"But Sir Henry, I can see with my own eyes what's afoot!" Cargill protested.
"In that case," Sir Henry said quietly, "I should tell you that Captain Ramage has every right to arrest you if you refuse to obey his orders. Me, too, if I did the same."
Cargill swung round, staggering as the Calypso rolled, and then made his way to the ladder. Sir Henry, without a word to Ramage, returned to the taffrail.
Ramage sighed: if one had to fight only the French ... He took the telescope from the binnacle drawer and balanced himself to inspect the French frigate. Yes, she was following precisely in the Calypso's wake. Her guns were not run out - but because she was not suspicious or because she was rolling so violently? Topsails and courses set, the same as the Calypso. If there was an urgent need to overtake the Calypso, surely she would let fall her topgallants? Ramage looked aloft at the Calypso's straining topsails and then decided only a gambler would set topgallants: a sudden extra gust in this uncertain weather could easily carry away a mast. . .
So what was that French captain doing and thinking? At first, no doubt, interested (and surprised) to see a ship of his own class off Giglio and obviously weighing anchor. A sensible captain would conclude that the ship was being prudent, shifting berth in the scirocco to the lee side of the island. So far so good.
Then the ship bears away and sets more sail without apparently answering the challenge. How important would the Frenchman judge that? His reaction would not be as rigid as a British post-captain, for at least four reasons. First, there were so few British ships in the Mediterranean that the Frenchman would not be expecting to see one - certainly not at anchor off Giglio.
Second, the French captain would notice at once that the ship was the same class as his own, and it was unlikely anyone would see in this wind that the sails had a British cut. Third, the captain of a French frigate in the Mediterranean was unlikely to have heard (or would have since forgotten) that a French frigate of this type had been captured by the British some years ago in the West Indies.
Fourth, the French were very casual about signalling, and this captain might not - since he would assume that any other ship would be French - be very concerned that his challenge was not answered.
However, Ramage decided, any French captain might be curious if the frigate he was following stayed on this course, which led to nowhere in particular. North-east could only mean somewhere on the Tuscan coast, fishing villages between Castiglione della Pescaia and Talamone . . . Turning to the northwest, though, would show clearly that the destination was Elba, which in turn meant Porto Ferraio. And of course Porto Ferraio, one of the safest harbours in the whole Mediterranean, was on the north side of Elba and well sheltered in a scirocco.
Ramage acknowledged Aitken's report that the Calypso was now at general quarters and nodded in agreement when the first lieutenant said he presumed Ramage did not want the guns run out yet. Ramage noted that Southwick had now joined Aitken. It was a deuced nuisance that Sir Henry had installed himself at the taffraiclass="underline" Ramage wanted to pace the weather side between the quarterdeck rail and the taffrail, but if he did that now it would be obvious (and unnecessarily rude) to Sir Henry that he was avoiding conversation.
It was curious about plovers. In Kent they were called peewits, which was a fair approximation of their cry. But how did they learn that trick of shamming injury to a wing to lure intruders away from the nest? Or did it come to them naturally, like swimming to ducklings and baby moorhens? Hmm, night was falling fast: darkness was getting a helping hand from the haze, which was almost thick enough to log as a faint mist.
Time to reassure the French frigate. He called a new course of north-north-west to Aitken. This would be radical enough to be immediately noticed by the ship astern, and within moments Aitken was shouting orders which braced the yards and trimmed the sheets as the wind came round on to the larboard quarter.
Peewits. Curious how his mind kept returning to those black and white, crested birds! They were not even sea birds. If you walked across a field they wheeled overhead, with their irritating "peewit" cry, warning everything else, from partridges to hares. Some people liked plovers' eggs to eat but as far as Ramage was concerned they were small and fiddling; he suspected that to the gourmets the fact that they were seasonal and hard to find rather than their delicacy accounted for their popularity.
Southwick now came up to him. "Glad you came round six points to larboard, sir: I was about to remind you about those 'ants' - we were steering straight for them."
"Ah, yes: they'd be hard to spot in this visibility, especially if our course had taken us through the middle."
"Aye, we'd have lost the light by the time we got there," Southwick commented.
Peewits scratching at the top of anthills: again the black and white birds with the paddle-shaped wing tips came to mind. Yes, he could just imagine them pecking away at anthills, searching for a meal - providing, of course, that they liked ants. Perhaps they preferred mole burrows and molehills, new ones, a happy hunting ground yielding fresh worms.
He looked astern at the French frigate, now becoming a blur. Yes, she had altered course too. Perhaps she too was bound for Porto Ferraio, or her captain had just decided to shelter there for a couple of days, and visit the sister ship. The island of Giglio was now out of sight - and Argentario, too. No, perhaps there was just a hint of a heavier greyness in the distance - Monte Argentario was big. From memory, though, in a scirocco the upper half of the mountain was usually hidden in cloud streaming to leeward, so it was probably his imagination.
He now looked over the starboard bow and let his eyes run slowly aft. No sign of the mainland of Tuscany. Punta Ala had mountains to the south, and Talamone some to the north, while in between (with the Bocca d'Ombrone in the middle) it was flat. The Calypso and the frigate astern could both be in the middle of the Atlantic as far as landmarks were concerned. The nearest land, if you wanted to flatter it with that description, was the Formiche di Grosseto, the ants. With peewits pecking at them.
Ramage suddenly saw it all clearly, and he turned to Southwick. "Do you think you can give me a fairly exact course to the Formiche di Grosseto?" he asked. "No, that's asking too much. No, first give me a course to meet the coast south of the Ombrone river: then we can check our position exactly once we spot those forts at the mouth of the river."
"But it'll be dark long before we get within miles!" Southwick protested.
"The moon, remember the moon," Ramage chided. "It'll be up very soon. It's nearly full and it'll penetrate the clouds just enough to be as useful as an ostler's lantern."
"We could just as easily run up on the coast!" Southwick grumbled crossly. "If you'll forgive me saying so, sir, it's just madness to try and dodge Johnny Frenchman astern by going inshore like that!"
Ramage grinned. "You know I always go slightly mad with a full moon!"
"Slightly!" Southwick sniffed, and made for the quarterdeck ladder and the rolls of charts in Ramage's cabin.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ramage walked aft to speak to Sir Henry. The admiral was (as he accepted with perfect correctness) simply a passenger, but as a man he deserved some hint of what Ramage was planning.
"He doesn't seem to worry much about challenges," Sir Henry said, nodding astern towards the French ship. "Just follows us like a stray dog hoping for a pat on the head!"
"He probably thinks we are making for Elba, sir," Ramage suggested. "Porto Ferraio would be just the place to shelter from a scirocco. Or he may be based there."