Ramage

Gripping the knife in his right hand, he took the neck of her dress with his left. Difficult - oh, to the devil with modesty: he was so shaky with worry for the girl's very life that the chance of seamen seeing a bared breast in the moonlight didn't matter. As he began carefully to cut the material he saw her eyes flicker open.

'Dove sono Io?' she whispered.

'Sta tranquilla: Lei e con amici'

Jackson was looking at him anxiously.

'She asked where she is.'

He knelt on the bottom boards so that by bending slightly his head was level with hers, and said: 'Don't worry: we are going to attend to your wound.'

‘Thank you.'

'The light, Jackson.'

The American held up the lantern while Ramage slit the shoulder and sleeve seams of her dress, then the lace and silk of her petticoat and shift. They were stiff, and the bloodstains appeared black in the lantern light. With the last stitch cut he slipped the knife back in his boot and gently pulled away the layers of material. Each piece had an identical hole torn in it. The top of her shoulder showed white, almost like part of an alabaster statue, but just below, beneath the outer end of the collarbone, the skin was dark and swollen from an enormous bruise. Jackson moved the lantern slightly, so the light showed at a better angle, and Ramage saw the wound itself, in the centre of the bruise.

'Other side, sir...' whispered Jackson.

In other words, Ramage thought, did the shot go right through?

He stood up and bent over, tucking his left hand behind her and gently raising her left side until he could slide his right hand down the back of her dress, running his fingers softly over the shoulder blade and left side of her back. There was no corresponding wound: the skin was smooth - and cold, a cold which seemed to run up his arm into his body. He wanted to clasp her; to give her some of his own warmth; to comfort her. The shot, an alien, powder-scorched lump of lead, was still in her body, and the thought made him feel sick.

'Ask her if she knows how far away the Frog was, sir,' suggested Jackson.

Ramage leaned over and said gently: 'When the man fired, were you facing him?'

‘Yes ... we didn't know the horsemen were there until the peasant called out. One of them fired just as I turned round.'

‘How far away were they?'

'A long way: it was a lucky shot'

Lucky! thought Ramage.

When Ramage translated, Jackson said: 'That's good, sir: at that range the shot must have been almost spent. We might be able to get it out.'

Might! thought Ramage: to save her life they had to, before gangrene set in.

'You'll have to help me.'

Jackson put the lantern on the thwart, tore more pieces of shirt, and leaned over the side to soak them in sea water. Then, holding the lantern in one hand, he passed the wet cloths to Ramage.

'Tell me if it hurts too much,' Ramage whispered, and she nodded. He began bathing away the encrusted blood.

For what seemed like hours, but must have been at the most fifteen minutes, he tried to find where the shot was lodged in her flesh, using the point of his knife as a probe. She never flinched, never groaned, never once whispered that he was hurting her. Occasionally she just shivered, as though she had ague; but Ramage did not know whether it was from cold, fear, fever or reaction - he'd often seen men shaking violently after receiving a bad wound.

As he stood up, back aching and hands trembling, she seemed smaller, as if the intense pain made her shrink.

'It's no good,' he said quietly to Jackson. 'I daren't probe any deeper.'

The American gave him some dry cloth, which he folded into a pad and put on the wound. Finally, with the last strip of bandage tied in place, he re-arranged her clothing as well as possible, and wrapped the coat round her.

'That's as comfortable as I can manage,' he said apologetically.

'I am all right,' she said, ‘I think you have suffered much more than I.'

She reached up with her left hand and touched his brow, and he realized he was soaking wet with perspiration. She turned to Jackson, and said, 'Thank you, too.'

Now he needed time to think.

'Give me the charts and lantern, Jackson; then get the compass and take the tiller. Continue steering due west for the time being.'

Ramage leaned back against the gunwale, lantern in one hand and charts in the other. His body felt shaky; his mind was full of a great black bruise; in fact the sea, the land, his whole life, was one black bruise....

The essentials, he told himself; concentrate on the essentials. If he could not get the Marchesa to a doctor within a few hours, the wound would go gangrenous; and gangrene in the shoulder meant death.

He had brought death to her cousin, Pitti. Had he brought - or rather, was he bringing - death to this girl? It seemed a long time ago - although it was only a couple of nights - that he'd read Sir John's orders. If only he'd returned to Bastia and raised the alarm, so that another frigate could have gone to pick them up...

Anyway, what for the moment could be salvaged? The Marchesa's safety was now his immediate concern. That solved the problem of his next move, and he unrolled the chart.

He needed a place where he could find - temporarily kidnap, if necessary - a doctor; and it had to be somewhere with a small bay or cove close by, so that he could hide the boat and get the girl on shore.

The neatly drawn chart stared up at him: the carefully inked outline of the islands stood out almost in relief, and the handwriting of the Sibella’s late master - for it was his chart - showed the ports available. Port' Ercole was the nearest - he could see roughly where it was, almost in line with the peak of Monte Argentario. But the chart showed it was too rock-bound to be sure of finding a suitable place for hiding.

But following the coast of Argentario as it trended round in an almost complete circle from Port' Ercole, he saw a large bay only two or three miles short of the port of Santo Stefano: a bay called Cala Grande, with several little inlets and, more important, the cliffs almost sheer on all three sides.

Cala Grande - the Large Bay. Behind it, he noticed, were two small mountain peaks, Spadino and Spaccabellezze. How did they get their names? 'Little Sword' and 'Beautiful Cleft'. Like the cleft between her breasts, perhaps.

My God, he thought to himself, why can't I ever concentrate? He measured the distance. The men would have to put their backs into rowing. He rolled up the chart and put down the lantern. The sudden movements made the seamen glance up from their oars.

'Men,' he said. 'We are putting in to a bay about a dozen miles ahead, so that I can get a doctor for the lady. We've got to get there by dawn so that we can hide the boat.'

'How is the lady, sir?'

The man with the shot wound in the wrist was asking. Ramage was annoyed with himself for not telling them: after all, they had given the shirts off their backs for her - apart from risking their lives in the rescue.

'The Marchesa is about as well as we can hope. She has a shot in her shoulder, but I can't get the ball out. That's why we need a doctor...'

There were murmurs of sympathy: they knew much better than she how an untreated shot wound could end.

A man suddenly stood up in the bow. He had no oar and Ramage almost groaned: Pisano again.

'I demand...'

'Parla Italiano'snapped Ramage, not wanting the seamen to know whatever it was that Pisano intended demanding.

The man lapsed into Italian. 'I demand we continue to the rendezvous.'

‘Why?'

'Because it is too dangerous to go to Santo Stefano: the French are in occupation.'

'We are not going to Santo Stefano.'

'But you just said—'

'I said we were going to a bay, and that I was going to get a doctor from Santo Stefano.'