Ramage's Challenge (28 page)

Very well, he must make sure it was not the
Calypso,
and if the French were not to raise the alarm, then the fight had to take place out of sight of lookouts on the mainland. Or at least the French on shore must not be able to connect the sea fight with the Porto Ercole hostages.

Come to think of it, as long as the Giglio Commandant did not connect the frigate with
his
former hostages, there was nothing to fear. More important, there was no reason why the commandant should, so long as that frigate to the south did not open fire on the
Calypso
while still in sight of Castello.

At that moment Ramage saw General Cargill coming up the quarterdeck ladder, buckling on a sword. “What's all the commotion about, eh?” he demanded.

Ramage shrugged and pointed at the small, grey shadow now astern. “A French frigate.”

“Ha, and how are you going to engage her, eh?”

“We're not,” Ramage said calmly. “We're trying to avoid her— it will be dark in an hour.”

“Avoid her?
You mean you're running away?” Cargill shouted, banging the hilt of his sword. “Why, that's cowardice!”

Ramage walked to within a foot of the man, not wanting everyone to hear the conversation. “You will answer for that remark later,” he said coldly. “In the meantime, I must ask you to leave the quarterdeck.”

“I'll be damned if I will!” Cargill exclaimed. “If there's going to be fighting, my post is here.”

“You've already decided there's not going to be any fighting, and I must remind you that I am in command of this ship. If you do not go below, I shall place you under an arrest and two marines will
take
you below.”

Cargill, eyes shifty, suddenly realized that he had just called Ramage a coward on his own quarterdeck and that Ramage had challenged him to a duel. Perhaps he had been a little hasty, Cargill admitted to himself, but dammit the fellow was running away. And anyway, who was he to threaten to arrest a field officer? A pip-squeak of a captain threatening to arrest a general!

He felt a tap on the shoulder and whirled to find Sir Henry standing there; it was obvious the admiral had heard the entire conversation.

“General Cargill, I suggest you go down to your cabin.”

“But this fellow Ramage is—”

“Go down to your cabin and wait for Captain Ramage's seconds to call on your seconds,” Sir Henry said. “No gentleman can be called a coward without demanding satisfaction. And, if I might express a personal opinion, no gentleman would call the captain of one of the King's ships a coward on his own quarter-deck unless that person fully understood what was happening.”

“But Sir Henry, I can see with my own eyes what's afoot!” Cargill protested.

“In that case,” Sir Henry said quietly, “I should tell you that Captain Ramage has every right to arrest you if you refuse to obey his orders. Me, too, if I did the same.”

Cargill swung round, staggering as the
Calypso
rolled, and then made his way to the ladder. Sir Henry, without a word to Ramage, returned to the taffrail.

Ramage sighed: if one had to fight only the French … He took the telescope from the binnacle drawer and balanced himself to inspect the French frigate. Yes, she was following precisely in the
Calypso
's wake. Her guns were not run out—but because she was not suspicious or because she was rolling so violently? Topsails and courses set, the same as the
Calypso.
If there was an urgent need to overtake the
Calypso,
surely she would let fall her topgallants? Ramage looked aloft at the
Calypso
's straining topsails and then decided only a gambler would set topgallants: a sudden extra gust in this uncertain weather could easily carry away a mast.

So what was that French captain doing and thinking? At first, no doubt, interested (and surprised) to see a ship of his own class off Giglio and obviously weighing anchor. A sensible captain would conclude that the ship was being prudent, shifting berth in the
scirocco
to the lee side of the island. So far so good.

Then the ship bears away and sets more sail, without apparently answering the challenge. How important would the Frenchman judge that? His reaction would not be as rigid as a British post captain, for at least four reasons. First, there were so few British ships in the Mediterranean that the Frenchman would not be expecting to see one—certainly not at anchor off Giglio.

Second, the French captain would notice at once that the ship was the same class as his own, and it was unlikely anyone would see in this wind that the sails had a British cut. Third, the captain of a French frigate in the Mediterranean was unlikely to have heard (or would have since forgotten) that a French frigate of this type had been captured by the British some years ago in the West Indies.

Fourth, the French were very casual about signalling, and this captain might not—since he would assume that any other ship would be French—be very concerned that his challenge was not answered.

However, Ramage decided, any French captain might be curious if the frigate he was following stayed on
this
course, which led to nowhere in particular. North-east could only mean somewhere on the Tuscan coast, fishing villages between Castiglione della Pescaia and Talamone … Turning to the north-west, though, would show clearly that the destination was Elba, which, in turn, meant Porto Ferraio. And, of course, Porto Ferraio, one of the safest harbours in the whole Mediterranean, was on the north side of Elba and well sheltered in a
scirocco.

Ramage acknowledged Aitken's report that the
Calypso
was now at general quarters and nodded in agreement when the first lieutenant said he presumed Ramage did not want the guns run out yet. Ramage noted that Southwick had now joined Aitken. It was a deuced nuisance that Sir Henry had installed himself at the taffrail: Ramage wanted to pace the weather side between the quarterdeck rail and the taffrail, but if he did that now it would be obvious (and unnecessarily rude) to Sir Henry that he was avoiding conversation.

It was curious about plovers. In Kent they were called peewits, which was a fair approximation of their cry. But how did they learn that trick of shamming injury to a wing to lure intruders away from the nest? Or did it come to them naturally, like swimming to ducklings and baby moorhens? Hmm, night was falling fast. Darkness was getting a helping hand from the haze, which was almost thick enough to log as a faint mist.

Time to reassure the French frigate. He called a new course of north-north-west to Aitken. This would be radical enough to be immediately noticed by the ship astern, and within moments Aitken was shouting orders which braced the yards and trimmed the sheets as the wind came round on to the larboard quarter.

Peewits. Curious how his mind kept returning to those black and white, crested birds! They were not even sea birds. If you walked across a field, they wheeled overhead, with their irritating “peewit” cry, warning everything else, from partridges to hares. Some people liked plovers' eggs to eat but, as far as Ramage was concerned, they were small and fiddling; he suspected that, to the gourmets, the fact that they were seasonal and hard to find, rather than their delicacy, accounted for their popularity.

Southwick now came up to him. “Glad you came round six points to larboard, sir. I was about to remind you about those ‘ants'—we were steering straight for them.”

“Ah, yes. They'd be hard to spot in this visibility, especially if our course had taken us through the middle.”

“Aye, we'd have lost the light by the time we got there,” Southwick commented.

Peewits scratching at the top of anthills. Again the black and white birds with the paddle-shaped wing tips came to mind. Yes, he could just imagine them pecking away at anthills, searching for a meal—providing, of course, that they liked ants. Perhaps they preferred mole burrows and molehills, new ones, a happy hunting ground yielding fresh worms.

He looked astern at the French frigate, now becoming a blur. Yes, she had altered course, too. Perhaps she too was bound for Porto Ferraio, or her captain had just decided to shelter there for a couple of days, and visit the sister-ship. The island of Giglio was now out of sight—and Argentario, too. No, perhaps there was just a hint of a heavier greyness in the distance—Monte Argentario was big. From memory, though, in a
scirocco
the upper half of the mountain was usually hidden in cloud streaming to leeward, so it was probably his imagination.

He now looked over the starboard bow and let his eyes run slowly aft. No sign of the mainland of Tuscany. Punta Ala had mountains to the south, and Talamone some to the north, while in between (with the Bocca d'Ombrone in the middle) it was flat. The
Calypso
and the frigate astern could both be in the middle of the Atlantic as far as landmarks were concerned. The nearest land, if you wanted to flatter it with that description, was the Formiche di Grosseto, the ants. With peewits pecking at them.

Ramage suddenly saw it all clearly, and he turned to Southwick. “Do you think you can give me a fairly exact course to the Formiche di Grosseto?” he asked. “No, that's asking too much. No, first give me a course to meet the coast south of the Ombrone river; then we can check our position exactly once we spot those forts at the mouth of the river.”

“But it'll be dark long before we get within miles!” South-wick protested.

“The moon, remember the moon,” Ramage chided. “It'll be up very soon. It's nearly full and it'll penetrate the clouds just enough to be as useful as an ostler's lantern.”

“We could just as easily run up on the coast!” Southwick grumbled crossly. “If you'll forgive me saying so, sir, it's just madness to try and dodge Johnny Frenchman astern by going inshore like that!”

Ramage grinned. “You know I always go slightly mad with a full moon!”

“Slightly!” Southwick sniffed, and made for the quarterdeck ladder and the rolls of charts in Ramage's cabin.

R
AMAGE walked aft to speak to Sir Henry. The admiral was (as he accepted with perfect correctness) simply a passenger, but as a man he deserved some hint of what Ramage was planning.

“He doesn't seem to worry much about challenges,” Sir Henry said, nodding astern towards the French ship. “Just follows us like a stray dog hoping for a pat on the head!”

“He probably thinks we are making for Elba, sir,” Ramage suggested. “Porto Ferraio would be just the place to shelter from a
scirocco.
Or he may be based there.”

“Anyway, you're leading him away from Porto Ercole,” Sir Henry commented. “But no doubt you have plans for when you get nearer to Elba. For after dawn tomorrow. Tomorrow! I must admit I'm finding it hard to get adjusted. This morning we're prisoners in Castello at Giglio; this afternoon we're having dinner on board one of the King's ships; and this evening we're being chased by a French frigate!”

Ramage noted that the admiral did not ask what Ramage's plans were. He was either being very tactful, or keeping his own yards clear. By not knowing about Ramage's intentions— and therefore neither approving nor disapproving—if Ramage subsequently faced a court martial or court of inquiry, the admiral would be in the clear.

Ramage was sufficiently sure of himself not to give a damn. But he was curious because he was beginning to like Sir Henry and there was one class of people for whom Ramage had unconditional contempt, and that was trimmers. What was it Swift had written? Ah, yes.

“To confound his hated coin,
All parties and religions join,
Whigs, tories, trimmers.”

Trimmers: men who hovered, always ready to change sides or allegiances if there was any advantage to be had. Politicians were always trimmers by nature; no man not a natural trimmer would go into politics in the first place. But generals, admirals, prelates, and the like could be trimmers by choice (turncoats, by a less polite name). Was Sir Henry trimming or being tactful?

“Although we're now steering for Elba,” Ramage said casually, “we'll soon be coming back to the north-east.”

“North-east!” Sir Henry repeated, his brow wrinkling. “Oh, thanks for warning me. I'd have been alarmed, otherwise!” He thought a few moments, and then looked questioningly at Ramage, nodding astern towards the French frigate as he spoke. “Do you think he'll follow you? Especially if he's bound for Porto Ferraio? He might think you have some special orders.”

So Sir Henry was being tactful, not a trimmer! “I've considered that, sir. If he doesn't follow, we'll just be grateful and go back to Giglio!”

“We need luck,” Sir Henry said. “By the way, I hope I'm not in the way up here?”

Ramage, embarrassed at having such a senior admiral being so tactful, said quickly, “No, sir, of course not. You and Lord Smarden have the freedom of the ship.”

Sir Henry smiled and nodded again, and Ramage sensed that he, too, shared his own distaste for Admiral Keeler, as well as for General Cargill.

Ramage saw Southwick coming up the quarterdeck ladder. “If you'll excuse me, sir. The master is bringing me the new course.”

Southwick handed Ramage a piece of paper. “Nor-'east by north a quarter north? Very precise, Mr Southwick. Are you sure you've allowed enough quarter points for a north-going current?” Ramage asked teasingly.

“I wrote it down in the hope you'd bet me a guinea I'd be wrong, sir,” Southwick said. “That course should bring us precisely between those two southern towers, the Torri dell' Uccellina. The northern one is tall and reddish, if you remember, and stands on a hill a thousand feet high, and the other is short and dark grey.”

Ramage looked at Southwick, pretending doubt. “All right, a guinea. Mind you, it hasn't escaped my notice that we'll see Monte dell' Uccellina first, and from that we'll be able to spot the tall tower.”