Ramage and the Freebooters

First, the spy was so sure his tom-tom and bonfire method would never be discovered that he revealed his knowledge by passing the signal before the schooner sailed. Very well, that probably wasn't over-confidence on his part—tom-toms were beating most nights, and the two frigates didn't spot the bonfires.

Secondly, suppose the spy was caught. He might be doing it for money—the privateers would pay well for information. Or he might be French and doing it to further the Revolution —Grenada was only just recovering from Fedon's Revolt. Once captured, could the spy be forced to reveal where the privateers were based? It was possible. But would it help that much, with only the Triton to tackle them? These privateers would be among the fastest vessels in the islands. Going to windward they could sail rings round the Triton. Yet—he ran his hand along his jaw: the razor was blunt— perhaps they could be trapped in their base. The fact that it was well-hidden might also mean it was hard to get out of: maybe the privateers had to use boats to tow themselves out...

There was a knock on the door and Southwick called, 'Maxton's here, sir.'

'Send him in.'

Ramage made the last few strokes with the razor, wiped off the remaining soap, and looked at his face. His eyes were more sunken than usual; his cheeks too. That meant he was worrying more than he realized; a few late nights didn't do that. He must have lost six or eight pounds in weight. Yet he wasn't conscious of worrying overmuch.

He walked into the day cabin and saw Maxton standing just inside the door, obviously overawed at his first visit to the Captain's quarters.

'How were the family, Maxton?'

'Glad to see me, sah.'

'Your parents alive?'

'Yes sah! My father's a freed slave.'

'Brothers and sisters?'

'Four brothers, three sisters, sah. And twenty-seven nephews and nieces.'

'Congratulations,' Ramage said, smiling as he tried to average it out. If all seven had wives or husbands, it was nearly four children each. He brushed the irrelevance aside: his approach to the seaman was going to be unorthodox.

'Ah—Maxton, I need your help.'

'Yes sah?'

'You heard the tom-toms last night?'

Maxton's eyes seemed suddenly to become opaque before he looked away.

'No sah, I didn't hear no drums.'

Interesting—he called them 'drums'.

'Nothing? You heard nothing?'

'Nothin', sah.'

The man moistened his thick lips; his hands wrestled with each other. Perspiration was beading his upper lip and brow, and he looked down at the deck.

'Well, someone was beating them last night, Maxton.'

'If you say so, sah.'

'And the drums were talking, Maxton.'

'Yes, sah.'

'But you didn't hear them?'

'No sah, I heard nothin'.'

'Well, I heard them, Maxton. Shall I tell you what they said?'

Maxton's eyes flickered at Ramage for an instant before looking down again. He was terror-stricken: that much was clear, though Ramage could think of no reason nor guess the man's thoughts.

'They were passing a signal, Maxton. They said that a schooner was sailing from St George for Martinique.'

Ramage thought for a moment, suddenly realizing something he had not thought of before—an ordinary bonfire could only signal one fact, unless someone hid the light for a moment or two and showed it again, as the Red Indians did. But Appleby had reported that several trees were burning to make the bonfire, so obviously that was impossible. But hold on—did it mean the bonfires were lit a certain time before the schooner sailed?( Two hours before? Was that the prearranged signal? It was worth trying.

'The drums also said the schooner would sail at ten o'clock, Maxton. And you heard it and you knew what it said.'

'No sah,' the man exclaimed, his hands held out as if imploring Ramage to believe him. 'No sah, I didn't hear nothin'.'

'You heard the drum, you knew what it said, and why it was saying it, yet you didn't warn me. You knew that drum was helping the enemy, Maxton. An enemy you know we're trying to stop capturing the schooners. The same enemy who tried to kill us several times when we served in the Kathleen? Then he added as an afterthought: 'An enemy who is trying to kill me now, Maxton.'

'Oh no he's not, sah: he's just tryin' to capture the schooners. You see, the freebooters------'

He broke off, realizing he'd just given himself away.

'Maxton,' Ramage warned quietly, 'I won't bother to warn you about the Articles of War: you know the penalties for helping the enemy by not passing on information to the officers. I'm just sad that you care so little about me and the rest of your shipmates that you'd let us all get killed by walking into a trap.'

For a minute or two Maxton just stood trembling, his eyes large, perspiration running down his face, lips quivering; a man in the grip of a great, perhaps nameless fear. Suddenly he seemed to get control of himself and with an enormous effort of will he said:

'If I said anythin' about the message sah, they'd kill all my family and me too.'

'Who would?'

'Why, the loogaroos sah,' he exclaimed, as if surprised Ramage did not know.

The loupgarou, the vampire: Ramage remembered the natives' twin fears, jumbies and loupgarous. Of the two, jumbies were less fearsome—evil spirits that could be kept at bay with jumbie beads, which were talismen or lucky charms. Jumbies could be bought off with offerings of money and other things and were mischievous rather than dangerous.

But not loupgarous. They came out only at night, flying around unseen in the darkness to attack unsuspecting people and drink their blood, leaving them maimed or dead. And no one knew who they were, for they were really human beings whose spirits emerged from their sleeping bodies and changed into vampires.

They spent the night going about their dreadful business and before dawn returned to the sleeping bodies so that these particular men never knew that, as they slept, they turned into loupgarous. And only the witch doctor could summon up the loupgarous; only a witch doctor could order them to attack a particular person. More important though, Ramage realized, no white man could ever persuade a coloured man they did not exist; that they were a lot of nonsense invented by witch doctors. Oh, what was the use, he thought: this was voodoo; black magic practised in Africa for centuries and then transported to the West Indies. It'd be as impossible to persuade a West Indian that loupgarous did not exist as to convince a Scots Calvinist that Christ never existed.

But for all that, Ramage knew he needed the information; he needed it so desperately that he had to use questionable methods to get it.

'Maxton, you believe the witch doctor can order the loupgarous to kill you and your family, so naturally you're frightened of him.'

The West Indian nodded. Suddenly Ramage snapped:

'Are you frightened of me?'

The man shook his head vigorously, surprise showing on his face. 'No sah!'

'Why not? I too can kill you—you've broken one of the Articles of War and I can have you hanged. And the Governor can hang your family for abetting you in treason.'

To Ramage's amazement the West Indian suddenly dropped to his knees, muttering—gabbling, almost—a prayer in what Ramage recognized was crudely-pronounced Latin: a Catholic prayer.

Then sickened by what he was doing and what he had to do, he realized Maxton's terrible predicament. The Catholic priest had, in his childhood, made Maxton a Christian and frightened him to death with visions of Hell's fire and eternal damnation; at the same time the witch doctors had been busy with equally horrifying voodoo threats; of loupgarous and jumbies and nameless evils of darkness and ignorance, the extent of which Ramage could only guess.