Ironically, he had found the probable answers, Egypt or the Levant, within a very short time - but as the French major must have realized, information is useless to a spy if he cannot pass it on to those who can use it. Nevertheless, he had been criminally stupid in bringing Paolo along; Rossi would have been just as useful . . . and it was doubtful if he had really needed Martin.
He should have no sympathy for Rossi and Jackson, but he was grateful for their misguided attempt to help and worried about them. It seemed inevitable that they too should be captured. Well, Aitken had his orders, so he knew what to do if the Captain had not returned by midnight. He would be in command of quite a little squadron, and he would behave in the same way and have the same responsibilities as if Ramage had died on board from wounds or illness. The Royal Navy was organized on the axiom that no man was indispensable . . .
Someone hammered on the door and a moment later a key turned from the outside. As it was flung open, Ramage saw several soldiers waiting in the passage. One of them said to the guards: "Take the prisoners out: we are about to march."
"Are we to shoot them here in the square?" a guard asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
"No, the navy will do that in Porto Ercole, so the sergeant says. They are to go ahead of the baggage train." As he spoke, Ramage could hear the clippety-clop of a horse's hooves and the heavy rumble of wheels rolling over cobbles as a cart approached the town hall.
"Do we keep them tied up?" the guard asked.
"Leave them as they are; we'll load them on to the cart secured to the chairs. We don't have time to waste undoing these ropes and then tying them up again, and the mayor won't mind us taking three of his chairs."
The other guards sniggered and the rest of the soldiers crowded into the room. Ramage felt himself tilting backwards as three men picked up the chair to which he was bound and carried him out through the door. They hurried along the corridor, up the short flight of steps and along to the front door of the town hall, cursing as they banged elbows on the walls in the near-darkness and barked shins on the legs of the chair. Finally they had the chair tilted back so that Ramage was lying almost horizontally and was able to see another group of men behind carrying Martin and his chair, while more sturdy curses in English from beyond showed that Paolo had not been left behind. Ramage hoped that the French soldiers would not suddenly drop Paolo's chair, or bump him so painfully that he let fly a broadside of French or Italian oaths . . .
Outside, a chilly greyness over the far end of the square showed that dawn was approaching. Two unshaven soldiers with battered and sooty lanterns lit up a baggage wagon; about eighteen feet long with four wheels, the front pair smaller than the rear, it had a single horse pulling it, a wretched-looking animal whose ribs showed up as black stripes of shadow, its back a steep valley between neck and rump. A canvas hood protected the wagon from rain, a grotesque and tattered bonnet in the dim lantern light.
The wagon was stowed with crates and kitbags but a space the width of the wagon and about three feet long had been left at the rear end. The soldiers heaved the chair up and another man waiting inside helped them tilt it over the tailboard. A moment later Ramage found himself sitting upright in the back while more soldiers lifted Martin's chair. Finally, when the three chairs were in the wagon, the waiting soldier checked the ropes binding them and then climbed up on top of the casks and kitbags so that he could watch his prisoners. A lantern was handed up to him and, at a shout from the sergeant, the driver cracked his whip and the horse lurched forward, its harness rattling.
Ramage then saw men on horseback riding into the piazza, their plumed shakos showing that they were officers obviously waiting for the colonel and the major to appear so that they could start off for Porto Ercole. Where were the men and guns? Ramage guessed they must be camped along the via Aurelia and were yet to have their first taste of the sand on the causeway.
By the time the wagon reached the via Aurelia and turned right along it, Ramage could distinguish the features of the guard and Martin and Paolo.
"It's cold," the boy said, "but at least the mosquitoes haven't woken up."
"Yet," Martin said, "and we're still alive. I've even got my flute, but the damned thing has slipped down so the ropes are trying to shove it through my ribs."
"Is everything else all right under your shirt?" Ramage recalled the sailmaker making the waistcoat with the vertical pockets, and cursed himself for not insisting on flaps being added which could be buttoned down.
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry about. . ."
"It wasn't your fault. Never trust inn tables."
A sudden noise like a bull being strangled startled them, and a few moments later a peasant jogged past on his braying donkey, sitting astride the animal with his feet nearly touching the ground. The trees recently planted at even spaces along each side of the road to provide shade for marching troops were growing well and proving useful for the landless owners of livestock: several dozen goats had been tethered to various trees and, as was always the way with goats, most of them had gone round and round until their ropes were wound up so short that they could hardly move. As it grew lighter the guard opened the door of the lantern and blew out the candle, and the smell of the smouldering wick caught the backs of their throats.
A pair of oxen pulling a wide-wheeled cart passed going the other way and Ramage saw how each animal leaned inwards, towards the single pole between them that acted as the shaft. It was said that from the time an animal first pulled a cart and was put, say, in the right-hand position it always had to be on that side because it became used to working with an inward list. The useless information one acquires, Ramage thought sourly just as the wagon swung round to the right, rattling and bumping as it left the via Aurelia and started down the track leading to the Pineta di Feniglia, the southern causeway which ended in Argentario just short of Porto Ercole.
Looking eastward, Ramage could see that the first rays of the sun, which was still below the eastern horizon, were just catching the top of Monte Amiata and, a few minutes later, Monte Labbro, lower and nearer. There was very little cloud; it was, as Martin remarked with irritating cheerfulness, going to be a scorching day.
The track dipped downhill for a few hundred yards and as the wheels went silent Ramage knew they had reached the sand. There was an occasional shudder as a wheel hit an old tree stump. Then, as the upper tip of the sun lifted above the distant mountains and a ray shone into the wagon, Ramage glanced across at the soldier sitting among the kitbags and guarding the three Britons. He had leaned back and slipped slightly so that he was cradled between the bags; his mouth was open, his unshaven face greasy with perspiration, and he was quite clearly sound asleep. Ramage was not sure when the man had dropped off, but had been expecting him to forbid them to talk. Then he remembered that the man had been both clumsy and silent when the prisoners were hoisted on board: he was still partly drunk from the night before.
The horse ambled on; there was no cracking of the whip or cursing, and it was obvious that the driver was in no hurry to arrive at Porto Ercole: being a good soldier he knew that it was better to travel than arrive: the arrival of the baggage wagon only meant that the baggage had to be unloaded, and although he might not have to hoist out crates or toss down kitbags, he would have to rub down the horse and feed and water it, and, judging by the squeaking, put some tallow on the axletrees.