Ramage's Challenge (5 page)

“Hundreds,” Ramage said. “They are scattered across the length of Italy, although more in Tuscany than anywhere else, because there are so many sugarloaf hills. Bonaparte knows the area well, of course, from the time he marched through with his Army of Italy, but one of his underlings probably chose the town.”

“Can't place it,” Southwick admitted.

“You remember Santo Stefano and Port' Ercole well enough,” Ramage said. “And Talamone. Thirty miles inshore from there.”

“That's most convenient: I still have all my charts and the notes I made. Not far from where we—you, rather—rescued the Marchesa,” Southwick said. “Might be an omen, sir.”

“A bad one,” Ramage said gloomily. “All this to rescue some admirals and generals who'll stamp round the deck and get in the way of the sailors.”

“Yes, sir, but with Rossi and Mr Orsini speaking Italian … they'll be able to help you.”

“Rossi, yes; I don't know that I dare risk using Orsini. He's the Marchesa's heir, so if anything has happened to her, he's now the ruler of Volterra. If Bonaparte has murdered the Marchesa, then he'll quickly do away with Orsini.”

“You'd have trouble leaving Orsini behind, sir,” Aitken said. “And if he was captured, what Frenchman could guess he'd just caught the ruler of Volterra? He speaks like an Englishman.”

“You sound as though you're both selling Orsini,” Ramage said. “I recall hearing you frequently criticizing his mathematics, Mr Southwick …”

“Indeed you have, sir, and not for the last time. He takes a good sight; it's just the calculations that do him in. Two and two often make five, although he's not the first midshipman to have that trouble. But I doubt if we have a better seaman on board. Turn in a splice, have the men send down a yard, lay a gun … An' the men would follow him anywhere.”

“In Tuscany, since they don't speak the language, that mightn't be a help,” Ramage said sourly. “Anyway, now we know where we're going, are we all right for water to get us there and back to Gibraltar?”

“We've 36 tons remaining, sir; plenty, even allowing for having the hostages on board,” Southwick said.

As the first lieutenant and master stood up to leave the cabin, Ramage said, “Don't discuss this with anyone else for the time being, until I decide how we'll do it. I don't want people pestering me to be allowed to join in. It may end up with Rossi and me going alone …”

W
HEN YOU were beating down-Channel against a strong westerly gale—spray slashing like buckets of icy water slung violently at anywhere you are unprotected (neck, third button down on the oilskins), and the dreadful chill while the cold and wet gather before their slow creep down the spine, the sky just a swirling grey mass merging with the rain squalls, two reefs in the topsails and deck seams dripping water onto hammock, kit bag, and last items of dry clothing—you thought wistfully of the Mediterranean. Blue skies, purple seas, a warm wind always from the right direction; the smell of pines when close in with the shore; the air clear and bracing when out of sight of land …

Yet the reality of the Mediterranean was nearly always different, Ramage reflected: heavy rain, gale-force winds (usually heading you), and the clouds the same swirling grey mass.
Perhaps
a degree warmer than the Chops of the Channel, but the wind just as violent with the seas shorter, making them much more uncomfortable.

Oh yes, and the winds had fancy names—take the French, for example. A nor'-wester was the
mistral,
but getting caught by a
mistral
meant three or four days of fighting a gale. Then the
tramontane,
“across the mountains,” and because of that it was a bitterly cold north to north-east brute that blew hard and chilled your very marrow. Then the
levant,
blowing at gale force for days from the east, hell if you are trying to get through the Strait into the Mediterranean (though usually you could shelter in Gibraltar), but murderous on ship, men, and sails when you are trying to reach the Tyrrhenian Sea along the west coast of Italy— whether by rounding the southern tip of Sardinia at Cape Spartivento or sneaking through the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia.

You left that decision until the last possible moment in the hope that the levanter veered a little and became the
céruse,
blowing from the south-east so that, with luck, sheets could be eased. (It was beyond even thinking about a
ponant
putting in an appearance from between south and south-west, or the
labé
from the west-south-west.)

Yet, Ramage thought sourly, if you have sailed enough, you think of the West Indies with the constant Trade winds blowing briskly from the north-east—if there was not a calm lasting days, a hurricane, or a week of south-east winds bringing torrential rain, which reduced visibility to a ship's length.

Usually, however, whatever the wind direction, it had some east in it, and
usually
your course had some east in it, too. Consequently, you were still beating to windward, but the difference was that the buckets of spray hitting you in the face were
warm—
at least for the first few minutes, until they soaked your clothing.

So why did a sane man go to sea (unless encouraged by the press-gangs, which were very persuasive)? Few men beating to windward in heavy weather would admit they ever had a choice: poverty, press-gang, dodging debtors, sent to sea as a midshipman because of a family tradition … dozens of reasons. Of course, given a decent wind, a clear sky (or one speckled with Trade wind clouds), and the attitude immediately changed: hurrah for the life of a sailor …

Ramage noted that the only man in sight who seemed to be enjoying this
levant
at the moment, blowing at what the French would term at least
grand frais
with a sea
très grosse,
was George Hill, the new third lieutenant. He was the thin and nonchalant lieutenant (debonair, one might say, when his sou'wester and oilskin coat were not streaming spray and rain, and his face not white and tinged with blue) who had been appointed provost marshal “upon the occasion,” guarding Ramage while he was under an arrest during the recent court martial brought by the madman, Captain William Shirley.

After starting off as a very officious young lieutenant, Hill had, by the end of the trial, been asking Ramage to be considered when the next vacancy occurred in the
Calypso.
And that had come almost at once when Wagstaffe was made first lieutenant of a 74, which allowed Kenton to step up to take Wagstaffe's place, leaving the third lieutenant's berth vacant for Hill.

“Blower” Martin stayed as fourth lieutenant, but he was content: indeed, he had confided to Ramage that he needed another year's experience before being promoted.

Hill, despite his (when dry) debonair, almost flippant manner, was proving a good seaman. His manner for the first week or so had put off Southwick and Aitken: they were not used to a man who could make light of the most important things in their world. Hill used the expression “putting a fold in the laundry” to describe reefing; “that hook thing” was an anchor; rope of any size became “string” (including the ten-inch cables); splicing was “that embroidery stuff;” and taking a sight was “having a wink at the red eye.” This all caused long faces until they discovered that Hill could splice with the best of them and liked nothing better than racing the topmen aloft and laying out along a yard “to get a bit o' exercise.”

Southwick had to admit that Hill worked out a sight as though he had been navigating since childhood. In fact, the master had grumbled, “Whatever Hill has mathematically, I wish young Orsini would catch it.” From there it was a short step to putting Hill in charge of drumming mathematics into Orsini, and Hill was apparently having some success (according to Southwick), although his teaching methods were unorthodox. Ramage often heard Orsini hooting with laughter while working out a noon sight under Hill's watchful eye, but Southwick reported that nine times out of ten, the calculations were now correct. Orsini's habit of adding when he should subtract, or being just one out in all additions and subtractions, now seemed to be a thing of the past.

Both Kenton and Martin liked Hill and soon dropped into his habit of treating life with levity, and even Aitken confided to Ramage that the gunroom was a good deal more cheerful now Hill was on board.

Ramage saw the master, looking like a wet bear in his oilskins, lumber up the ladder and work his way across the quarterdeck, walking cautiously from one gun to another so that he had handholds against the violent rolling.

“Cape Spartivento's about fifteen miles on our larboard bow, sir, unless the current is stronger than usual.”

“I'll be glad to bear away a bit when we round it,” Ramage admitted.

“Fighting a levanter the length of the Western Mediterranean doesn't make for accurate dead reckoning,” Southwick muttered, “so Hill had better keep a sharp lookout.”

“Come now, you had a sight of the sun a couple of times yesterday,” Ramage said teasingly. “I saw you scurrying around with your quadrant, and chasing Orsini, too.”

“Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by Nature's benevolence,” Southwick growled, and Ramage detected the influence of Hill in the remark.

“You should be. I assume you are ready for the sun to break through?”

Southwick glanced up at the thick, shapeless clouds streaming overhead. “Oh yes, sir; I have my quadrant tucked in my sou'wester, and I left my books of tables open in my cabin, along with sharpened pencils.”

Ramage nodded: if Southwick could still joke, things were not too bad; although as far as Ramage was concerned, he seemed to have been beating to windward for most of his life.

The grey skies, the endless waves racing past to the westward, and the
Calypso
's labouring progress (she seemed to plunge her bow down in the same place every time, throwing up welters of spray) gave him too much time to think. To reflect. To feel guilty. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord St Vincent, admittedly a crusty old fellow, said that when an officer married he was “lost to the Service,” and Ramage began to suspect he was right. Hardly a minute passed without him thinking and worrying about Sarah, and he was damned sure he could not be blamed because he worried whether his wife was dead or a prisoner. Killed or captured, he told himself bitterly for what must be the millionth time, before their honeymoon was properly over. If only he knew for certain, one way or the other. Yet if he knew that Sarah was dead, there would not be much purpose left to life; it was only the thought that she was a prisoner that gave his life any direction.

And Gianna. He still loved her, but (he now realized) as though she was a sister. And just as if she was a sister who had done something rash against the family's advice, he was haunted by the question of whether she, too, was dead or a prisoner. The two women to whom he had been closest … and both could be dead. Dead because of him. If he had not rescued Gianna and brought her back to England as a refugee to live with his family, she would not have rushed back towards Volterra in that brief period of peace. And if he had not been sent south on that voyage of exploration, he would not have met Sarah and married her, thus ensuring that she would be on board that damned
Murex
when it sank or was captured.

“Don't keep on blaming yourself, sir,” Southwick said, reacognizing the mood: when the captain's deep-set brown eyes became unfocused, the normally hard line of the jaw grew slack, the skin was taut over that slightly hooked nose, and the hands were clasped behind the back, knuckles white—then Captain Ramage's thoughts were hundreds of miles away, reliving some episode concerning her Ladyship or the Marchesa. It was understandable, but all the worry in the world would not restore either of them. And at this moment it was better for the captain to worry about those extraordinary orders from the Admiralty.

Southwick considered they
were
extraordinary orders. Parole was a touchy business. British officers held as prisoners of war in France (and French officer prisoners in England) were usually offered parole, which meant giving your word of honour that you would not escape. In return, you were allowed either to lodge (at your own expense!) close by, or be allowed out from the actual prison each day.

The Admiralty viewed parole very seriously—as far as
British
officers were concerned. If a British officer gave the French his parole and in return received a degree of liberty, then woe betide him if he used the opportunity to escape and reach England.

Almost the first question asked an escaped British naval officer on reaching England was whether he had given his parole. If he had, then he was sent back to France, where he would have to wait his turn to be exchanged in the normal way for a French officer held prisoner in England.

It occurred to Southwick that Bonaparte must laugh at the quaint and punctilious British, because no one had ever heard of the French sending back a French officer who had broken his parole and escaped.

By the same token, he thought contemptuously, as far as he knew, no British consul ever considered that a Briton abroad could be right in an argument with foreign authority (unless, of course, the person involved could influence the consul's career). By and large—according to Mr Ramage—all Britons should avoid British consulates or embassies if they ever needed help: the hirelings of His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Foreign Department were chosen for their vapidity and their dancing and conversational skills, not their brains (which, if discovered, Mr Ramage maintained, could wreck a diplomat's career).

So what happens, Southwick wondered, if we get to Pitigliano and find that two admirals, three generals, four colonels and five peers of the realm
have
given their parole? It is all very well for the Admiralty to say they must be left behind, but what happens when these people's friends hear about it in England? Once again the government would be looking for a scapegoat, since no government could be wrong, and no politician would ever risk losing a vote …