A seaman yelled and Yorke pulled himself together and glanced across at Ramage. He was standing transfixed, his mouth open and his eyes out of focus...
Like Yorke, Ramage's thoughts had been far from Punta Tamarindo.
"Flame helmet, sir!" Jackson called briskly. "Same depth as the last one and pointing in the same direction."
Yorke joined Ramage where Jackson was bent over with the lantern.
Ramage pointed. "Spaced the same distance apart. Two paces. And..."
He gestured along the first trench, and then from the first shell in the second trench to where they now stood.
"The third shell should be here -"
He walked two paces.
"-Jackson!"
The American grabbed a shovel and began scooping the earth away in layers, careful not to disturb a shell if he came across it.
After a few minutes he suddenly stopped, dropped the shovel and began scooping with his hands. He glanced up.
"It's here, sir."
The silence was frightening. Yorke had the feeling that every man believed for the first time that he was standing inches from a fortune.
Ramage signalled to the Marines to go over to the tree.
"Jackson, Stafford," he said as he joined the Marines. "I want you Marines facing outwards, kneeling and ready to fire, and beyond the light of the lantern. Your job is to guard us against an attack by outsiders. Keep absolutely quiet and don't look back at the lantern, because you'll lose your night vision. Get your backs against bushes or a big rock, otherwise you'll be silhouetted against the lantern. Challenge twice, then fire if you get no reply. Any questions? Carry on."
Ramage took his pistols and gave them to Jackson, and said quietly: "I'll be occupied with this digging. Stand beyond this tree, and cover us. I can't think any one of the men will be silly, but if there's treasure, the sight of gold can upset a man. Hide yourself somewhere within range. No need for anyone to know where you are. Mind the Marines, though ..."
With that, Ramage said to Yorke: "Any suggestions where we dig now?"
Yorke looked bewildered. "Along the present trench - or, rather, continue the same line, I imagine."
"Perhaps," Ramage said softly, and Yorke thought almost triumphantly, "but I like triangles - they have three sides! Project the line of the first three shells and then the line of these three and you have two sides of an isosceles triangle. Almost two sides, rather. Look" - he swept with his hand - "how about that for the apex?" He was pointing to a spot five feet from the trunk of the tree.
Without waiting for an answer he walked to the spot, sighting along both trenches. He ground a heel in the earth and then beckoned to the nearest seamen. "Dig here. A big hole. Pitch the earth well clear." To Yorke, he said: "I'm going to make a guess, which is a silly thing to do at this stage."
Yorke waited, and when Ramage said nothing, prompted him. "Well? Why not turn it into a bet - then one of us stands to win something!"
"I was hoping you'd say that. Let's bet on the age of this tree!"
"Fifty years," Yorke said promptly. "And fifty guineas backs my guess."
"Ah," Ramage said. "Can I bet that it's more than a hundred - or more exactly, dates from when the treasure was buried?"
"Done," Yorke said.
Ramage was reminded of quiet days at home in Cornwall, watching a dog digging at a rabbit burrow. The determined dog panting with excitement; the earth flying up between its back legs. Already the hole had taken shape; already the excavated earth was making small heaps.
He walked over to the diggers. The hole was now in shadow and two feet deep. He could see wooden veins which were the roots of the tree, and hear the occasional thud and judder of a spade bouncing off a thicker root.
Then they were down to three feet and the roots were thicker and closer, springy and harder to cut. They were going to need axes - and daylight. He gave the orders to stop digging and picked three men to go back to the village for axes, first calling to the Marine sentries to let them pass.
"We've lost a lot of sleep," Ramage commented to Yorke, "but so far we haven't got anything except experience."
Yorke did not reply. He was feeling depressed. The prospect of digging under the tree seemed hopeless. Although he would never have said anything to Ramage, he began to think the treasure hunt was over. It had been great fun and a test of their wits, but somewhere a series of coincidences had entered into the game.
One of the seamen who had not yet scrambled out of the hole gave an excited yelp and lifted something up. As the dim yellow light of the lantern shone on it, the rest of the men gave a groan in which there was disappointment and superstitious fear mixed in equal proportions.
Ramage took it from the man, looked at it, and said casually : "A human femur - the thigh bone. You'll probably find the rest of the skeleton there."
He walked to one side and put the bone down carefully.
"Put the rest here when you find them. We'll rebury them later."
He turned away. He had carried his disappointment off well. Yorke would probably guess at it, but not the men, not even Jackson.
After all this work, they had found a grave. Presumably it was the grave of some pirate leader - someone famous enough to have his grave on an almost deserted island marked for posterity with a tree, sea shells and a poem.
Everyone - himself included - had assumed that whatever was buried was treasure. Plates of solid gold, and cups and chalices; thick and heavy bracelets of silver inlaid with gems ... No one had thought of bare bones. Yet the poem could just as easily be an epitaph:
"... and remember me
... beneath the tree."
Chapter Sixteen
Everyone at the camp was very sympathetic and understanding; infuriatingly so in fact. What annoyed Ramage was that everyone had pretended to be surprised. Ramage was sure that - with the exception of Maxine - they had thought all along that he was on a wild goose chase, but encouraged him out of politeness. Metaphorically patting him on the shoulder as he tried, and now patting him on the head as he failed.
He sat in his room, his journal open in front of him, his body rigid with tension. It was unlikely any of them would have got any of the treasure anyway, so why had he become so obsessed with that damned poem that he slipped back into the world of an excitable schoolboy? He felt humiliated.
There was a knock at the door and at his call, Maxine entered.
"Nicholas," she said hesitantly, "my father -"
"Wants to see me?" Ramage was already on his feet and moving towards the door.
"Non!" she said, smiling and gesturing him to sit down again. "My father knows I am visiting you."
"Oh," Ramage said lamely. He always found it embarrassing when a woman visitor indicated that her reputation would - or would not - be compromised by being alone with him. "You are a welcome visitor."
He escorted her to the only other chair in the room and she sat with a movement which was both feline and regal; a movement that transformed this shabby, hot and dusty room into an elegant salon.
As soon as he sat down she looked directly at him, making no attempt to disguise the fact that he attracted her. She was deliberately setting aside the fact that she was a young married woman, that her husband was thousands of miles away, and that she was alone in a room with a young man. She was conveying frankly and with superb taste, that she knew she was a beautiful woman attractive to men, and surely he knew he was attractive to women, so why did not they accept the facts without gaucheness.