Ramage's Challenge (24 page)

“Guile,” Lord Smarden said, trying to prompt Ramage into discussing his ideas. “You can hardly dress up your seamen as women!”

“No, sir,” Ramage said as Sir Henry gave his fellow admiral a withering look, “but I might ask for volunteers from among people with grey hair to dress up as old women—long, black dresses and baskets, shawls over the head—to make reconnaissances.” He was looking at Smarden's grey hair and Sir Henry said at once. “I'm sure Lord Smarden would be the first to step forward.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Ramage said, keeping a straight face, “and it would take only an hour or so to train him to walk with that shuffle that comes from worn shoes and bunions.”

Lord Smarden looked embarrassed but could not avoid nodding and saying without enthusiasm, “Of course, of course.”

“However,” Ramage said, “Lord Smarden is right; it obviously has to be guile. If they're not at Forte della Stella, we go on to the other fort, without raising an alarm. If we have no luck there, we must try a few big houses. It could take a couple of days—nights, rather, with our party hiding during the day.”

“What about the ship?” Sir Henry asked.

“So far the French at both Santo Stefano and Giglio seem quite happy to accept her as French—not surprising, since she is French-built—and there's no cooperation between the navy and the army.”

“So now we sail for Porto Ercole?” asked Sir Henry.

“It'll only take a few hours. I want to arrive at night. If we arrive in daylight, the port or garrison commandant probably feels obliged to come out at once to greet us, but if he wakes up in the morning and sees us already at anchor and bustling about our daily business, he's more likely to put off coming out. He usually has to commandeer a local rowing boat which will be covered in fish scales, so he prefers to wait for one of our boats to come on shore … And if none comes by noon, he'll take his usual siesta, and before he knows it another day has passed, and the ship has been there so long, there's no need for a visit.”

Sir Henry nodded his agreement. “I must say you seem to know these people, Ramage. I'd never realized just how much the siesta is an important part of their day until they took me as a hostage. I'd always thought it a waste of time. Now—I suppose it's advancing old age and the heat at noon, but I see its advantages.”

“Indeed, sir, and it's a splendid time to make a reconnaissance before any night operations, whether serenading a sweetheart or looking for hostages.”

“Haven't had much experience of either so far,” Sir Henry admitted ruefully, “but now we seem to be combining both!”

By noon the wind had backed to the south and was coming up in fitful gusts, with the air beginning to turn sultry. The day had started off with the sky blue and cloudless, and it had stayed like that until after the landing party were back on board with the freed hostages, but then it had slowly, almost imperceptibly, become hazy. Ramage and Southwick, meeting on the quarterdeck, had looked knowingly at each other.

“It's a
scirocco
all right, sir,” Southwick said and Ramage took a telescope from the binnacle box drawer to look across the strait to the top of Monte Argentario.

“There they are,” he said, “the balls of cotton streaming to leeward of the peak of Argentario.” The clouds, the cotton balls, he remembered, were always the outriders of a
scirocco,
reliable warnings which were useful because the glass usually gave none.

Southwick gave a disapproving sniff. “We don't want a three-day
scirocco
blow now,” he grumbled. “The seas will fairly pound the cliffs below Forte della Stella. It's the worst wind for Porto Ercole.”

“If it's a regular
scirocco,
either we'll move round to the north of Giglio and find a lee,” Ramage said, “or go over to Argentario and anchor where we were before. That's fairly sheltered.”

He took a chart—a copy of the one in the rack over his desk from the binnacle drawer and opened it. “Of course, we could use the
scirocco
to get up to the north and inspect these other islands … yet, I put my faith in Porto Ercole. But if we
do
go north, we must keep an eye on these.” He tapped a finger on three rocks drawn in a line, almost midway between Argentario and the headland of Punta Ala. “The Formiche di Grosseto.”

“Odd name,” Southwick commented, “and a damned odd place to find a few odd rocks sticking up in the open sea like …” he paused, trying to think of a simile.

“Like ants,” Ramage said. “That's what
‘formiche'
means. And they're damn' hard to spot on a dark night! Still, this bit of headland points at ‘em, even if it is low. It's the mouth of—” he examined the chart closely, “—yes, the river Ombrone. Sandy beach with pine forests behind. And a couple of useful towers. The one on the north side of the river is round and reddish. Hmm, a note here says it is called either ‘San Carlo' or ‘San Rocca.'”

“Yes, I remember that one,” Southwick said, recalling when he had copied the original chart from another owned by a fellow master. “Apparently, it was called ‘San Carlo' on a captured Italian chart, but it's ‘San Rocca' on English ones.”

“Well, it's round and it's red, so it shouldn't be too hard to recognize. And the next one, just as far south of the river as the red one is north, is square and high up, Torre Collelungo. And your writing, Southwick, is abominable—”

“Hold hard, sir,” protested the master. “That chart's had a few showers of spray over it since I copied it!”

“—there's a
third
tower half a mile away, Torre Castel Marino, circular, ruined. Also on a hill—and presumably its guns could once cover the whole beach south of the river.”

Southwick looked over Ramage's shoulder. “More towers on the coast to the south,” he said. “Those Spaniards certainly did a great deal of building while they owned this part of Tuscany.”

Ramage ran his finger along the line showing the coast. “Yes, it's beginning to get rocky as you come south towards the Argentario causeways. This promontory is high, four hundred feet, with a square tower on top of it, Torre di Cala Forno. And look here to the south-east, two more. Torri dell' Uccellina. Curious that the two of them should be named together. The northern one, your note says, is tall and red, and the other short and grey.”

Ramage put a finger on the Formiche di Grosseto and then squinted at the towers. “Horizontal sextant angles using San Carlo and Collelungo, or either tower and the mouth of the Ombrone river, if you could distinguish it, or Collelungo and Cala Forno, or—why, it's a navigator's dream,” he said teasingly. “You should be able to find the Formiche as easily as your own nose.”

“I would, if I could see any of those dam' towers, but you can be sure that if the need ever arises, it'll be a pitch-dark night with blinding rain—or
scirocco
haze cutting visibility to less than a mile!”

Ramage grinned at the old master. “If the idea makes you so nervous,” he said, “we'll stay away from the ants!”

“I should think so,” Southwick grunted. “No one in his right mind approaches dangers unnecessarily.”

“Of course not,” Ramage agreed, and could not resist adding, “especially with a nervous navigator. Still, the choice doesn't always rest with us.”

Southwick did not rise to the bait. “All good navigators are nervous,” he declared. “A confident navigator is usually a fool who knows immediately the name of the shoal he's just hit.”

Ramage nodded his agreement. The Formiche, he saw, were certainly an odd collection of three rocks—they looked like three large pebbles tossed into the sea by a wilful Nature. Three rocks, almost islets, in a straight line stretching north-west and southeast for less than two miles. There was a note written at the bottom of the chart describing them. The northernmost, Formica Maggiore, was the largest and highest rock: whitish-looking from a distance and 32 feet high. Near it was a rocky shoal with only— hmm, only nine feet of water over it. A good spot for small fishing boats, no doubt, but shallow enough to tear the bottom out of a frigate. And south of Formica Maggiore, yet another shoal stretched out for three hundred yards or so, an invisible trap for the unwary.

The middle one of the three rocks was nearly a mile to the south of Maggiore. Small, low, and black, it was surrounded by shoals. The third, southernmost of the trio, was also the smallest and lowest, with the usual shoals round it. “Warning,” the note added, “overfalls extend south half a mile in a gale.” Some ants, Ramage thought sourly, and wondered why the Italians had given them such an innocent name. It was surprising that the Romans had not dubbed them something like Scylla and Charybdis, the legendary monsters living in caves beside the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and the mainland.

In fact, Ramage thought idly, the ancient sailors needed to brave legends more than actual tempests. From memory, Scylla was supposed to have six heads, stand twelve feet tall, and bark like a dog. Far worse, she had the distressing habit of snatching a man with each of her heads from any ship coming too close (the Strait's toll keeper, in fact!). Meanwhile, Charybdis lived on the opposite side of the Strait in her cave hidden by an enormous fig tree. She swallowed all the water in the Strait and then brought it up again. As she did this three times a day, she created a terrible whirlpool, so the wretched sailors navigating the Strait risked either having their heads bitten off by Scylla or being sucked down by Charybdis.

“Not often that a frigate has so many flag officers on board, sir,” Southwick muttered unexpectedly. “Not forgetting the field officers and all the aristocracy. Do the men salute ‘em every time they pass on deck, or what?”

Ramage thought a moment. “Ignore them. I'll have a word with Sir Henry, because when the hostages want fresh air and exercise, if they are all on deck, the saluting will just about stop any movement by the ship's company.”

“Just thought I'd mention it,” Southwick said.

“I'm beginning to think you don't like having guests.”

“Three admirals and two generals … they'll soon start arguing, you'll see; they always do. Lucky they don't have orders to execute—otherwise we'd be having three councils of war a day. By the end of a week the last council of war would decide they did nothing.”

Ramage laughed at Southwick's bitterness, and then said soberly, “My father's advice when I was made post was: ‘Never have anything to do with a council of war; it's a coward's alibi for doing nothing.'”

“Yes, nervous sailors and soldiers call councils of war while politicians appoint committees. Same thing—spreads round the responsibility (and blame) like a farmer spreading dung. Leaves the same smell, too.”

Ramage saw his steward Silkin appear at the companion-way. “Damnation, it's time for dinner. I have to play host to these people. They're such a crowd they make my dining place hot. And the food is hardly the proper fare for flag and field officers.”

“Serve ‘em plenty of wine before the first course, sir,” Southwick advised. “It makes a sort of pond for the salt tack to float on.”

“That's an old trick,” Ramage said. “Start ‘em talking and drinking for half an hour, and then they don't notice what they're eating.”

Ramage paused at his bed place to wash his hands, went through to the coach to measure a distance on a chart, and then on to the dining place. The cabin was small, almost entirely filled by the dining table, chairs, and the mahogany, lead-lined wine-cooler.

The three admirals, two generals, the marquis, two earls, and one viscount were already seated, chatting while drinking wine from glasses that Silkin (long since trained in this particular trick) kept filled.

General Cargill's voice was loudest. “Guile be damned,” he was telling Earl Smarden. “Land a hundred well-armed men and advance in regular order. Only way against this French rabble. Their officers were butchers and bakers only a few years ago; they can't control their men and don't understand tactics.”

“Most of Bonaparte's best marshals were butchers and bakers a few years ago,” Sir Henry said mildly. “They exchanged cleavers and baking tins for batons.”

“And where's it got them?” Cargill sneered.

“I haven't had a chance of looking at a map of Europe lately, but the last time I saw one it seemed to have got them quite far. All of Europe, for a start.”

“Ah, wait until we can get at them,” Cargill said, “we'll soon send them packing!”

Admiral Faversham shook his head, pretending to be puzzled. “I thought we
had
been able to get at them—Sir John Jervis and Nelson at Cape St Vincent; Nelson at the Nile and at Copenhagen. For the moment, the details of the army's activities escape me—except of course for Egypt.”

“Don't be absurd, Faversham,” Cargill exclaimed hotly, “we can only fight where the navy carries us!”

“Probably that fellow Dundas has stopped overwhelming the Admiralty with any more of his silly ideas,” Sir Henry said dryly. “Our Secretary of State for War is the strongest argument for peace. Ah, Ramage, there you are. How I wish you commanded a ship of the line—a frigate is rather crowded with so many passengers!”

“Yes, sir,” Ramage agreed as he took his seat at the head of the table, “and we'll all wish for a three-decker once we have the ladies on board!”

As though the comment was a signal for which he had been waiting, General Cargill turned to Ramage and said crossly, “I was just telling Admiral Faversham that this idea of using ‘guile' is nonsense. A frontal attack in regular order, that's the only way of tackling these Frenchmen.”

“Oh goodness me, how I agree with you, sir!” Ramage said emphatically, and three startled admirals looked up sharply.