Ramage & the Saracens (22 page)

The ship's company of the
Calypso
were kept busy until well after nightfall hoisting out the carronades and lowering the barrels into the boats to be ferried ashore, and then when they had returned alongside, lowering down the carriages.

Once the guns were assembled on the quay the men fitted traces and hauled them into their prearranged positions. Then powder and shot had to be carried ashore and put in position. Finally at midnight a weary Aitken came into Ramage's cabin and reported that all the carronades and boat-guns had been landed, and with them shot, powder, rammers, and sponges. And marines were now patrolling where the guns were sited.

He did not add that the men were worn out, but Ramage said: “Very well, let's call it a night. We'll ferry all the men ashore tomorrow after they've had a good night's sleep, and then you can hoist in the boats and disappear to the eastward.”

“Don't forget to take that white ensign with you, sir,” Aitken said. “We shall be watching out for that!”

“You'll be no more anxious than I will to hoist it!”

Ramage thought awhile and then said: “I must emphasize that you should not approach before the late afternoon, and then come in perpendicular to the coast, so that you are in sight for the shortest time possible.”

“You're expecting the attack to be in the morning, sir?”

“Yes, probably soon after dawn. The Saracens won't have any difficulty identifying the place, thanks to Castel San Angelo and the church. They'll probably expect to catch the people while they're still in their beds.”

“And you'll be up in the castle?”

“Yes, me, Orsini and half a dozen seamen who will act as messengers as soon as we sight anything.”

“Supposing they come at night, sir?”

“Well, the carronades will be sited already and the messengers can raise the alarm. I'd prefer it in daylight, so that we can see who we're shooting at, but a night attack isn't impossible to deal with.”

Jackson and his gun's crew shovelled and cursed as they cleaned out the stable. The carronade stood in the road outside the door because Lieutenant Kenton had agreed that apart from the dangers of the gun capsizing itself as it recoiled over so much straw, the stench was appalling, a dreadful mixture of donkey manure and urine which had collected over the years.

Ramage, thinking of the practical effect of keeping men shut up in houses and stables for days on end, had finally arranged with the mayor that the town should go about its ordinary business—which meant that the seamen and marines were allowed out in the street—until the bells of the church, also called San Angelo, should start tolling. Because Ramage knew that ringing church bells was a skilled job, he sent two seamen—whom he would have with him in the castle as messengers—with the mayor to find one of the bellringers and to get instructions on how to toll the bells of San Angelo. The mayor assured him that the tolling of San Angelo could be heard all over the port; they were loud enough to wake sleeping people, if the
Saraceni
should be sighted at night. The mayor agreed to warn all the people, and to tell the priest.

Jackson and his men were hot and tired and far from pleased at the sort of work. “I'm a sailor, not a farm labourer,” grumbled Stafford. “These damned people have never cleaned this stable out since it was built.”

“And it was built on a manure heap to start with,” Gilbert said.

Finally Jackson agreed that the stable was clean enough to move in the carronade. The gun just fitted; they managed to haul it in through the doorway with only a few inches to spare, so that the muzzle protruded as though through a gun port.

As soon as the gun was in the stable Jackson set them to work hammering a hole in the wall on each side of the door into which would be fixed big eyebolts to fit the thick rope, the breeching, which would hold the carronade when it recoiled. The noise of the hammering and the dust soon upset Rossi.

“Staff is not a farm labourer, I am not a stone mason. And this noise; it is driving me mad.”

“Don't worry, Rosey, no one will notice,” Stafford said. “Dung spreading and stone work is all part of chasing Saracens. Very strange people, Saracens; they only hide in manure heaps and behind piles of rocks.”

Finally the carronade was ready to be trained left or right. Jackson settled himself behind the gun and gave training and elevating instructions. When he was satisfied that it would sweep the killing ground the gun was loaded and laid and trained again. Now Stafford, as second captain, unwrapped the lock from the piece of cloth in which he kept it and checked the flint. As soon as he was satisfied that it was making a strong spark, he bolted the lock on to the gun, threaded the lanyard through the trigger and then coiled it up and placed the line on top of the breech.

“It's going to make a bang when we fire it in here,” he observed. “I'm not sure my sensitive little ears will stand it.”

“I shouldn't worry,” Jackson said. “I've noticed how deaf you get when you don't want to hear something.”

Stafford looked through the door across at the quay. “Where we're going to shoot, the Saracens will be a hundred yards or more from their ships.”

“Exactly,” Jackson said. “That's why Mr Ramage chose it. We want to kill them in a surprise attack, so that they don't have time to get back to their vessels. Take ‘em by surprise: Mr Ramage says surprise doubles the number of your men and guns.”

“I ‘ope he's right,” Stafford said miserably. “I don't want an ‘undred or so of these Saracens whooping round me and trying to cut my head off with those skimitars of theirs.”

“Scimitars,” Jackson corrected automatically.

“I don't care what you call ‘em,” Stafford said sulkily. “I saw one once and it was big and ‘orrible.”

“Just think of them as overgrown cutlasses,” Jackson said.

“‘S'no good,” Stafford said. “I shall never think of them with ‘ffection: those Saracens are wild men.”

“No wilder than a panicky Frenchman fighting for his life,” Jackson said reassuringly.

“We'll see,” Stafford said gloomily.

“Well, let's get the powder stowed properly; at the moment the cartridges look as though they've been abandoned by a retreating army. And the case shot: we want that in a handy pile here, just where the muzzle will be when the gun recoils.”

“How many rounds do you reckon we'll be able to fire?” Gilbert asked.

Jackson looked at him quizzically. “Depends how long the Saracens wait there, and how fast you load! From here, though, we shall also be able to fire into their vessels as they lie along-side the quay. Perhaps a dozen rounds. Maybe more, if we're quick: after all, it doesn't take long to load a carronade.”

“If those Saracens have any sense they'll run towards the guns to slice up the infidels,” Stafford said. “Yelling ‘orrible things and waving those skimitars. Is it true, Jacko, that if they get killed fighting they go straight to Paradise?”

“Where's Paradise?” Jackson said. “It's not Heaven because they're not Christians; they're just benighted heathens. They might think they're going to a special heathen Paradise, and good luck to ‘em as long as they're dead. If they're in Paradise they're not bothering us,” he added.

Up on the battlements of Castel San Angelo Ramage watched seaward as the
Calypso
sailed away south-eastward. In half an hour she would be out of sight. Ramage had to admit to himself that he felt nervous; never before had he been out of sight of the
Calypso
with someone else commanding her. It was not that he did not trust Aitken and Southwick; his feelings, he suspected, were more like those of a mother whose young son was away staying with an ancient and unreliable grandmother: there was a nervousness with no definable reason for it.

The castle was strongly built. The only thing it lacked, Ramage thought crossly, was guns. It had been built to protect the port, and it was well positioned. If only it had a few guns it would be able to rake the quay. He had considered landing some twelve-pounders from the
Calypso
and hauling them up to the castle, but had finally decided that the carronades would be sufficient. The track up to the castle was so bad that it was hard climbing up it, let alone hauling up heavy guns with only manpower; Licata boasted only a few donkeys: it was too poor for horses.

But the view from the battlements was fine: it was a view he would like to share with Sarah. What was she doing at this moment? Either at the house at Aldington, enjoying the Kentish spring, or staying with her parents. He decided she would be at Aldington: they both loved the house they had inherited from his uncle, and it was reassuring to think that she would be well looked after by the staff there.

How he longed for her company. He tried to think of her only at night: there was usually enough work—especially these last few days—to keep his mind occupied in the daytime. But the night was different: he could fill it with fantasies, except that her absence was painful: it was not nostalgia, it was a painful longing.

Paolo Orsini was standing beside him, and the young Italian said: “Excuse me, sir, but we don't know how long it takes a man to get from here to the church: it might be useful to know if they come in the dark. And perhaps the men ought to get used to it, in case they have to find their way at night.”

Ramage smiled. “Good thinking, my lad. You take the men now and time yourselves. It took about ten minutes from the quay to the church, but it should be less from up here.”

Once the young midshipman had gone off with two men of the six who would be acting as lookouts, messengers, and bell-ringers, Ramage paced up and down the battlements. Supposing the Saracens had decided not to bother with Licata and instead went on to the next port, Gela, which was bigger?

But why should they? he argued with himself: Sciacca and Empedocle were hardly bigger than Licata, but they had been raided. And, perhaps relevant, Licata would be easier to identify from seaward because of the castle.

Very well, but supposing there are more than two hundred Saracens? Supposing he was underestimating their strength by a half? Since he had not been able to get estimates of their strength from any of the ports, his guess was entirely based on the number of boats he estimated they had. But they had been capturing more boats as they worked their way along the coast. Had they picked up more Saracens when they went back to their base to unload the prisoners? It was possible; indeed, it was more than possible, it was most likely.

So two hundred men could easily be three hundred, or even four hundred; the Saracens, as far as he knew, never lacked for men, and the one Saracen ship of any size that he had captured years ago had three or four times more men than she would have had under the Royal Navy.

Very well, he told himself, say they have five hundred men and they come into the port and put their boats alongside the quay. Would they then attack the port in an orderly fashion, or would they straggle ashore, a score here and a score there, confident that there would be no opposition and therefore no need to hurry? With luck they might congregate on the quay, talking and joking, taking their time—taking their time and lingering in the square area which Ramage and Rennick had marked down as the killing ground.

Then they would be blasted by the carronades, boat-guns and muskets. Then what? These Saracens were no cowards: would they try and attack the guns or would they make a bolt for their tartanes and galleys alongside the quay? Most of the carronades could be brought to bear on the boats, so if they bolted the Saracens would be suffering more casualties. If they bolted. If they did, it would only be because they had been taken completely by surprise. Which was of course Ramage's great ally; surprise was the ally that—he hoped—would make his two hundred men equal to whatever number of Saracens raided Licata. He was still working out all the permutations when Orsini came back with the seamen.

“Six minutes to the church because it is all downhill,” he reported, “and eight minutes back. The route is obvious, and if you agree, sir, the men only need to do the journey once more to be sure of it at night.”

“All right, carry on Orsini,” Ramage said.

With that he resumed pacing the battlements. There was plenty of room—twenty yards of flagstones, which were uneven enough that one had to watch one's step. Four signal rockets looked out, canted over the town, and beside them a slowmatch burned, the glowing end tucked into a crack in the wall. One of the rockets would be enough: the guns' crews and the seamen with their muskets would watch the Saracens landing, after being alerted by the church bells, and they would be waiting for the rocket to soar overhead, giving them the signal to open fire instantly. Ramage had impressed on them all the need to open fire the moment they saw or heard the rocket: every second they delayed would mean the loss of surprise: the Saracens would be warned that they were walking into a trap.

Ramage looked seaward. The
Calypso
was now out of sight. Wind shadows swept across a calm sea, which was only gently pewtered. Aitken had been lucky to find enough wind to get clear of Licata.

When would these damned Saracens arrive? Well, where were they taking their prisoners? Because it all depended on how long it took them to get there and return. If it was anywhere on the Cape Bon peninsula it would not take them long because it was less than two hundred miles to the west. There was no lack of ports—Bizerta, Tunis, Kelibia, Monastir. Or further west—Bône, Bougie, and Algiers. Anywhere west of Algiers would be too far, although Mostaganem, Oran and Mers-el-Kebir were notorious as slaving centres.

And of course he was assuming they were going west. In fact they might be going south along the coast of Tunis, to Sfax or Djerba. Ramage could not suppress a shudder: it was awful to think that slaves and galleys existed in this day and age; that vessels were propelled by men chained to the oars and kept rowing in time by the lash of a long-tailed whip and the tolling of a bell. He refused to think of the brothels: for the women it must be a worse fate than that of the menfolk in the galleys.