Governor Ramage R. N. (33 page)

“And that,” Ramage said, “seems to put paid to our ‘three by three.'”

Yorke shrugged his shoulders.

The fisherman had walked fifty yards away and was beginning to pull the long flat pods from the tamarinds, crack them open and shake the seeds into his sack.

Ramage and Yorke looked around the short headland. There was a scattering of trees, the most prominent being a tall, lacyleaved casuarina, and they strolled towards it.

“Seven trees,” Yorke said. “The significant thing is that seven has no possible connection with three, or three times three!”

“I know,” Ramage said. “I'm getting to the point where things only exist for me if they're in multiples of three.”

Yorke laughed and bent down to pick up a large sea shell. It was sun-bleached and worn by the sea and the sand.

“How do these things get up here?”

“Birds, probably,” Ramage said. “They find them alive and bring ‘em ashore to eat the animal inside.”

“It's a pretty shell.”

“A flame helmet.”

“What is?” Yorke asked in surprise.

“That shell. A type of conch—you've seen the natives eating the Queen conchs. They cut a small slot here”—he pointed to one end—”and that severs the animal's anchor so they can pull it out. The birds haven't learned the trick. This one is a cousin of the Queen conch. You can see it's shaped something like a helmet.”

“Haven't seen one before,” Yorke said, turning it in his hand. “I'll take this one back and present it to Madame.”

The fisherman joined them, his sack of seeds slung over his shoulder.

“You take him back with you,” Ramage said. “Jackson and I will just have a look over the other two Tamarinds.”

Yorke said doubtfully: “I've got a feeling the trio of tamarinds is just a coincidence.”

Ramage grimaced. “We might as well clutch at a tamarind as a straw …”

With that Yorke, Stafford and the fisherman began the long walk back to the camp while Ramage and Jackson went northwards to Tamarindo Grande. It was barren; just a few trees and boulders. Then they walked back past Punta Tamarindo to Tamarindo Chico.

Jackson kicked a small stone in anger.

“It isn't as though the Spaniards
deserve
to find it, sir!”

“No more or less than us,” Ramage said mildly.

“I suppose not. Do the admirals get a share, sir?”

That's an interesting point, Ramage thought. “I've no idea. Probably not treated like prize-money.”

“But it's the same thing, isn't it, sir?”

“It most certainly isn't! Only a ship can be condemned as a prize. You wouldn't get a penn'orth of prize-money for capturing this island, for instance.”

“Not even a reward, sir?” Jackson asked hopefully.

“You might get something. Don't spend it until you've received it though, just in case!”

In silence the men started back to the village.

As he walked down the slope to the houses Ramage heard the sound of women's laughter and found Yorke and St Cast sitting with the St Brieucs on the balcony of their house.

Maxine waved gaily when she saw Ramage and beckoned to him to join them. He would have preferred to go to his own room and sit alone for an hour or two: the visit to Punta Tamarindo was a bigger disappointment than he cared to admit. He'd spent the night and all the time they were walking there thinking that the three headlands called tamarind must fit the poem. His hopes had strengthened when he found three headlands in line, and now he felt flat. His feet were sore from the long walk; his eyes ached from the sun's glare; his mouth was dry and gritty from the dusty tracks, and mosquitoes and sand-flies had bitten him freely.

“Come!” Maxine called,”We have
limonade
ready for you.”

As she stood facing him, her eyes sparkling and her hands outstretched, he wanted to take her in his arms. Instead he climbed the steps to the balcony, bowed to the St Brieucs and nodded to the others.

“Such a long face!” Maxine exclaimed.

“Someone knocked his sand-castle down!” Yorke said.

Maxine looked puzzled. “Sand-castle?”

“Mr Yorke likes talking in riddles.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “
Alors—
he has given me a beautiful present.”

Ramage was jealous but said quickly: “Don't tell me what it is—I'll guess. Now, let me see—a coronet studded with diamonds and rubies?”

She shook her head and laughed. “Not exactly.”

“A tiara, then—of gold, mounted with a huge emerald and one hundred perfect pearls.”

She shook her head again. “No, it is
much
more beautiful.”

“A miniature of me.”

She laughed so loudly her mother looked shocked and her father delighted. St Brieuc glanced at Ramage, as if encouraging him to go on making her laugh; she needed to laugh much more.

“That would be ‘a pearl beyond price'—isn't that how you say it? No, it is a sea shell.”

She waved the flame helmet which Yorke had cleaned and polished.

“It is wonderful—look, if I hold it to my ear I can hear the sea!”

Ramage froze for a moment, and then reached out for it.

“Give it to me please,” he said harshly.

He put the open part of the shell to his ear and sure enough there was a hollow noise, like breakers on a distant beach. Even as he listened, he saw the startled look on Yorke's face give way to deep thought and that in turn was replaced by an almost disbelieving grin.

Before either of them could say anything, St Brieuc whispered, “That's it. ‘The sound of the sea …'”

Then Maxine, who had been startled by Ramage snatching the shell from her, gave a quick curtsey and said, “A
shell
without price, anyway!”

They all laughed and for several minutes they chattered excitedly, passing the shell from one to another. As they talked Ramage kept trying to fit this particular shell into the hunt for the treasure.

St Brieuc put it into words, saying in his quick yet authoritative voice: “We must not forget this is only one shell. I presume that there are thousands more in the sea.”

And they all looked crestfallen.

“We're letting the treasure hunt get on our nerves,” Ramage said. “I am, anyway.”

“Me too!” Yorke said. “I have to admit it's exciting. Even if we find nothing, I've enjoyed it so far. What small boy hasn't played pirates and searched for treasure?”

“Quite,” Ramage agreed, “but at the same time I'd like to be one of the few adults who actually
found
it!” As he spoke he saw Maxine watching him speculatively, as though weighing him up. Their eyes met and Ramage wondered, yet again, what her husband was like.

Within a week of the landing from the rafts, life on Snake Island had settled into a pleasant routine. The seamen of both ships enjoyed the treasure hunt—they were so eager to join one of the digging teams that Southwick grumbled that if there had been any miscreants he'd have made them part of the raft's crew.

After a day's digging, several of the men spent an hour or two each evening tidying up the ground round the houses. They cleared out some of the shrubs to give more space to the frangipani, now coming towards the end of its blossom, and a dozen other and smaller flowering trees, shrubs and bushes. They had made crude tables and forms and set them under the shade of a big flamboyant which towered over them like a scarlet umbrella. The paths leading from house to house had been lined with small rocks which had been painted white. Slowly San Ildefonso was being transformed into a neat hamlet.

Ramage saw that the men, starved for years of the sight and sound of life on land, were making up for it by getting the feel of the soil; watching and helping it to produce beauty. Southwick, in his quiet, fatherly way, was helping them. Appleby was told to bring over paint, nails, a few planks of timber chopped from bulwarks, so the men could make more furniture.

Much to Bowen's delight, St Cast had proved to be a fine chess player, and Appleby brought the Surgeon's chess-set back from the wreck so the two could play a few games each evening.

The St Brieucs had settled into life in the tiny village of San Ildefonso as if they were in a comfortable château on the banks of the Loire. Early in the morning, before the sun was too hot, or in the late afternoon, he saw all three of them walking slowly along one of the beaches of the great inland bay as if they were inspecting their estates. They were enchanted by the flocks of small white egrets which flew out every evening, to sleep on a small cay in the centre of the bay, and came back with descriptions of strange birds and butterflies, chameleons and insects.

Ramage intended to let Appleby make two more raft trips to the wrecks. After that they'd have more than enough provisions. The idea of putting partly filled casks over the side and letting them float ashore had been highly successful. The cooper had also taken the opportunity of cleaning water casks and floating them over empty, and now they were stored by the well, ready to be filled when the supply ship arrived. Ramage was determined they should not be short of water and provisions on the voyage to Jamaica.

The slaves had proved a cheerful crowd of men, and most evenings they sang the songs of Africa or danced round a fire, to the delight of the seamen, who were soon learning the steps of the dances and joining in with clumsy enthusiasm.

It amused everyone to refer to Ramage as “The Governor.” St Brieuc quietly promoted the idea and it certainly made things a lot easier for Ramage. He was the youngest of them all, except for Maxine, but as Governor he could give orders without affecting the social side of their lives together.

Ramage was talking to Jackson one morning when the American asked: “Did the fisherman make a good job of the necklaces?”

“Excellent. They were a great success.”

“That Tamarind Point business was a big disappointment, sir.” Ramage nodded. “Tamarinds and flame helmets—I don't care if I never see any more!”

“Flame helmets, sir?” Jackson asked. “What are they?”

Ramage described the shell to the American.

“I remember it now, sir.”

“Yes, if only there'd been three of them,” Ramage said absentmindedly as he recalled Maxine's “I can hear the sea,” and their brief excitement.

“There were, sir,” Jackson said. “Three of them in a straight line. Mr Yorke picked up the nearest one. Didn't you see the others?”

I
T PROMISED to be a very long night. Taking a party of seamen to Punta Tamarindo to dig by the light of lanterns might attract the attention of the local folk and, for the moment, the less they knew the better. They knew the English dug trenches in daylight, but this was merely copying the Spanish. To dig by lantern light might suggest urgency …

The heat in Ramage's room was stifling. The wind had dropped with the sun and the offshore breeze had not materialized to make the night pleasantly cool. It had become the sort of tropical night that was a test of endurance. Ramage forgot nature's glorious riot of colours, the startling flowers, the scarlet of the flamboyants and the exciting blue of the sea. He even forgot the temperature during the day, when the breeze and the shade made it perfect.

In the misery of a windless night in the hurricane season, he hankered for the cold nights of the northern latitudes. Chilblains and colds, the sniffing and sneezing, the layer upon layer of clothing needed to keep not just warm but to avoid being frozen, were overlooked and he realized for the first time just how much life in the Tropics was governed by the wind. The thermometer could be showing eighty degrees and it could be two o'clock in the afternoon. If the Trade winds were blowing, the temperature was ideal. With no wind eighty degrees became uncomfortable: clothing was soaked with perspiration and energy destroyed by heat and humidity.

There was a gentle tap at the door and Ramage reached down for the pistol by his bed.

“Who's there?” he whispered loudly.

“It's Yorke.”

“Come in,” Ramage said and added as he saw the door open into the starlit room, “What's the matter, can't you sleep?”

“No—I keep on hearing the sound of the sea in that damned helmet shell. You know, I don't enjoy these waiting games; I'm far too impatient!”

“Nor do I,” Ramage confessed. “I'm just lying here waiting for the hands of my watch to get moving.”

“What time do we start off for Punta Tamarindo?”

“Five o'clock. Takes about an hour to get there. I want people to think we are just digging trenches somewhere else for a change.”

“Who knows,” Yorke said lightly, “that may be all we are doing.”

“It probably is. Best to think of it that way.”

“Why don't we go and dig?” Yorke said impulsively. “Just a few of us. We needn't make any noise, and Punta Tamarindo must be one of the most isolated places in the Caribbean anyway.”

Ramage swung his legs off the bed and began dressing without a word.

Within fifteen minutes, having left a disapproving Southwick in command at the village, Ramage and Yorke were leading a party of ten seamen and four Marines along the track round the edge of the great inland bay. They cut through a long valley almost to the coast on the north side of the island before swinging in a half circle to skirt a ridge of three high hills that separated Bahia Tamarindo from the rest of the island.

The seamen, far from truculent at being roused out after a day's digging, were excited; but for the need for some secrecy, Ramage guessed, they'd have been singing like a party of Cornish miners on their way to the local fair.

They reached Punta Tamarindo in little more than an hour, and leaving the seamen and Marines waiting twenty yards back, Ramage took Yorke and Jackson to the casuarina tree.