Ramage's Signal (39 page)

Slowly—too slowly? Paolo wondered—the
Caroline
swung to starboard out of the column as though intending to sail right across the bow of the French frigate. Baxter was calling orders to tend sheets and braces and Rossi, pausing a minute or two to compare the frigate's course and the
Caroline
's, nodded content-edly.

Over in the
Matilda,
Rennick did not know whether to cheer or curse; Orsini had obviously had the same idea and, being nearer the Frenchman, the first opportunity.

Paolo was sure that the frigate bore away slightly the moment she saw the
Caroline
haul out of the line, to steer the same course as the convoy.

Mama mia,
the two ships, merchantman and frigate, were closing quickly!

Rossi gave a sharp helm order, Baxter shouted more orders to the men at the sheets and braces, and in what seemed moments the
Caroline
and the French frigate were sailing side by side twenty or thirty yards apart, and Baxter was jabbing him in the side and hissing: “The bluddy trumpet, sir; yer need the speakin'-trumpet!”

Paolo grabbed it and ran to the side, waving at the group of French officers who were gathered on the quarterdeck and staring down at him.

“Attention!”
he shouted in French. “For your own safety keep your distance—we are in the most terrible distress!”

“What has happened?” came back a startled hail.

“
La peste! La peste!
Every ship of the convoy has
la peste!
”

“The plague?” came back a horrified shout. “Where have you come from?”

Damn, he could not remember the place name Aitken had shouted, and he turned to Rossi. “Quickly, where was it Mr Aitken said?”

The seaman told him.

“Mostaganem—half the city seemed to be dying when we left!”

“But what were you all doing on the Barbary coast?”

“The Algerines! They captured the whole convoy, eleven ships. Six of us could pay the ransom and they let us leave. Then
la peste
struck. Every one of us has buried half a crew!”

“What are you doing now?”

“We do not have the strength to beat to windward—to Valencia or Cartagena. We are running for Málaga to quarantine there and get medicines!”

Paolo waited a few moments. He sensed it was working; that his story was being believed because the frigate's officers could see how few men were handling the merchant ships. Right, now for the last throw of the dice.

“We cannot in all humanity ask you for men to handle our ships, but can you go on to Málaga and ensure the authorities have the hospitals prepared for six ships struck with
la peste?
”

“You will not be allowed to land the sick, but yes, I will go ahead and warn them. How many dead so far?”

“Thirty-three dead up to last night. I do not know how many more went today in the other ships. But for myself, I have lost seven. You can see—five of us left. We hope
la peste
left the
Caroline
with the last burial yesterday. But—who knows?”

Already orders were being shouted from the French ship's quarterdeck and first her forecourse and then the main course tumbled down as the gaskets were untied and the sails let fall. While both sails were being sheeted home and the yards braced up, the royals were being set.

The frigate bore away a point and began forging ahead. At the last moment the man Orsini took to be the Captain shouted a course to him. “You are steering a full point too much to the south!”

“Thank you,” Orsini bawled back, “I will bring the convoy round. Thank you; meeting you was our lucky day!”

An hour later the French frigate's hull had disappeared over the horizon ahead of them. In the
Matilda,
Rennick felt curiously cheated but nevertheless relieved; he was unsure what Orsini had done, but it had worked.

In the
Caroline,
Rossi said: “You know, sir, if we
had
got the plague on board, it wouldn't matter whether we was French, Spanish, Dutch or anything: in Málaga or anywhere else they wouldn't allow anyone on shore or on board; we'd have to stay at anchor, or at a quarantine buoy, until everyone with the plague had died and then another three or four weeks had passed.”

“I know,” said Paolo. “Still, the two words,
la peste,
were the only things that could have saved us from that frigate. By the time she has Málaga prepared for our reception, we should be in Gibraltar.”

“Deck there—foremast lookout here!”

“Deck here.”

“Sir, there's another frigate coming up fast on the same course as that last bahstid.”

Paolo felt almost sick. The last trick had been too easy and it was unlikely he could play the same ace twice in one game.

“Get aloft with the glass, Baxter,” he said, not trusting his own knees to get him up the ratlines. “Make the signal to Mr Aitken for a strange sail, and the bearing,” he told Rossi.

Two minutes later Baxter hailed.

“Deck there!”

“Hurry and report!”

“It's a French frigate, sir!”

“I guessed that!”

“She's steering for us, every stitch of canvas set, and another sail just astern of her!”

Two
frigates. Paolo shrugged his shoulders; there was limit to what one's brain could accept. He turned to Rossi.

“As soon as Mr Aitken acknowledges, hoist ‘Two strange sail.'”

“Mr Aitken has already acknowledged the first signal, sir.”

“
Mama mia!
Then make the second,” Paolo said impatiently, but Rossi did not move. Instead he was looking up at Baxter.

“Deck there!” the man hailed.

“Deck here,” Orsini answered wearily.

“The first sail is a frigate, sir, and the second is a tartane.”

“Very well,” Orsini said and as he turned to Rossi he said: “Give me the signal book—I don't think the French have a signal for ‘tartane.'” As Rossi handed him the handwritten sheets which had been sewn together to make a book, Orsini knew his hands were shaking, but he was surprised that Rossi should be grinning at the fact.

As he began to look through the signals Rossi murmured in Italian: “Sir—a frigate and a
tartane
… you remember!”

The
Calypso
and the
Passe Partout! Accidente!
Paolo glanced round at the other ships and then began giving helm orders: Captain Ramage would expect the convoy to be in regular order by the time the frigate and tartane caught up.

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Broos Campbell
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