Ramage's Signal (9 page)

Ramage waved away the sentry and said sharply to the Frenchman: “Jean-Paul Louis?”

The man almost flinched and finally looked at Ramage. “Yes, sir: how did you know my name?”

Then he saw the signal log and added: “Ah, you've been reading the log.”

“I knew your name long before I set foot in Foix,” Ramage said. “Now, sit down in that armchair; your neck will ache if you stand much longer.”

The man was tall and with the headroom under the beams only five feet four inches, he could stand only with his head cocked. Cautiously, as though fearing the arms of the chair would clutch him in a deadly grip, the man sat down, showing boots beneath his nightshirt: French Army boots and presumably all he had been able to grab before capture. Or, more likely, Rennick let him get them.

“How long have you commanded at Foix?”

“More than a year, sir, ever since the station was opened.”

“And they keep you busy?”

The man shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the log. “Foix is a link in a chain …”

“How long does it take to get a message from Toulon to Barcelona?”

Again Louis shrugged his shoulders.

“From Foix to Toulon, then?”

“I don't know, Captain. The messages are occasionally dated but never timed.”

“You must have
some
idea, surely?”

But obviously, from the worried look on the man's face as he contemplated the consequences of not knowing the answer to Ramage's question, he neither knew nor, until this moment, cared.

“Provisions,” Ramage said. “How are they delivered to your garrison, and from where?”

“Oh, dry provisions come from Sète once a month. Vegetables we grow ourselves—you did not have time to see our garden, but we have a good well and plenty of water, and the men enjoy gardening. We have some cows, so we have fresh milk, butter and cheese. Anything else we need we get from the village.”

“You steal it.”

“Oh no, sir; we requisition it in the normal way.”

“You do not pay cash, I mean.”

“We give them tickets which they can cash at the pay offices in Sète.”

Ramage then reached the more important question: “Do people from the village visit the garrison frequently?”

“Oh no!” The idea seemed to shock Louis. “No, we have the guardhouse. The whole camp is forbidden to civilians; in fact, only a month ago—”

The man broke off as if realizing he had said too much.

“Only a month ago what?” Ramage asked sharply.

“I cannot say.”

“You had better. You can be forced. And I am sure any of your men would be only too pleased to tell us.”

“Well, it was a sad business, but a villager was caught in the camp at night, and according to the regulations—you must realize I had no choice; the regulations are there for me to obey—well, I …”

“Had him shot,” Ramage finished the sentence for him.

The Frenchman looked at Ramage in surprise. “How did you know—have you read the regulations?”

“No,” Ramage said quietly, “but I have fought your country for several years.”

The Frenchman nodded sympathetically. “I have been lucky. My uncle is mayor of a large town in Normandy, and he was able to arrange for me to have this station. I have no knowledge of the sea, you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” Ramage said dryly. “Now, about your job. Describe what you and the garrison did yesterday.”

Ramage opened the signal log as he asked the question.

“Well, about eight o'clock—”

“No,” said Ramage, “I want
all
the details. Your sentries …”

“Oh yes, there is the guard. One sentry watching the road, to prevent villagers coming in—and, of course, to prevent any of the garrison leaving: they like to go to the village and get drunk and molest the young women. It is dangerous, you understand; the local men try to catch a drunken soldier late at night—then they murder him and steal his musket. Every man must carry a musket if he leaves the camp.”

“Tell me, this man you shot,” Ramage said conversationally, “why had he come to the camp?”

“Oh, hunting rabbits. He had a ferret, nets and snares. And three dead rabbits.”

“So he was not spying or stealing French government property?”

“No—except that rabbits on French government land, which the camp is, are French government rabbits, of course. And anyway, there are the regulations.”

Ramage felt a chill creeping over him at this stupid, cruel reasoning. “It is a rule of war, is it not, that any enemy not wearing a uniform is treated as a spy and shot.”

“Oh yes, indeed,” Louis said eagerly. “There you have it. This man was not wearing uniform, he was caught on French government land, so he had to be shot.”

“But he was a Frenchman, so not an enemy,” Ramage said.

“Not an enemy like the English, no, but a traitor, which is far worse.”

Ramage nodded his head judiciously, and then said quietly: “You are on board a British ship-of-war, you are French, we are at war, and you are not wearing uniform …”

“But, Captain!” Louis protested, “I was—”

“Whatever explanation you have to avoid being shot, I am sure the poacher had one too. You know the regulations. No doubt you have a wife and children—”

“Yes, indeed, four children!”

“—and no doubt the poacher had, too.”

Louis nodded miserably, understanding only too well the parallel Ramage had drawn. “Yes, two children.”

“Very well,” Ramage said crisply, “I want honest and quick answers. You have guards on the track to Foix. Who, in the next week or two, do you expect to visit you from Foix—to come along that track?”

“No one,” Louis said. “The month's provisions arrived five days ago, no inspection is due. And now the village knows we shot the poacher, no local people.”

“Good. Now for signals. How does the system work?”

“Well, at daylight the men go on watch, with the chief signalman taking the telescope to the platform on top, and looking at Station Eleven—that's at Le Chesne, just to the east—and Station Thirteen, Aspet, just to the west. If one or other has the signal flag up he indicates he is ready to receive.”

“The signal
flag?
”

“Yes, that is a recent idea. There is a flagpole on the platform now, and when a station has a signal it hoists a yellow flag. The next station hoists a yellow flag in answer and the first station begins sending when the second lowers its flag.”

“How is the signal actually sent?”

“By opening the shutters to make the patterns in the book.” He pointed to the small volume.

“The whole signal is sent without acknowledging it word by word?”

“Yes. If there is any misunderstanding the receiver hoists the flag and the sender repeats the last word until the receiver lowers the flag.”

“And then?”

“Well, the receiver passes on the signal to the next station beyond.”

“But surely hoisting a yellow flag can be confusing.”

“Oh no!” Louis said, anxious to avoid any misunderstanding. “Each station uses a square yellow flag to communicate with the next one to the east of it, and a triangular red flag for the one to the
west.
”

Ramage nodded, giving the man a reassuring smile. “You pass on a message immediately?”

“Not always,” Louis admitted guiltily. “An unimportant one received while the men are having bread and cheese and a glass of wine might be left for perhaps half an hour, or until they've finished a game of cards. Not anything
important,
of course.”

“So yesterday there were just these signals: that was all that the signalmen did yesterday?”

“Yes. It was a quiet day.”

“You do not report passing ships?” He had deliberately taken his time in leading up to that question in case the man was sharper than he seemed.

“Oh, no, we have no orders to do that. Nor,” he said, anticipating Ramage's next question and anxious to help, “do we keep a watch to seaward, in case you wondered why the guardhouse is on the landward side of the camp.”

“So when you saw the frigate passing to the westward about noon, you merely noted that she flew French colours and then ignored her?”

“Did she fly French colours? I did not look. Most passing ships fly no colours, you understand; this is an isolated part of the coast.”

“Do many ships anchor in this bay?”

“Some—occasionally a ship-of-war stays for a week or two, sometimes a privateer. Of course, we have convoys in here; especially when one is forming up, with ships joining from many ports near here. You know merchant ships—they're always late.”

“Yes,” Ramage said, and called for the sentry.

R
AMAGE managed to get two hours' sleep before washing and shaving and then going on shore at daybreak with Aitken to inspect the semaphore station. The insects were still whining and the metallic buzz of the
cigales
was loud. An occasional startled bird bolted into the maquis, squawking its alarm. Rennick was waiting on the beach, self-conscious and bulging in a French soldier's uniform made for a slimmer man.

He saluted as Ramage, holding the leather pouch, jumped down from the boat. “Welcome to the Foix semaphore station, sir. Everything is under control—except the semaphore!”

“I'm sure it is,” Ramage said. “I've come over to inspect the tower and see how the semaphore works, and give our signal-men their instructions.”

“You have the code, sir?” the Marine said eagerly. “It was among those papers we found?”

“It was, and you must have made a clean sweep!”

Ramage and Rennick, who led the way, went up the narrow track to the semaphore tower perched on the hill, followed by Orsini, Jackson, Rossi and Stafford, all dressed in French uniforms.

“Too dark when I was up there a few minutes ago to see how it works, sir,” Rennick said. “Looks very complicated.”

“It'll give Orsini and Jackson something to do,” Ramage said and opened the pouch. He selected a sheet of paper and gave it to Rennick. “That's your copy of the semaphore alphabet. There's no code, as you'll see. Orsini and Jackson must make a copy: that one should be kept up on the platform.”

Rennick glanced over the diagram of the twenty squares as he walked. “There's a note here about flags.”

Ramage explained how the red and yellow flags were used and by the time he had finished they had arrived at the base of the tower. Apart from big baulks of timber sunk into the ground and the bracing holding it vertical, the only thing that could be said about it was, Ramage realized, that it was not a tower. A section of wooden wall, a huge, wooden door with no doorway or walls … As he glanced up he could see the five shutters, closed now like blank sash windows, but each raised and lowered by tackles.

The rope tails of the tackles all led to the ground at the middle of the eastern side and were made up separately on large cleats, each of which had numbers from one to five painted on it corresponding to the shutter it controlled. One series of numbers was in red; the other in yellow. Ramage was puzzled for a moment, and then realized that a signal to Aspet would have to be reversed, as though seen in a mirror, for Le Chesne to read it properly.

The three seamen and Orsini were examining the ropes and the shutters, and Ramage pointed out the reason for the different positions for the red numbers and the yellow. Then Orsini found a ladder fixed to the framework and leading up to the small platform which, as the sun rose, they could now see quite clearly fixed on top. Orsini scrambled up and a minute or two later called down: “There's a small flagpole and a couple of flags bundled up, one red and the other yellow. Just as the book says.”

“Stay up there,” Ramage said. “You have the telescope. Can you see the tower to the east yet?”

“Yes, sir, but I wouldn't be able to distinguish the flag.”

Ramage looked at his watch. “What about the one to the west, Aspet?”

“I can make out the tower clearly, sir, but the flags would be difficult. Both towers have high land behind them in the distance. It won't affect seeing the shutters, but a waving flag …”

“Very well. We'd better try out these shutters before the other towers start their watch. You stay up there and keep a lookout,” he told Orsini. “You—” he pointed at Stafford and Jackson—”haul on the purchase marked in yellow with ‘1.'”

The two men gave a prodigious heave, there was a heavy thud and Rennick, who was standing farther back and was looking up, shouted: “That's the top one—you're showing ‘A,' but remember you're only hoisting up a light shutter, not a maintop yard!”

“Lower gently,” Ramage added. “We don't want to spend the rest of the morning doing repairs.”

“Flag, sir!” Orsini yelled, “from Aspet.”

“Hoist your yellow one,” Ramage called, “only don't be too quick about it.”

After Orsini had it hoisted Ramage said: “Are you ready with your telescope and the crib for the alphabet? Very well, lower your flag and call down the signal letter by letter.”

“C … I … N … PQ …” Orsini called. “Now a space—ah, it starts again, UVW … A … I … S … S … E … A … UVW … XYZ, … S … 0 … N … T, … A … R … R … I … UVW … E … S … , space, figures signal, 3 … 4. Now the flag hoisted and dipped twice, so it's the end of the message.”

“Hoist your yellow one once,” Ramage said, turning to Jackson. “Well, that's an easy signal for you to start with.
‘Cinq vaisseaux sont arrivés,'
Barcelona is telling Toulon ‘Five ships have now arrived,' and don't forget the ‘34,' which identifies the station. You saw how the single signals PQ and UVW were used for the Q in
‘cinq'
and the V in
‘arrivés?'
”