Ramage & the Rebels (38 page)

A sudden downward slash—a typical sabre blow. The man knew something of swordplay, and Ramage held up his blade horizontally, covering his head and shoulders in the classic parry of quinte. Ramage lunged at the man's chest but his sword jarred against the parry of prime. The Frenchman was a moment late as Ramage switched to the most basic of all positions, called by the fencing masters “Hit with the point,” and a moment later Ramage was dragging at the sword as the Frenchman, the point of the cutlass into his chest just where the ribs divided, collapsed on top of him. The man was too big for Ramage to avoid; together they landed heavily on the ground and a winded Ramage found himself gasping desperately for breath. The pain in his stomach was agonizing, but after a few moments he managed to roll clear of the Frenchman, his cutlass gone and feeling his stomach for the wound. There was none; the only dampness was from perspiration, not blood, and the pain was from the winding.

A moment later Jackson was beside him, helping him to his feet, not asking questions which required breath to answer: Ramage was alive and unwounded.

“My cutlass,” Ramage gasped, and Jackson wrenched one from the dying Frenchman's hands.

Then Ramage was on his feet again, conscious of the scorching heat of the bonfire, but realizing that there were no more rebels between him and the great bed of glowing red embers; instead, muskets were crackling at either end—the two companies of Marines were firing into the Frenchmen as they fled to leeward, to the west, away from Amsterdam.

This was a vital moment, and Ramage was glad to see that his six companies—now scattered men but forming a phalanx—had remembered their orders not to chase helter-skelter after fleeing Frenchmen because this would risk them being shot down by the Marines. In the first rush of fleeing Frenchmen the Marines must have a clear field of fire.

He listened and the shooting was dying down at each end: the Marines had used both muskets and pistols. Now was the time for the chase, using only cutlass or pike.

“Calypsos,” he bawled, and the shout was taken up along the line as the men, hearing the single word that told them the chase had begun, started running round the bonfire, shouting as they went.

As he began to run, leading the way round the left end of the bonfire, Ramage saw for the first time that scores of bodies were lying like stooks of corn scattered by a sudden storm. Then, with his company round him, men still bellowing “Calypsos! Calypsos!” he passed the end of the bonfire and plunged into the darkness, momentarily blinded and instantly aware that the French now had the advantage, with their pursuers outlined against the bonfire's glow. It was only a glow now, enormous but throwing none of the bright flames made by new branches flaring in the enormous heat.

He ran and caught up with more men wearing white bands round their heads, men in Marine uniforms. Then he heard Rennick's voice bellowing orders. There was no clash of steel; although the Marines were trotting along purposefully, there were no groups of men fighting.

“Rennick! Rennick!”

“Here, sir!”

And there was Rennick facing him, his chubby face even redder in the glow of the fire, eyes sparkling, a great grin showing he was enjoying himself. “Afraid they can run faster than us, sir!”

Chase them in the darkness while the rebels were disorganized? Or wait for daylight, by which time they would have sorted themselves out? By now the odds were more equal, and there was no chance of the rebels attacking Amsterdam. So he would wait for daylight.

“Have the trumpeter recall our men,” Ramage told Rennick.

“We'll catch up with those rebels in daylight. Now we'll attend to the wounded.”

Back on the windward side of the bonfire Ramage was appalled at what he saw: no mad painter's portrayal of the entrance to hell could be more gory or more terrifying: there were at least a hundred bodies sprawled in a band the length of the bonfire, perhaps fifteen yards, and ten yards wide.

Here and there a wounded man moved; at least one was trying to crawl from under two bodies collapsed across him. Kenton was quietly vomiting, but Aitken stood beside Ramage with Baker, who said bitterly: “Perhaps I'd feel differently if I hadn't been on board the
Tranquil.
Those women lying there, their clothes torn and their throats cut: I'll never forget that. In fact—” he was staring at the wounded—”I could cut some throats myself and never feel an ounce of guilt.”

Kenton had joined them in time to hear Baker's last words. “I'd help you, even if I've just been sick. This is nothing compared to the
Tranquil.
There the people looked as though they'd been murdered in their own homes. Here—well, it's a battlefield.”

“And, young man,” Aitken said, “let this be a warning: proper lookouts would have saved most of these men from our attack.”

“True, very true,” Rennick said judicially. “The sentries should have been at least two hundred yards away. The two I saw with my night-glass were taking a pull from a bottle every five minutes or so. The one who raised the alarm probably noticed a single man and was so drunk he thought he could see twenty!”

By now all the seamen and Marines had returned. “Form your men up,” Ramage ordered. “Check that none is missing.” He raised his voice: “My company fall in here!”

There was Jackson, grimy and bloodstained, and Stafford. And Rossi, looking like the flayer in a slaughterhouse. Paolo raced up and stood to attention in front of Ramage. Even before the boy spoke, Ramage saw the dark stains on the cutlass he held in one hand and the blade of the midshipman's dirk in the other.

“Sir!” he said, and when Ramage nodded he announced: “I killed two, sir.”

“Main-gauche?”
Ramage enquired.

“The second one; not the first, sir.”

“Very good; I presume you missed with your pistol, but you must practise. Now rejoin your company.”

“Mama mia,”
Rossi murmured. “In Volterra he had the good education.”

“Wot's a ‘man goes?'” Stafford enquired.

“Is when you have a dagger in the left hand and a sword in the right. The minute you get the other man's sword pointing away from you and him off the balance, you slip in the dagger.”

“Well I never!” Stafford's amazement was quite genuine. “Wot a good idea. Why don't we use ‘man goes?'”

Jackson surveyed the pile of bodies. “Savin' Mr Orsini's presence, we seem to do quite well without ‘em.”

Ramage counted the men as they fell in behind Jackson. The Dutch guide, whom Ramage had last seen just before the attack started, arrived mopping his face with a large handkerchief and holding a bloodstained sword in the other.

“Good hunting, good hunting,” he grunted to Ramage. “I do not think they stop again before West Punt. We kill many here. Some rebels are still alive, though.” There was no mistaking the regret in his voice nor the difference he made between Dutch rebels and French privateersmen.

Ramage resumed his counting. “Twenty-six … are you one of my company? I thought so, fall in, and that's twenty-eight. And you two, you're late. Thirty.”

The heat of the bonfire must be awful for some of those French wounded, and he'd do something about it as soon as he could, but his first concern was his own men, none of whom had forgotten the
Tranquil.
“Jackson, collect reports from the lieutenants and the sergeant.”

Ten minutes later Ramage was listening to the American, scarcely able to believe his ears. Four Marines wounded (one gunshot and three sword cuts); four seamen known to have been killed and three wounded; and seven more missing. Only eighteen casualties, assuming that the seven missing were dead or wounded. Ramage had reckoned on fifty—although the operation was far from complete.

He turned to his company. “Working in pairs, I want you to find the enemy wounded. Those that can be moved, bring them here, away from the heat but where there's still some light. Jackson, tell Mr Aitken to send the two surgeon's mates in his company to join us here.”

He turned to the Dutch guide. “Can you find your way back to Amsterdam?”

“Of course, sir.”

“I'll give you an escort. I want you to report what you've seen to the Governor, but
first
I want you to send out to this place all the horses and carts you can find. Bring straw, mattresses, cloth for bandages—anything that will make the journey easier for the wounded. Some of them,” he added, noting the look in the Dutchman's eyes, “are our own men. And tell the Governor any surgeons would be welcome—they should ride out at once, bringing bandages and instruments.”

“Yes, sir, but I prefer no escort: I will be faster alone!”

For the next two hours the Calypsos sorted the dead from the living, frequently stoking the bonfire with brushwood to give themselves more light. The moon rose, its light cold and forbidding compared with the yellow flames of the bonfire.

The French casualties round the bonfire would have been horrifying, Ramage thought, but for the
Tranquil:
98 dead, 42 badly wounded and 11 wounded but able to walk. A total 151 … nearly a third of the rebel force, and enough to man a 32-gun frigate. Then he reminded himself that it also meant that two-thirds of the enemy had escaped. Three hundred and fifty of them were at this very moment over there to the west, reorganizing themselves …

Three Marines guarded the eleven walking wounded, and Ramage decided to question them. If they had come from the western end of the island, the rest of the rebels might now return to the same place. He saw one man whose wounded leg had been bandaged and who was wearing what seemed to be the remnants of a French Navy officer's uniform. He was a young man, his face hard, narrow and angular, unshaven for several days, his sallow complexion seeming darker in the red glow of the fire.

“Your name and rank?” Ramage enquired in French, kneeling beside the man. He noticed one of the Marine sentries move round a yard or two, so that Ramage did not interfere with his field of fire.

“Brune, Jean Brune.”

For a moment Ramage felt dizzy. “You command the
Nuestra Señora de Antigua?
”

“No, that is—that was—my brother. I command
L'Actif.
”

“Your brother—where is he?”

“Adolphe? Over there.” The man gestured to where the bodies had been carried. “Murdered. And you,
m'sieur,
who are you?”

“Captain Ramage. I commanded the attack.”

“Ah, so you are this Ramage, eh? We heard you were on the coast. We might have guessed.”

“Guessed what?”

“That you would attack treacherously, like an assassin in the dark.”

“I found a British merchant ship after your brother had finished with it in daylight. She was called the
Tranquil.
”

“Yes, he told me of it. A British frigate came in sight.”

“So your brother murdered everyone on board, including several women, who were raped as well, before he fled.”

Jean Brune shrugged his shoulders. “One woman, but surely not several.”

Ramage looked at the sneering face. No remorse, no surprise, and apparently no regrets. Raping and killing women was unfortunate—because they might have been ransomed.

“Your brother—what does he look like?”

“Very big. Tall and broad, with big moustaches. A man kill him with a cutlass. My brother is—was—a fine swordsman. He must have tripped, for this English sailor to kill him.”

“You saw it happen?”

“Yes, I was lying on the ground, a musket ball in my leg.”

“And your brother fell forward on this British sailor, so they collapsed together?”

“Yes—I tell you, he must have tripped. He was a fine man, my brother.”

Ramage nodded soberly. “I killed him, and he didn't trip. I am sorry he is dead.”

“You should be,” Jean Brune said bitterly. “Such a fine man, my brother. My older brother, you understand; he taught me everything of the sea, from when we were boys in Brittany. And he took me privateering, and later he helped me buy my ship.”

“Yes,” Ramage said quietly, “I am sorry your brother is dead: I had hoped to have him hanged from a gallows in Port Royal. And you—if any of my men find out you are his brother, your life won't be worth a puff of smoke, so guard your tongue.”

Brune sat up on one elbow, his eyes widening in fear. “But you must give orders to protect me. As an English officer you would not let one of your prisoners be murdered!”

“Wouldn't I? Your brother did. In fact he ordered it.”

T
HE FIRST carts arrived an hour after dawn. Two nervous Dutch surgeons had come on horseback, obviously unwilling and acting under orders, and with them was the guide, who told Ramage that he had reported to the Governor.

“Is there any message from His Excellency?”

The guide shook his head. “More carts come soon and the hospital has been warned to—how do you say?—to stand by.”

“Do you speak French?”

“Some—enough, I think.”

“I'm leaving you a dozen men to help you get the wounded back to Amsterdam. If you have spades and picks you can bury the dead here; otherwise take them back to the city.”

The seven missing British seamen had been found: two were dead, killed in sword fights, and five were wounded, one badly. A total of six dead and twelve wounded. For the moment Ramage did not want to know the names of the dead; there would probably be more before sunset.

“The British dead and wounded—they go in the first carts.”

“Of course,” the Dutchman said. “The doctors are already attending them with your surgeon's mates.”

The guide was an unimaginative but competent man, and it was clear that he hated Dutch rebels, Frenchmen and anyone else who wilfully interrupted the normal peace and quiet of life in Curaçao. The British were helping to restore that peace and quiet and for that reason (for that reason only, Ramage was certain) they had his loyalty and assistance.