The excitement of her first day at sea had left Gianna tired, and as soon as dinner was finished and Rossi had cleared the table she had smiled ruefully at Ramage and said she was going to bed. Ramage took her to her cabin and then went up on deck to have a chat with Southwick, who was on watch.
The Portuguese coast was now a thin black line low and vague on the dark eastern horizon. Ramage had decided quite deliberately not to beat far out into the Atlantic; instead he planned to clear Cabo Finisterra by only a few miles, even though the Spanish bases of Coruña and Ferrol were just a short distance round the Cape to the eastward. British frigates - if not a sizeable squadron - were keeping a close watch on them even as the Arabella stretched along the coast, and the packet would probably be safer close in.
After a glance at the slate recording the Arabella's recent courses and speeds, Ramage looked at the two helmsmen, their faces lit faintly by the light in the binnacle box, nodded to Southwick and went below to his cabin again. The Master had been given his night orders, which he would later pass on to Much: orders which covered any likely eventuality. A major wind shift or change in its strength, sighting another vessel, doubt concerning the ship's position - any of these circumstances and many more would result in the captain being called.
In the meantime Ramage was now feeling sleepy and decided he might well spend an hour or two beginning a draft of his report to the Admiralty. He took the lantern from the centre of the cabin's forward bulkhead, where it lit up the table, and hooked it on the bracket on the starboard side of the bulkhead, so that he would see to work at the desk.
For the next hour he wrote and crossed out, tore up complete pages and started again. The Arabella was rolling; not heavily, just enough to make it necessary to wedge the inkwell. He was thankful the desk had been built athwartships against the bulkhead, so that he faced forward: it made it less tiring than if he had to face outboard.
The sentry tapped on the door and said quietly, to avoid rousing the occupants of the other cabins, "Mr Yorke, sir."
Ramage glanced up as the door to his left opened in response to his reply.
"Want a game of chess?" he asked mockingly.
"Don't you start," Yorke said wearily. "I've been fighting off Bowen for hours. He seems to think that Southwick standing a watch is a deliberate plot on your part to keep him away from the chessboard."
"I doubt if Southwick minds," Ramage said, getting up from the desk and going to sit in a chair by the table on the other side of the cabin.
"Don't be too sure," Yorke said sitting in a chair beyond. "Your Master is getting the disease. He beat Bowen in three consecutive games just before we left Lisbon."
"Oh? I didn't hear about that!"
"I'm not surprised: Bowen was too startled, and Southwick couldn't believe it himself. I think Bowen was getting careless."
"If you'd like a drink..." Ramage gestured to the locker in which bottles sat in racks.
Yorke shook his head. "No, I want to sleep lightly tonight."
When Ramage raised his eyebrows questioningly, Yorke said: "The packetsmen ... I don't trust that Bosun an inch."
"I imagine he's borne that cross since he was a baby and first reached out of the crib to pick his father's pocket," Ramage said dryly.
Yorke glanced at Ramage's desk, on which there were several sheets of paper, and the open inkwell. "I shouldn't be interrupting you."
"Plenty of time for that: I was starting a draft of my report to the First Lord."
"I saw Much tickling his chin with a quill."
"I've told him to write a report to me, so that I can enclose it."
"He seems to have as much enthusiasm for quill-pushing as you," Yorke commented, picking up one of the two pistols lying on the settee. "I see you don't follow your own instructions, Captain. This isn't loaded! Mine are loaded and ready!"
Ramage pointed to the box on the settee. "There's powder, wads and shot..."
"Armourer - that's the only job I haven't had since I've been with you," Yorke said caustically. "I'd make a good armourer, you know," he confided. "I love guns. Not as instruments to kill" - he snapped the lock a couple of times to check the spark from the flint - "but just for good craftsmanship. Not one of these Sea Service pistols, of course; but a pair of good duelling pistols by someone like Henry Nock."
He took the powder flask, slid back the rammer and methodically loaded the gun.
"I feel the same way," Ramage said. "A gun is inert; just a piece of metal with a flint and some wood attached to it. By itself it can't move or kill anything: it can't do a damned thing unless someone picks it up."
"Ah - an interesting point," Yorke commented, beginning to load the second pistol. "Who is the killer - the gun that fires the shot or the man who squeezes the trigger?"
Ramage sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. "That's a fatuous point which isn't worth mentioning, my friend, let alone discussing. No-" He stopped and listened for a moment. The rudder still creaked as the wheel turned a spoke or two this way or that, keeping the ship on course: he could picture the quartermaster checking by the dim light at the compass and muttering something to the men at the wheel. The lookouts were watching in the darkness, and Southwick would be strolling up and down. He had heard the sentry outside the cabin cough once or twice. A sail occasionally flapped as the packet pitched and momentarily spilled the wind. The hull creaked as all hulls did. He was not sure what he had heard: perhaps only a distant seagull giving a squawk of alarm as it sighted the ship.
"No," he continued, idly taking one of the pistols, while the light from the lantern threw the shadow across the cabin, "just take this as an example. Old ladies and parsons regard them as inventions of the Deviclass="underline" evil contrivances which kill men. Yet it's the man that's evil, not the gun. A gun is no-"
That noise again, and a slight thump which could have been a piece of wreckage bumping the hull, and from the way Yorke glanced towards the door Ramage knew he'd heard it too. When he raised his eyebrows questioningly Yorke turned down the corners of his mouth, shrugging his shoulders. Then a plank creaked.
There were many beams and planks, lodging knees and hanging knees, frames and stringers creaking in the ship at this very moment, but only one particular plank creaked like that.
A butt in one of the planks in the corridor had sprung close to Ramage's door - he remembered stubbing his toe on it and cursing violently, startling the sentry. And as he stood there, his toes tingling with pain, he had pushed down on the plank and it had creaked: a high-pitched creak - more like the squeak of a loose plank in a staircase than the usual deeper creaking made by the ship, which by comparison was a series of groans. He had intended to have the carpenter's mate put in a couple of fastenings to secure it.
Surely the plank would creak like that only if someone stood on it? But the sentry would see anyone there, unless he was leaning with his right shoulder against the bulkhead, facing to starboard. Still, it could be the sentry himself, or Bowen or Wilson going on deck for some fresh air. Ramage knew he was getting jumpy and leaned over to put the pistol back on the settee. At that moment he heard a soft grunt and a gentle thud.
Without realizing it he continued moving upward so that he was on his feet and heading silently for the door, pistol in his hand, almost before registering that the grunt came from a man's throat. Yorke followed him a couple of seconds later.
Ramage gestured to him to stand to the left of the door, where he would be hidden if it was opened, and himself stood the other side, flat against the bulkhead. He watched the handle.
The light was so dim from the lantern over his desk that it was hard to see the wooden latch. Yes! It was lifting slightly ... and anyone wanting to see if he was lying in the cot at the after-end of the cabin or sitting at the desk on the starboard side would have to open the door at least a foot. And men entering a room or cabin tended to look first at the level of their own eyes.