‘But why stay so long in Cartagena? Weeks and weeks! Surely you could have stolen a ship earlier?’
‘The Spanish Fleet was there: I wanted to find out when they’d sail and where they were bound?’
She spotted the flaw before he did.
‘But how could you do that without waiting for them to sail and see which way they went? They haven’t sailed, have they?’
Ramage cursed his wayward tongue which was talking him into a dangerous situation: the only other person in Gibraltar who knew of Cordoba’s orders was the Commissioner, who’d been emphatic that the knowledge must be kept absolutely secret. The whole of Gibraltar, he’d said bitterly, was swarming with spies and the Governor’s circle of friends talked too freely.
‘Well,’ he said lamely, ‘I found out something which will interest Sir John, but you mustn’t mention it. Now – and this is absolutely secret too – I must find Sir John and tell him.’
‘But, my love,’ she said with quiet irony, ‘all you’ve told me so far is that I’ve got to keep secret the fact you know a secret!’
‘And that’s quite enough for now!’
She looked up with eyes unnaturally bright with tears, but in them he saw anger as well as unhappiness.
‘So even though I am the ruler of a state which has joined England as an ally, I can’t be trusted with some silly little secret?’
Anger, bitterness, hurt – yes, and a touch of patrician arrogance. A few moments ago they had been as one person; now a stranger sat at his feet.
‘I – well, the Commissioner gave me strict orders. Not even the Governor knows.’
‘Very well,’ she said coldly. ‘You found out this information, so let’s not talk any more of that. But why are you the messenger boy running off to find Sir John? Make the Commissioner send someone else. You deserve a rest: for months you’ve been risking your life – first rescuing me, then capturing La Sabina, then playing the spy at Cartagena. Why,’ she added with a shiver, ‘if the Spaniards had discovered you weren’t an American–’
‘I’d have been shot, but I wasn’t. And I arrive here to find you waiting for me! Incidentally, young lady’ – he snatched the chance of changing the subject – ‘why are you here and not in England?’
She shrugged her shoulders gracefully – and coldly and remotely. Her voice was flat and neutral. She was a stranger, the ruler of Volterra and, he thought, no longer a woman.
‘Very well, you may change the subject When the Apollo arrived here she had to wait two weeks. By then we heard the Kathleen had been captured. I wasn’t in a hurry to go to England so I decided to stay – I was curious to know whether you were alive or dead.’
‘Curious’. The word stabbed where he had no protection. Now did it help that he knew she was deeply hurt; unable to understand the demands of the service. And her pose of indifference was truly regal: even though she was sitting at his feet he felt for a moment as though their positions were reversed and he was a humble (and errant) subject kneeling before the ruler of the state of Volterra.
‘And Antonio?’ he asked, numbed and hardly thinking what he was saying.
‘He went in the Apollo. He wanted to stay but I told him to go to London as my Minister Plenipotentiary to your King, so that he can draw up the draft for the alliance.’
It was a proud little speech but the ruler became a girl once again when he pictured Antonio as the Minister of an already enemy-occupied state of 20,000 people arguing the terms and wording of Volterra’s treaty with a Britain which was already fighting the combined strength of France and Spain and for whom Volterra was simply another debit entry in an already overloaded budget.
‘How could you persuade the Spanish you were an American when you were wearing that uniform?’
She was holding out a very small and rapidly withering olive branch but he reached for it eagerly.
‘I was wearing a seaman’s rig. I’ve just bought this one. A lieutenant about my size – a bit narrower across the shoulders, rather! – just had it delivered from the tailor.’
‘He was kind to let you have it.’
‘He wasn’t really; in fact he refused, but the Commissioner ordered him to sell it to me.’
‘Your Commissioner is fond of giving unpleasant orders…’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Ramage said hypocritically. ‘But – well, when you had to give unpleasant orders to anyone in Volterra it didn’t occur to you they wouldn’t be obeyed, although probably you didn’t enjoy giving them…’
‘That’s true, I suppose it’s the same thing, really,’ she admitted.
‘Absolutely the same. The foundations of a navy or a state – or even a family – rests on discipline,’ he said pompously.
‘Except that I love you.’
There was defiance in her voice and he knew that single fact meant she’d accept neither rules nor obstacles. Fearing she’d make the Governor use his influence to have another lieutenant sent to Sir John, Ramage kissed her and bruised both their lips as the clock struck again and made them jump.
Nearly an hour gone: the Commissioner would be watching the anchorage. He stood up, helping her to her feet, and before she could say anything, kissed her hard again, then gripped her tightly so she could not look into his eyes and began talking quickly in a low, urgent voice, as though he had to compress a lifetime into the remaining minutes.
As he walked down the worn and slimy steps of Ragged Staff Wharf Ramage felt the same emptiness that almost every man experienced when going back to sea in wartime: he was leaving someone he loved, drawn away by some inner compulsion towards – well, duty was a pompous sort of word and only a tenth of it. That there’d be weeks, perhaps months, of discomfort and monotony was so certain that brief moments of danger would come as a relief, like the sharp taste in the mouth after the long diet of dreary, barely eatable salt food that drove seamen to chew tobacco. But no man had ever found anything to shew, drink, do or say that eased the ache of knowing the farewell might also be the final one. It was probably worse for the women who were left behind, never knowing whether, even as they sat with their memories, their men had been left unscathed by battle, disease or accident.
So what was he really looking for out on the ocean? Honour and glory, the power over men that came with command, the almost erotic thrill of fear in battle? He was concentrating so hard on giving himself an honest answer that his heel slipped off the edge of a step and he nearly fell, yet even while regaining his balance he knew the answer was ‘No’ in each case.
What stopped him from asking to go on to half pay (or resigning his commission) and returning to England, to the life of a gentleman, helping Father run the estates and perhaps dabbling in politics? There’d be no discredit in that (except dabbling in politics, and he rejected the idea) nor difficulty in arranging it. The Navy had far too many young lieutenants – at least a quarter of them were always unemployed, haunting the Admiralty or badgering friends with ‘interest’ to write to the First Lord to get them a berth. He shrugged his shoulders and felt a few more stitches splitting in his coat. Blast the fool who’d sold it him and triple blast his tailor, and whoever made the thread could rot in hell.
He suddenly realized that for some seconds he’d been standing and staring at a dead cat floating in the water, and glanced up to see Maxton holding the boat alongside, his glistening brown face split with a grin of pleasure. Jackson, watching him curiously and probably trying to fathom his thoughts, was at the tiller and the rest of the men who had been with him at Cartagena were manning the oars. All of them were rigged out in new blue shirts and white duck trousers, and were freshly shaven. He climbed in, nodded, and a few moments later the boat was being rowed briskly across the anchorage.
Perhaps if he knew the answer he could leave the sea. But would finding the answer be like finding the Golden Fleece the very fact of succeeding meant there was nothing more to do with your life: no spur, no goal, no purpose…?
He turned for one last unhurried look at Gibraltar, and for a moment he was a child again, lying flat on his stomach on a Cornish beach staring up at a great boulder only a few feet away. The houses clustered on the steep sides were tiny limpets; the grey defensive walls studded with embrasures just cracks in the rock lined with sea snails. Was Gianna watching from a balcony of The Convent? He wasn’t too sure – they’d parted as both lovers and strangers; there’d been no time for the tranquil minutes which –
He glanced up to see La Providencia at anchor a hundred yards away. He hoped Sir John would buy her into the service. Even without him foregoing his share of the prize money, the six men now in the boat would each get a few hundred pounds; more than they’d ever earn in a lifetime as seamen.
‘She served us well.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Jackson said wistfully. ‘I wouldn’t mind having her as a privateer!’
In taking only three days and four nights from Cartagena La Providencia had made a fast passage in such light winds and Ramage, like the Commissioner, could only pray the Spanish Fleet had been delayed in leaving, then met the same humbugging winds, and found the convoy of seventy transports – if they sailed at the same time – as slow, mulish and stupid as convoys of transports usually were.
But the chances that they’d have a slow passage were slight – the wind had now gone east and was becoming squally, and the wispy clouds beginning to stream westward from the peaks of Gibraltar, like steam from a boiling kettle, were a warning that a strong easterly wind, the Levanter, was already on its way across the Mediterranean. Bringing heavy rain and poor visibility, it was just the wind to let Cordoba’s Fleet scurry through the Strait.
As he’d brought La Providencia round the great craggy Europa Point, close in along Dead Man’s Beach and up to Rosin Bay, he’d been startled to see that, with one exception, there wasn’t a ship o’ war at anchor in the Bay: obviously every available vessel was at sea, either helping Commodore Nelson evacuate the Mediterranean or with Sir John Jervis.
The boat came alongside and the men’s grins were wider than ever as Ramage scrambled up the side battens to the trilling of bosun’s calls. It was childish, but one of the best things about commanding a ship was being piped on board…
A few moments later he was returning Southwick’s salute and shaking him by the hand while the ship’s company, drawn up on deck in two ranks, began a wild, spontaneous cheering that Southwick did nothing to stop.
‘Welcome back on board, sir: the Kathleen hasn’t been the same without you!’
Ramage blinked and thought irrelevantly of the split seam in his coat. Jackson had been the first to spot the Kathleen at anchor as La Providencia rounded Europa Point, and Ramage had been both delighted and nervous until he’d reached the Commissioner’s office and been told the frigate Hotspur had recaptured both the Kathleen and the Spanish frigate towing her into Barcelona, and freed all her crew, who were prisoners in the frigate. His nervousness vanished completely when the Commissioner, after hearing about Cordoba’s instructions, had ordered him to resume command and find Sir John ‘with all despatch’.
But he hadn’t anticipated such a home-coming, for his return to the cutter was just that, and stood open-mouthed at the gangway as the men cheered again and again. By now Jackson and the gig’s crew had come on board and were standing to one side, and as Ramage waved to include them the ship’s company roared their approval.
Southwick said above the din, ‘I think they’d appreciate a few words, sir!’
Ramage jumped up on top of a carronade and held up his hand for silence. He tried to look grim and succeeded: the lean face, hard eyes, the diagonal slash of the scar light against the tan, lips compressed and muscles of the jaw taut, made him look both ruthless and determined.
He held up his hand for silence.
‘You must be the most stupid ship’s company it’s ever been the misfortune of any man to command,’ he said harshly.
The smiles vanished. Every man looked crestfallen, like an errant schoolboy.
‘I’ve tried to kill you with La Sabina and failed. I thought I’d get a second chance with the two frigates but they turned out to be British. I couldn’t be bothered the third time when we met the Spanish Fleet. Now you are so dam’ stupid you cheer me when I come back again.’
With that the men began roaring with laughter and, breaking ranks, surged round him, several of them shouting ‘’ve another go, sir!’
‘I’m going to! But this time – and I’m not joking now – we’ll probably be playing chase with the Santísima Trinidad.’ He paused to let it sink in. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, she carries 130 guns. Once we’ve dealt with her there’ll be six more each of 112 guns, and two with eighty. Then if you’ve still got any fire left in your bellies, there’ll be eighteen more seventy-fours. But don’t think there’ll be any time for grog after that because you’ll still have a few dozen frigates left to bring into Gibraltar or the Tagus!’
If he thought the list would have a sobering effect he was mistaken: the men promptly began cheering again and he glimpsed Southwick rubbing his hands in a familar way. If every Spanish ship’s company had even half their spirit, he reflected, Cordoba’s great fleet would be invincible. Even as the men cheered, Ramage pictured Cordoba’s Fleet leaving Cadiz and joining the French Fleet at Brest for an attempted invasion of England. French troops marching through Cornwall, looting and burning St Kew Hall, and probably guillotining his father for being both an earl and an admiral. The men fell silent and he realized his thoughts showed in his face. Well, despite the need for secrecy on shore, there was no harm in telling them what it was all about, since they’d be at sea in fifteen minutes.
‘Now listen carefully. I’ve told you the size of the Spanish Fleet, and Jackson and the others have probably described what it looked like at anchor in Cartagena. What Jackson and the others don’t know is the whole Fleet was under orders to sail the day before yesterday. The Spanish Admiral has orders to make for Cadiz, so any minute you’re likely to see ’em pass Europa Point and out through The Gut.’
He gestured towards the grey mountains of Africa, less than a dozen miles across the Strait. ‘If they pass through there before we can get out, find Sir John and warn him then only the Spanish and French know what the consequences will be. If a Spanish Fleet that size picks up troops at Cadiz and sails north to raise the blockade of Brest and let the French Fleet join them, then there’s very little to stop them invading England: they’d total more than fifty sail of the line. To stop Cordoba’s twenty-seven sail of the line getting to Cadiz Sir John has only eleven, as far as we know. There you are, men: our job is to warn Sir John, but since we don’t even know where he is, we haven’t a moment to waste… Mr Southwick! Let’s get under way!’