The Ramage Touch

The slowly increasing tension was making Ramage look for faults, and he realized that any minute now he would start asking Aitken quite u

He felt perspiration soaking into the band of his hat at the sudden thought that they might have left, and used the back of his hand to wipe some away from his upper lip.The three frigates could have sailed during the night. They might not have gone into Porto Ercole. Don't be such a damned fool, he told himself, you saw them there yesterday as you walked along the Feniglia. But they could have sailed at sunset, after he and his motley quartet had punted across the lagoon. But why should they? They could not have embarked the troops in that time. Supposing they had brought, or received, new orders, to leave the troops there and go on to join this fleet, wherever it was?

He felt himself flushing with a

So, Ramage told himself angrily, all is well: stop fretting. The ship's company always boast about how calm you are going into action (which only proves what a good actor you are), so try to live up to your reputation. If battle is an opera, then the orchestra is now just begi

Instruments reminded him of Martin and his flute. The lad was likely to have been giving the Brutus's men a tune or two as they sailed round Argentario. How did "Heart of Oak" sound on a flute? The men would love some of the more popular tunes like "Black-eyed Susan", because they seized any opportunity to dance. He must encourage Martin to play more often, especially in these long summer evenings, so that the men could dance. They were bored with John Harris's fiddle; the man had a complete repertory of about a dozen tunes, at least four of which were fore-bitters, played when the capstan was being worked. Always supposing, he thought with a touch of bitterness, that Martin, the Brutus, and the Calypso survive the next couple of hours. Then, ashamed of the dark thoughts that scurried about his mind like a North Sea fog suddenly springing up off the Texel, he hoped that Martin had stowed his flute somewhere safe, so that a French roundshot would not splinter it.

He glanced up and was startled to find that they would be abreast of Isolotto in a few minutes and La Rocca was just begi

The wind was steady from the north-north-west and the Calypso was slipping along easily on a heading of north-east, which would take her a hundred yards or so to the east of the anchored bomb ketches. He found Southwick looking at him, a satisfied grin on his face. The master gave a cheery wink. "On course and on time, sir."

"Luck or judgment?" Ramage inquired i

"Best not inquire too closely, sir," Southwick said modestly. "But as best as I can make out, the lads have anchored those two bombs perfectly, and because no one is firing at them, I presume no one in the Port of Hercules is at all suspicious."

Ramage could not resist looking at his watch yet again. Twenty minutes to go. In that time the Calypso would stretch across in front of Porto Ercole as though heading for the Feniglia, passing close to the sterns of the bomb ketches, which by then should have springs on their anchor cables so that they could turn to the precise degree necessary to train the mortars. As soon as the leadsman was reporting six fathoms and shallowing as they approached the Feniglia, the Calypso would either wear round and make for the harbour entrance, or heave-to, keeping up to windward of Porto Ercole, ready to pounce. It all depended on the guns of Monte Filippo and Santa Catarina, the three frigates, the two bomb ketches, and the chart. There might be a rock or two, even a shoal, to the north-east of the harbour, where no ship would normally sail but where the Calypso now had to go to get up to windward, but it was not marked on the chart. Nor would anyone expect it to be marked there, although the fishermen would know all about it. The Secca Santa Catarina was shown, a shoal just off the north-east end of the harbour entrance, and the chart said it had a least depth of twenty-one feet over it. No threat to the Calypso, whose maximum draught at present was just sixteen feet.

Suddenly he could see into the harbour entrance and there, like three plump black crows perched on a bough, were the three frigates. They were just as he had expected: each had two anchors out ahead and their sterns appeared to be secured to the quay. The telescope showed clearly that tucked between them, on each side of the middle frigate, was some kind of raft, so that the guns and horses could be run down from the quay on to a raft and then hauled forward to be hoisted by a yard tackle. In fact the northernmost frigate was hoisting a gun carriage at this very moment. The gun had been removed - probably hoisted a few minutes ago - and now the carriage was following.

No signal flags were flying, so obviously the senior officer of the three frigates was waiting to see who commanded the Calypso before giving any orders - the Calypso's captain might be the senior of them all. Not only that, Ramage thought maliciously, but they do not have the faintest idea of the name of the frigate anyway because we are not flying her pendant numbers. Nor, for that matter, was any of the three anchored frigates. There were no signal flags hoisted anywhere, and no boats making for the bomb ketches to ask the sort of questions that could give the whole game away . . .

Southwick tapped his arm and Ramage saw the master pointing at a faintly brownish-green patch in the water over on the larboard bow. 'That'll be the shoal, sir, Santa Catarina. Won't interfere with us . . ."

By now the leadsman standing in the forechains was begi