After music there were books and authors, and the game of completing quotations. Sarah or Ramage would give the first few words and the other had to complete it and name the source. Shakespeare was the favourite; they agreed that Lear was the least favourite of his plays. She knew far more poetry than he, but was anxious to teach him.
The walking about the deck soon restored the muscle in his right leg, and he was able to stop using the cane. Then David Williams and Walter White, the two surveyors, asked to see him and reported they had finished all the field work for their survey and the draughtsmen had now completed their first draught. The final drawings, White said, would be done in London, 'because it is impossible to do a good job in the Tropics'.
'Why not?' inquired a puzzled Ramage. 'We're not rolling or anything.'
'No, sir, it's the heat and the ink: it dries so quickly on the pen that they can't draw a line more than six inches long. It means the line starts off black but turns grey after a couple of inches . . . Makes the drawing look very patchy, sir.'
Martin and Orsini completed their soundings of the possible anchorages and Ramage took the Calypso out for three days to run a few lines of soundings round the island, up to two miles offshore. The frigate had only just anchored again, an hour before noon, when a boat came over from the Earl of Dodsworth with a letter. It was from the master, Hungerford, and was a formal invitation. The master of the Earl of Dodsworth and his guests requested the pleasure of the company of Captain Ramage and his officers to dinner tomorrow at half past one o'clock.
When Sarah and her mother paid a visit later, they were vague about it: there was nothing special about the occasion, as far as they knew; simply that Hungerford understood that Captain Ramage was now recovered enough to be able to visit the Earl of Dodsworth, and was now looking forward to entertaining the officers of the Calypso. Starting, Sarah had suggested, what would presumably become a regular social exchange between the two ships during the long voyage back to England.
Ramage was thankful that his arm had healed enough for him to leave off the sling: he had become thoroughly exasperated with having Silkin cut up his food, and then having to eat everything one-handed. Even breaking a piece of bread was a major effort using only one hand. He still needed the sling by the time evening came, when tiring muscles made the arm throb like a bad headache.
Wagstaffe insisted on remaining on board as the officer of the deck while the rest of them went off to the Earl of Dodsworth, and Ramage was thankful to accept his offer. The second lieutenant pointed out that he had not taken part in any of the captures, and obviously the passengers on board the East Indiaman were going to be expressing their thanks.
It was another beautiful day: the sun hot and bright, sea and sky the usual startling blue, and Ramage and his officers were rowed over to the Earl of Dodsworth in the Calypso's launch to find the John Company ship's deck splendidly cool. More awnings had been stretched so that no sun touched the deck between the mainmast and the taffrail, and more canvas had been laid on the quarterdeck like a huge carpet. Many chairs were scattered about and two large tables bore decanters, jugs and glasses.
Ramage was met at the gangway by Hungerford, who turned to greet Aitken while the Marquis of Rockley stepped forward.
'Ah, Ramage, it's good to see you well again. I've been receiving daily reports from my wife and daughter, but nothing beats seeing you with my own eyes.'
'I've been a trouble to a number of people,' Ramage said apologetically. 'The leg business was particularly annoying. Getting slashed across the arm by a cutlass is one thing, but being blown across one's own quarterdeck in an armchair seems almost like carelessness!'
The Marquis laughed and, taking Ramage's arm, led him towards the other passengers waiting on the quarterdeck. 'To tell you the truth,' he murmured, 'the two women have loved every minute of your convalescence. They've never had their very own wounded hero to fuss and worry over!'
Those Army uniforms: their owner had never been wounded, nor did he rate the description of a hero! Who the devil was he?
Ramage kissed the Marchioness's hand and answered her inquiries about his health. He turned to Sarah and, knowing every passenger was watching, kissed her hand with the expected politeness, and then turned to accompany the Marquis and walk round, talking to the other passengers, all of whom he had met the day before he'd swum to the Heliotrope, and all of whom now wanted to hear from his own lips every detail of everything that had happened since.
Was his Lordship sure that the wicked leaders of the pirates had been killed when the Lynx exploded? Was he certain that none could have escaped and swum ashore? Was there the slightest chance of them meeting another pirate ship on the voyage home? Would the privateersmen imprisoned in the Calypso be hanged when they reached England?
One woman, and Ramage recalled she was a Mrs Donaldson, proclaimed loudly that the pirates held in the Calypso should be tried before the ship sailed from Trinidade. and hanged from gibbets erected along the small beach, their bodies left hanging in chains as a warning to any more pirates who might visit the island after the Calypso had gone.
Several of the passengers - Mrs Donaldson among them, Ramage noticed - were happily drinking and keeping the stewards busy fetching fresh glasses. Soon Aitken, Kenton, Martin, Southwick and Paolo were mingling with the passengers, and quite naturally Ramage and the Rockley family became separated as the new faces attracted attention among a group of people who had been together for many weeks, from the time the Earl of Dodsworth had left Calcutta, making her way down the muddy Hooghly river to the sea.
The Marquis was anxious to hear more details from Ramage about the recent treaty with Bonaparte, and again expressed his doubts. The French, he declared, were determined to have India, and Bonaparte was prepared to play a waiting game. However, once he heard that his own views were shared by Ramage and that many powerful figures in London, including the Earl of Blazey and most other admirals in the Navy List except St Vincent, felt the same, he let the subject drop.
The Marchioness said, out of the blue: 'I've been telling Sarah that she must make more use of her parasoclass="underline" her face is getting quite brown; quite unbecoming, in my view.'
Sarah smiled impishly at Ramage. 'Well, let us hear your view, Captain.'
Ramage felt his own face turning red beneath the suntan because he had been encouraging Sarah to lose the cream colour on her cheeks, and let the skin turn golden in the sun. Indeed, most nights he had gone to sleep imagining her whole body a golden brown, and he suspected that Sarah had guessed.
He looked up to find the Marquis chuckling. 'You poor fellow, you are in a fix! Do you upset the mother or the daughter - the problem most young men face sooner or later! Well, I'll add my pennorth by saying I think she looks beautiful whether peaches and cream or golden, and I see that Captain Hungerford wants us to lead the way down to the saloon!'
He was thankful for the Marquis's intervention, and then saw that the Marchioness was smiling and as she passed close she whispered: 'Don't think you'll always escape as easily: I am a golden dragon, the highest rank of the species!' Ramage was surprised and pleased to see Wilkins among the guests. He was very well dressed and obviously quite at home among the passengers.