Ramage's Signal

CHAPTER ONE

On the starboard beam the shoreline just three miles away was a gleaming band of sand shimmering in the heat. Beyond it the land, scorched brown by the summer sun, sloped up only a few feet to join the broad, flat ribbon of the plain which seemed to have been carefully placed by nature to prevent Languedoc sliding into the Mediterranean. Farther inland, like haze in the afterglow of sunset, a low line of ridged and dimpled purple hills were slowly turning deep mauve to reveal the beginning of the mass of mountains running north to the Loire Valley, 150 miles beyond. Ahead of the ship the same purple, more boldly brushed, showed the lofty Pyrenees finally tumbling into the sea, a jagged line from Collioure on the French side of the frontier to the whitish cliffs of Cabo Lladró on the Spanish.

Ramage was surprised that despite the scorching strength of the noon sun the colours were not harsh; an artist would probably choose watercolours in preference to oils - except, ironically, for the water itself, which was a strong blue. But the heat ... there was barely enough breeze to give the Calypso frigate steerage way and from time to time the wind collapsed the slight curves of her sails with a flap like a rheumatic washerwoman folding damp sheets.

Although standing under the quarterdeck blue-and-white-striped awning - which stopped him being cooled by an occasional downdraught from the mainsail - Ramage found the sun's glare dazzling because the wavelets reflected it everywhere, like the diamond-shaped pendants of a chandelier, and the muscles controlling his eyebrows ached from squinting. The planking of the deck was scorching, so his feet were swollen from the heat and tight in his shoes. He longed for the West Indies: the Tropics were hotter - but they had the regular cooling Trade winds.

He realized he was dozing although standing up, a trick learned by most midshipmen, when he heard Southwick, the master, bellowing aloft in reply to a lookout's hail, and roused himself sufficiently to listen to the report - not that it would be anything interesting: this part of the French coast was typically 'in between', one of those tedious stretches of uninteresting land on the way to somewhere else.

'The village on the beam, sir: there's a sort of tall framework tower at the western end, an' begging yer pardon, sir, it's movin'.'

'The tower or the village?' demanded the practical master, who was already looking round for his telescope.

'The tower, sir. There! It's - well, it looks as though it's winking!'

The disbelief in the seaman's voice, as though he was reporting a ghost, made Ramage snatch up his own telescope, pull out the two brass tubes until the eyepiece end lined up with a mark filed on the second, and steady the glass by leaning his elbows on the quarterdeck rail. With so little wind and sea the ship was not rolling and using a glass needed no feat of balancing.

There, encircled by the lens, was the tower. And close to it four or five new wooden buildings which seemed to be more than huts but less than regular barracks. This was what the lookout meant by 'the village', and the tower did appear to be winking. He gripped the telescope firmly and stared harder. Or blinking.

He heard Southwick's puzzled grunts and a moment later an exclamation from the Scots first lieutenant, Aitken. 'If there were hills and trees I'd say it was an enormous, great hide for shooting deer', Aitken murmured as though talking to himself, 'but here, where it's more like a desert...'

As the Calypso moved slowly along the coast the tower's angle changed, and Ramage suddenly realized that what at first seemed to be a square, wooden tower was simply a large rectangle of wood perhaps forty feet high, like a door without a frame or wall, its edge at right angles to the sea. As you approached you saw one side as a rectangle and assumed it was a cube. As you came abreast of it, all you saw was something that looked like a pine tree stripped of its branches, and as you passed and looked back you saw the other side of the rectangle.

It was a rectangle which looked like a section of a chess board and in which, even as he watched, one or two squares winked or blinked - or just moved.

Then he realized that it must be one of the new French semaphore towers, and at this very moment it was passing a message along the coast. But which way? The nearest village to this tower was Foix. But where were the other towers? The Calypso must have passed several, but unless the angle was right the lookouts would have seen them end-on - and this coast was littered with the bare trunks of pine trees which had died among the sand dunes, killed by harsh winds or goats or rats gnawing the bark.

Southwick and Aitken had both given up looking at the tower and were watching him, puzzled.

'It's one of the new semaphore towers', Ramage explained. 'The winking is the shutters opening and closing as they pass a message.'

'What are they signalling, I wonder', Aitken mused.

'It shows either that they must have a powerful glass and can see our colours, or they recognize a French ship', Southwick commented.

'More important, no general warning has been passed to them - or any French forces - to watch for a French frigate captured by the British', Ramage said.

'They might be passing the warning now', Southwick said with a chuckle that set his bulging stomach trembling and was a sign that he hoped action was on its way. 'Telling someone else along the coast that they've sighted us.'

'How far could you distinguish the pattern of those squares if you had a powerful glass on a tripod and good light?' Ramage asked Aitken, who put his telescope back to his eye.

'I reckon it's two miles away now, sir. I can just see the wavelets on the beach. Ah - there's a man walking, so the shutters are about six feet square. Say a dozen miles, sir.'

'Well, I doubt if they're warning anyone about us', Ramage said briskly, 'because we must have passed several of these towers already without recognizing them, and each would have seen us and could have reported it.'

'Perhaps this one is just reporting that we're passing now?' Aitken ventured.

Ramage shook his head. 'What are we making? Perhaps two knots. We've been in sight - close enough for them to identify us as a frigate - for more than an hour. They'd have passed such a message a long time ago.'

'They've stopped signalling now', Aitken said. 'Two men are walking away from the base of the tower, making for a hut. Ah, now there's a third who seems to have come down a ladder from the top of the tower.'

'Where are they going?' Ramage asked sharply. 'Note which hut.'

'The third man is carrying something rather carefully . . .'

'A telescope?'

'Yes, sir, it could be.'

'He was probably watching the next tower acknowledging each word of the signal.'

'Ah, I can see a little platform on top', Aitken said. 'The ladder goes up to it. Even has an awning. Trust the French. A shelf for a flask of wine, too, I'll be bound.'

From the tone of Aitken's voice, with its soft Perthshire accent, it was hard to know whether the sin was in the luxury of the awning, the drinking of wine, or being French. Ramage finally decided it was probably all three.

'Two are going to the first hut on the west side of the headland and which has a flagpole outside; one - the man with the telescope - is going to the next farther inland, probably reporting to the garrison commander. Now another man has just walked round the base of the tower and gone to the third on the east side. The fourth and fifth huts are the same size. There's a sixth, much smaller and with a chimney. Probably the kitchen.'

Ramage looked through his telescope. Each hut could accommodate at least a dozen men. What size would the garrison be? Three men were needed to pass a signal, so a signal watch would comprise three men. They would be on duty only during daylight, which in summer lasted about sixteen hours. Four hours on and four off meant two watches a day for six men. Plus a cook. Plus sentries - two on duty at any one time throughout the twenty-four hours. Two hours on and six off. Eight men.

The province's Army commander would hardly have welcomed the setting up of the semaphore stations if each one needed six signalmen, eight infantrymen and a cook. And knowing how expert were soldiers (and sailors, too!) in getting authorization to have the largest complement to do the least work, there'd be a lieutenant as the commanding officer, a quartermaster and probably even a carpenter and his mate to do repairs when an extra strong gust from a mistral or Levanter blew out some panels of the semaphore shutters. At least nineteen or twenty men; more counting sergeants and corporals. It seemed absurd but, to be fair, a soldier would never understand why the official complement of the Calypso, a 32-gun frigate, was 230 men - not that she was ever lucky enough to have that many, in the same way that any battalion was usually short of men.

Ramage looked up to find Southwick watching him, his chubby, suntanned face wrinkled in an unspoken question. The old man had taken off his hat, and his white hair, in need of a trim and soaked with perspiration, looked like a new mop just dipped in a bucket of water and shaken. Aitken had closed his telescope and was waiting too. Rennick, the Marine lieutenant, had joined them, anxious not to miss anything.

In the meantime the Calypso was stretching along to the westward, a few miles short of the little town of Foix, flying French colours as a legitimate ruse de guerre, and Captain the Lord Ramage had, in a lead-weighted canvas pouch in the drawer of his desk, written orders from the Admiralty suitable for one of the few King's ships (if not the only one) left in the Mediterranean, and certainly the sort of orders that one of the most junior on the list of post captains dreamed about.

'What now, sir?' Southwick finally asked. He had served with Ramage for four or five years, was old enough to be his father, and had been in action with him a couple of dozen times, regarding fate as being unfair because while Captain Ramage had been wounded four or five times so far, Southwick had not received a scratch.

'What now, Mr Southwick? Why, we just sail past, dipping our colours politely if the signal station salutes us. I trust you have a lookout watching particularly in case they extend that courtesy, and a man at the halyard?'

Ramage turned away to hide a smile as Southwick's face fell and the old man, utterly dumbfounded, glanced questioningly at Aitken and Rennick. Ramage went below to find his cabin reasonably cool - more than anywhere else it benefited from the quarterdeck awning - and unlocked the bottom drawer.

He took out a canvas pouch, along the bottom of which was sewn a thick strip of lead, heavy enough to sink it if it was thrown over the side in an emergency, and which was held closed like an old woman's purse by a heavy line passing through grommets. He undid the knot and slid out a small book, little more substantial than a pamphlet and printed on cheap, greyish paper.

Boldly printed on the front was a bare oval with an anchor in the middle, and the words Liberté on the left and Egalité on the right. Inside the oval and surrounding the anchor was Rep. Fran. Marine. Beneath, in bolder type and also in French, were the words: Secret. The Signal Book for Ships of War, third edition.

Ramage had often used the book since finding it on board a captured French prize a few weeks earlier, and by now knew most of the flag signals by heart. He had been puzzled by a long list of place names in the back, against each of which was a man's name, with no rank hinting that he was, say, a garrison commander. He had recognized several of the places - they were all between Cartagena and Toulon, some six hundred miles of enemy coastline.

Suddenly, when Southwick had named the nearest village a mile or so inland of the tower as Foix, Ramage had finally recognized it as a name on that long list. And here it was, on the next to last page of the book, in very small type, Foix... J-P Louis. So ... that was the answer: the list gave the positions of all the French semaphore stations on the Mediterranean coast and, presumably, the commanding officers.

The list began with Toulon and went westward along the coast in steps of ten or twelve miles to Cartagena, more than sixty numbered place names. Some were of ports or anchorages - Sète, Collioure (that was a tiny fishing village near Perpignan), Port Vendres, Rosas and round to Barcelona - then on through names he did not know (probably of headlands) to Tarragona, Valencia, Alicante and finally Cartagena, Spain's greatest base in the Mediterranean.

Damn, the point of looking at the list was to locate the next tower to the west. Foix was followed in the list by Aspet. He reached up to the rack over his head, selected a rolled-up chart, and took it out, holding it flat with unusual-coloured, flat-sided pebbles which some of the crew had found on a beach and polished so that they looked like egg-sized gems. They were his birthday present from them - handed over with much ceremony two weeks ago. They must have consulted someone like Southwick or Aitken, because few people knew that the captain normally used rough lead castings as weights to hold charts flat.

Aspet... He reached for the dividers, opened them so that one arm rested on Foix and the other on Aspet, and then measured the distance against the latitude scale. Eight miles. It seemed a long way, but that was a tall tower, and very visible with the clear Mediterranean light - and probably they did not use it unless the sun was bright. What about urgent messages on rainy, dull days? In places where the towers were widely spaced, a galloping horse could always bridge a gap, although often the distance by land between two headlands enclosing a large bay was considerable.

He rolled up the chart and put it back in the rack, gathered up the pebbles, and then went up on deck, and from the way Southwick, Aitken and Rennick suddenly stopped talking and looked embarrassed, they had been discussing their captain's extraordinary apparent lack of interest in French semaphore towers.

'Mr Southwick, using your glass as best as you can, and helped by Mr Aitken, who no doubt would get a better view from the mainmasthead, I want as accurate a sketchmap of the headland, tower, buildings round it and its position in relation to the beach each side as the two of you can manage.'

Both the master and first lieutenant gave a grin of relief, obviously anticipating action.

'As you know', Ramage could not resist adding, 'the Admiralty encourages its officers to record unusual sights and views in their logs and journals: "Instructions for the Master", if I remember correctly, says: "He is duly to observe the appearances of coasts; and if he discovers any new shoals or rocks under water, to note them down in his Journal . . ."'

'Aye aye, sir', Aitken said gloomily. 'I'll use this slate', he said to Southwick. 'You'll have to get another one.' With that he took his telescope and the slate and made for the ratlines to begin the long hand-over-hand climb to the maintopmasthead.

While Southwick, who was officer of the deck, alternately picked up his telescope, put it down to mark the slate, then used his quadrant to measure horizontal angles between the tower and huts, and the vertical angle made by the tower, Ramage nodded to Rennick, indicating that he should join him at the taffrail.

The Marine officer, round faced and red complexioned, was one of the most popular in the ship: his sergeant, two corporals and thirty-four men jumped high when he said jump, but they liked him and were proud of him. Rennick exercised them relentlessly but - and Ramage had watched carefully - they did not resent it: they were as keen as Rennick to beat the seamen's times for loading and running out a 12-pounder gun, and at the moment a Marine crew held the record for loading, running out and firing a carronade on the new slides. The Wednesday competition, as it was called, was one of the Calypso's most popular events - the three carronades on the larboard side manned by Marines competing against the three on the starboard side by seamen, with all of them working to Southwick's whistle and timed by his watch.

Rennick waited for Ramage to speak, but the Marine's eyes were on the distant tower, watching it as a hunter might study a sparsely-covered valley separating him from a fine deer.

'Twenty-five men as garrison, a night attack from boats, no one must escape to raise the alarm, and preferably no muskets or pistols used in case some casual eye spots a flash. Well?'

Rennick paused a few moments before answering. 'If we wait until they're all turned in and there's only a sentry awake, sir, I could do it with my men alone. But if the alarm was raised and it's a straight attack at darkness - well, I'd like a second boat with a boarding party. Prisoners?'

'If possible. And I want an attack without the alarm being raised.'

Rennick nodded. 'There's no moon. The thing most likely to raise the alarm would be the keel of the boat grating on the beach.'

'It's sand here, not pebbles', Ramage said, 'and the boat party can drop a kedge and ease themselves in.'

'A nice run on shore for my lads, sir', Rennick said cheerfully, 'and -'

'There are a few conditions', Ramage said warningly. 'They might change your views. First every book, log, letter - every sheet of paper in those huts must be seized intact. Once the French realize they're being attacked, they might try to destroy signal books and logs. Secondly, I might decide at the last moment that our party will stay on to occupy the semaphore station for a few days. That means they might have to defend it. Thirdly, I shall be coming along too.'

'Aye aye, sir', Rennick said, grinning at Ramage's last few words.

By now seamen were stopping to gossip with one another, pointing at the distant tower and, without knowing what it was, guessing it now held some special significance for the Calypso, although obviously puzzled because the frigate was holding her course and already the tower was drawing aft along the starboard quarter.

William Stafford, a Cockney able seaman working abreast the foremast, waved his hand, dismissing the whole thing. 'It's very windy 'ere; comes roarin' acrorst that plain from the mountings. They put up the wall to protect the 'uts.'

The Italian seaman, Alberto Rossi, laughed derisively. 'Is a good idea, Staff, but the torre is not between the huts and the plain. Is to one side.'

'And it's made of wood; I heard Mr Aitken say so', Jackson added.

'Well, it's tall enough, Jacko', Stafford persisted.

'It has shutters that open and close like windows', Jackson said. 'Used for semaphore. I heard them say that, too.' As the captain's coxswain and an American who had served in the Royal Navy for years, even though he had a Protection in his seabag declaring his nationality that would secure his freedom whenever he presented it to an American consul, he was treated as the leader of a small group of seamen who had served with the captain since he was a junior lieutenant.

'What good are windows?' Rossi demanded.

'How the devil do I know', Jackson said amiably, keeping an eye on the bosun, who would be along in a few minutes to inspect the brasswork which he was polishing with brickdust. 'I've never seen one of those things before.'

'Seems funny, just one put up on this bit o' the coast', Stafford said. 'What's semifour mean, anyway?'

'Semaphore', Jackson corrected. 'I'm not sure. Something to do with signalling, I think.'

'Don't see no flags', Stafford persisted.

'That's the reason for the shutters, I expect', Jackson said. 'Opening some, closing others - that'd make patterns meaning different things.'

'Semaphore: it is from the Greek', a young midshipman said in near perfect English. 'It means - well, sema is "a sign", and phew "to bear". A sign-bearer.'

'Oh', Stafford said, 'I thought it was the number four. Like four shutters, or somefing. I say, Mr Orsini, 'ow many languages do you talk?'

'Well, I had to learn Latin and Greek. Italian is my native language and anyway is very like Latin. Spanish - that's like Italian too, and French.'

'And English', Stafford added. 'That makes six!'

The young midshipman, fourteen years old but tall, with straight black hair, a sallow skin and hooked nose, flushed with embarrassment.

'It is not as you think. My tutor, he made me study Latin, Greek, French, but at home we speak - we used to speak', he corrected himself, 'English and Spanish. I have Spanish relatives', he said.

'And the Marchesa?' Jackson asked. 'She speaks them too?'

Paolo Orsini nodded matter-of-factly. 'Her French is better than mine. She hated the French ambassador.'

The three seamen waited expectantly, but Orsini obviously did not consider any further explanation necessary.

'Hated him, sir?' Jackson ventured.

'Oh, not just one but all of them. The last one sent by Louis XVI, and then the two from the Directory. The first of them she declared persona non grata - some affair of him stealing Court cutlery at one of her receptions - and his replacement was, how do you say, a boor.'

'Yes, they're all boars and should be kept in sties', Stafford said sympathetically, 'but why did it make your aunt improve her French?'

'Oh yes', Orsini said, pausing a moment as he worked out Stafford's error, 'my aunt occasionally had to talk to the French ambassador, and in the world of diplomacy the language is French. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of hearing her make a mistake.'

'Cor, French eh?' exclaimed Stafford. 'It oughta be English. Lot of double meanings, that's all French is.'

'That's why governments use it', Jackson said. 'Now look sharp, 'cos here comes the bosun.'