Now the muscles in the front of his shins were hurting - they were unused to walking far on land. He started thinking of blisters on his heels; a thought banished by the thought that a musket ball in the gizzard would be a more likely ailment before the sun set again.
Jackson had slowed down to let him catch up.
"The fork's about thirty yards ahead, sir."
Ramage waited while the two files of men caught up and stopped.
The land on the left of the track sloped gently upwards towards the saddle; on the right it was level.
He decided to put the Marines farther along the track, nearer the village, so that the Spaniards passed them on their way to the trenches and were captured by the seamen. The advantage was that if the Spaniards bolted from the seamen's ambush, they'd run back along the track towards the village and be trapped by the Marines. Would the Marines have enough discipline to let the Spaniards pass the first time without opening fire? With Yorke and Bowen among them he knew he could depend on it. He explained it to Yorke and the corporal, and then they filed off into the deep greyness.
Ramage was pleasantly surprised at how quietly they moved: they were out of earshot almost as soon as they were lost to sight. The Marines, like the seamen, would stay on the left, or western side of the road. That way each would know roughly where the other force was and, more important, neither would fire - if shooting was necessary - towards the hill.
Quickly he and Jackson led the seamen into the bushes and positioned each of them two or three yards back from the track. Each was shown where the man on either side was stationed; each was warned what could happen if anyone forgot.
Finally Ramage walked along the track with Jackson to take up his position. He found a large, straggling divi-divi bush which would hide both him and Jackson, and sat down, sore-footed and tired, with the American beside him. He took one of the two pistols from his belt and, after checking it was not loaded, squeezed the trigger to make sure the flint was sound. It made a good spark. From his coat pocket he brought a metal powder horn and shook a measure of coarse powder into the barrel, using the rammer to push down a wad on top of it. Then he took a lead ball from his pocket and turned it between finger and thumb to make sure it had no dents or bumps, that it was perfectly spherical and would fly true. He put the ball in the muzzle and rammed it home firmly with another wad on top. Finally, using the fine powder at the other end of the divided powder horn, he held the pistol tilted to the left and shook a small amount of powder into the pan. Carefully he made sure the touch hole running from the pan into the bore of the gun was full of priming powder, and then flipped the steel down to cover the pan. He blew gently to get rid of loose grains of powder, and put it on the ground beside him while he loaded the other pistol.
Finally, with both pistols loaded, he was able to relax. It needed only a slight movement of each thumb to cock the hammers; it needed only a gentle pressure on the trigger to fire.
As they sat there, cautiously and silently fighting off attacks by the now only too familiar red ants, whose bites were like jabs from red-hot needles, Ramage and Jackson looked along the track, watching as approaching dawn extended the visibility. They could identify a particular bush five yards away, and then within minutes distinguish details of its leaves and branches. The overall grey of land and sky began to turn into pale but individual colours: the yellow blossoms of a shrub here, white blossom of a different shrub there. The green of odd blades of coarse grass, then the deeper green of bushes.
Jackson nudged Ramage's knee, and then Ramage too heard a distant clink of metal and voices; faint but deep, a descant even, and musical like distant murmurings. He realized it was the sound of slaves quietly singing and chanting as they walked.
He felt no tension now, only relief that his decision to believe the slave Roberto was likely to prove a right one. Now the only risk was that they'd arrive at the ambush before there was enough light to see properly.
Jackson seemed to guess his thoughts, whispering: "The track slopes downhill for a mile, sir. That's why we can hear them so well. They won't be here for fifteen or twenty minutes."
It seemed a long, long wait as it became gradually lighter. Ramage was surprised how noisily he breathed. On board the ship he had not noticed it, but out here, in the dawn silence, the air seemed to hiss and snort as it went up and down his nostrils. He tried breathing only through his mouth, but his throat began to dry and he was afraid of starting to cough. His heart seemed to be beating abnormally loudly. His stomach gurgled. The devil take it, was his body always as noisy as this?
The singing had faded for a few minutes and he worried in case the Spanish officer was taking the men to a new site, but Jackson explained that the silence was due to the road curving as it came up the hill, and masking the sound. Then Ramage could hear them again, suddenly louder.
Quickly he stood up with a pistol in each hand, and a moment later heard twigs breaking to his right: a careless seaman, but no matter; the singing of the Negroes should help drown any such noise.
Then he swore under his breath as he remembered he hadn't warned the seamen that he would challenge the Spaniards in Spanish: he suddenly had a mental picture of the seamen firing at the source of any Spanish voice.
Jackson, sensing his sudden tension, whispered a question and Ramage explained.
"It's all right sir," the American said, "I told them before we left the camp."
Ramage felt both relief and irritation - the American seemed to think of everything.
The Negro singing became louder and Ramage could see a cluster of men walking along the track towards him, three or four abreast, not in formation. The nearest were wearing hats - Spanish soldiers. After a gap, two or three men, then another gap. They were spread out over a much longer distance than that covered by the seamen; a column twenty yards long. The seamen were spaced a yard or so apart. He should have thought of that...
It was not yet fully daylight. Dawn had reached that deceptive stage when small boulders seemed large, bushes took on the shape of mythological beasts and all clouds looked stormy.
He had made the mistake so it was up to him to sort it all out...
And here came the first men ... twenty yards ... fifteen ... two tall and one short ... ten yards ... muskets over their shoulders, strolling rather than marching ... five yards...
Ramage stepped out in front of them, a pistol in each hand. His stomach shrivelled ... it seemed to be so vulnerable. A man behind the leaders might fire at them with a pistol.
The leaders stopped suddenly, startled. Their bodies seemed frozen as if each had managed to stop just in time to avoid treading on a snake and was now too frightened to move.
Those behind bumped into each other; a querulous voice said: "Que pasa?"
Ramage spoke in Spanish clearly and sharply.
"Let no one move. A hundred English guns are pointing at you from the bushes. Let the teniente come to the front!"
Nothing happened.
A Negro moaned; an eerie, frightened and frightening moan.
"If the teniente steps forward, he will be safe. If I call my men to find him, many of you will probably be killed, including the teniente."
Ramage felt like giggling. Creating a hundred men in the bushes by a quirk of his imagination and a flick of his tongue was great fun; like this it would be easy to manoeuvre armies.
Still there was no movement.
Ramage moved a step forward and gestured with his pistols to the middle of the three leaders, cocking each one, the twin clicks loud, sharp and ominous.
"Is the teniente with you?"
"Si señor."
"Oh, he just lacks cojones, eh?"
"Si señor - no! No, señor!"