Ramage bowed. "I received my orders only six weeks ago," he said politely, "and the Admiralty understood you to be at Pitigliano. We went there first and lost about seven days, for which I apologize ..."
Cargill was not the man to give credit to anyone finding him at Giglio. "The Admiralty must be asleep," he said loudly and querulously.
"They had no frigates patrolling so far inland," Ramage said coolly, "and presumably received the information from other sources." He turned to greet the next person, who had been announced as the Marquis of Stratton.
"Most grateful, most grateful, sir. I'm a neighbour of your father's y'know. Couple of miles from St Kew. Never met you, though: you must've been away at sea, I suppose. I spend a lot of time in Town, too. Very quiet, the country. Too quiet."
The marquis spoke in disconnected spurts, like water from a hand pump, but he had a friendly face. Ramage guessed that he and his father were about the same age, and although the marquis had confessed to preferring London to the Stratton estate in Cornwall, he had none of the dissipated look of the older bucks haunting the gaming tables of the fashionable clubs.
The next man was Viscount Ball, who was plump, cheerful and grateful. There was nothing he could do to hide the fact that he was nouveau riche, nor did he try. Ramage remembered that Ball was a very wealthy Navy Board contractor. Had there not been a scandal a few years ago about overcharging? Giving him a viscountcy in place of further contracts was the normal procedure.
The Earls of Oxney and Beccles clearly lived on their estates, and Ramage speculated on what had induced them to make the Grand Tour. The last two men were the youngest: neither looked more than twenty. The Honourable John Keene was, from memory, the heir of the Earl of Ruckinge, who was a friend of Ramage's uncle in Kent, and the Honourable Thomas Lewis was the son of the Earl of Granton, one of the old King's newer creations. Both young men seemed in awe of Ramage, and both thanked him profusely.
Noting that General Cargill was already slumped in the only armchair, Ramage turned back to Admiral Faversham, the most senior of the officers unless the Earl of Innes wanted to quote dates of commissions.
"I hope you don't think we wasted time, sir," Ramage said.
The admiral shook his head. "Don't take any notice of Cargill," he said quietly. "Makes trouble all the time. Once -" the admiral chuckled at the memory, "- the French commandant in Pitigliano locked him in a room by himself for a week as punishment. Bread and water. We all had a little laugh, I can tell you, and we were thankful for the rest."
At that moment Cargill shouted: "Is this the Royal Navy's hospitality? What about a tot o' rum? I'm dried out, walking down that damned hill. Come on, Ramage, where are your manners?"
Ramage looked down at the general. "I am sorry, sir, we are in the Mediterranean, so we have only wine, not rum, which is issued in the West Indies. Apart from the issue to the seamen at noon and in the evening, it's customary for officers to wait until the sun is over the yardarm before having a drink."
Ramage saw both admirals turn away to hide smiles: they guessed that the Calypso had not stopped at Gibraltar and probably had no wine on board, except for Ramage's own store, and that there was plenty of rum, but Cargill's abrasive manner to a person so much his junior in rank deserved such a snub.
But Cargill was a man impossible to snub: he was too crude and sure of his own importance. "Well, serve some dam' thing, Ramage, you've two thirsty officers of field rank, and three flag officers!"
Ramage thought of the thousands of miles back to England in this man's company and he turned deliberately to Admiral Faversham. "May I offer you a glass of wine, sir?" Faversham shook his head, followed by the other two admirals. The Earl of Innes clearly had had enough of Cargill and also politely declined. Ramage turned to the marquis and the other men, all of whom had heard Cargill and all of whom shook their heads.
"You seem to be in the minority, sir," Ramage said, "so perhaps you would be kind enough to wait for dinner which will be served in -" he looked at his watch, "- an hour's time."
"No, I'll be damned if I'll wait. Generals aren't kept waiting on board one of the King's ships by some damned whipper-snapper!"
Admiral Sir Henry Faversham did not move, but in the silence that seemed to echo through the cabin he said quietly: "I should make it clear to everyone present that the captain of one of the King's ships is in complete command of the ship and everyone on board."
"He's not in command ofme," Cargill growled with ill grace. "By God just wait until the War Office hears about this!"
"Gentlemen," the admiral said, deliberately talking to them all although obviously warning Cargill, "the captain's functions are laid down by various Acts of Parliament, the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, and particularly the Articles of War. Captain Ramage holds the King's commission, so it behoves us all to obey his orders or face the consequences, and help him when possible."
Cargill snorted and muttered something, which sounded to Ramage like: "A year late and full of excuses!"
The marquis and both the earls moved across the cabin to talk to Admiral Faversham: instinctively they tried to help Sir Henry out of what could be a direct confrontation. Cargill remained sitting in the armchair like a sack of potatoes, staring at the desk, quite unembarrassed; oblivious, Ramage noted, to the atmosphere his boorish manner had created.
The two young men, Keene and Lewis, came over to Ramage and started asking questions about the Calypso: her size, how many men she carried, how many guns and, given a good wind, how fast she could sail.
After a few minutes Ramage's raised eyebrows brought Aitken to his rescue and he was able to talk to Admiral Faversham, although it was hard to hear over the chatter of so many voices in the confined cabin - everyone, it seemed to Ramage, might well have been in solitary confinement for the past year and suddenly wanted to make up for the long silence.
Sir Henry had obviously been waiting for Ramage to escape from the rest, and asked: "How did you know where to find us?"
"We marched to Pitigliano, sir, and found you had been taken to Santo Stefano. When we heard a frigate had carried you all away from there I didn't have much choice. If the French had taken you somewhere like Toulon, we'd never catch up, but there was just a chance that you'd been imprisoned on one of these islands. Giglio was the first one we - ah, inspected."
"Dressing up as Italians and French, with a gaggle of seamen pretending to be more hostages - whose idea was that?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "It just evolved, sir. I have some French seamen on board who were recently in France, and they sewed the French uniforms and forged French documents. And I have an Italian midshipman and an Italian seaman."
"You spoke Italian to us - seemed to be very good Italian."
"I spent my childhood in Italy, sir."
"What puzzles me is why you came to look for us."
"Admiralty orders, sir."
Sir Henry looked puzzled. "Yes, so you told Cargill, but what did the Board's orders say - you don't have to tell me, of course," he added tactfully.
Ramage paused a moment, thinking of the Admiralty's warning about secrecy. "Well, sir, Their Lordships knew that Bonaparte was keeping a number of people hostage, and they simply ordered me to rescue them."
"Just like that, eh?"
"They had some idea where you would be, sir. Pitigliano, I mean."
Sir Henry nodded. "Well, you made a superb job of it, and I shall make that clear in my report."
Ramage nodded appreciatively in turn. Nods and winks seemed to be the routine for conversation in such a crowd.