Ramage's Signal (13 page)

“It could happen, but Barcelona would report to Toulon. We would intercept the signal and after a suitable interval send back a reply threatening the shipmasters. I doubt if they dare play the games the British ones do: they have no Committee of West India merchants or Lloyd's Coffee House to back them up …”

He glanced up as there was a knock at the door, and at a word from Martin, a Marine came in with two jugs, which he put on the table, went to a cupboard and came back with four mugs.

“Tea, sir?” he asked Ramage politely, and when Ramage nodded and watched a mug being neatly filled from one jug was surprised to hear the Marine ask: “And milk, sir?”

Then he remembered the three cows in the meadow behind the guardhouse. “A little, please,” he said.

Ramage had stood on the tower platform with Paolo and Jackson while Rossi and Stafford hauled on the halyards, watched by an anxious Martin. Before daylight they had hoisted the yellow flag, warning Aspet there was a signal for them, so that the first signalman at Aspet to look at Foix would see it. Ramage had watched the tower at Le Chesne for signs of movement, particularly when Paolo exclaimed that Aspet had answered and the signal could be sent. A shout down to Stafford and Rossi started the shutters rising and falling, Jackson watching Aspet for any request for a repetition while Ramage kept an eye on Le Chesne for any indication that they had noticed that Foix's shutters were working.

Finally, after Paolo had shouted down the last letter of the signal and the shutters had risen and then crashed down again, so the tower was once more without window-like openings, Jackson took the halyard, raised and lowered the yellow flag twice, and said to Ramage: “Now the signal's on its way, sir. As the post-chaise coachman says: ‘Next stop Barcelona.'”

And, Ramage thought to himself, it will probably take all day to reach Barcelona, allowing for a noon delay for the meal and siesta at about station twenty … so the convoy could sail about noon tomorrow. The distance from Barcelona to Foix was almost exactly one hundred and fifty miles, and the course followed the coast because the ships had to round the cape just north of Palamós. They needed plenty of south in the wind to bring them north without too much delay.

Without an escort to crack a whip behind them, they would make perhaps four knots with a fair wind, so at the earliest there would be no sign of them until 36 hours after they sailed. Thirty-six hours from noon tomorrow. It was a long time. And he had to spend the rest of the day on shore, just in case a signal came back unexpectedly before sunset. In the meantime he looked across at the
Calypso
swinging at anchor in the bay, a glorious sight washed by the pinkish-orange of a good sunrise following the gale.

Ramage climbed down the ladder, telling Paolo to hail the moment a signal started to come through from either Aspet or Le Chesne—he was more curious about the method than what the message might say. His first task for the morning was to inspect the Marines.

This was set for eight o'clock, and Ramage knew Rennick would be happy for the rest of the day—even if, by some miracle, the Captain spotted a dulled button or a speck of sand on a musket barrel. Flints—ah yes, just to tease Rennick (without the men realizing it) he would insist on all muskets being “snapped”—cocked and fired, without being loaded—to check the strength of the spark in the flintlock. And he would play merry hell if even one failed to spark, because in action a misfire could cost the man's life.

At eight o'clock, on the only flat area between the huts not dug for a garden—but certainly not used as a parade ground by the French—Rennick had his men drawn up, and when Ramage strode out with all the nonchalance expected of the captain of one of the King's ships, Rennick gave a smart salute and bellowed: “One sergeant, one corporal and twenty-eight men, all present and correct, sir! One corporal and six men on detached guard duty!”

“Very well, Lieutenant; I will inspect the men.”

Escorted by Rennick and followed by the sergeant, Ramage began to walk along the first of the four ranks of men. The corporal was the first he reached.

“Have him make sure his musket isn't loaded; then I want to see him snap the lock.”

Rennick barked out the order with his usual confidence; the corporal flipped up the pan cover and blew into the vent while the sergeant blocked the barrel with his thumb over the muzzle and then took it away suddenly so that a “whoosh” of the corporal's breath showed the gun was unloaded.

“Cock the piece and squeeze the trigger,” Rennick ordered. Ramage watched the flint strike the steel. There was no spark.

“Cock the piece and squeeze the trigger,” Rennick repeated.

Again there was no spark.

“Take this man's name, sergeant,” Rennick said as Ramage walked on to the first Marine in the front rank. The locks of 28 muskets sparked satisfactorily and Ramage, already feeling sorry for the wretched corporal, decided not to check the sergeant's musket.

After Rennick dismissed the men, he led the way to the guardhouse where the second corporal and six men were drawn up outside the hut. Knowing their muskets would be loaded,

Ramage confined himself to inspecting the French uniforms the men were wearing.

“They were never as smart with Frenchmen inside ‘em,” he commented to Rennick. “Even if the Frenchmen were shorter.”

“Yes. I've been trying to persuade the sergeant that although a couple of inches of ankle showing at the trouser leg would cause a sensation at Portsmouth, it doesn't matter here. He now agrees. He issued the uniforms,” he added, “so it's hardly surprising his own is the only perfect fit.”

Suddenly Ramage heard Jackson hailing from the top of the tower. “Captain, sir! Captain, sir!”

Ramage, knowing the limitations of his own voice, nodded to Rennick, who bellowed: “The Captain is here, at the guardhouse.”

“Signal coming from Aspet, sir.”

“Very well.”

Ramage looked towards the corporal. “Your men are a credit. Don't forget though, if anyone arrives, no talking, and blow the whistle for Mr Orsini.”

With that Ramage hurried over to the tower, noting that Rennick and the sergeant were heading for one of the huts, presumably to deal with the unfortunate corporal whose flint refused to spark.

By now the sun was well above the horizon, bringing warmth with it and putting new vigour into the insects which were beginning to buzz about the yellow flecks of flower among the gorse bushes. Feeling he needed the exercise, Ramage climbed the ladder, although he did it at a speed which made it clear to any onlooker that the Captain was simply climbing the ladder to get to the top of the platform, not to demonstrate how topmen should go up the ratlines wearing breeches.

Paolo, eye glued to the telescope on its stand, and aimed at Aspet, was calling out letters of the alphabet which Jackson was writing down on a slate. Ramage looked over the American's shoulder and saw it was a signal from Barcelona to Toulon.

“That's all,” Paolo said briskly, “now dip the flag twice and then they can go to sleep again over there, happy in the knowledge we have the signal.”

“I wonder where that signal spent the night,” Ramage reflected. “It started off from Barcelona in broad daylight yesterday, for certain, but it was benighted before it travelled very far. It can't have travelled through only two or three stations today.”

“Probably delayed by rain, sir,” Jackson offered, “especially when you remember how the thunderstorms roll down the side of the Pyrenees. Cuts visibility to a few yards.”

Paolo took the slate from Jackson and held it out for Ramage to finish reading. Then he asked: “Do we pass it on, sir?”

Ramage shook his head. “No, put it in the log and add a translation.”

“The fools may have trumped your ace, sir,” he said sympathetically. “One can never trust the Spanish.”

The signal when translated said quite simply: “Convoy now fifteen ships refuses await escort and sails tomorrow.” Obviously “tomorrow” meant today, because it was now only half past eight in the morning.

Ramage knew that only one question needed an answer now: would the Spanish (and probably French) merchantmen have left Barcelona before his faked order arrived telling them to make for Foix?

Most British convoys Ramage had ever seen—admittedly large West Indian ones, often comprising more than one hundred ships—took all day to get out of the harbour and sometimes all the next day to form up properly.

With Aitken, Southwick and Kenton on board the
Calypso
Ramage could spend the day at the semaphore station, although apart from giving an immediate answer to any questions concerning signals there seemed little else for him to do, and he enjoyed the atmosphere of the maquis.

Thirty-six hours from noon: that was about the earliest he could hope to sight the convoy, providing his signal arrived in time—and providing the real escort had not reached Barcelona. It was a sequence of events, he reflected gloomily, in which the word “providing” appeared too frequently.

Idly he watched the
Calypso
and saw the red and green cutters being hoisted out. As soon as they were in the water they would be filled with water casks—Aitken's men were to spend the rest of the day “wooding and watering”: parties would be collecting firewood for the
Calypso
's coppers within the limits of the camp while others were filling casks with fresh water from the well. With luck the
Calypso
by the end of the day would again have thirty tons on board, the amount with which she had left Gibraltar to begin the present cruise. The cook was not going to be pleased with the wood, though; most of the trees were stunted and would yield logs more suitable for brightening the hearth of a cottage than heating a frigate's big coppers.

“Le Chesne, sir,” Jackson reported to Orsini. “They've got their flag up.”

“Answer and stand by,” Orsini said, swinging the telescope round to the eastward and focusing it on the Le Chesne tower. Jackson hoisted and lowered the red flag and then picked up the slate. The signal was from Toulon and directed to station sixteen, which Ramage guessed was Séte. As Orsini called out the letters and Jackson wrote them down, Ramage realized the signal was a routine one about a discrepancy between stores reported used and the amount actually found in a recent inventory, and the commanding officer was required …

As he climbed down the ladder and recalled the contents of the original French signal log, he decided that pilfering, selling government stores and taking inventories were the main occupations of the commanding officers of the various semaphore stations.

Two days later Ramage sat on the
Calypso
's quarterdeck in a canvas-backed chair in the shade of the awning, which was rigged again to provide shelter from the blazing sun returning after the
mistral.
The sea was calm with a gentle breeze from the west so that the frigate was lying parallel with the beach. Over at the semaphore tower, which he could see on the larboard quarter, the tiny awning was rigged on the platform and he could just make out two figures, Paolo and Jackson, swinging the telescope round from time to time, keeping a watch on Aspet and Le Chesne.

Aloft in the
Calypso
seamen kept watch seaward, but by now he was sure that the convoy had sailed from Barcelona direct for their destinations before his signal had arrived ordering them to Foix, and no doubt the French escort had joined them.

Tonight, he decided, the
Calypso
would sail to look for the convoy—though he was uncertain whether to head eastward, close along the coast, on the assumption that it had passed in the darkness, or south-east because perhaps it had found a different wind once it left Barcelona and could comfortably lay Marseilles, its first destination.

He was not sure whether his semaphore signal had been a wild idea and a waste of time, or whether it had been a good idea unluckily ruined by the impatience of the French masters of merchantmen. Anyway tonight, as soon as it was dark, the tower would topple under the Marines' axes, the barrack huts would be wrecked, the powder casks rolled into the sea, and the cattle turned loose—the villagers would soon find and appropriate them. Burning down the whole place would attract far too much attention to the
Calypso—
the flames would be seen for miles—and to the French the important part of the camp as a link in the signal chain was not the accommodation (which could be replaced by tents) but the tower, which was as easily destroyed by axes as flames.

A fruitless chase after the convoy, he thought miserably, then a few weeks' cruising along the French and Spanish coasts sinking xebecs, tartanes and suchlike small coasting vessels, and then back to Gibraltar because the time limit for his orders would have run out. He could destroy a few of the semaphore towers, every fourth one, say, but he could not see their Lordships (or even the port admiral at Gibraltar) realizing what a blow that would be to the French naval communication system. The Board and admirals could understand ships captured or sunk; signals were dull affairs.

A few seamen in the waist were exercising French prisoners, allowing them up a dozen at a time. They were made to run round the fore and mainmasts a few times (they showed a great reluctance to exercise themselves voluntarily) and before they were sent below had to be inspected by Southwick.

Although the old Master spoke not a word of French, he always made himself clear: a tug at a shirt collar and a growl told the man it needed washing; an accusing finger pointing at uncombed hair or a badly tied queue was enough of a warning.

The French Lieutenant was proving a worry to Ramage: the man had sunk into a deep gloom, convinced that if the British did not shoot him they would hand him back to his own people, who would lop off his head, although for what crime Ramage could not discover, because being taken prisoner was no offence on either side.