Ramage's Devil

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ramage was never really sure whether it was a hiss or a purr, but the sound of a boat's cutwater slicing through a calm sea was very restful, like going to sleep on board the ship with wavelets faintly tickling the hull. The men were breathing easily because they were rowing at a comfortable pace and the oars were groaning softly in the rowlocks instead of squeaking and clicking: the cloth lashings and the greasy slush from the cook's coppers wiped into the open-topped square rowlocks were effective.

The boat came clear of the Calypso's stern and Ramage had his first glimpse of L'Espoir from sea level. She seemed huge, black and menacing. No, perhaps not menacing - there were several lanterns casting yellowish cones of light on deck and reaching up to the under side of the yards which poised over the ship like eagles waiting to plunge.

Beyond he could just distinguish La Robuste in the distance: specks of dim light showed her position. At this very moment Wagstaffe should be leading four boats towards L'Espoir. Ramage was not too concerned that the two groups of boats arrived simultaneously because if one attacked before the other the French would concentrate on trying to beat it off and the second would take them by surprise. Hopes and fears: at this time they ran through one's thoughts like a pair of playful kittens.

In England it would be about half past eleven o'clock at night. Sarah would be in bed. Asleep? Probably, but perhaps lying awake thinking about him. If she was awake, he knew she was thinking about him. That was not conceit. It would have been if he had thought it before their honeymoon, but since then he had discovered that she needed him as much as he needed her, and that he occupied most of her life just as she occupied what was left of his after the Navy's demands were satisfied. Loneliness, he had realized, was something no bachelor really understood. Loneliness was a happily married man (or woman) sleeping alone, the absence of a loved one. Gianna... In Volterra it must be about half past one o'clock in the morning. Tomorrow morning, as far as they were concerned here. What was she doing? How was she? Where was she? Was she? He tried to drive the thought away. Was Paolo, sitting next to him in the sternsheets, thinking about his aunt? Was he wondering if Bonaparte's secret police had murdered her, or had her securely locked up, something which for a woman like her would be a kind of death -

'Qui va là?'

The challenge from the deck of L'Espoir was casual: there was no alarm in the sentry's voice. Nor, Ramage realized as his body unfroze from the first shock of the hail which had brought him back from Volterra, London, warm nights with Sarah at Jean-Jacques' château near Brest, anything but friendly expectancy.

And casually, a comforting and confident casualness, came Auguste's amiable reply, his Breton accent deliberately more pronounced than usual.

'Our captain is visiting your captain, citizen. Did you have a good voyage from Brest?'

Some night birds fussed in the distance and he recognized the squawk of a night heron. And another. They must be flying from Île Royale to the mangroves on the shore. And that squeakier note - and again. Oystercatchers? Perhaps. What about that damned sentry? Twenty yards to go. Would he be watching just this one boat he had first sighted? Or would he look beyond and see three more that, however stupid he was, would give the lie to Auguste's reply?

'One gale and five days of calm. What ship?'

'We are L'Intrépide, and that's La Robuste over there.'

'Your captain's name, citizen?'

Ramage hissed: 'Keep rowing: lay us alongside, whatever happens.'

'Citizen Camus, and who is he visiting?'

'Who is he visiting?' asked the puzzled sentry. 'Why our captain you said, citizen.'

'And what's your captain's name, you mule?' Auguste asked crossly.

'Magon,' said a deeper voice. 'I am the captain of L'Espoir. But rest on your oars ...' the voice sounded harsh yet uncertain. 'L'Intrépide, you say? That wasn't L'Intrépide that I saw. And Camus - I don't know that name.'

Would Auguste pull it off, delay for a couple of minutes? 'Pretend you're the captain!' he hissed at Gilbert. 'Interrupt in a moment!'

'I don't expect you do; we're bound for Brest from Batavia,' Auguste said, repeating the story Ramage had given him earlier.

'But even so,' the doubting voice said from L'Espoir's deck, 'I don't even remember "Camus" as a lieutenant.'

'Merdel' exclaimed Gilbert angrily, as though he was the Camus in question and whose patience was now exhausted. 'I haven't heard of "Magon" either, and L'Espoir hasn't exactly distinguished herself, has she; you probably spent all the last war safely blockaded in Brest. Took a peace treaty to get you out again, eh? Now you're at sea' - Gilbert paused a moment and Ramage thought he too had heard a shout from the other side of the ship - 'you've forgotten your manners. Good night, citizen. I'm not sitting here in my boat listening to that sort of welcome when I come to pay a visit!'

'No, no, you misunderstand me, citizen,' Magon said hastily, 'it's -'

He broke off as two pistol shots snapped across the frigate's deck and in the distance Ramage heard the night herons squawk in alarm. 'Alongside!' he shouted. 'Stand by to board, men!'

It seemed only a moment later that men were tossing oars and the cutter slammed against the frigate's hull and suddenly he could smell the humid, almost sickly smell of the weed that had grown along her waterline, and there was the reek of garlic, even down here.

Ramage leapt for the battens and both ahead and astern heard shouting in English and the thud, thud, thud of the spiked heads of tomahawks being driven into the hull planking to make steps for the men to board.

Bellowing and shouting he climbed, fingers gripping the edges of the battens, feet pressing sideways for footholds and his legs heaving and thrusting him up. Suddenly he was standing on L'Espoir's deck and a man he guessed to be Captain Magon was wresting a musket from the sentry, who was clearly paralysed by the shouts and shots suddenly disturbing the tropical night.

Ramage dragged a pistol from his waistband and cocked it as he aimed at Magon, but the man pitched forward as another pistol firing beside him left Ramage's ears ringing. Ramage just had time to see in the light of the lantern hanging in the shrouds that Magon was bearded, then he turned towards the quarterdeck, shouting to his men.

There was a lantern on the binnacle: as he ran up the steps towards it, cutlass in his right hand, pistol in his left, he saw the one man on the quarterdeck, probably the officer keeping an anchor watch, running towards him, the blade of a cutlass he held over his head glinting in the dim light. The man was shouting almost hysterically and from three feet away he slashed downwards.

Ramage held up his own cutlass horizontally, the parry of quinte, and the man screamed and stepped back to slash again. He must have been a butcher before going to sea, Ramage thought, noting that the man had bared his right side. A quick lunge, a gurgle, and he was leaning over the collapsed man desperately tugging his cutlass free. How many times had he shouted at men under instruction that a cutlass was a slashing weapon: using the point was a quick way of getting cut down as you tried to withdraw from a body which invariably wrapped itself round your blade.

Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and more than a dozen other men now stood round him but, except for the body at Ramage's feet, the quarterdeck was now empty. 'The gunroom!' Ramage shouted and led the way down the companion way, which would bring them out first by the door to the captain's cabin and beside the second companion way to the gunroom.

Aitken and Renwick's boats had come alongside just ahead of Ramage's cutter, and the first lieutenant, uttering wild Scottish battle cries, scrambled down from the gangway on to the maindeck where French seamen, hurrying up from the lowerdeck where they had been having supper, found themselves running straight into bitter fighting.

Renwick's men were dropping down on to the maindeck from further forward just as Aitken, realizing the value of lanterns, seized one and held it aloft and began the desperate game of hide-and-seek among the guns.

Paolo and his four Frenchmen, who had run along the larboard gangway to the forward end, dropped down and hid behind a couple of guns as dozens of yelling Frenchmen came rushing up the forehatch ladder, some of them - Paolo guessed them to be petty officers - pausing to open up arms chests and throw cutlasses on the deck for the men to grab.

The captain had been most emphatic, so Paolo did not mind hiding behind the gun with Auguste, while Gilbert, Albert and Louis crouched under the barrel of the next one forward. 'Orsini,' the captain had said, and Paolo could hear the words even now, 'you are not to get involved in the fighting: I have enough fighters; I want talkers!' But it was hard just crouching here and watching those men giving out cutlasses. The five of them could - but no, the captain had been emphatic.

He heard a dreadful screaming from right aft amid the shouting and cursing of a dozen men yelling in both French and English. Pistol shots, the clang of cutlass blades - accidente, the worst noise was coming from the gunroom: all the ship's officers and warrant officers must have been trapped there - and, Paolo knew only too well, they would have swords and pistols in racks outside their cabin doors. But with all these wretches rushing up from below and snatching up cutlasses it was not a question of cutting off the snake's head ...

Southwick had scrambled up over the starboard bow, helped by a couple of seamen and thankful that the anchor cable was thick because it was a struggle to get up on to the fo'c'sle. A French seaman emerged from the head, protesting loudly at being interrupted, but within moments he had been cut down and his body thrown over the side.

The master was just about to lead his men in a sweep across the fo'c'sle to clear out the group of men where the gangway met the fo'c'sle when the reflection from a lantern showed a white band.

'Calypso!' Southwick roared and heard a querulous Sergeant Ferris say: 'Can't find any more bloody Frenchies, sir! We've cleared the starboard gangway.'

'Calypso!' came a shout from the group on the other side and Southwick discovered Lieutenant Martin complaining that the larboard gangway was clear and he thought Mr Ramage and the rest of them were either aft on the maindeck or down on the lowerdeck.

'Calypsos!' Southwick bellowed, a sudden fear catching him: the fear that there was a good fight going on and he was missing it. 'Follow me!' He led the rush aft along the starboard gangway, pausing a moment to look at the maindeck and find a rope ladder to scramble down, but he was beaten to it by Martin and Ferris, who jumped.

There were many writhing men but little light on the maindeck: Southwick saw a couple of lanterns hooked up on the beams, and then, his eye caught by a dancing light aft, he saw a shouting and a grinning Aitken holding a lantern high with one hand, his cutlass slashing with the other.

Southwick stepped forward, both hands grasping his great sword. He paused a moment to look at the head of the nearest man, saw it had no white band, and swung. The shock of blade on bone jarred and he took a couple of steps forward to the next man.

Wagstaffe shouted to his men to get to the main hatchway but the noise drowned his voice. Wagstaffe realized too late that he and Kenton had made a mistake: the moment they had seen the starboard gangway cleared they should have secured the fore, main and afterhatches and cut down L'Espoir's ship's company as they scrambled unarmed up to the maindeck. Now dozens, scores of Frenchmen, were on the maindeck, snatching up cutlasses from the arms chests. Wagstaffe led his men across to the other side of the ship.

God, that noise in the gunroom!

The fighting was now almost entirely on the maindeck, with Southwick, Ferris and Martin slashing their way aft along the starboard side to meet Aitken and his men working forward, and Wagstaffe, Kenton and Renwick slashing and jabbing their way forward along the larboard side. Right aft, one deck lower, Ramage and his men fought through the gunroom with little room to swing a cutlass and all their pistols empty. Ramage eyed the swinging lantern: the remaining Frenchmen could have saved themselves if they had cut that down, but it seemed they dreaded the darkness.

Paolo watched the forehatch. No one had come up it for two, perhaps three minutes. 'Andiamo!' he said to the four Frenchmen, and then realized that with his excitement he had lapsed into Italian. 'Come on!' he corrected himself, added a very English 'Damnation!' and then said: 'Allons, messieurs!'

The lowerdeck was well lit: candles flickered at the tables and it took him a moment to realize that the curiously stark shadows on the deck were overturned forms. There was a great deal of shouting and cutlass clanging right aft, round the gunroom, but in his imagination Paolo could recall the captain's voice giving him orders.

He turned forward, picking up a lantern, and followed by the four Frenchmen passed the last of the tables.

'Déportés!' he called, and Gilbert, his voice agitated and cracking with emotion, started to shout but it ended as almost a scream: 'M'sieu le Comte! Here is Gilbert! Please, are you there!'

Paolo held the lantern higher. They were there all right, row upon row, men next to women, each held flat on the deck by a leg iron round the ankle, and waving near the back was a man who Paolo could see was too overcome with emotion to speak.

Paolo seized Gilbert's arm and pointed and gave him the lantern, and with a gasp of relief the Frenchman stumbled forward, trying to avoid the other prisoners but lurching as his feet caught ankles, eyebolts and the rods linking the leg irons. Now every one of the prisoners seemed to be shouting at once, every one of them and at the top of his voice or her voice. It was absurd; of that Paolo was sure. It was unseamanlike. Ungentlemanly and unladylike, too.

'Silence!' he shouted. 'Silence! Silence!'

He paused for breath. Yes, now he had silence down here except for the blood pounding in his ears, but right aft and on the deck above there was more shouting, screaming and clanging of cutlasses than he had ever heard before.

'Ladies and gentlemen!' he said, to consolidate the silence he had brought to this part of the ship. Then he could think of nothing to say. Fifty or more white faces stared up at him; a hundred or so eyes glinted in the candlelight as Auguste brought up another lantern. Mama mia, what would the captain say to these people if he was standing here!

'Ladies and gentlemen, I must apologize for the noise.' A woman started laughing, a laugh which rose higher up the scale and ended suddenly as someone reached across and slapped her to stop the hysteria.

'I am from the Calypso, one of His Britannic Majesty's frigates and commanded by Captain Ramage, and -'

'Count Orsini, I think!' The voice came from the back.

'At your service,' Paolo said carefully, an Italian count suspecting he was addressing a French one but determined not to give too much ground. 'You have me at a disadvantage, m'sieu.'

'I am Rennes, and Captain Ramage told me about you.'

Then Paolo remembered the rest of his orders. 'Forgive me for a moment. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we shall try to release you, once we have found the keys, but please stay here until Captain Ramage comes and tells you to move: unless you are wearing one of these white headbands, you might be killed!'

At the other end of the lowerdeck Ramage was cursing fluently in Italian, with Jackson and Stafford providing a descant of obscene English. There was a small doorway at the after side of the gunroom and the five Frenchmen (Ramage was unsure if they were officers or seamen who had been trying to escape from the messdeck) had managed to get through it, slashing and parrying with swords, and vanished into the darkness beyond. It was the tiller flat, a space the width of the ship across which the great wooden arm of the tiller moved in response to the wheel turning above. And now anyone going through that black hole was asking to be cut down by the men who could remain hidden behind the bulkhead.

Five men: of no consequence. With the captain dead they would soon surrender.

'You men' - he pointed to five of his group - 'stay here and stop those fellows coming out. More important' - he pointed down at the thick wooden hatchcover - 'that's the magazine scuttle, so guard it!'

With that he was running up the companionway to the maindeck and was just in time to see twenty or so Frenchmen retreating before Southwick, Ferris and Martin, but fighting back-to-back with twenty more who were slowly driving Aitken and fewer than a dozen men aft, trapping them against the capstan.

Aitken was still slashing with his cutlass and turned away shouting incomprehensible encouragement to his men when Ramage saw one of the Frenchmen break from the group and run towards Aitken, holding his cutlass like a pike.

There was no time to shout a warning - Aitken would never hear it - and Ramage hurled his cutlass, leaping after the spinning blade. The hilt caught the side of the Frenchman's head, he staggered, and a moment later Ramage had an arm round the man's neck and they both swayed, a shouting Aitken flicking away the cutlass of another attacker but still unaware that he had nearly been cut down.

The Frenchman was burly, two or three inches taller than Ramage, and he wore no shirt. His body was slippery from perspiration, but now, no longer stunned, he wrenched away from Ramage's grasp after punching him in the face, took a step back, and lifted his cutlass for the slash that Ramage knew would split his head in two, and for the moment he was too dizzy to do anything but stand there.

The Frenchman's blade swung up, only the sharp edge shiny; Ramage registered dully that the blade must be rusty and only the cutting edge clean. Up, up the blade went and the Frenchman's eyes held his: the head was the target and the Frenchman was not going to be distracted.

The Frenchman's face contracted slightly, the body flexed and the right shoulder twisted an inch or two as the muscles drew at the arm. Ramage sensed rather than saw that not one of his own men was within ten feet and no one had noticed this lonely and one-sided duel.

The Frenchman was grinning: two teeth missing in front at the bottom. Unshaven. The arm coming down now. Sarah. Jean-Jacques. Such a waste, but no pain -

But the arm was still upraised and the Frenchman was looking up and tugging. In an instant Ramage realized that the man had held the cutlass too vertically as he raised it for the final blow and the point had caught in the deckhead above. As he struggled to free it, Ramage moved two paces closer, kicked the man in the groin and then picked up his own cutlass. That made seven.

He turned to join Aitken and found that in the few moments of the strange duel, which had seemed at the time to be lasting ages, his own party had combined with the first lieutenant's and driven the Frenchmen forward again, squeezing them against Southwick's party.

Ramage jumped up on to the capstan head and crouched to avoid the deckbeams. It was easier to look across the maindeck from here. Two, four, eight ... twelve ... thirteen ... sixteen ... All the rest wore white bands round their heads. And here were Southwick, Ferris and Martin coming along the starboard side, grinning.

'Just going to give Aitken a hand!' Southwick said and led his men in a scramble over the cranked pump handle.

So apart from a few unwounded but surrendering Frenchmen, the maindeck was suddenly secure. But the déportés? For a moment he had a clear picture of fifty people in irons at the fore end of the lowerdeck, their throats cut by some rabid Revolutionary.

Jackson was beside him now, with Stafford and Rossi. 'Lost you for a moment, sir,' the American said.

'It was a long moment,' Ramage said, 'but come on!'

He jumped off the capstan and snatched up a lantern lying on its side, flipped open the door and straightened the wick. Fortunately it could only just have been knocked over because the wax had not run. He shut the door and clattered down the companionway to find himself outside the gunroom again. What the devil had made him go up on the maindeck after leaving those five men on guard? The whole reason for the voyage and this attack was waiting at the forward end of the lowerdeck, and he remembered with sick fear that Paolo had not reported, nor Gilbert, nor Auguste.

He was past the afterhatch; there, like a vast tree trunk, was the mainmast. Now the mainhatch and past these forms lying over the deck, an indication of the way the Frenchmen had been surprised.

Candles alight on the tables. There was a lantern, two lanterns, moving about right up forward, and now he could see a mass of bodies lying on the deck. And two or three men moving among them - murderous Republicans cutting the throats of the déportés?

He was concentrating so carefully on not tripping in the half-darkness that he was almost among the slaughtered déportés before he realized it, and he looked up with his cutlass raised to find that the nearest rabid Republican killer with the lantern was in fact Paolo.

'Your friend is in the last row, sir,' Paolo said calmly, not realizing how close to death he had been. 'I understand that the key to unlock these irons is in the captain's possession. A Captain Magon, I believe.'

Ramage stepped over the prone people to where Gilbert was kneeling. There, his ankle held by a leg iron, was Jean-Jacques, who looked up and grinned and said: 'I hardly expected to see you here. Is Sarah with you?