The Ramage Touch

"Why did the French choose this place to embark troops?"

"I've been thinking about that. This road here on the mainland, ru

He picked up a magnifying glass. "Hmm . . . three and four fathoms inside this little bay that forms Porto Ercole; ten to fifteen fathoms outside. The French frigates can get in - the point is, will they? They might decide it is too shallow."

"The alternative is loading guns and horses, using their own boats. Hoisting frightened and kicking horses on board using slings under their bellies . . ." Aitken muttered, clearly talking to himself, seeing the problem through the eyes of a first lieutenant, upon whom the responsibility for the task would fall. "I doubt if there'll be any lighters or barges in a place like Porto Ercole: it's simply a fishing village. Those forts," he said, "I hope they're not ma

"I don't know," Ramage admitted. "But I doubt it. There are two of them - Santa Catarina, the star-shaped and small one low down on the headland on the north side, and Filippo, which is on the top of a big hill overlooking the whole port. Both are Spanish. Probably built by Philip II - he seems to have spent his time and money building forts on the coasts of the West Indies and Europe when he wasn't sending an Armada against us. You see that Porto Ercole is one side of the little bay and Le Grotte is the village at the other."

Aitken pointed to the jetty, which formed the western side of the small bay. "The frigates can't get alongside because it's too shallow. I think I'd get in as close as possible, securing stern to the jetty, and use fishing boats as ferries. Even use 'em as a bridge of boats, planks lashed across them, if I could get in far enough."

"Let the French worry about that," Ramage said, lifting the weights and letting the chart roll up. "I'm sure they'll anchor inside. The bomb ketches can anchor wherever they want, and because they have the advantage in range they might as well choose a place beyond the reach of any guns there might be in the forts."

"The gu

Ramage shook his head doubtfully. "That might be all right for a properly designed and constructed bomb ketch, but a 12-pound charge sounds too much for converted galliots. I'd expect the recoil to drive the mortar through the bottom!"

"Aye, I wasn't suggesting we tried 'em at that, sir," Aitken said hastily, thumbing through the gu

Ramage unrolled the chart again and weighted it down. He took a pair of dividers from a rack and set them to a mile on the latitude scale. Then with one point stuck on the jetty of Porto Ercole he swung the other in an arc covering the outside of the port. "We'll be able to get the exact range from the heights of the frigates' masts, but as I shall wait two or three days before we go down to Porto Ercole, we'll have the bomb ketches practising on targets along the beach at 2,000 yards. We might even experiment and increase the charge half a pound at a time and see what we consider a safe maximum range."

"That French captain," Aitken said. "He might have . . ."

"Yes, I'm going to have a chat with him. Fortunately he's expecting to be returned to the Fructidor, so he knows it's in his interest to give us accurate information, otherwise he might find one of the mortars crashing down on his head."

Ramage put the chart back in the rack. "We must keep a sharp lookout for any French cavalry riding along the beach and wanting to pay us a social call: their commanding officer might take it into his head to try to invite himself to di

"Then what do we do, sir?"

"Ignore shouts from the beach and call me. Always be ready to resume mortar practice at short notice: a mortar shell exploding on the beach will panic horses. You'd better work out some system of signals between us and the bomb ketches so that we don't have to hail in English."

"Wooding, sir. Can I send some wooding parties on shore? There's no fresh water around according to the chart. No streams or anything."

Wooding and watering: tasks which were a recurring problem in the course of a cruise: the cook always needed wood to fuel the galley fire under the water in the coppers in which most of the ship's food was cooked, and a sensible captain grabbed every opportunity to fill casks with fresh water because that was almost the only thing that limited the range of a cruise. But as Aitken had commented, the chart showed no streams ru

Later that evening Ramage gave his orders to Wagstaffe and Kenton: they would each send a party on shore next morning to place casks at 2,000 yards and 3,000 yards. Each would fire a dozen shells at the 2,000-yard target, and then increase the range by increasing the powder charge, using the 3,000-yard cask to help estimate distances. But, he emphasized, they were to watch the mortar bed; they must not risk damaging their ships.

Ramage did not tell them that Renouf, who was genuinely fascinated by bomb ketches and very proud of his mortars, regarded 4,000 yards as an acceptable range: the master armourer at Brest had tried out all four mortars at the sea range off Camaret, firing five rounds from each, with the master shipwright in attendance, and going down and inspecting the underdeck stanchions and the stringers after each round was fired.

Almost more important as far as the two lieutenants were concerned was Ramage's agreement that they could take a barrel of powder with them. With powder made by the British Powder Factory, they said, they would guarantee better shooting. The French powder should be fed to pigs; it would produce streaky bacon of a high quality.