect.

As they gathered round him outside the mayor's house, Ramage explained what he wanted. He had given a lot of thought to his approach and knowing that the majority of the men would not be able to read a chart or map, decided to repeat the method he had used at Marsala—scratching a diagram in the dust.

But at first he asked the men how many people they thought lived at Sidi Rezegh, and they were unanimous in saying about the same number as lived in Mazara.

Ramage looked at the mayor for help. “More than five thousand live here,” he said. “I don't know the exact number—I can only give you the number on the tax roll and guess how many women and children there are. But not less than five thousand, I assure you of that.”

Then the men started giving details of the harbour. Three men—again fishermen—remembered more depths, judged from the draught of the galleys and the courses they steered to get out of the harbour. But two of the men could give accurate figures concerning the depths in other parts of the harbour—they had noticed how much rope had been paid out when they had anchored. There was a section of the harbour near the entrance where there were depths of twenty-five to thirty feet—more than enough for the frigates. Two more of the men knew the where-abouts of a shoal in the centre of the harbour, and this was drawn in the dust.

They were all agreed that there were four cannon on top of the fort and that they never saw lookouts or guards up there. Several of them commented on the number of times that the
Saraceni
prayed during the day.

“They would keep our bishop busy,” one of the men commented. “He wouldn't have time to grow that great paunch of his.”

Ramage noticed that one of the men was silently weeping, and he quietly asked the mayor the reason. “The poor man's wife was one of the women taken away,” the mayor said. “He knows he will never see her again.”

“There's a hope,” Ramage said, “but perhaps no more than that, so it is better not to mention it.”

The Mazara men were better at gauging distances than those at Marsala and their estimates were added to the diagram. When they all agreed they could remember no more, Southwick added the extra details to his diagrams and explained them to the men, who looked at them closely without being able to give any more information.

“Now,” Ramage said, “I want you to remember how many galleys there were, including the two you were in.”

They thought a few moments and then one of them said definitely: “Eight. Five of them were big ones and we were in the three smaller ones.”

“Were all the Mazara men put in the same galleys?”

“No,” the man said. “We were split up. It was a matter of chance which galley you went to: we were all mixed up in the barracks. This last time I was chained up in the galley next to a man from Sciacca: it was just the way we were marched out of the barracks. That's why so many men from Mazara are still at Sidi Rezegh: they were not marched out to man the other galleys. Ah,
mamma mia,
how were we to know which of us was to be lucky?”

“How many men do you think there are left in the barracks now?” Ramage asked the man, who seemed to be of above average intelligence.

The man shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I don't know. Perhaps five hundred. Only a very few of us were marched out to the three galleys: we left behind a lot of men. Oh, the poor fellows: they thought they were lucky, avoiding a few days' rowing.”

“And what about the women—how many do you think?”

The man thought for some time. “Not two hundred—probably about a hundred and fifty. Most of them were young girls: the
Saraceni
did not take many adult women. They think the young girls last longer,” he added bitterly.

Ramage looked at Southwick. “Have you any questions?” The old man waved his sketches and said cheerfully: “No, sir, we've added a bit more with those depths, and that's my main concern now.”

Ramage thanked the mayor and the men, shook hands with all of them and returned to the cutter. It was always surprising how the ground seemed to sway underfoot after a long time at sea, especially if going to windward.

“Now for Sciacca,” Ramage said. “We'll see if we can find some more soundings for you.”

At Sciacca the routine was the same: the
Calypso
and the rest of the small flotilla anchored off while Ramage and Southwick went on shore in a cutter of which Jackson was the coxswain. They found the mayor who rounded up the former slaves, several of whom had seen the ships anchoring and watched Ramage come on shore, congregating on the quay to greet him. Ramage gave his usual explanation for the questions that would follow, and this time Southwick started by drawing a sketch in the dust outside the mayor's house, explaining what he was doing for the men unused to charts and maps.

The answers to the first questions hardly varied from those given by the men at Mazara: they thought there were four or five hundred men left behind and about one hundred and fifty women. They agreed there had been eight galleys, including the three they were in, and that the other five were bigger, needing many more men to row them.

Ramage then used the diagram in the dust to question them about distances. They all agreed on the distance from the quay to the barracks, and from the quay to the brothel. There were four cannon and no guard on top of the fort. The big difference came in judging the population of Sidi Rezegh: the men were all agreed it was at least a thousand more than Sciacca which, the mayor said, meant that the
Saraceni
numbered more than eight thousand.

The men were able to add more depths: several of them had been out in two of the big galleys and had noted how much cable had been let go when they anchored. More important, they confirmed the position of the shoal in the middle of the harbour and one of them was able to give rough bearings from the fort and the barracks.

From what the mayor said, it was obvious to Ramage that there were more men from Sciacca still in Sidi Rezegh than from either Marsala or Mazara and that by chance there had been fewer Sciacca men in the two galleys.

The worst part of the visit came when Ramage and Southwick took their farewells. The men and the mayor sought reassurances that their brothers, friends, wives, daughters and nieces would be rescued: reassurances that Ramage was reluctant to give, knowing the small size of his force.

Back on board the
Calypso,
with Aitken and Southwick, Ramage spread Southwick's two drawings out on his desk and asked the master: “Do you think we have enough detail to sail into the harbour?”

“I can never have too much,” Southwick answered, “but I doubt if we'll get much more that matters from Empedocle. I'll make fair copies of these for the rest of the flotilla and a copy of the map for our gallant major.”

Ramage looked up at Aitken. “How are the troops getting on with embarking and disembarking from the boats?”

“Very well, sir. Far better than I expected. We have a lot to thank Hill for: he suggested putting a marine in charge of every five soldiers, to show them how to do things, and it was so successful that I took the liberty of suggesting it to the first lieutenant of the
Amalie.
Then Kenton started the boats competing against each other, and that spread to the
Amalie.

“In fact,” Aitken said, “the only question mark now seems to be whether the gunnery in the
Amalie
and the two sloops is up to the standard we like.”

Ramage nodded. Gunnery training was very much up to individual captains. Some made an obsession of it; others scarcely bothered because guns firing scorched paintwork and scored decks. Well, the flotilla could sail south under easy sail for a couple of days and give the guns' crews plenty of exercise.

In the meantime, Ramage thought, he would have to put a lot of thought into how they were going to attack Sidi Rezegh. And that, he realized, was the wrong way of thinking about it: they were not going to attack Sidi Rezegh as such; they were just going to raid the place and free the slaves from the barracks and the women from the brothels: if that could be done without disturbing the Saracens at prayer in the mosque, so be it.

It had been interesting making the charts and the map: it had given shape to somewhere that had hitherto been only a name. Now, if he closed his eyes, he felt he could imagine the look of the place. In fact, once Southwick had completed his first fair copies, he would try and draw an elevation of the place: that would help the flotilla find their way about. Not every sailor, marine and soldier could read a chart or a map.

B
Y NOW Jackson had become an authority among most of the ship's company: he'd been on shore with the captain and master at all three ports and he had heard them discussing their findings.

“I tell you what bothers
me,
” Stafford said as he sat at the mess table, “and that's how many of these A-rabs we'll find at this place.”

“Arabs,” Jackson corrected. “You worry too much. Everything will be all right.”

“It was a damned close-run affair at Licata,” Stafford maintained stubbornly. “I still don't know what would have happened if the
Calypso
hadn't turned up like that.”

“We'd have scraped through but we'd have lost a lot more men,” Jackson said.

“Well, we lost enough as it was. I ask you, this time we've got to capture a whole A-rab town.”

“No, we haven't,” Jackson said mildly. “We're just going in to rescue the slaves and the women. That's all.”

“That's all, eh?” jeered Stafford. “You don't really think these A-rabs are going to let us walk off with their slaves just like that, do you?”

“They might not be able to stop us. If we're quick.”

“Quick? Well, you said yourself there's a fort at the entrance to the harbour.”

“Steady, Staff. If you'd known the odds would you have been happy at Licata? Yet it worked out all right.”

“Sheer luck,” Stafford declared. “We was lucky.”

“But luck always comes into it,” Jackson persisted. “It's good luck if it happens to you, and bad luck if to the enemy. And admit it, Staff, with Mr Ramage we get more than our share of luck.”

“Is it luck?” Gilbert asked quizzically. “Most of the time I think luck is good planning, and the reason for what you call Mr Ramage's luck is that he plans carefully.”

“Is right,” Albert said unexpectedly. “Luck no, planning yes. Bad plans that fail are blamed on bad luck. Is an excuse.”

“Well, the
Calypso
turning up at Licata was luck,” Stafford said stubbornly. “There was no planning about that.”

“No, but there's no saying we'd have lost either,” Jackson said.

“Come on, Jacko, you never thought we'd get out of there alive. What with all those skimitars.”

“Scimitars,” Jackson corrected automatically. “Anyway, I don't agree we'd have been beaten. Yes, we'd have lost a lot more men, but I think we'd have pulled through. The minute they realized all their boats were being sunk and they couldn't escape—that's when they'd have broke.”