Ramage's Signal

Two days later Ramage sat on the Calypso's quarterdeck in a canvas-backed chair in the shade of the awning, which was rigged again to provide shelter from the blazing sun returning after the mistral. The sea was calm with a gentle breeze from the west so that the frigate was lying parallel with the beach. Over at the semaphore tower, which he could see on the larboard quarter, the tiny awning was rigged on the platform and he could just make out two figures, Paolo and Jackson, swinging the telescope round from time to time, keeping a watch on Aspet and Le Chesne.

Aloft in the Calypso seamen kept watch seaward, but by now he was sure that the convoy had sailed from Barcelona direct for their destinations before his signal had arrived ordering them to Foix, and no doubt the French escort had joined them.

Tonight, he decided, the Calypso would sail to look for the convoy - though he was uncertain whether to head eastward, close along the coast, on the assumption that it had passed in the darkness, or southeast because perhaps it had found a different wind once it left Barcelona and could comfortably lay Marseilles, its first destination.

He was not sure whether his semaphore signal had been a wild idea and a waste of time, or whether it had been a good idea unluckily ruined by the impatience of the French masters of merchantmen. Anyway tonight, as soon as it was dark, the tower would topple under the Marines' axes, the barrack huts would be wrecked, the powder casks rolled into the sea, and the cattle turned loose - the villagers would soon find and appropriate them. Burning down the whole place would attract far too much attention to the Calypso - the flames would be seen for miles - and to the French the important part of the camp as a link in the signal chain was not the accommodation (which could be replaced by tents) but the tower, which was as easily destroyed by axes as flames.

A fruitless chase after the convoy, he thought miserably, then a few weeks' cruising along the French and Spanish coasts sinking xebecs, tartanes and suchlike small coasting vessels, and then back to Gibraltar because the time limit for his orders would have run out. He could destroy a few of the semaphore towers, every fourth one, say, but he could not see Their Lordships (or even the port admiral at Gibraltar) realizing what a blow that would be to the French naval communication system. The Board and admirals could understand ships captured or sunk; signals were dull affairs.

A few seamen in the waist were exercising French prisoners, allowing them up a dozen at a time. They were made to run round the fore and mainmasts a few times (they showed a great reluctance to exercise themselves voluntarily) and before they were sent below had to be inspected by Southwick.

Although the old master spoke not a word of French, he always made himself clear: a tug at a shirt collar and a growl told the man it needed washing; an accusing finger pointing at uncombed hair or a badly tied queue was enough of a warning.

The French lieutenant was proving a worry to Ramage: the man had sunk into a deep gloom, convinced that if the British did not shoot him they would hand him back to his own people, who would lop off his head, although for what crime Ramage could not discover, because being taken prisoner was no offence on either side.

He decided to have another talk with the wretched fellow: he was still irritated at having more than thirty French prisoners on board and was thinking of releasing them as the Calypso sailed. However, doing that meant the Calypso's French disguise would be revealed.

Ramage called to a seaman to fetch another canvas deckchair and signalled to Aitken, whom he told to send a reliable seaman to bring the French lieutenant who, once he was seated in the chair, was to be guarded only from a distance.

'He's a sad puir fellow', Aitken said after the seaman had departed. 'Lost a louis and found a centime. I canna believe it's just because he's a prisoner.'

The 'sad puir fellow' came up the ladder from below, squinting with his eyes almost closed from the glare, and shuffling his feet as if on his way to the scaffold. The seaman guided him to the chair and when the man stood as though puzzled what to do next, gave him an unceremonious shove to make him sit.

Ramage nodded to him and said in French: 'The sun is strong.'

The French lieutenant said sadly: 'Yes, and my eyes are weak.' He looked incuriously round the Calypso's deck, appeared to notice the big hill in the centre of the bay, and equally incuriously looked farther round to the semaphore tower and the camp which for a year, until a few days ago, he had commanded. Now, Ramage was certain, he had no interest in it at all; he looked at it just as a sleepy dog looks up when roused in front of a fire.

'You are satisfied with the way your men are being treated?'

'My men?' He paused, obviously puzzled, and then said: 'Oh yes, they are all right, or so the sergeant tells me.'

'And yourself?'

The lieutenant shrugged. 'It is all a farce, m'sieur, and the sooner it is over the better.'

'What is a farce?' Ramage asked casually.

'Treating me as a prisoner.'

'What do I intend to do, then?'

'Shoot me.'

'I do not shoot my prisoners.'

'Then hand me back to the French authorities, which will be the same thing.'

'Why should setting you free - for that's what it would be - amount to the same as shooting you?'

'I shall be punished.'

'For what?' The man seemed to be almost in tears and Ramage was reminded of stories of penitents submitting to the Inquisition.

'There ... a ... deficiency ... they had an inventory ... when they return to Sète and compare what we have in our stores with what the inventory shows ...'

'There will be a difference?'

'A big difference.'

'In what materials?' Ramage was curious now; the scope for peculation seemed limited.

'Rice, flour, olive oil, wine ...'

'How did it happen? Where did it go?'

'The villagers paid a good price: their crops failed this year and they were hungry.'

'So you sold them Army stores?'

'It was not quite like that', the lieutenant said lamely. 'They were starving, you understand.'

'You could have given them food.'

'It came from them in the first place, all except the rice', the lieutenant explained.

'From them?' Ramage was puzzled but a suspicion was forming in his mind.

'Yes - you see, we requisition what we need for the troops.'

'But what did you sell to the starving villagers?'

'Well, the surplus.'

'How could there be a surplus if you requisitioned only what you needed?'

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. 'It was hard to estimate.'

'So having deliberately stolen - not requisitioned, but stolen - more than you needed, you then made a cash profit by selling it back to the villagers?'

Ramage's voice was so cold and his eyes seemed but slits, like sword blades viewed from the point, that the lieutenant said nothing.

'How did the Army authorities find a deficit?'

'We kept two sets of books and the wrong ones were given to the quartermaster's department at the time of the survey.'

Ramage stood up and stared down at the lieutenant, trying to control his anger. 'You rob your own people of their food and sell it back to them, and when your quartermaster's department find out, you feel sorry for yourself and fear the guillotine, eh? Well, I'd hang you - slowly. Get out of my sight' - he pointed to the ladder leading below and the seaman escort hurried back - 'in case I decide to do the job for your authorities.'

As soon as the man had gone below - bolting like a rabbit, in comparison with the way he had shambled up - Aitken came over to find his captain sitting down again and shaking with rage.

The Scot, who had never seen Ramage like this before, asked bluntly: 'What happened, sir?'