Ramage was sleepy, and so were the rest of the men; they all seemed thankful when he slowed down as they half walked and half paddled through the sand at the water's edge to avoid leaving footprints, and finally found a stretch of hard sand up the slight rise to the line of the pine trees, where the fallen spiny leaves of past years made the sand firmer.
They were now at a safe distance from where they had quit the wagon, Ramage considered, and they were in sight of Porto Ercole in case something unexpected happened. It was just the place for them to catch up with the sleep they had all missed the previous night. If they started moving towards the other causeway by five o'clock, using the punt to cross the lagoon, they would have plenty of time, and by then they would be refreshed. He brought the group to a halt, said he would take the first watch of an hour, and told them to sleep. Recalling the wine-bloated face of the French colonel warning the major of the problems of sand in the desert, he added with a grin that left them all looking puzzled: "Don't get sand in your pistols."
The sun had dipped behind Argentario, lighting up the northern slopes of the mountain, when Paolo woke them all with the announcement that it was five o'clock, an accuracy of which he could be certain because Ramage, having hidden his watch in one of his long socks before he had been captured and searched, had lost nothing of value to the French soldiers.
They all went to the water's edge and rinsed their faces in the sea.
"Ho fame," Rossi grumbled.
"We're all hungry," Ramage said sourly. "You could have snared a few rabbits while we were sleeping."
"Or even gone round to the cantina in Porto Ercole," Paolo added, "and brought back wine, bread, meat. . ."
"I might also have been captured and brought back a French patrol. . . sir," an exasperated Rossi answered.
"Providing the lad left lines and hooks on board, you can all fish as we pole across the lagoon in that punt," Ramage said.
"There'll be hooks," Jackson said confidently. "Fishing is all they use boats for on the lagoon. It's only five or six feet deep."
There were in fact three fishing lines and, as Rossi and Jackson poled, leaving on the right the town of Orbetello, a group of buildings hidden behind a high defensive wall and poking out into the lagoon like a mailed fist, Ramage, Martin and Orsini trolled the lines. There were some tiny scraps of fish, baked hard by the sun and the relic of a fishing expedition several days before, and, using them as bait, they caught nothing, Rossi declaring that the lake was only good for eels and every fool knew that dentice was the only fish worth catching.
Ramage just had a chance to see where they should land on the northern causeway when darkness fell, and by then several other punts were round them, most of them being poled by one man with another sitting in the stern handling the line. The punts had started coming out from Orbetello at dusk, as though the men, finishing with their usual jobs, liked to spend an hour or two trying their luck with fishhooks before going home to supper.
The five men hauled up the punt and crossed the causeway to the seaward side where half an hour later, as they waited amid the whine of mosquitoes and the continual buzz of cicadas, they saw the black outline of a boat rowing in fast from the north.
"Give them a quiet hail," Ramage told Jackson. "I wonder if they really expect to find us here?"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ramage paced up and down the Calypso's quarterdeck in the darkness, nervous, irritated and uncertain of himself. Small waves lapped against the ship's side as she swung slowly in the wind, her anchor cable creaking at the hawse. Overhead the rigging and yards were a black lattice-work against the stars while to the westward the last of the lamps in Santo Stefano went out. An occasional pinpoint of light, like a firefly close to the water, showed that a fisherman was at work, hoping that his lantern would lure fish into his net or close enough to be speared by his long trident.
Aitken had reported that no interest had been shown in the three ships during the day. With three frigates arriving in the harbour at Porto Ercole unexpected by the Italians, the equally unexpected arrival of another frigate and two bomb ketches off Santo Stefano was unlikely to raise an eyebrow whether Italian or French. Southwick pointed out that not even one boat had come over with local whores, a sure sign of the unpopularity of the French.
Ramage picked up the nightglass and looked over towards the north-west corner of Argentario, where he could just make out the extreme end, Punta Lividonia, and as he watched - with the image turned upside-down by the glass, so that it was as if he was standing on his head - he saw a small black shape moving along the horizon, slowly merging with the Point and then vanishing. The Fructidor had weathered the Point, following the Brutus, and was now easing sheets as she found a soldier's wind to carry her down the west side of Argentario and which would, if it held, let her later stretch comfortably round to anchor off Porto Ercole.
Argentarola was the only obstruction they might hit, a tooth of a rock jutting up a few hundred yards offshore past the second sizeable headland beyond Lividonia, and Jackson and Stafford remembered it well enough to be able to help Kenton if he was at all uncertain. No moon yet, but the sky was cloudless and the stars were bright enough to show up the land. Bright enough but insipid compared with the Tropics, Ramage thought.
So the two bomb ketches were running with a following wind round to Porto Ercole, but for the moment the Calypso remained at anchor: her part was yet to come. His plan was simpler - at least, as simple as he could make it. There was no complex timetable which would leave them all at the mercy of wind or current.
Doubts, uncertainty . . . should he, shouldn't he . . .? Why was commanding one of the King's ships sometimes like gambling with cards or dice, an occupation which bored him? He had just discovered information about intended French troop movements which should be sent off as soon as possible to the Admiralty, or the nearest admiral with enough ships to do anything about it. Yet if he did that, the three French frigates which were due to transport a good many of those French troops, artillery and, most important, cavalry, might well escape.
Should he bolt with the news he had, which could quite reasonably be dismissed by an admiral as wild guesses made as a result of idle gossip by a drunken French artillery colonel, or should he stay and see if he could both alter the situation and add to the information?
He had managed to get over the time he had dreaded: sending Gianna's nephew and heir off on a dangerous operation. Up to now the boy had always been within sight. Yet, he asked himself bitterly, why should it make any difference whether he was killed by a French musket ball while close to Ramage or distant. Still, the idea that he might be killed several miles away in another ship seemed like abandoning him. Gianna would never blame him - but she would be only human if she felt that the boy might still be alive if Nicholas hadn't. . .
The boy was now with Kenton and acting as the third lieutenant's second-in-command, which was excellent experience for a young midshipman. Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were with him as an unofficial bodyguard. No one is dead yet, he told himself sourly, not a shot has been fired. In fact all that has happened is that a French colonel drank himself into a stupor and a tired French major asked a number of aimless questions of a trio of British spies who had since vanished.