Ramage and the Freebooters

'And I—my Lord—am Claire.'

'And may I have the pleasure of the next dance, Claire?'

'I must look at my programme.' She pretended to read it. 'By chance I am not engaged for the next dance, Lieutenant.'

They danced, paused for refreshments and danced again for nearly two hours. By then Ramage had given up trying to conceal that she was making him tremble: the silk of her dress moved so smoothly under his right hand that she might well have been naked. She knew it, she accepted it, and she responded. Time was forgotten—until a planter dancing with his plump and drab wife growled, 'It's past ten o'clock—I want a drink!'

With that Ramage jerked himself out of the sensuous little world he'd been briefly sharing with Claire. Damnation! Had the schooner sailed?

Suddenly he realized that the rest of the dancers were swirling past while he stood in front of Claire, who was watching him anxiously.

'Is anything wrong?"

'The heat—I'd like some fresh air. Would—do you think we can risk gossip and go on to the balcony?'

She laughed gaily, relieved at his explanation. 'There's no risk attached to gossip; one either accepts or rejects it.'

'Or ignores it.'

'Or ignores it,' she repeated as they walked to the door.

'Which do you do?'

'I've never been thought important enough to be gossiped about!'

'The Governor's "Lord Chamberlain" is too modest. . But------'

'But if I was? I'd ignore or reject: it's the same either way.'

As they reached the balcony he saw the schooner had sailed. The last bonfire was nearly out; the last torch fisherman had gone home. The lagoon and the harbour looked like glass; just a breath of wind rippled the surface and there was only an occasional tiny green splash as a fish jumped and stirred up phosphorescence. His watch showed it was eleven minutes past ten.

And a tom-tom, which had been beating as they came out on to the balcony, gave a few more desultory beats and stopped.

'There's more music in a tom-tom than in the Governor's orchestra,' he commented.

She shivered unexpectedly. 'It's cold out here!'

'But wait a few moments—you enjoy this view year after year. In a couple of months' time I might be in a snow storm off Newfoundland!'

There was no one else on the balcony and he kissed her, and what seemed hours later, when she'd whispered 'Will you remember me when the snow is falling?' the distant tom-tom had long finished beating out its message to whichever heathen god was listening.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The shout of a sentry roused Ramage before daylight. A few moments later, with more shouted challenges—apparently to an approaching boat—and the sound of men running along the deck, he was wide awake, leaping out of his cot and grabbing a pair of pistols. He flung open the cabin door just as the Marine sentry outside shouted 'Captain, sir!' and reached the quarterdeck in time to meet Jackson running aft to report.

'It's Mr Appleby, sir: he's just arrived from Carriacou!'

A few minutes later the boat, a half-decked fishing drogher, was anchored to leeward of the Triton and Appleby was coming up the side. Then Southwick appeared, still half asleep, and the Corporal of Marines with four of his men stood round with lanterns, uncertain what to do.

Appleby reached the deck, saw Ramage in the lantern light and saluted.

'Good morning, Appleby! What brings you back? Something interesting to report?'

Appleby grinned uncertainly, as if he was having second thoughts.

'Good morning, sir: yes—at least, I hope you'll think so.'

'Very well—you haven't eaten, I suppose? No? Steward— tea at once, and breakfast in ten minutes!'

In the cabin Ramage paced up and down, shoulders hunched to avoid bumping his head on the low beams, while Appleby sat nervously at the table. It had taken Ramage two or three minutes to get him started off on his story—he'd suddenly become nervous, apparently afraid at the last minute that Ramage would think his report ridiculous and blame him for leaving Carriacou.

'We were keeping a sharp watch on the islands and the north end of Grenada, just as you told us, sir. Then last night at 8.42 exactly we saw a bonfire suddenly light up on a hill above Levera—that's on the north-east side of Grenada.'

'I know it,' Ramage said. 'Could you make out how big?'

'Through the "bring 'em near" it looked much more than a bonfire: as if several big trees were burning.'

'And then?'

'Well, I wouldn't have thought much about it—after all, sir, it could have started accidentally—but about ten minutes later another bonfire started on the north side of Kick 'em Jenny. That wasn't so big but easy to see because it was much nearer.'

'The Levera bonfire—could you have seen that easily from Carriacou without a telescope?'

'It'd have been chancy, sir. Probably missed it if there'd been a bit of haze, rain squall—even a bright moonlit night.'

'But the one on Kick 'em Jenny?'

'Could see that plain as anything, sir, without the glass.'

Ramage nodded as he tried to recall some of the events of the previous evening at Government House.

'Then the drum started, sir,' he added, almost as an afterthought.

'The what?' Ramage almost shouted.

'The drum sir—tom-tom, I mean. At the south end of Carriacou. It was about five minutes after the bonfire started at Kick 'em Jenny that this tom-tom started—well tom-tomming. As soon as it stopped another one started about six miles away—I reckon it was somewhere in the middle of the island. Seemed to beat the same sort of tune. When that one finished we thought we heard a third one at the north end, but none of us was sure.'

'No bonfires to the north?'

'Well, sir, that's what bothered me. It was the first thing I thought of when I realized these tom-toms might be passing a message across the island, so we dashed up the hill and looked. We saw a red glow—just a reflection really at the north end of Carriacou, that's for sure.

'Then about five minutes after that I thought I could see the reflection of another bonfire on the north side of Union Island—you remember sir,' he continued, 'that's the one between Carriacou and Bequia. But to be honest, I'm not absolutely sure. We'd all got a bit excited by then and I might have been imagining it. The men weren't sure, either. Afraid we let you down there, sir.'

Ramage shook his head. 'Don't worry about that: I'd sooner know you weren't absolutely sure than have you tell me you were when you weren't. Go on, then.'

'Well, we got a boat and sailed for here.'

The steward knocked and brought in two mugs of tea. 'Breakfast's ready now, sir.'

'Very well—ask Mr Southwick to join us.'

As soon as the Master came down, he told Appleby to repeat his story and, sipping the tea, Ramage reviewed his evening's activities at Government House with a mixture of shame, anger and irritation. Instead of using every minute of the time he was at the Governor's Ball to watch and listen, he'd spent most of the time flirting with a woman—more than flirting, he thought, growing hot with the memory—just like some sailor given a night's shore leave. Trying to dismiss the memory he pictured the scene from the balcony and suddenly remembered the schooner.

'Did you pass a schooner going north as you came down?' he interrupted the master's mate.

'Yes sir, about two o'clock this morning we passed one off Kick 'em Jenny.'

'The wind?'

'Stiff breeze from the east, sir—though the island blanketed us once we were in the lee.'

Moodily Ramage < resumed sipping his tea, picturing the scenes on each of the islands during the night. While he'd danced at Government House, men had watched for a bonfire on their neighbour to the south, and as soon as they spotted it, got out tom-toms and passed the news northwards across their own island to other men waiting on the north side ready to light another signal fire. No wonder news travelled so fast!