Ramage and the Renegades

'Oh, just another swimming competition,' Ramage said innocently. 'I thought we could practise on the larboard side.'

'Yes, we'll be out of sight of the privateersmen and the prizes, so the women hostages won't be offended at the sight of dozens of naked seamen splashing about.'

'Exactly,' Ramage said, 'I want a boarding net slung over the side, so the men can hold on to it when they want a rest. And three or four Marines with muskets, in case of sharks.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Aitken said, thankful that the first moves were being taken against the privateersmen.

'And Aitken,' Ramage said quietly, 'don't look so cheerful. I'd just as soon have everyone looking miserable. It shows with a good telescope, you know, and we'd better assume those scoundrels Tomás and Hart are keeping an eye on us. A cheerful man has a jaunty walk. Those scoundrels think that none of the Calypsos have anything to be jaunty about - the officers, anyway.'

'I understand, sir,' Aitken said. 'I can get very miserable at the mere thought of our problems, let alone solving them.'

'That's the spirit,' Ramage said, 'looking sad may keep us alive - and those passengers too.'

He folded Aitken's list of swimmers and put it in his pocket, after taking out another folded sheet of paper which he smoothed out on top of his desk and gestured to Aitken to come across and look at.

The first lieutenant was puzzled by what he saw. 'A raft, sir, or one of those South Sea things? A proa, isn't that the word?'

'A cross between the two. Two stout pieces of wood form the floats, and light planks join them and make a sort of deck. And an eyebolt at each end - one for towing, the other for steering.'

'Ah, yes sir,' Aitken said, obviously puzzled not by the raft but by its purpose. 'About -' he looked at the dimensions which Ramage had scribbled in '- five feet long and two and a half feet wide.'

'I want two, each with eyebolts,' Ramage said.

'Indeed, with eyebolts,' the Scotsman echoed and then looked up. He smiled and said: 'Maybe I could better explain to the carpenter what's needed if I understood its purpose, sir.'

'I'm sure you would,' Ramage said and explained it.

As the rising sun neared the horizon in the east, Ramage went up to the quarterdeck and watched the island turn from a vague grey blur into a heavily-shadowed shape that Wilkins would no doubt call an exercise in the use of black. A sudden movement by the taffrail made Ramage swing round, to be startled by the sight of Wilkins himself perched on the breech of a carronade, legs astride the barrel, a pad in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other.

'Good morning to you. Captain,' the artist said breezily. 'Sorry I made you jump. I hope you don't mind me making free with your quarterdeck, but these fat carronades are more comfortable than the 12-pounders.'

'Go wherever you wish. What are you doing now?'

'A study for a dawn painting of the island, with the prizes in the foreground. Curious how you can really only see the shape of hilly or mountainous land when the sun is low, rising or setting.'

'Yes, a high sun washes out the shapes,' Ramage said.

'Ah, "washes out" - the exact phrase. You've noticed it, then?'

Ramage gave a short laugh. 'Not living in a house means I've seen nearly every dawn and sunset for the past few years, most of them in the Mediterranean, or the West Indies, so I've watched shadows spreading across flat islands and mountainous islands, across the Pyrenees and the Atlas mountains, the Sierras of Spain and the Spanish Main. And at the end of it, Wilkins, I've a confession to make.'

'A confession?' The startled artist swung round, lifting a leg so that both feet were on the top of the carriage.

'Yes, they total more than a thousand wasted dawns, because I am no artist and I haven't been able to record even the dullest of them.'

'Except in your memory,' Wilkins said. 'Don't envy me,' he added, almost a bitter note in his voice.

'But I do. Not just landscapes, but your portraits as well.'

'Well, perhaps a dozen portraits, but no landscapes. With portraits rarely does the sitter, and never his relatives or friends (but particularly his wife) see him through the artist's eyes, or brush. The more worthwhile the landscape, the less popular it is. How many "patrons of the arts" have ever seen dawn breaking from seaward of a West Indian island, or a Tuscan hill town as the first sun of the day washes it with pink? Or the sun setting through the Strait, with your Atlas mountains on the African side and Gibraltar or the High Sierras on the other? Wonderful sights, beautiful enough to make an artist weep for sheer joy - and weep, too, because no visitor to an exhibition of his work, no patron with the money to buy it, is going to believe what he sees on the canvas. "Very imaginative," the patron will say, keeping a firm hand on the strings of his purse. And he will move along the line and buy some miserable daub showing a wet sun setting over the damp Norfolk Broads - a sun looking as though it had been drowned a few times before setting through all that cloud.'

Fascinated at this glimpse of the world of objects, subjects and patrons seen through the eyes of a painter, Ramage said: 'If you can capture Trinidade on canvas just after dawn, noon and sunset, I'll be the first to buy them!'

'That's good of you,' Wilkins said politely, 'but it's not the point I'm making. You've seen it: you know what it's like. I'm grumbling about the people who don't know and refuse to let the painter show them. You probably know the early Florentine painters were laughed at because no one in the north could believe that the light they painted actually existed in Tuscany. Finally, enough people visited Tuscany and saw for themselves, and the Florentines were accepted. But that was a long time ago, and I assure you that Tuscany is still the southern limit of people's credulity!'

'When we get back to London we'll hold an exhibition, showing all your paintings of this expedition - like the paintings of Captain Cook's voyages.'

Wilkins slid off the gun and stood in front of Ramage, the sun's rays giving him a ruddy complexion which did not disguise the serious look in his face.

'Do you really think we shall ever see London again. Captain?'

The sudden question startled Ramage. 'Yes, why ever not?'

Wilkins gestured towards the Lynx and the anchored prizes. 'Those fellows seem to hold all the aces.'

Ramage's harsh laugh was not one intended to reassure Wilkins; it came quite naturally as his memory flickered back over the past few years, when a variety of men had seemed to hold enough aces, yet. . .

'I'm not a gambler, Wilkins; none of the Calypso's officers is. But we've all learned one thing - three aces can be taken by the two of trumps!'

'So we have a two of trumps?'

'I didn't say that; just that we need to find only the two or three if we want to see London again, not necessarily an ace.'

Wilkins laughed, a cheerful laugh which also revealed the relief he felt. 'Tell me, Captain, all those actions of yours described in I don't know how many London Gazettes: how many of those were games won with a two of trumps and how many with an ace?'

'You'd better ask Southwick, he watches the games more closely than I. But I don't remember any aces - or court cards - at all. We always seem to get dealt fives or under!'

Ramage saw the soundings and survey teams assembling on the maindeck and went down to give instructions to Martin.

'Don't be obvious about it, but each day I want you to take three or four soundings and get a rough idea of the depths between us and the Lynx. You'll soon have that reef on the western side of the bay charted, but make sure you cover the eastern side, too.'