At what point, Ramage tried to decide, did it become a matter of interest to the garrison at Foix? If she came in and anchored in broad daylight the commanding officer of the garrison would expect to be called on board or, more likely, have himself rowed out, in the hope of an invitation to dinner. An evening arrival meant the same thing, with the hope of a half bottle of brandy. But an arrival late at night - not surreptitiously, to raise suspicion, but without a lot of noise to rouse the sleeping garrison commander - might leave the decision to the sentry. If he happened to notice a ship anchoring in the bay he would probably not bother (or dare) rouse the commanding officer, who would curse him for raising the alarm at the arrival of what he knew to be a French ship. And obviously she was French: they had seen her pass flying a French flag, and when had any of them seen, or even heard of, a British ship? Everyone knew the rosbifs had been driven out of the Mediterranean ...
Would that be what was happening over at the semaphore station? He shrugged his shoulders. It seemed likely. Coming in quietly like this would seem natural enough - if the commanding officer of the garrison was by chance awake, he would assume he could hear so little because of the distance. If he was asleep ... well, he should sleep on.
A seaman appeared out of the darkness to report how much cable Southwick had veered, and pass on the master's opinion that the anchor was holding well in what the leadsman - who had 'armed' the lead, filling the cavity in the bottom with tallow so that a specimen of the sea bottom would stick to it - reported was hard sand and some small shell.
Aitken appeared beside him as the Calypso finally swung head to wind, the hill showing clearly as a black lump on the larboard bow and the semaphore tower as a square top to a small anthill on the starboard quarter.
Ramage pulled his sword round, pushed down on the pistols in his belt to make sure the clips were secure, and jammed his hat down hard on his head.
'Well, Mr Aitken, I hand over the ship to you. We should be back within an hour with the prisoners.'
Aitken saluted, 'Aye aye, sir. I'll have her careened and painted by then!'
Ramage laughed: the young Scot rarely joked, and that he should do so at this moment was an indication that he regarded the operation as about as important as sending a boat away with casks and axes on a wooding and watering expedition.
The cutters had a few yards farther to row than the gig, so he called down for them to be on their way as soon as they were cast off. Seamen at the Calypso's taffrail took the painters from the kevels and dropped them down to the two boats, and Ramage heard both Martin and Kenton give the first of the sequence of orders that would have the oars in the water and rowing briskly, cloth bound round them to deaden the noise where they worked between the thole pins.
Ramage climbed down the rope ladder into the gig and as he sat down in the sternsheets, moving his two pistols slightly so the butts did not dig into his lower ribs, he said to Jackson: 'Let's get under way.'
As soon as the American had called up to the Calypso's taffrail and Ramage had heard the painter landing in the bow of the gig, where the bowman quickly coiled it, he said to both Jackson and Orsini: 'We'll be landing more to the north. Farther inshore.'
Martin had been instructed to take the red cutter in a wide sweep round the end of the sand spit to the far side, to land his party of Marines - who were under the command of the sergeant - as close to the second barrack hut from seaward as possible, while Kenton was to land on the bay side by the second barrack hut on that side.
Under the plan, a corporal would attack the seaward hut with a section of Marines while the sergeant attacked the second hut on the far side and the other corporal would attack the third hut, next to it, but farther inland.
Rennick, in Kenton's cutter, would take the nearest hut, the second on the bay side, while a section of men would run to help the corporal attacking the seaward hut (and also cutting off any Frenchmen trying to bolt) and another group of Marines would run inland to secure the fifth hut, the nearest to the semaphore tower.
Ramage's last-minute change was that the seamen in his gig would land well to the north of the semaphore tower, skirt the hill on which it stood and, as soon as they met the track or lane leading to the village, find where the guardhouse was and seize the sentry or the whole guard, if that was how the French had arranged it.
Ramage and his seamen would be the first to catch the rabbits if the Marine ferrets bolted them. But, he hoped, guile would work better than a ferret.
As the men bent to the oars and the gig spurted forward, Ramage could just make out the two cutters to starboard, each diverging slightly, and ahead was the small hill with the strange wooden wall on top of it, high enough to blot out some low stars, as though it was a square sail. It was high; now he could see that the men on Aspet, with a decent spyglass, could read the signals, however they were made. Still, it must be strongly built not to have been blown down by a mistral from the northwest, the most frequent strong wind along this coast, or the labé from the southwest. Or, for that matter, the levant from the east or the céruse from the southeast, all of which would hit the tower, or wall rather, more or less at right angles. The ponant from the south and tramontane from the north should hit it end-on.
In spite of the cloth wrapped round the oars, the thole pins themselves, not a tight fit, still groaned as if protesting.
However, thole pins were better than rowlocks for silent work, and he was thankful they were fitted to the cutters. Creak, splash, creak ... The men were rowing as silently as possible, and as the gig approached the beach Ramage could hear the slap, suck and gurgle of wavelets as they curled over to break on the sand, and a few small wading birds wakened, calling to each other, passing urgent warnings. And now thesmell of the maquis: a mixture of pine, dried grass, herbs and, Ramage thought, nostalgia, too, as well as a whiff of soot from the shielded lantern.
He realized the absurdity of wearing a hat and took it off and tucked it under the thwart. The semaphore tower began to look like a poacher's view of the end of a barn. And there was the platform on top described by Aitken. Could he distinguish a system of battens - probably forming slides between which the shutters went up and down to make the signals? They certainly slid up and down: that much was clear when the Calypso passed, though he considered hinges on one side, and opening and closing like windows, would have been easier. The shutters must, he thought cynically; go up and down like guillotine blades ... But how did they form the signals? Did the shapes represent individual letters of the alphabet, words or whole phrases?
About thirty yards to go and he heard Jackson, at the tiller and standing in his little compartment that was cut off from the rest of the boat by the sternsheets, mutter something to Paolo, who stood up, holding the grapnel and lowering it over the stern.
Although Ramage could feel the tension and excitement spreading through the landing party, the men at the oars continued the same steady stroke and he felt detached rather than excited.
'Orsini', he said quietly, 'you and I will land first and go round the edge of that hill, looking for the track leading out of the camp. There's bound to be a guardhouse. If there's a sentry, leave him to me; if there's a whole guard we'll have to see.' He turned forward and said: 'You in the landing party - you will follow Jackson, who'll be fifteen yards astern of Mr Orsini. Any man who makes a noise will have to account to me - after Jackson's finished with him.' The men chuckled.