Ramage saw that the men, starved for years of the sight and sound of life on land, were making up for it by getting the feel of the soil; watching and helping it to produce beauty. Southwick, in his quiet, fatherly way, was helping them. Appleby was told to bring over paint, nails, a few planks of timber chopped from bulwarks, so the men could make more furniture.
Much to Bowen's delight, St Cast had proved to be a fine chess player, and Appleby brought the surgeon's chess-set back from the wreck so the two could play a few games each evening.
The St Brieucs had settled into life in the tiny village of San Ildefonso as if they were in a comfortable château on the banks of the Loire. Early in the morning, before the sun was too hot, or in the late afternoon, he saw all three of them walking slowly along one of the beaches of the great inland bay as if they were inspecting their estates. They were enchanted by the flocks of small white egrets which flew out every evening to sleep on a small cay in the centre of the bay, and came back with descriptions of strange birds and butterflies, chameleons and insects.
Ramage intended to let Appleby make two more raft trips to the wrecks. After that they'd have more than enough provisions. The idea of putting partly filled casks over the side and letting them float ashore had been highly successful. The cooper had also taken the opportunity of cleaning water casks and floating them over empty, and now they were stored by the well, ready to be filled when the supply ship arrived. Ramage was determined they should not be short of water and provisions on the voyage to Jamaica.
The slaves had proved a cheerful crowd of men, and most evenings they sang the songs of Africa or danced round a fire, to the delight of the seamen, who were soon learning the steps of the dances and joining in with clumsy enthusiasm.
It amused everyone to refer to Ramage as "The Governor". St Brieuc quietly promoted the idea and it certainly made things a lot easier for Ramage. He was the youngest of them all, except for Maxine, but as Governor he could give orders without affecting the social side of their lives together.
Ramage was talking to Jackson one morning when the American asked: "Did the fisherman make a good job of the necklaces?"
"Excellent. They were a great success."
"That Tamarind Point business was a big disappointment, sir."
Ramage nodded. "Tamarinds, and flame helmets - I don't care if I never see any more!"
"Flame helmets, sir?" Jackson asked. "What are they?"
Ramage described the shell to the American.
"I remember it now, sir."
"Yes, if only there'd been three of them," Ramage said absentmindedly as he recalled Maxine's "I can hear the sea", and their brief excitement.
"There were, sir," Jackson said. "Three of them in a straight line. Mr Yorke picked up the nearest one. Didn't you see the others?"
Chapter Fifteen
It promised to be a very long night. Taking a party of seamen to Punta Tamarindo to dig by the light of lanterns might attract the attention of the local folk and, for the moment, the less they knew the better. They knew the English dug trenches in daylight, but this was merely copying the Spanish. To dig by lantern light might suggest urgency...
The heat in Ramage's room was stifling. The wind had dropped with the sun and the offshore breeze had not materialized to make the night pleasantly cool. It had become the sort of tropical night that was a test of endurance. Ramage forgot nature's glorious riot of colours, the startling flowers, the scarlet of the flamboyants and the exciting blue of the sea. He even forgot the temperature during the day, when the breeze and the shade made it perfect.
In the misery of a windless night in the hurricane season, he hankered for the cold nights of the northern latitudes. Chilblains and colds, the sniffing and sneezing, the layer upon layer of clothing needed to keep not just warm but to avoid being frozen, were overlooked and he realized for the first time just how much life in the Tropics was governed by the wind. The thermometer could be showing eighty degrees and it could be two o'clock in the afternoon. If the Trade winds were blowing, the temperature was ideal. With no wind eighty degrees became uncomfortable: clothing was soaked with perspiration and energy destroyed by heat and humidity.
There was a gentle tap at the door and Ramage reached down for the pistol by his bed.
"Who's there?" he whispered loudly.
"It's Yorke."
"Come in," Ramage said and added as he saw the door open into the starlit room, "What's the matter, can't you sleep?"
"No - I keep on hearing the sound of the sea in that damned helmet shell. You know, I don't enjoy these waiting games; I'm far too impatient!"
"Nor do I," Ramage confessed. "I'm just lying here waiting for the hands of my watch to get moving."
"What time do we start off for Punta Tamarindo?"
"Five o'clock. Takes about an hour to get there. I want people to think we are just digging trenches somewhere else for a change."
"Who knows," Yorke said lightly, "that may be all we are doing."
"It probably is. Best to think of it that way."
"Why don't we go and dig?" Yorke said impulsively. "Just a few of us. We needn't make any noise, and Punta Tamarindo must be one of the most isolated places in the Caribbean anyway."
Ramage swung his legs off the bed and began dressing without a word.
Within fifteen minutes, having left a disapproving Southwick in command at the village, Ramage and Yorke were leading a party of ten seamen and four Marines along the track round the edge of the great inland bay. They cut through a long valley almost to the coast on the north side of the island before swinging in a half circle to skirt a ridge of three high hills that separated Bahia Tamarindo from the rest of the island.
The seamen, far from truculent at being roused out after a day's digging, were excited; but for the need for some secrecy, Ramage guessed, they'd have been singing like a party of Cornish miners on their way to the local fair.
They reached Punta Tamarindo in little more than an hour, and leaving the seamen and Marines waiting twenty yards back, Ramage took Yorke and Jackson to the casuarina tree.
Jackson, carrying the lantern, quickly found the shells.
"There's one, sir, and there's the other. That's where yours was lying. You can see the impression in the earth - it's deep. Wonder there wasn't a scorpion under it."
Three flame helmets in a row. All with the pointed end facing inland, towards the root of the tree, and the round top towards the sea.
"If you were using them to show a direction," Yorke said, "I assume you'd point them that way." He pointed towards the tree.
A tree and three shells in line, each shell two paces - he stepped it out - from the next one, the shells pointing in the same direction.
Which three? The three headlands or the three shells? In a logical sequence, one would need to see the three headlands, and then "hear the sea" in the shells. But the poem certainly did not sound like that...
"Three by three" must refer to the shells, and the one in the first line meant the headlands. But, he thought, exasperated by the whimsicality of the poem, what do the last two lines mean?