Well, look on the bright side, if there is one. At least the women are safe in the sloops and the Italian men are in the Amalie and the Calypso. Apart from the two frigates being aground, the orders (request, rather) of the King of the Two Sicilies had been carried out (probably much to the surprise of Rear-Admiral Rudd).
Carried out except that the two frigates were aground. And you might as well face the fact that if you sailed a frigate on to a sandbank with all plain sail set, you were making enough knots to drive on hard; hard enough for it to be very difficult to get off.
At least it had not felt as though there had been rock under the sand - rock that would wedge the ship. It had been a gentle business, like sliding off a mattress filled with goose down. It was sand (of that he was fairly certain) and not mud, which sucked at the hull and would not give a decent bite to an anchor. If you are going to go aground, for preference always choose a sandy shoal.
And three more boats left the quay loaded with soldiers while two more came alongside. Sixty soldiers scrambled on board them and they cast off, and Major Golightly walked across and said: "Your fellows are making quick work of it: they must be exhausted with all that rowing."
"They're used to it," Ramage said. "You should see them when they have to tow the ship for eight or ten hours in a flat calm."
Golightly shuddered at the thought. "That must be equal to a fifty-mile route march under a tropical sun."
Now it was Ramage's turn to shudder. "Perish the thought! Think of those blisters on the feet!"
"Think of the blisters your men are getting on their hands!"
"My men's hands are probably as tough as your men's feet," Ramage said. "In other words, they are well trained for their individual jobs."
Golightly gestured along the quay towards the Saracens. "Those fellows seem to be getting more excited."
And Ramage realized that the major was right: the Saracens were shouting more excitedly, and seemed to be jumping up and down more vigorously. He looked round and saw that fewer than fifty soldiers remained, with the seamen and Marines from the two frigates.
He then saw more Saracens streaming along the road to join the rest at the end of the quay. He estimated there must be a couple of hundred of them hurrying to join the three hundred already waiting. Obviously they were concentrating for another attack. Would there be more reinforcements? Five hundred raving Saracens . . .
Finally Golightly said: "That's the last of my men."
Ramage turned and saw two boats leaving the quay. "Why didn't you go with them?"
"I thought it would be more interesting to stay with you."
"You should be with your men."
"They know their way round the Calypso now, and the rest are safely on board the Amalie." Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing for you to do here now."
Golightly grinned cheerfully and said: "I enjoy stretching my legs on shore: very confining, being on board a ship. Besides, I enjoy killing a few Saracens."
There was little left to do but prepare for an attack by the Saracens, and Ramage gave orders to Rennick, Kenton and Hill to assemble their men round the embarkation point. The lieutenants from the Amalie quickly obeyed Ramage's order and grouped their men next to the Calypsos.
More than a hundred of the Amalie's and Calypso's seamen had been taken off in the boats when Hill suddenly called: "Here they come!" And at last the Saracens, scimitars waving and robes flying, came running along the quay, screaming at the tops of their voices.
They were, Ramage decided, the most frightening sight he had ever seen on land. He knew that not one of those men cared whether he lived or died: that the only thing that made him retreat was knowledge that he was outnumbered, and the mathematical certainty that he would be driven off.
Now, though, they knew they were not outnumbered; they were charging to cut off the hundred or so British seamen and Marines left waiting on the quay.
Ramage hoped that Southwick was watching with his telescope -not that one needed a bring-'em-near to see what was going on. Nor, for that matter, an ear trumpet to hear.
The Arabs had covered thirty yards. Now fifty and they were another fifty yards away. Ramage imagined the carronades trained round to cover a small area of the quay into which the Saracens were now running. The guns would be loaded with case; forty-two four-ounce balls to a case. The locks would be cocked; the gun captains would be taking the strain on the triggerlines.
Then, suddenly, they fired: there was a shattering concussion and spurts of smoke, and Ramage felt the muzzle blast. And the oncoming horde reeled as the barrage of caseshot bit into them. At first glance it seemed to Ramage that fifty or more of the turbaned figures now lay sprawled in the dust, and while the rest stood paralysed by the shock of the attack, Rennick's Marines and the seamen opened fire with their muskets.
The gunners on board the Calypso would be reloading the carronades knowing their shipmates' lives depended on their speed, and for the moment the Saracens were stopped in their tracks, obviously uncertain what to do next.
"What a sight!" Golightly said conversationally. "Close-range caseshot. . . Most effective."
He might, Ramage thought, be commenting on the progress of some game. How impressed he would have been had the 12-pounders been able to fire, but they could not be trained as far as the carronades, and with the Calypso firmly aground there was no way of turning the ship.
Even before the Saracens had collected themselves, the carronades thundered out again, cutting another swathe through them. Just at that moment four boats came alongside the quay but none of the seamen made a move to climb down into them. Ramage turned and shouted at the men nearest the boats to embark, but they did not move.
"We want to stay with you, sir," one of the men shouted.
There was no point in arguing - or giving overriding orders -with men showing that spirit, so Ramage threw up his hands. "Keep up a hot fire, then!"
Looking back at the Saracens, Ramage saw that the second blast from the carronades had been more effective than the first because they had bunched up with the shock. The second round had swept into the heart of the crowd of men and bodies were beginning to pile up, one on top of another.
A couple of crazed men began a desperate dash towards the seamen and were picked off by Rennick's Marines, sprawling into untidy heaps, looking as though someone had dropped two piles of old clothes.
"The third should do it," Golightly said judicially.
"There are plenty more," Ramage said grimly. "I want to kill 'em, not drive 'em off. We've got to refloat the frigates yet."
At that moment Orsini came up. "The men in the boats want to know if they can join in, sir: they've muskets with them."
"No they can't," Ramage growled. "This isn't a party!"
Golightly said: "Your sailors seem to be in fine spirit."
Ramage realized that he had become so used to the men's attitude that he was in danger of taking it for granted, and it took the comments of someone like Golightly to draw attention to it.
The third round of fire from the carronades crashed out and once again the caseshot cut a swathe through the Saracens, who were by now grouped helplessly and obviously did not know what to do next.
Ramage guessed that there were a hundred and fifty bodies now lying on the quay: the carronades had killed a good third of the men who had been gathered at the end of the quay. Now, he calculated, the seamen and Marines were not outnumbered - not that the Saracens looked as if they were going to resume their charge.
In fact even as he tried to gauge how many of them were left, the first of them began to run back along the quay towards the town, and they were quickly followed by the rest, who left the dead and wounded where they were lying.