Ramage and the Renegades

Ramage took Paolo's arm. Now he would hear her name! 'May I present Lieutenant Martin and Midshipman the Count Orsini.'

Paolo took her hand and kissed it.

'Ah, we have been reading about the Count's exploits in a recent copy of the Gazette,' she said and no one but Ramage seemed to notice that she had not offered her name.

She led the way to the top table and introduced him first to the elderly man who had come from the next cabin, and the grey-haired woman sitting next to him, a woman whose fine-boned face still had an almost haunting mature beauty.

'The Marquis of Rockley, the Marchioness: may I present Captain Ramage, Lieutenant Martin and Midshipman the Count Orsini...'

Rockley? Somewhere in Cambridgeshire. Friends of the Temples and of Pitt. As he went through the ritual of being introduced, Ramage tried to place the couple more exactly, but in a few moments he was being introduced to the next couple. He recognized the name as belonging to a Kentish landowner active in Parliament. The last man was an officer in the military service of the Honourable East India Company, and Ramage apologized for his borrowed uniform, admitting to be uncertain to which regiment it belonged. The man laughed a little too loudly at the idea of a naval officer in a soldier's uniform, but the woman with him looked embarrassed.

Ramage managed to glance at 'Miss for now' but she was looking away, deliberately it seemed. What was unusual about this uniform?

Finally, with the last introduction completed, and before the woman had shown them to their chairs, the old Marquis stood up and tapped a glass with a knife to get everyone's attention.

'If I may have a moment... you all know the identity of the gallant captain who gave us a sleepless night and at dawn presented us with our freedom. I know you want me to give him our thanks, and ask him to thank his officers and men as well. We know he and his men have more work to do tonight, and our prayers will be with them.'

No reply was needed and amid clapping and hearty 'Hear, hears' Ramage sat at the head of the table, finding the Marquis on his right and 'Miss for now' on his left. Just as he noted the white cloth and napkins and was wondering what was going to happen next, Rossi marched in carrying a huge silver tea urn, followed by Jackson and Stafford with trays of various dishes.

She was smiling at his bewilderment. 'A surprise for you: we hatched it up while slaving round the galley fire!'

'I don't get such service in my own ship,' Ramage protested mockingly. 'I have one incredibly slow steward...'

'The terms of the peace treaty,' the Marquis said. 'Could you give me some idea . . . ?'

Ramage, realizing that this would be the first information from anything approaching an official source that the Marquis had heard, apologized for not having mentioned it earlier and told him all he could remember.

'A sad business,' the Marquis commented. 'We won the war and now we've lost the peace. Still, Bonaparte will try again. Now tell me what brings your ship to this strange island?'

Ramage described the omission in the Treaty and the British government's intention of taking advantage of it. The Marquis nodded. 'I should not care to be one of the garrison,' he commented.

A few moments later he asked: 'Do you know India, Ramage?'

Ramage shook his head. 'Their Lordships have kept me in the West Indies and the Mediterranean, I'm afraid.'

'Breakfast tends to be a more social occasion out there than in England. It is not unusual to have guests arriving unexpectedly for breakfast.'

'It is not unknown in the Ilha da Trinidade,' 'Miss for now' said, laughing easily.

'I hope you have made our apologies for not sending out the proper invitations, Sarah,' the Marquis said, smiling.

'His Lordship hasn't left cards yet, father.'

She was watching him and he saw that she was a woman who could smile with her eyes. And talk, too, and at this moment her eyes were saying: 'There - now you know my first name, and you have met my parents, but you wonder about that uniform you are wearing.'

It all passed in a moment and Ramage said in a humorous apology: 'My card case is in another uniform, which I forgot to bring with me.'

'Think nothing of it,' the Marquis said, pushing his cup towards Rossi, who was unused to wrestling with a large urn and its two taps. 'We half expected you. In fact your arrival has cost me a guinea.'

Ramage raised his eyebrows questioningly and Sarah said: 'My father didn't think you could rescue us before the pirates cut our throats . . .'

'The guinea?'

'Oh, I bet him a guinea you would find a way.'

'Obviously you are an optimist! If he won he could hardly collect!'

She shrugged her shoulders as though dismissing any such thoughts of losing. 'After all, you did find a way.'

Her matter-of-fact acceptance of it all irritated him; too much was being taken for granted.

'We shan't know if we've been successful until nightfall.'

The Marquis was quick to spot that Ramage had not spoken out of pique. 'In what way, Captain? After all, we're free and our former guards are your prisoners.'

'Yes, but supposing a boat comes from the Lynx and they find they have neither guards nor hostages now in this ship or the Amethyst

'What will they do?' the Marchioness asked.

'I can only guess, ma'am. Certainly raise the alarm, which will mean the hostages in the Heliotrope and Friesland will be murdered, then probably the Lynx will try to escape.'

'Will she succeed?' Sarah's voice was almost a whisper.

'I doubt it. My second lieutenant, now in command of the Calypso, has his orders.'

'But has he enough experience?'

Her question was so harshly spoken that her father murmured: 'Sarah!'

Ramage suddenly found he had lost all appetite for breakfast. 'All my officers have been in action many times. The two left on board the Calypso have been in battle more times, I imagine, than the people in this cabin have seen a full moon rise. Now, if you'll excuse -'

He put his hands on the table and began pushing back his chair. She touched his left hand with her fingertips and murmured: 'I'm sorry: please stay. Don't spoil our first breakfast.'

'Our only one,' Ramage muttered, 'and I feel none too comfortable in these absurd clothes.'

She was the only one to hear him, and she went pale, withdrawing her hand. 'That was unworthy of you.'

The Marquis, sensing currents he did not understand, turned to talk to his wife. Ramage then realized that to leave the table now would puzzle or embarrass everyone present, quite apart from taking him away from the immediate presence of the one woman he wanted to be with at the moment. What made him behave like this? Normally he did not take offence at what were obviously intended as ordinary remarks. Why now, he asked himself. The answer was almost stunningly simple: he was behaving like a spoiled child because he had thought that, however obliquely and however mildly, Sarah was criticizing him. Not even that - almost questioning his judgement. Not even that, he had to admit, repeating the phrase as though deliberately nagging himself: because she knew nothing of the way a ship of war was run, and nothing of the Calypso's officers (except himself and Paolo, whose name must have lodged in her memory). She did not know, and could not know, that Wagstaffe and Southwick were more used to being in battle than in a drawing room.

'Am I forgiven?' she asked quietly, and the tone of her voice showed it mattered to her.

'There's nothing to forgive, but I forgive you twice, so that you have two in reserve, like Papal dispensations.'