Ramage's Signal

'Two hundred and twenty.'

'And we have forty French prisoners from the semaphore station.'

'I see what you mean, sir.'

'No, you are just doing sums, 220 of us against 370 Algerines and forty-eight French. You don't realize that every one of those Algerines regards you and me - in other words people who don't worship their god - as infidels. When they capture an infidel they kill him or make him a slave. They do not surrender to infidels; they'd sooner die, which is why you can never capture an Algerine. If they're outnumbered, they'll blow the ship up or fight to the last man.'

'So we leave them?'

'We leave them', Ramage said. 'If they'd caught us, by now they would be flaying us, or using us as live targets for their muskets, or chopping off limbs with those damned scimitars of theirs.'

He did not tell Martin that when the Calypso arrived, the Magpie would be battered until she sank. There were too many galleys rowed by hundreds of captured Dutch, Danes, French, British, Italians, Spaniards - anyone who did not come from Algeria or Tunisia and fell into their hands - for any Algerine to be shown mercy.

The Calypso was a mile away now, tacking yet again in the long zigzag against the wind. He could imagine Aitken and Southwick running from one side of the quarterdeck to the other with their telescopes, trying to see exactly what had happened, and no doubt the lookouts aloft were receiving their share of abuse for not supplying more detailed answers.

Rossi was proud of the way he had steered the Passe Partout and was just telling Jackson and Stafford for the third time how he and the captain had turned the tartane under the Magpie's flying jibboom when the Cockney said impatiently: 'While you was leaning comfortable against the tiller, Jacko and me and Baxter and Johnnie was usin' the swivels to knock these h'Arabs down like starlings on a bough. 'Ow many you reckon we got, Jacko?'

'Twenty with each gun', the American said soberly.

'Madonna! These Saraceni die of fright, eh?'

Jackson explained how, at the last moment, the French master had produced the bag of musket balls. 'Nice and rusty, too', Stafford said. 'Teach them h'Arabs to chain up our chaps in galleys.'

'And the Frenchies were cool enough, too', Jackson said. 'Each of 'em was firing aimed shots with muskets and pistols, just like Mr Ramage told 'em.'

'Well, I thought we was all done for', Stafford admitted. 'I could feel me anchors draggin' fer the next world. Surprisin' how quick yer can fire a swivel when you 'ave to.'

'Now what is we doing?' Rossi asked Jackson.

'Waiting for the Calypso to sink that schooner, I reckon.'

'Is best', Rossi said. 'We rescue them and they kill us. More than three hundred and seventy of them; I heard Mr Martin counting.'

Stafford shivered. 'Ooh, I can feel 'em nailing out my skin to dry in the sun. I'd make a lovely cushion cover in a harem.'

'Here comes the Calypso", Jackson said. 'This tack'll bring her practically alongside us.'

'Jackson!' Ramage called. 'Hoist number sixteen again.'

'Aye aye, sir, number sixteen, "Engage the enemy more closely".' As he extracted the flag from the bag he murmured: 'If those heathens have any sense they'll stop what they're doing and start asking Allah, or whoever it is, to lend 'em a hand.'

As soon as the signal was hoisted the Calypso acknowledged it and bore away slightly. She looked a fine sight, spray slicing up from the stem, her portlids open, the muzzles of her guns protruding like a row of stubby black fingers. Jackson noticed she was flying no colours - Mr Aitken must have decided he would not fight under French colours. Not that this was going to be a fight.

First the Calypso's fore and maincourses were furled with all the speed and smartness as though she was coming into harbour with the admiral watching; then her topgallants followed until she was sailing under topsails and headsails, the fighting rig for a frigate.

Paolo, standing amidships in the Passe Partout, felt cold, even though the sun was still scorching: his skin was covered in goose pimples and he wished he was on board the Calypso, commanding a division of her guns.

For centuries the Saraceni had raided the coasts of Italy; even now there was barely ten miles of coast not covered by a watch tower built - on the Tyrrhenian coast anyway - by Philip II of Spain as a warning system and defence against the Saraceni, who regularly landed from the sea by day or night and raided towns and villages. There was not a town in Tuscany that did not have a long history of attacks. La Bella Marsiglia - wasn't that the name of the woman in one of the legends? She was beautiful beyond description and lived on the coast not far from Volterra. She was kidnapped by Saraceni raiders and taken away to their headquarters but, in the only Saraceni story he knew of that had a happy ending, the bey or dey of the city saw her before she was sold off as a slave, fell in love and married her.

Thank goodness they never reached as far inland as Volterra, though the high walls with the nine gates should keep them out. Do the French continue the rule that the gates were shut an hour after sunset until an hour after dawn? Nine gates - and he was startled to find he could hardly remember their names now, except that the road from Rome came in at the Porta all' Arco; from Siena and Florence by the Porta a Selci. He found it equally difficult to picture the Palazzo; all he could see in his mind was the great carved griffin over each main doorway, the arms and crest of the Kingdom of Volterra. He never did discover what dragon the griffin in the coat of arms was killing, but the griffin was certainly rampant and the victor.

And there was the Calypso - he found himself cheering with the rest of them at the first lieutenant's seamanship: he backed the foretopsail just to leeward of the Magpie so that as the frigate turned and stopped, the gun captains of the whole larboard broadside could aim almost at their leisure.

There was a rumble, like the first hint of thunder in the mountains, and smoke spurted along on the Calypso's larboard side and then began coming out of the open ports on the starboard side as the wind blew the rest of the smoke through the ship.

Now the maintopsail was backed and the Calypso began making a sternboard so that her bow swung through 180 degrees and as she went slowly astern, passing the Magpie, she fired her starboard broadside.

Paolo could picture the men hurriedly reloading the larboard guns now as the frigate's yards were braced sharp up and she went ahead to pass under the Magpie's stern and luff up on the schooner's other side, once again backing her foretopsail while her starboard broadside fired again. For the second time Aitken backed the maintopsail for another sternboard so that the frigate's bow paid off and the larboard broadside would bear. Again the guns fired and Paolo could see the rippling flash from the muzzles, but the ship was becoming so full of smoke from four quick broadsides that the flashes were becoming glows. Despite the breeze the smoke was remaining, a low cloud hanging heavy, oily and opaque, blurring the Calypso's outline.

Paolo walked aft and asked Martin if he could use the glass: neither he nor Mr Ramage were using it. Before he turned the glass on the Magpie, Paolo saw that the captain's face was taut, as though the skin had shrunk; his high cheekbones seemed to have no flesh over them and his eyes were sunken, as if he had not slept for a week. Martin, too, was obviously upset; his face was white, and he was gripping the bulwark capping.

The glass showed Paolo that the Magpie had been so battered by the Calypso's broadsides that her planking and decking looked more like the sides of a cage. Men, Saraceni, were leaping over the side to avoid the round and grapeshot but they could not swim. And some of them, in moments before they jumped to their death, shook their fists first at the Passe Partout and then at the Calypso.