The man brought into Ramage's cabin by two Marines was a shrunken version of the burly braggart sent below under guard before La Perle was captured. The dim light of the lantern emphasized the deep lines of worry, marking his face like crevices in a cliff, and he was licking his lips nervously like someone caricaturing a nervous man. His shoulders were hunched, as if unconsciously hiding his neck from a guillotine blade.
Ramage kept him standing so that the man had to cock his head to one side.
'Ah, Captain Duroc, you know what has happened to your ship?'
'You captured her. I hear her alongside. And the pumps, I hear them working.'
Ramage nodded. 'Your men are still on board her. The five who were wounded have been treated and put back on board - their wounds were slight' 'Five? How many dead?' 'None.'
'And now, sir?' Duroc's eyes revealed his fears of what would happen when the French Ministry of Marine in Paris heard those figures. The captain not on board, no one killed, the ship lost to the enemy - it could only mean treason to minds so accustomed to finding or manufacturing it.
Ramage handed him the chart which Southwick had drawn. 'Sit down there, on that settee. You can read the chart - there is enough light? Good. Now, you know your ship is sinking?' Duroc nodded miserably.
'But you are confident your pumps can keep up with the leaks?'
Again Duroc nodded. 'Yes, but if they get worse . . .' 'Quite, you risk the leaks getting worse, and your men are becoming exhausted. That was why you were making for Curasao, to careen her?'
Duroc nodded for the third time, studying the chart 'Your destination is now changed. You will be put back on board your ship in a few minutes, and you will have that chart, and water for all your men for two days. There is no powder, the guns are spiked, and my schooner will escort you to Spanish waters.'
Duroc looked up at him, accepting the situation but obviously assuming some trap. 'We shall not be prisoners, then?'
'Only of yourselves and your ship. For two days the leaks and the pumps will be your guards.' The Frenchman used his fingers to measure distances. 'One day, perhaps two,' he said, almost to himself. 'Yes, that is good. But 'Have you any questions?'
'Yes, M'sieur. Why are you freeing us?'
'I don't want three hundred prisoners,' Ramage said frankly. 'I have orders from my admiral and I need all my men.'
Duroc made no secret of his relief: he believed the answer, perhaps because it was a logical one, and said: 'I do not know your name, M'sieur. You are being very fair to us. I would like to know to whom I am indebted.'
The Frenchman had spoken very formally and was obviously sincere. Ramage remembered Bazin and said casually, giving his name the English pronunciation: 'Nicholas Ramage, capi-taine de vaisseau.' Duroc nodded and repeated the name. Suddenly he looked up, wide - eyed. 'Lord Ramage?'
Ramage nodded.
'Merde! Then this is a trap!'
The change was so sudden Ramage was unsure whether to be flattered or insulted. 'What do you mean, a trap?'
Clearly Duroc was now a very frightened man; he was folding and refolding the chart like a nun "with a rosary. 'Well, you - why, it is well known that ..."
That what?'
'I don't know,' Duroc admitted lamely. 'But capturing that convoy off Martinique, and the frigates . . .'
'I could of course smash La Perle's chain pump, stave in all the boats, and cast you adrift. The ship would sink and you'd all drown in - half an hour?'
'Less. And I cannot swim.'
'But instead I have left you water and boats, given you a chart so that you can sail to safety, and provided an escort This "trap" has a strange bait, Captain Duroc. I wonder if you would be as generous if our positions were reversed?'
'No, forgive me,' Duroc said. 'I spoke hastily. It was the shock of finding out who you are. You have a certain - well, a certain reputation.'
'Not for cruelty, I trust.'
'Oh no I Nothing to your discredit, milord.'
Ramage waved to one of the sentries. 'Fetch the French officer called Bazin.'
He sat down at his desk and turned the chair so that he could see the door, telling the Marine sentry: Take this prisoner into the coach, and keep him there until I call you. You won't need a lantern; just keep your cutlass pressing against his shoulder blades.' He then explained to Duroc that he would have to wait in the next cabin.
Bazin, in contrast to Duroc, had regained some of his courage or, Ramage thought, more likely he had been goaded by the other two lieutenants into truculent belligerency.
'Sit down,' Ramage told him. The time has come for us to say farewell.'
'I expected nothing more,' Bazin sneered.
'Nothing more than what?'
'You haven't shot us; I presume you will now throw us over the side.'
'Yes,' Ramage could not resist saying, 'you are all going over the side in a few minutes.'
'Ha! I knew from the first you were an assassin]' Tell me, how did you discover that?'
The way you murdered Captain Duroc.'
'Oh, that!' Ramage said in an offhand voice, suspecting that the Frenchman in the next cabin would be amused. 'What else did you expect? Surely such a man does not deserve to live?'
That may be so,' Bazin exclaimed angrily, 'but who are you to kill him?'
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. He was not a true republican.'
'I know that well enough,' Bazin said as he half rose but sank back when he saw the Marine's cutlass. 'But that is no reason for you, an aristo, to murder us.'
'But why should I murder him but spare you?' Ramage enquired mildly.
'Because . . . well, because . . . what I mean is, you should not murder me because I am a true republican; I believe in the freedom and equality of man. But Duroc - he was an opportuniste. He was a bosun before the Revolution. He joined the Revolution only to get promotion!'
Ramage took out his watch and inspected it Ten minutes before midnight, citoyen. For us,' and he could not resist putting a slight emphasis on 'us', 'the new day is about to begin.'
He called to the sentry in the other cabin, and a minute later Duroc stamped through the door. Bazin leapt to his feet like a rocket, white - faced, crashed his head against the beam, and fell flat at Duroc's feet. The French captain looked across at Ramage, a grin on his face. 'He knows all about revolutions. By dawn he'll know all about working a chain pump, too. You have a droll sense of humour, milord, but it brings out the truth at times.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amsterdam's houses were painted in gay colours which the glaring sun emphasized without making them garish. The owners on the Punda side obviously preferred pinks and light blues while Otrabanda favoured reds, greens and white, but most of the roofs, steeply pitched and gabled in the Dutch style, had red tiles, in contrast to the wooden shingles favoured in the British islands. It was curious about the colour preferences but, Ramage thought, the explanation was probably mundane: the paint shop on one side stocked some colours; its rival the others.
The channel separating the two halves of the town was stained brown as it joined Sint Anna Baai, probably due to the slight rise and fall of tide draining out some of the water as it ebbed from the Schottegat, the inland lake.
The fort on Punda, Waterfort, seemed quiet enough; nor was there any sign of movement at Riffort on Otrabanda, 'the other side'. The Dutch flags were flying from flagpoles on both forts; it was also flying from the building that Ramage assumed was Government House.
Amsterdam, Ramage decided, was an oddly attractive and typically Dutch town set down on an arid and desolate island whose sole function was to be the main Dutch trading post in the Caribbean. The Dutch had done their best to make the town look cheerful and they had succeeded. If you forgot the heat and the bright glare, Amsterdam could be any town built along a canal in the Netherlands. Certainly the general flatness of the island (if one did not look to the west as the hills began and rolled up to Sint Christoffelberg) made you think that the average Dutchman was only happy on flat land, although from seaward small hills gave the appearance of waves in a choppy sea.