This was the difference between the islands of the West Indies and the Mediterranean, of course; from Grenada in the south of the Lesser Antilles to Jamaica in the northwest of the Greater Antilles, buildings and history were recent; little went back more than one hundred and fifty years. But here in the Mediterranean much of what one saw existed before Christ was born. As far as this stretch of coast was concerned, he recalled that the Moors, or Algerines, holding southern Spain were finally driven out only a few years before Columbus sailed to the New World, after creating most of the buildings of any beauty in Spain.
'Mr Southwick, sir!' the Marine sentry called from the door.
The master reported: 'We're two miles off the bay, sir: Jackson's already gone in with the Passe Partout and has anchored about a hundred yards beyond the cliff with the semaphore tower on it. They'll think he's gone close inshore to shelter from this south wind because anchoring on the north side, where the fishing boats are, would be a very rolly berth.'
'Very well, I'll come on deck', Ramage said. He picked up the French lieutenant's hat. 'Damned man had too small a head for me', he complained. 'I get a headache in five minutes.'
'I've seen the mark on your forehead', Southwick said sympathetically. 'Better be like me.' He ran his fingers through his hair. 'At my age no other Navy expects me to wear a hat. And if you don't mind me saying so, sir, that shirt of yours looks a little too fashionable. In these Revolutionary days I don't think captains in the French Navy have stewards with hot irons ...'
'It's a hot afternoon; it'll soon crease. I refuse to wear that man's shirt; he has a chest as narrow as a boarding pike!'
'I wonder what he's doing now?' Southwick said unsympathetically. 'Can you imagine him trying to explain in French to a peasant speaking only Italian how the lieutenant commanding a semaphore station on the coast of Languedoc suddenly found himself and his men tramping across the goat tracks of Sardinia ...'
'I can better imagine the look on the face of the person listening to him', Ramage said as he slipped a cutlass belt over his shoulder and then tightened the belt holding up his trousers. He picked up his two pistols, after checking the priming. He slid the hook on the side of each pistol into his belt. 'The shirt is not of Revolutionary cut or quality', he said ironically, 'nor are these.'
'The Marchesa will be glad you're using them, though', Southwick said. 'I know she's going to ask.'
Ramage led the way out of the cabin, climbed the companionway and blinked in the sunlight as he came up on deck. The glare from the sails was almost blinding, but it was long enough past noon for shadows to be black and sharp among some of the peaks, crags and valleys of the Pyrenees.
'Ah, le Canigou ... it's a long time since I've been so close', he commented to Southwick. 'An impressive brute ...'
Now, looking ahead over the Calypso's bow, he could see right into Collioure Bay. And memories, the chart and what he could now see met in nostalgic collision.
There was Pointe del Mich over on the larboard hand, a jutting headland with - he found the sight excited him - a semaphore tower at its top, a flagpole and Tricolour, and the same sort of huts for the garrison that he had seen at Foix. As the eye travelled inland and round to the head of the bay, there were two indentations in the cliffs with an old, round, lookout tower low down by a sandy beach; then came the immense fortress, which locally was called Le château, skilfully engineered and wedge-shaped so that guns on each side could cover the entire harbour entrance. But now, Ramage saw with his glass, no guns were mounted; shrubs grew along the battlements and clumps of some tenacious, dark green bushes stuck out of the grey stone walls. And then came the beach used by the fishermen and finally, on the north side of the bay, the citadel stood high on the hill, overlooking the tiny church whose circular tower was topped by a cupola. Perched on an outcrop of rock at the water's edge, the tower seemed to be built of wide bands of different-coloured stone, but many years ago it had been explained to Ramage that it had probably started life as a Roman watch tower - the lowest and darkest band of stone. Then the tower was repaired and heightened over the centuries so that the identity of the builders of successive bands was lost in time; not even recorded in legends. People like the Franks, the Normans (who may well have built on the church part) and the Moors, who were probably responsible for the cupola, turning the church into a mosque.
As one looked inland across the mountains above and west of Collioure there were many signs, if not of war, then of the fear of war. There was yet another round tower on a rugged hill overlooking the semaphore station; towering over that on the next higher hill was a small castle. On a more distant and higher mountain perched another signal tower, tall and remote as a hovering kestrel. Collioure's life for two thousand years must have been one of wars and threats; Hannibal's war elephants probably trumpeted their way through here because Collioure stood almost as a guardian at the northern end of the coastal pass through the mountains.
Ramage nodded towards the Passe Partout and told Southwick: 'We'll sound our way in and anchor close under her stern. I don't know which of us will be weighing first but we don't want to get anywhere near the church or that reef beyond it.'
'The island of St Vincent, they call it.'
'The church, too. There's some legend that St Vincent arrived here in an open boat, landing on those rocks. Or perhaps he sailed from here. Anyway, it's all named after him. He'll be the patron saint of the village.'
Half an hour later the Calypso was anchored in four fathoms, almost in the centre of a triangle joining the semaphore tower at the entrance to the bay, the château at its apex, and the church at the other side of the entrance, and Southwick and Ramage were busy supervising the hoisting out of the launch and both cutters. As soon as the three boats were lying astern on their painters, Ramage crouched beside the breech of one of the quarterdeck carronades, where prying eyes on shore would not wonder at his curiosity, and proceeded to inspect Collioure with his glass.
Already he could see the best way up to the semaphore station. There was a small, level, sandy beach in the first little bay inland of Pointe del Mich; the boats could land there, giving the men only a few feet to scramble up to where the track - devious and looking like a dead snake - led over the grey rocks and up to the tower.
No one at the semaphore station seemed to be interested in the Calypso. The tower was just like the one at Foix, complete to the canvas awning over the platform and the telescope on the tripod. There was one man up there, and most of the time he was sitting back in the chair, occasionally picking up a bottle of wine and leaning his head back. Only once in half an hour did Ramage see him swing the telescope south to look at the Port Vendres tower and then north to station number twenty-seven, and rising from the chair and grasping the telescope seemed to make heavy demands on his ability to balance.
There were four fishing boats drawn up on the beach facing the harbour entrance and although all the paint was peeling they had once been decorated in bright colours, red and blue predominating. But the other beach, between the château and the church, was obviously the fishermen's favourite - it gave more shelter when swells came through the entrance, and most of their little houses were built just at the back of the beach, midway between the château and the church, so they could choose either sanctuary.