Ramage & the Renegades (37 page)

Ramage thought for a moment and then realized that almost the last place for an artist to be would be on board the
Calypso.

“How many men are we short?”

“Twenty-two are away in the prizes (Orsini, Jackson and Rossi came back with you last night, sir: Bowen needed help to hold the chair upright across the thwarts). Twenty-four in the survey and sounding boats: 46 men, and Aitken, Kenton and Martin. I didn't send Orsini off in the soundings boat this morning.”

“Why?”

“He was rather concerned about you, sir, until you woke …”

“Orsini is simply another member of the ship's company. Remember that, Mr Wagstaffe.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the Second Lieutenant said, thankful that it had passed off so easily. The boy was sure the Captain was going to die, and that combined with the knowledge that both men were very worried about the Marchesa had made him agree that Orsini could stay on board. But the way things were going, the
Calypso
was not going to be the best place to spend the day …

“Now listen carefully,” Ramage said. “First things first. The Captain must be comfortable. I want that armchair from the
Earl of Dodsworth
put down on the larboard side of the binnacle box, where I can sight the compass.”

Both Southwick and Wagstaffe laughed with him, and the Lieutenant said: “I knew that chair would come in useful! The bosun was proposing to heave it overboard!”

“Now,” Ramage continued, his voice becoming serious. “Guns on both sides loaded with grape but not run out, of course. Decks wetted and sanded, but make sure no one from the
Lynx
can guess what's going on by seeing water pouring out of the scuppers or spot the wash-deck pump rigged … I want the lashing on the bitter end of the anchor cable untied down in the cabletier, so that we can let it all run out: I don't want to lose time and make a noise cutting the cable with an axe—”

“Can I buoy it, sir?” asked Southwick. “Seems a pity to lose an anchor and a new cable.”

“Yes, by all means. Men to have arms listed for them in the Watch, Station and Quarters bill, but again, make sure no one is seen from the
Lynx
marching round wearing a cutlass. Leave the grindstone down below! But make sure the topmen have sharp knives—I want those gaskets cut: don't waste time untying them. The sails must be let fall and sheeted home and the yards braced in moments, not minutes.”

He paused as a wave of dizziness made the cabin tilt, and for a few moments he could not understand why both Wagstaffe and Southwick were sitting horizontally, but after a few deep breaths it passed.

Southwick then took a deep breath, as though he was going to dive over the side. “That chair, sir. Supposing we put it right aft, on the larboard side against the taffrail, then you'd—”

“—be out of the way of the quartermaster and not such a target for sharpshooters in the
Lynx,
” Ramage said.

“Well, sir, that's quite true; a sitting target, if there ever was one,” the Master said, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was offended.

“What time do we start, sir?” Wagstaffe asked tactfully.

“We can start as though we intend airing sails. Send four or five topmen aloft to let fall the fore-topsail, untying the gaskets; but make sure the maintopsail and mizen topsail gaskets are cut. That'll save us a few minutes.”

“The Marines, sir?”

“Is Rennick on board?”

“Yes, sir: I stopped him going on shore with the surveyors. All the Marines are on board.”

“Very well, they will be sharpshooters, but must dress as seamen. That man Hart will suspect something if he sees groups of Marines in uniform.”

“And the prisoners we take, sir: there may be several British. I suppose they'd be different from prisoners of war?”

“There's no war,” Ramage said deliberately. “All the Lynxes are pirates. The British—well, that'll be for the Crown lawyers to decide, but they're probably traitors as well. The matter won't arise unless we have prisoners, of course.”

“No, sir,” Wagstaffe answered, and then stared at Ramage as he realized the real significance of what his Captain had just said. The Lieutenant leaned forward as Ramage said quietly: “Those brave fellows were prepared to murder women and children, and I'm afraid that if we take them to England some clever man of law may charm a judge …”

“Aye, charm, bribe, call it what you will,” Southwick said. “No matter what happens, no one in England is going to believe what we've seen and heard out here. Pity we can't try ‘em on board.”

“Well, we'll see,” Ramage said judicially. “Let's see how many prisoners we take.”

Sarah stood on the afterdeck of the
Earl of Dodsworth
with the other women, the six Calypsos still pretending to guard them. Since the rescue, Mrs Donaldson seemed rarely to be more than a yard away, prattling, questioning or grumbling.

“This Lord Ramage,” she said. “Why doesn't he take his ship and
sink
these wretched pirates? After all, his ship is bigger.”

“He was far from well last night,” Sarah said mildly.

“Oh, a mere cut on the arm, so my husband said, and he saw him when he carried a chair up. What they wanted a chair for, I don't know. With arms, too!”

Sarah could see that the
Calypso
was built for speed and for fighting: she had never before compared a frigate with a merchant ship, but the
Heliotrope,
for example, was a positive box while the
Calypso
was lean, seeming to contain power, like a coiled spring. Like Nicholas, she thought, like Nicholas when he was not wounded.

“You saw that Lord Ramage last night,” Mrs Donaldson said. “
Was
he badly wounded? They fetched the surgeon from that frigate, so my husband said.”

“No, a mere cut on the arm, just as your husband said.”

“Then why all the fuss? Why isn't he
doing
something? After all, his father's an admiral and a peer of the realm, so you'd think the young fellow would have—well, some sort of tradition.”

“It isn't tradition he needs,” Sarah said quietly. “It's blood.”

“Blood? My dear, do you mean he lacks breeding? Isn't he really the Earl's son? So the Countess was faithless, eh? Well, one can never be sure, my husband always says.”

“Blood,” Sarah said, even more quietly, “that flows through the body. He lost most of it in the sea between here and the
Heliotrope.
He might have died and then,” she added, hating the woman's vulgar and crude mind, “the pirates would have come back and probably taken you to the
Lynx.
”

“Oh la!” Mrs Donaldson squealed, and fainted like a tent collapsing, and Sarah walked away to the taffrail, angry that she had let herself be provoked by the woman.

She looked across at the
Calypso
again. Which was Nicholas's cabin? She could picture Bowen with his medicine chest, and Southwick, too: they would have seen him already this morning; might even be with him now. He could have had her cabin, then she could have sat with him, and helped Bowen.

Obviously nothing was being done about the
Lynx
today, which was hardly surprising, except to a woman like Mrs Donaldson. The important thing was that all the hostages had been freed, the privateersmen guarding them locked up, and their place taken by British seamen. This pretence that they were all still hostages had to be kept up until Nicholas was ready to deal with the
Lynx,
but today all the Calypsos deserved a rest, and as soon as he was strong enough Nicholas would be giving orders to his officers. In the meantime the
Calypso
's boats were going about their usual business, two taking the surveyors to the shore, and one finding out the depths in the bay by dropping a lead weight on a rope into the water. Nicholas had been droll when describing that, but she could not now remember which was correct, “swinging the lead” or “heaving the lead.” One meant malingering, and she thought it was “swinging,” but she noticed that the sailor in the boat swung it before he let it go. Yet that was “heaving” too. It was very puzzling.

He commanded more than two hundred men in the
Calypso:
the sailor who told her that said there were four lieutenants and the Master—that was the white-haired old man she had seen last night. It was a good thing the sailor had explained, because the man who commanded the
Earl of Dodsworth
was called “the master” although referred to as “the captain.” It was very different in the Royal Navy, apparently, where the man commanding the ship was a lieutenant or a captain, depending on the size, but, like the
Earl of Dodsworth
's master, was referred to as “the captain.” And a master in the Royal Navy by no means commanded the ship (unless he was something called “master and commander” but she did not understand that and it applied only to small ships). Indeed, “the master” was not even a commission officer like the lieutenants; he was only a warrant officer, like a sergeant major in the army.

The waiting and the not knowing … On the one hand she was relieved that he was not attacking the
Lynx
today; on the other it meant another day and night—of worrying without being able to say a word to anyone, without confiding: just having this secret which she could share with no one. Hardly a secret, even; more the type of thing—so she imagined—that a young Catholic girl might confess to her priest. Yet it was all so hopeless (and so innocent, really) that it was doubtful if a young girl would find it worth mentioning, and certainly a priest would not be interested.

So hopeless and so innocent—yet it was tearing her apart: she could not sleep because of it; she wondered how she was going to get through a day—let alone every day from now on—without screaming or having hysterics. She went down the companion-way to her cabin: tears were very close, and if that Donaldson woman continued prattling after her friends had helped her over this latest attack of the vapours, Sarah knew she would scream at her.

Love you could not admit to, love that was not returned, love for a person already in love with someone else—was there any worse instrument of torture? The rack? The ducking stool? The garotte? Childish toys, mere irritants. She shut her cabin door and sat on the bed. Nicholas Ramage. He had returned her kiss when she said goodbye. But was that because he knew that once the
Lynx
was captured all the ships would sail from Trinidade, a farewell as the ball came to an end, or … she forced herself to think of it, although she squeezed her eyes tight shut, as though at the same time trying to keep it out. Or did he know, or have a presentiment, that he would be killed while capturing the
Lynx?

The more she thought about it the more certain she became: he knew he was going to die. He loved another woman, so this farewell kiss was in the nature of a thank you to “Miss for now” for cleaning his wound. If he knew he would survive the attack on the
Lynx,
why the farewell kiss? If he lived he would meet her again before the ships sailed; he must know, too, that now Papa had retired as Governor General of Bengal and was returning to England, they were bound to meet again in London society. It was curious how angry he had become over wearing the military uniform.

“Miss … miss!” Someone was banging on her door. “Miss, quick, on deck, the
Calypso
's getting under way!”

“I'm coming—thank you …” She wanted to stay in her cabin and pretend nothing was happening, but instead she would have to go on deck and watch the
Calypso
carrying Nicholas to his death, and listen to people like Mrs Donaldson cheering, and repeating some banal remark of her husband's.

The sunlight sparkling off the sea was dazzling; the sky was an unbelievable blue and cloudless, the island seemed utterly peaceful, holding the bay in its arms. Even the
Lynx
seemed small and innocent. Then she turned to look at the
Calypso.

She knew she would never forget the sight, the wind was making the sails curve, pressing out the creases in the canvas, and the
Calypso
moved through the water slowly but with infinite grace, a swan borne across a lake by a breeze.

Suddenly she saw the smooth black sides, with the white stripe (was that what they called a strake?) seem to move and grow red rectangles, and she realized that the port-lids were being raised. A moment later she saw the guns themselves protruding like black fingers. But why was she stopping now, the sails flat and flapping?

Southwick did not often disagree with what the Captain did, but he considered now was such a time. To be honest, it was what he thought the Captain was going to do, since Mr Ramage had not said anything. It looked as if he was going to take the
Calypso
up to the
Lynx,
lay the frigate alongside the privateer and board. And the trouble with privateers was that they always had enormous crews. They did not need many men to handle the ship—the
Lynx
with her schooner rig could make do with fifteen men—but they needed plenty of seamen to send away in the prizes they took. Now was a good example: one privateer had five prizes, and would eventually need five prize crews, although admittedly in the case of the East Indiaman they would probably force some of the original ship's company to work at gunpoint. And the privateersmen would be desperate: they would realize that unless they escaped the
Calypso
they would end up on the gallows, and to them the sword would be preferable to the noose.

The old Master looked ahead. The
Calypso
was at last gathering way, picking up a breeze after running into an unexpected almost windless patch in the lee of some hills. A windless patch like that, had it continued, could have wrecked everything.

After successfully letting the anchor cable run, bracing the fore-topsail hard up after leaving it for half an hour “to air” and letting fall the remaining topsails, sheeting them home and bracing them sharp up, the
Calypso
had moved off to windward like an old warhorse hearing gunfire in the distance. Then the wind had died.