Ramage's Signal (25 page)

It would be interesting to see if Martin's Medway and Thames background had rubbed off on Orsini. Among the Thames barges, whose long sprits were Britain's nearest to the lateen yards of tartanes or xebecs, the vangs—the heavy ropes which controlled the upper end of the sprits and stopped them slamming about in heavy weather—were almost invariably referred to by bargemen as “wangs,” just as seamen pronounced “tackle” as “taickle.” Martin would almost certainly have called them “wangs” and it would be interesting to see if Orsini had assumed that was the proper English pronunciation.
Palan de retenue
in French,
oste della mezzana
in Italian,
burdas de mezana
in Spanish. They made “vang” seem a very bald and ugly word; still, in a gale of wind, he would sooner shout “vang” through a speaking-trumpet.

Ramage glanced at his watch and looked round for Southwick. The Master was waiting with his quadrant in his hand. There was no need for a midshipman standing by with a watch or minute glass; the sun would “hang” for many seconds as it reached the highest point in its meridian passage and Southwick adjusted his quadrant to measure the altitude. They were in roughly the same latitude as Ibiza and between Valencia and Alicante, he thought inconsequentially; thirty degrees north of the area in which he preferred to serve, the Caribbean.

The Tricolour streamed out in the wind: at least the breeze had stayed steady since dawn after easing down for the night. Easing down just enough, Ramage admitted, to let the convoy straggle to its heart's content. Now Southwick was, for once, becoming impatient waiting for local noon, for the moment when the sun reached its zenith and its bearing was due south.

Southwick walked over to the starboard side of the quarter-deck and held the telescope of the quadrant to his eye, making sure that no shrouds, rigging, lanyards or blocks obscured his view. He flipped down a shade, looked at the sun through it, and flipped down a second. Then he set the arm against a figure on the ivory scale.

Ramage winked as Southwick glanced across to see if this act of supreme confidence had been noticed. Southwick was in fact doing it backwards: he was in effect saying he knew already the precise latitude in which the
Calypso
and the convoy were sailing, and in that latitude at noon on this day in the year the altitude of the sun should be a certain number of degrees and minutes measured by his quadrant. By putting the altitude on the quadrant he should (if he was correct) put the telescope of the quadrant to his eye and, as the sun hovered at the zenith in the course of its meridian passage at noon, he should see it reflected in the mirror and apparently sitting on the horizon like a bright red plate balanced vertically on a shelf.

Ramage watched to see if the Master's left hand reached up to make a slight (and probably surreptitious) adjustment—an indication that the
Calypso
was north or south of Southwick's reckoning. He counted three minutes and saw Southwick smile to himself as he lowered the quadrant and walked to the slate which was on top of the binnacle box.

“San Pietro and Sant' Antioco islands are dead ahead on this course, distant about ten miles, sir,” Southwick reported. “Thirty-nine degrees and two minutes of latitude.”

“Very well, Mr Southwick.” He looked round for Kenton who was the officer of the deck. “I'll trouble you, Mr Kenton, to let fall the t'gallants, and once they're drawing we'll have a cast of the log. Keep an eye on the convoy and pass the word for Mr Aitken and Mr Rennick to come to my cabin.” He gestured to Southwick to follow and went down the companion-way.

He had a large-scale chart open on his desk, and Southwick was placing the stone paperweights, by the time the sentry's call announced the arrival of Aitken and Rennick.

Aitken immediately looked at the chart as if hoping to see pencilled lines that would reveal the Captain's plans. Instead he saw a fifty-mile stretch of coast running north-west and southeast down to form Capo Teulada and Capo Spartivento at the south-western corner of the island of Sardinia.

Forming, Aitken realized, one of the great corners of the Mediterranean. Once a ship sailed into the Mediterranean past Europa Point and left Gibraltar astern, Capo Teulada and then Capo Spartivento, forming the southern tip of Sardinia, and Capo Passero at the south end of Sicily, had to be rounded before turning up into the Adriatic or the Aegean, or passing on south of Crete—he could not remember the name of that cape—for those places with magical names: Sidon, Tyre, Acre and the Biblical villages and towns, none of which seemed to be on the coast, as though the early Christians were wary of the sea, despite St Peter being a fisherman.

The four men stood round the desk looking at the chart, and Ramage put his finger down at a point about halfway along the coast.

“There's the Golfo di Palmas,” he said to Aitken and Rennick, “and Southwick assures me it lies just ahead. That island protecting it to the north is Sant' Antioco and the smaller one north of that is San Pietro. The Golfo di Palmas is reckoned one of the best anchorages in this part of the Mediterranean: ships can find shelter because even a south wind doesn't kick up too much of a sea.”

“And for our purposes not too many villages or towers overlooking the anchorage,” Southwick said.

“None that need bother us,” Ramage agreed. “I haven't been in here for ten years or more, but last time there were a few fishermen living in huts, a tower or two and churches, and a Roman acropolis. They fish for tunny. Anyway, they need not concern us. Now, with our topgallants drawing we should be pulling ahead of the convoy, and because each master knows we are making for the Golfo di Palmas, that'll seem natural enough: they can see land ahead and those who could be bothered to take the sun's meridian passage will know that it is the right spot.”

“I wonder where they think the convoy is going to after that,” Rennick said in an elaborately casual voice, obviously hoping to draw a hint from Ramage.

“Once they've rounded Capo Spartivento the whole of the eastern Mediterranean is open to them,” Ramage said blandly. “Venice, Ragusa, the Morea, Constantinople, Egypt …”

Rennick grinned and said: “Which would you choose, sir?”

“For a visit in time of peace? Venice, Constantinople … scores of places.”

“That wasn't quite what I meant, sir.”

“I know,” Ramage said, “but I'm making you add patience to your long list of virtues.”

He picked up Orsini's list of ships and the sheet of paper on which he had made an estimate of the number of their crews.

Now is the moment, he told himself. You can give one of two sets of orders to these men. One will result in a small but
certain
victory; the other gives a
chance
of a very much larger one. But only a chance; a chance in which he could take no precautions against things like a random sighting at sea, a night of gale … And the question the Admiral at Gibraltar—or the

Admiralty, since he was sailing under Admiralty orders—would ask was why he did not take the smaller assured victory.

“Under Admiralty orders”—it meant, in a case like this, so much more than just receiving orders direct from their Lordships. When a captain acting on orders from an admiral captured a prize, the admiral received an eighth of the prize-money, which had to come out of the total shared by the captain, officers and ship's company.

However, if a captain and his ships were sailing “under Admiralty orders,” when they captured a prize they shared nothing with any admiral—with no one, in fact, except the prize agent. Not unnaturally the Admiralty were always on the watch for a captain abusing this situation. It was an obvious temptation for some captains. However, his father, one of the most intelligent admirals serving the Navy, although eventually his career was ruined when he became a political scapegoat, had once said to him: “Always aim at a complete victory. Remember that a battle half won is a battle half lost. A man losing a leg doesn't say he's half lame.”

Rennick was examining the chart for forts and fields of fire, and seeing what landing beaches there were in the gulf, while Aitken was noting the soundings in the gulf itself, and between Sant' Antioco and San Pietro and the mainland, which formed a much smaller but obviously good anchorage.

Southwick, who had already spent a long time examining the chart and had inspected each copy made by Orsini for the French masters and delivered to them the first day out of Foix, waited patiently for the Captain to begin.

Finally Rennick looked up at Ramage, and then Aitken said: “It certainly is a fine anchorage, sir. Room enough for a fleet and you can get in or out in almost any wind: a little like Falmouth but without that narrow entrance. Well, sir … ?”

In his imagination Ramage saw the letter written by the Secretary to the Board, with its stylized beginning, “I am commanded by their Lordships …” and he could hear a man walking with a wooden leg.

He sat down at the desk and motioned the others to make themselves comfortable on the settee and the one armchair. Then he thought for a moment. Whatever he did, Kenton and Martin were involved, but Southwick, whether he liked it or not, was going to have to stay with the
Calypso.

“You'd better relieve Kenton,” Ramage said to Southwick, “and tell Martin to come down, too.”

An hour later he was standing at the quarterdeck rail with Southwick, examining with his telescope the hilly land ahead of them.

“That's Sant' Antioco island,” Ramage said. “It's difficult to distinguish from the hills behind, but check the peaks against the chart as I call them out.

“The highest is in the middle of the island. That'll be Perdas de Foga. Nearly nine hundred feet, isn't it?”

“According to this chart, sir.”

“At the south end of the island there are three more peaks, the middle one being the highest. That'll be Monte Arbus, I take it.”

Southwick grunted agreement.

“Now, there's a pointed peak at the north end of the island. Scrocca Manu, eh?”

“If that's how you pronounce it,” Southwick grumbled. “About five hundred feet. It all fits.”

Ten minutes later, Ramage again put the glass to his eye.

“Ah, Southwick. The north end of Sant' Antioco—are you ready with the chart? Good. There's a small town there with a tall, white, circular tower. A hundred feet high, I should think. And—yes, a church with a white cupola.”

“That's right, sir,” Southwick said matter-of-factly. “It's Calasetta, but you're wrong about the tower, it's only 95 feet. By the way, off the south end of the island, a couple of miles or so—”

“Yes, the land of Sant' Antioco comes down low there, and then there's a very small island, steep-to but high.”

“That's it: Isolotto la Vacca.”

“Now, the island to the north of Sant' Antioco, Isola San Pietro. Not much to see—seems fairly low, plenty of trees. Olives and figs, and I can pick out some vine terraces. The south end looks like salt pans. Wait—yes, on the mainland beyond, I can see another big tower. Octagonal—at least, not round. Very prominent.”

“That's at Portoscuso, sir. How about looking down to the south, at the southern end of the Golfo di Palmas?”

“Well, on the mainland in line with the south end of Sant' Antioco there are various hills inland, but it begins with a white sand beach, then what looks like marshes. That must be the north side of Porto Pino?”

“Seems so from this chart, sir.”

“Then as you trend south there's a headland with—yes, a tower on top. Too far off to see shape and colour; in fact it looks like a tree stump!”

“That'll be the tower on the north side of Cala Piombo, sir, 633 feet high. If we get strong nor'easters or sou'easters, that's the anchorage for us. Good holding in six to ten fathoms, the chart says; I've a special note on it.”

“Well,” Ramage said, shutting the telescope, “let's hope we get fine weather so we can stay out of the Cala Piombo.”

“It's an odd sort of name,” Southwick said. He paused and then gave a sniff. “Still, I can't think why we'd ever want to be down that end of the gulf.”

“
Piombo
is Italian for lead,” Ramage said. “I wonder who built the tower …”

T
HE MOMENT the
Calypso
was anchored in the lee of Sant' Antioco, Rennick had his men drawn up in the waist with the sergeant checking their pistols and cutlasses while Aitken attended to hoisting out the boats. Fortunately the frigate was lying with her head to the north-west, so that her starboard side was for the time being hidden from any ships entering the bay. Which, the First Lieutenant thought to himself, was just as well.

A frigate carried six boats, two (usually the cutters) secured in quarter davits and the other four stowed on deck amidships with the spare yards and booms. When she anchored, normally the two quarter-boats were lowered—the first one away traditionally carrying the master or bosun in a circle round the ship making sure all the yards were square.

So a frigate might have her two cutters in the water and no onlooker would be surprised; but for a frigate, or any ship-ofwar, to have six boats in the water—that could mean one of two things: that they were all being sent off wooding and watering, and would be stowed with casks, or they were going to attack something, in which case they would be full of men.

First Aitken had the larboard cutter, the red one, lowered and brought round to the starboard side, when the other cutter was lowered. Each one was designed to carry sixteen men for cutting-out expeditions and was rowed by six oars. The launch was then hoisted out on the stay tackle, the biggest and heaviest of the
Calypso
's boats, carrying 24 armed men and rowed by eight oars. The pinnace was the next to go over the side, and like the cutters carried sixteen armed men but rowed eight oars. With the launch, the pinnace was intended for more distant expeditions. The gig, long and narrow-beamed and the fastest of them all, was hoisted out next. She could carry sixteen armed men and rowed eight oars. Finally the little jolly-boat was hoisted out—rowing four oars, she carried eight armed men.