Aitken was standing at the fore end of the quarterdeck with the speaking trumpet in his hand, and Ramage looked across at Jackson, who was the quartermaster for what was going to be a very difficult operation. For the moment there was nothing for Jackson to do, since without headway on the frigate the rudder was not acting. And it was a good thing that the frigate was sliding off the shoal by the bow, otherwise there would have been a risk that the sand could tear the rudder off.
The wind was fluking: it was blowing generally at ten knots or so but occasionally there were stronger puffs, and each puff put more pressure on the backed sails. Gradually the bow came round so that the frigate was lying at an angle of forty-five degrees to the quay and a glance at the slate showed that she must be almost off the shoal.
"Stand by," he said quietly to Aitken and then called to Jackson: "Ready at the wheel there - we'll be off in a few moments!"
And then suddenly the Calypso was free: she swung even more to larboard and the foretopsail and topgallant gave a bang as the ship turned and the sails filled with the wind on the after side. Ramage felt the frigate come alive as she refloated, the deck moving under his feet, and he shouted to Aitken: "Sheet home those after sails!"
It was a strange order but as the sails were set and had been shivering it saved time. Yards were braced and sheets trimmed and as Ramage snapped a helm order at Jackson the frigate luffed up slightly until she was heading for the entrance, well clear of the Amalie and under complete control. The feared swing out to the shoal in the middle of the harbour had not happened; the Calypso had come off the shoal smoothly enough for Ramage to keep control.
The ship started pitching slightly as she passed through the entrance into the open sea and Ramage looked back to see the Saracens running along the quay, waving their scimitars, angry but helpless now that their erstwhile victims were sailing out. Ramage said a silent prayer of thanks that the Arabs had not used their cannons: if the fort had been equipped with four effective 18-pounders they could have pounded the two frigates all the time that they were stuck on the shoal. Not only that, the frigates would not have been able to bring a gun to bear to fire back.
Ramage looked astern and saw that the Amalie now had her foretopgallant set in addition to the topsail, and she was already half off the shoal.
The Betty and the Rose were lying hove-to a mile from the entrance and Ramage told Aitken to steer for them. "We need a course for Marsala, Mr Southwick," he said to the master, who bustled below to consult his charts.
"We've never had so many men on board, sir," Aitken commented. "I don't know how many Italians there are, but it must be getting on for three hundred and then we have a hundred and fifty soldiers. With more than two hundred of our ship's company, we are carrying upwards of six hundred and fifty men."
"Well, Admiral Rudd will be pleased. We've carried out his orders, and now all we have to do is deliver these Italians back to their homes - and reunite them with their families. Many of their wives will be in the sloops. It'll be a series of tearful reunions. Brace yourself for an emotional time!"
"I shall burst into tears on every occasion," Aitken said laconically. "I can never resist an excuse for a good cry."
A few minutes later Ramage looked over the taffrail to see the Amalie sailing out through the entrance under all plain sail. He pointed at Orsini. "Make the signal for captains to come on board," he said. It was necessary to make some plans, otherwise their arrival at Marsala and the other ports would be chaos.
As soon as Orsini had attended to hoisting the signal and seeing it answered, Ramage said to him: "I have a tedious job for you. I want you to board the Amalie and then the Betty and Rose to sort out where the Italians come from. I don't want to go to Marsala, for instance, and then find out we have no one on board from there." "I understand, sir," Orsini said. "I only wish these Sicilians didn't have such thick accents: I find it hard to understand them."
"What about me?" Ramage protested. "Italian is not even my native language."
"Sicily is a long way from Tuscany, sir," Orsini said apologetically. "Still, it could be worse; they could be from Bergamo, and then no one would understand them."
Ramage laughed: the accent of Bergamo, in northern Italy, was reckoned to be the hardest to understand. "We'll keep away from there."
He gave orders for the Calypso to heave-to near the sloops and wait for the Amalie. Half an hour later the other three captains were coming on board, all cheerful and, as King said, glad to be out of Sidi Rezegh.
Ramage sat them down in his cabin and then said: "I hope you have totals of the number of Italians you have on board? I am sending one of my officers who speaks Italian round to each ship so that he can see where they all come from and draw up lists. Otherwise we shall have problems sending them to their homes."
Roper said: "I have two hundred and twenty-eight Italians on board: all very excited, but we can control them."
"Good," Ramage said. "We have three hundred and three, so that is five hundred and thirty-one men altogether."
"I have ninety-seven women," King said. "All hysterical but they are settling down now we have given them some food."
"I have seventy-seven women," Payne reported. "Much the same condition but giving them food and water quietened them down."
"Ah, five hundred and thirty-one men and one hundred and seventy-four women - more than I expected. No wonder the people were so upset in the ports - they must have lost just about every ablebodied man and nubile woman. The Saracens were very thorough."
"What sort of conditions were they keeping them in?" -King asked.
Ramage shook his head. "Unbelievable. The stench in the barracks and the brothel was incredible: there were no sanitary arrangements at all. I should think the Saracens lose a lot of men and women from disease."
Ramage unrolled a chart in front of him at his desk. "Now we have to take all these people home, so we'll go to Marsala first, and then work our way along the coast. It's going to take time, because I do not imagine you have any Italian-speaking officers."
The three captains agreed they had not.
"Well, I have one, so he is going to have to do all the translating. Once we anchor off a port the men should recognize where they are, but the women probably won't. So my officer will have to sort them out.
"They'll all be very excited, so make sure the boats you use to send them on shore are not crowded. And give strict orders to your boats' crews - there will be plenty of wine flowing. If the Italians invite you to any reception or anything like that, they'll have to do it through my officer - a young midshipman called Orsini - and you can accept, sending men whom you can trust not to desert or get beastly drunk. Any man misbehaving himself will be punished severely-; I don't want all we have been through for these people spoiled by a few drunken scenes."
Roper asked: "Would it be better if we sent just a token number of men to any festivities?"
The Amalie and the two sloops probably faced the risk that men would desert at the first opportunity and end up having "R", for "Run", put against their names in the muster book. Ramage was thankful that he could even send the Calypso's men away on leave and have them all return on time, but they had served with him a long time and earned a lot of prize money. He knew that he was lucky: not many ships could trust all their men, either not to desert or to stay sober. Not that he could trust all the Calypsos to stay sober; that would be asking too much.