Ramage’s Prize

"It's true, but you tried to persuade her," Yorke said sympathetically. "It's helping no one to blame yourself, though. It's happened, and we've got to sort it out."

Ramage sat up straight in the chair and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "I'll give Rossi his orders. He can give Gia

Yorke nodded slowly. "It's going to be a damned long night."

"If only they'd got me as a hostage, instead of Gia

"Don't be absurd," Yorke snapped. "It wasn't your fault the frigate business failed. I'd never have thought of anything as ingenious. Better they'd taken me, or Bowen, or Wilson. Or all three of us. Stop blaming yourself, for God's sake!"

He paused for a moment and then said savagely, "I blame myself for one thing, though."

When Ramage raised his eyebrows, Yorke said, "Harris thought of all this. I should have ignored you and shot him dead as he stood here. I'll regret that for the rest of my days."

That evening Ramage sat at his desk and wrote up his journal. He had never before filled it in with so much detail. Although he knew there was a chance it would never be sent on to the Admiralty, just putting all the events on paper helped pass the time.

As he described how he - as the future commanding officer of the Lady Arabella - met the Marchesa di Volterra at the British Embassy in Lisbon, and how she had subsequently taken passage for England in the packet brig, he thought bitterly how the bare words, true as they were, bore no resemblance to what actually happened. Not, he admitted, that he was anxious to try to explain it in detail! But fortunately captains' journals were by tradition written in a sparse, impersonal style. Courses, speeds, distances, positions, wind strengths and direction when at sea; when in port a notation of official visitors and official visits made, weather, anchorage position, the way the ship's company was employed...

For the tenth time that night he took out his watch: an hour past midnight. He wished he was standing a watch, but both Yorke and Southwick had been insistent that the risk was too great. A sudden squall or an unexpected emergency needing shouted commands would immediately reveal to the mutineers that he was alive.

Yet even the idea of pretending to be dead had misfired: the mutineers had not relaxed into a false sense of security after finding they were (apparently, anyway) dealing not with the ruthless Lieutenant Ramage but with a passenger about whom they knew nothing. They hadn't made one mistake, blast them. Yorke reckoned their leader - after they lost Harris - had been the first spokesman, the man who agreed to be a hostage, but Ramage now doubted that. Someone down there on the mess-deck was shrewd and cool. Was it Our Ned? The Mate's son had the brains, and probably the cu

That was more like it: Our Ned and one or two others took Gia

He began dreaming wild dreams of what he wished would happen. That in the dim light of the lantern a shadowy Gia

A sudden slap on his face woke him with a convulsive jerk, his head ringing.

"Mama mia, will you never wake up?"

He lay in the cot rubbing his eyes, trying to focus them on the shadowy figure.

"Nicholas," the figure said crossly, "I've escaped! While you've been sleeping like a pig, I've been getting myself free!"

He leapt from the cot in a completely reflex movement, grabbed the two pistols from the settee and cocked them; then, watching the door swinging to and fro on its hinges with the ship's roll and expecting mutineers to burst in any moment, he snapped, "What happened?"

Gia

"Of course I am!" he hissed. "What happened to the damned sentry?" He went to the door to find a seaman standing there with a musket. "What the hell are you gri

"Oh, Nicholas," Gia

"Oh shut up, woman!"

She slapped his face so hard his eyes watered.

"Senta," she said angrily. "Our Ned and the two ship's boys are waiting out there in the corridor. Don't let your clumsy sailors shoot them!"

Ramage had to hold both pistols in one hand as he used the other to wipe his watering eyes. Two slaps in two minutes, he thought irrelevantly, were not his idea of a happy reunion.

"All right, now tell me what happened," he said with as much patience as he could muster. "I want to make sure those blasted mutineers up forward are secured: they'll go crazy when they find you've gone."

"It's all taken care of," Gia

"We?"

"Oh, you don't listen. We - Our Ned, the two boys and me."

At that moment Yorke hurried into the cabin, saw Gia

Gia

"Can't blame 'em, ma'am," a confused Southwick mumbled. "Bit of a shock, you know. A very nice shock," he added hurriedly, "but you vanished in the middle of the night and now you've -"

"Vanished in the middle of the night again, only this time from that horrible place forward!"

Ramage said suddenly, "Where are Our Ned and the boys?"

"With the sentry," Southwick said. "The minute I saw Our Ned I got worried about you, sir. The sentry has him covered."

"Very well," Ramage said. "You'd better get back on deck."

"Jackson went to rouse Much," Southwick said. "He'll be all right. But I'd better get more men covering that forehatch."

"Don't worry," Ramage said heavily, "the Marchesa has already arranged that."

He took her arm and led her to the settee. "Sit down and tell us what happened. You're not cold?" he asked anxiously. "We're not singing songs of joy simply because - well," he said lamely, "it's such a shock; we hadn't much hope of saving your life..."

She looked up at Ramage wide-eyed and smiling. "You haven't kissed me yet!"

As he bent to kiss her he said shakily, "I'm having trouble getting things in the right order. You still seem part of a dream."