Ramage And The Rebels

'Only you and Mr Aitken to eat now, sir. The men have had enough to last a week.'

'And Mr Orsini?'

Jackson began laughing. 'He's been your head chef, sir, standing over the man who was roasting it. Reckon he knows just how you like it, sir, red in the middle and brown at the edges. Most concerned, he was.'

Ramage sat down and began eating. The rising sun was still below the horizon but just beginning to catch the peak of Sint Christoffelberg, which was 1200 feet high, although not yet lighting the top of Tafelberg in front of it, which was only 750 feet.

Where were the rebels making for? There were villages all round Sint Christoffelberg, although it seemed possible they'd make for Sint Kruis Baai, on the coast near the southern slope of the great peak and close to where the Calypso had been when she first sighted La Perle. Then Ramage dismissed the idea: why make for a bay when you have no boats to rescue you?

This beef is good. It tastes all the better for being eaten with the fingers, juice running down the sleeve and down the chin, tickling, and the chin unshaven and rasping as a sleeve serves as a napkin. All the better, too, knowing that all the men now bustling around have eaten their fill of it. No one at the finest hotel in London could taste such beef - but two hundred Calypsos had just gorged themselves on it. They deserved such a feast, even though there were no vegetables and no tots to wash it down - the Marine sergeant had. been ordered to pour away all the wine, otherwise by now several men would be drunk.

It was, of course, a feast in a strangely beautiful cemetery, because the corpses of the Frenchmen were still over there, but the rising sun was casting fantastic long shadows, using rounded hills and mountain peaks and cactus and the small divi-divi trees which always pointed towards the west, leaning in deference to the Trade winds. No clouds yet and the stars have faded, the moon becoming anaemic. In a few minutes the sun will come with its usual rush and the grey countryside will suddenly be dappled with pink as the upper rim - he shook his head and stood up: there had been killing a few hours ago, there was more to come. His cutlass was still stained with the blood of Brune - he refused to think of the grim coincidence which had brought them together, because killing the man gave no satisfaction: he would have preferred a trial. Time, time when Brune was locked alone in a cell and perhaps in the long nights the enormity of what he had done in the Tranquil would come to him. Yet it would not; a man who could order the unnecessary massacre of innocent men and women was so beyond the understanding of civilized people that he was almost beyond judicial punishment: one did not try a rabid dog.

'Ah, Rennick!' The Marine officer had seen him get up from his meal, and was ready for orders. 'Well, you still have your guide - I'm leaving mine here to get the casualties back to Amsterdam. So let's ferret out the rest of those rebels. Have your guide question anyone you see on the road: we don't want to march a yard more than necessary.'

'I was just going to report, sir,' Rennick said, 'but I decided to wait until you'd eaten. A Dutch farmer who rode in to see what was happening - the rebels burned down his house two days ago - has just told the guide that he's just seen them beyond a village called Pannekoek, about six or seven miles along the road. It's a couple of miles short of Sint Kruis Baai. They're just gathered there, in no sort of order, and apparently with no leader. He's emphatic they're in no sort of order. They had small campfires lit and went hunting for cattle and goats to cook - there are very few cattle there, he says, so they'll have to be content with goat, which the local people won't normally eat.'

'We can't trap them, I suppose?'

'No, sir, not from what he says and the map shows. When they see us coming they'll just move west. We can only trap them at the far end of the island, West Punt, when they meet the sea.'

'Very well, let's see your Marines stepping out. A steady pace, not too fast: the seamen have some aching muscles after the night's stroll.'

As Ramage watched the French camp through his telescope he cursed the Dutch farmer, although it was not the poor fellow's fault that the French had marched another couple of miles and then spent the busiest morning of their lives since the Dutchman passed. The Frenchmen's backs would be aching, their hands sore, their heads aching from the triple assault of last night's drinking, this morning's effort, and the scorching sun beating down on them as they picked up hundreds - thousands more likely - of the rocks and stones littering the fields and used them to build up three or four dozen little defensive positions, like miniature butts built for a partridge or pheasant drive, along the top of a hill at the eastern side of Sint Kruis Baai.

Obviously this was where the French and the rebels had decided to stand and fight. With the sea at their backs in the protected bay, perhaps they intended to retreat to ships or boats - there might be other privateers around, though Ramage doubted it. Were some privateersmen going to try to seize one or two of those anchored in Amsterdam and sail them round here? That too seemed doubtful, and even if they tried they were unlikely to succeed.

Rennick, who was also lying beside Ramage inspecting the French defences, was impressed by the amount of work but scornful of its effectiveness. 'All that shifting of stone would be admirable if they were building a barracks,' he said. 'The masons could pick and choose. But they've fallen into the trap of fixed defences.'

Ramage smiled to himself; it was a trap from which Ren - nick had been rescued only yesterday, when he had planned a defence for Amsterdam. They've chosen a good place, though,' he said mildly. 'That hill rising gently means they look down on us, and behind there's only a few feet of cliff to jump down if they want to get away in boats.'

'Oh yes,' Rennick said airily, 'they can watch us, but each of our men needs only a dozen rocks and he's safe behind his own musket - proof rampart'

'But we have to storm them uphill,' Ramage said, curious to see what Rennick had in mind. 'And with all these divi-divi trees and cactus and whatever those other bushes are called, the men will be slowed up. Why, you can't even see the ground for the undergrowth!'

'Attack in the dark, sir,' Rennick said. 'Or, rather, just as darkness falls. Then we can see them against the afterglow of the sunset, but we are coming from the east and attacking out of the dark half.'

'Rennick, is that really a good bet? The odds mean the bookmaker can't lose. Two defenders to one attacker, the attackers slowed up by the slope of the hill and undergrowth, with no surprise possible . . .'

The Marine officer was silent for a minute or two and then admitted: Their position does in effect give them another hundred men, I admit; but they'll be fighting with their backs to the sea, so they've cut off their own line of retreat.'

'Then they must be pretty sure they won't have to retreat,' Ramage said, deliberately making his voice sound .grim. 'Militarily we don't seem to be in a very good position."

Rennick wriggled, looked again through his telescope, and then said judicially: 'I have to agree with you, sir."

'All this military business baffles me,' Ramage suddenly admitted. 'I'd be lost the moment I went through the gateway at the Horse Guards. But as a sailor I can see we have one advantage.'

Rennick waited to hear about it and when Ramage said nothing, finally asked: 'What advantage had you in mind, sir?'

'We have the weather gage; with this south - east wind we are to windward of them.'

'But sir, I don't see how that can help us.'

'Oh, there are many advantages. We can breathe garlic over them. If they look hungry we can roast some beef over a bonfire and drive them mad with starvation as they smell the aroma. We can call out insults and be sure they hear every word.'