Already his knees felt almost raw: there was as much rock here as hardened earth - indeed, it was the sort of ground on which sage and juniper thrived. Yes, in the quiet of St Kew they would sit and reminisce of an autumn evening - as long as they survived the next hour. And the nearer they crawled to the fort, which seemed to double in size every twenty yards, the remoter seemed the chance of this gamble succeeding.
It was a gamble, and Ramage recalled how pompously he had told Sir Henry a day or so ago that he was contemptuous of gamblers because the element of chance could usually be removed by careful planning. Sir Henry had nodded politely, although most likely he wanted to laugh aloud. Anyway, his stake was down; the dice were rolling. And now Orsini was whispering urgently that they were about thirty yards from the end of the macchia and the beginning of the gravel square in front of the fort. Ramage turned and passed the order back for the column to halt.
Giving enough time for the word to pass from man to man in a whisper, Ramage then told Aitken, who had been following him, that everyone should unwrap his cutlass (but keep it down low so that the moon did not glint on the blade) load pistols and put them on half-cock.
Ramage did not pass orders for the Marines: Rennick knew exactly what he was doing. Ramage pictured Southwick unwinding the long strip of canvas from his great two-handed sword, which could take off a man's head with a couple of blows. One blow, probably, if rage put extra strength in Southwick's arms.
"Report back when everyone's ready," he told Aitken, who started the order off on its whispered journey. By the time the answer came back Ramage had both his pistols at half-cock and tucked back into his waist belt, and the canvas off his cutlass, which was now waiting on the ground beside him.
"I can see your face very clearly," he told Aitken. "That cork blacking has worn off."
"Afraid you're the same, sir," Aitken muttered. "The perspiration has washed it away. And I didn't bring any spare burnt corks."
"Oh well, I don't expect we'll meet anyone we know," Ramage said lightly. He picked up his cutlass. "Very well, we'll go on until we reach the gravel, and then wait for Hill."
Five minutes later Ramage peered at the gates from the edge of the bushes as Orsini pointed and whispered. "There, you can make out the sentry standing just to the left of that black oblong, which is the small doorway. The door must be open. We called the others doors, but they're really gates, and what was the proper English word for the small door? I'm afraid I have forgotten already."
"A wicket gate. A Dutch word we've adopted, I think, although the Welsh refer to a 'wicked' gate."
"Like Rossi. The Welsh obviously mean a gate just like that," Paolo said. "It's a wicked long run to reach it!"
"If you're going to make such poor jokes," Ramage muttered, "we'll speak Italian!"
He rolled on his side and pulled out his watch. Five minutes to go. Or, rather, five minutes until the time from which Hill could start.
Paolo nudged him. "Look, sir. Up on the battlements to the right: there's the other sentry."
Ramage watched the soldier march - no, he was strolling - and saw that he was making a complete circuit of the fort. He was not keeping a lookout on the seaward side - in fact, from the way he progressed it seemed highly unlikely that he was keeping a lookout for anything in particular. Would Hill have seen him? And would he be planning to start the attack once the sentry was out of sight from him on the landward side of the battlements? From down here among the roots of the sage and juniper, it was hard to judge the breeze, but it was light enough for Ramage to hear the faint rustle of the leaves. Yes, the breeze was still there, and the clouds showed that at least high up it had not changed direction.
He turned to Aitken. "Crawl alongside me and have a good look round." He passed on Orsini's observations, and Aitken nodded. "Let's hope Hill has seen that sentry," he murmured, echoing Ramage's thoughts. "If he times it right, it could give us an extra couple of minutes. . ."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A nightjar in a clump of olive trees over to the west of the fort kept up its lonely and monotonous quark . . . quark, a call so regular that Ramage stopped timing the seconds and used the bird. Otherwise there was silence. Then the sentry at the wicket gate coughed and spat, the silence making him seem much closer than thirty yards. The moon shadows cast by the boltheads made the big wooden gates look speckled with a heavy black rash.
The sentry up on the battlements, now almost at the opposite side from Hill and his party, sneezed violently and apparently startled the nightjar, which missed a beat. Had something happened to Hill? Had he missed his way? No, that was impossible: he had only to follow the edge of the cliff and then strike through the macchia towards the fort.
Ramage stared at the sentry beside the gate. Not beside it but leaning back against it. He was too far away to see if his eyes were shut, but Rossi could be right: the man was probably dozing standing up.
Ramage sniffed, and sniffed again. He held his breath, trying to sort out the smells. Sage and thyme, yes, but... He sniffed again. Yes, there was the sharper smell of bonfire smoke. Both Orsini and Aitken then nudged him simultaneously from either side. Burning (smouldering, anyway) sage and grass - not a strong smell, just a whiff, really. And then another whiff, stronger this time, and a third.
He twisted his body to the right so that he could look over to the windward side of the fort, then he watched the sentry at the wicket gate. The man did not move: grass and macchia fires were common enough at this time of the year, and anyway once the macchia really started blazing there was nothing to be done. If the flames spread to olive groves, the effect was spectacular: an olive tree started flaming and then suddenly exploded like a great firework as all the oil in the fruit (if they were still on the tree), the leaves and the branches blazed fiercely with the heat of a furnace so that a small pile of fine grey powder would be all that remained of a large tree; the kind of ash left by a good cigar.
More whiffs and then the smell became constant - and yes, beyond and to windward of Forte della Stella there was now a faint pinkish-yellow glow, a glow which grew brighter as Ramage watched, and seemed to throb.
He heard Aitken sigh and mutter: "It's going to work, sir."
The sentry on the battlements suddenly started shouting and then the other sentry at the wicket gate seemed to wake with a start, pause a minute or two and then dash into the fort, yelling - presumably at the guardhouse because Ramage almost immediately heard more confused shouting coming through the wicket gate.
While the glow increased until the whole eastern side of the fort was awash in a reddish-yellow light, a bugle suddenly blared out urgently inside the fort, obviously sounding an alarm, and a moment later several men rushed out through the wicket gate and, pausing a moment to get their bearings, turned left and then ran round the fortress walls towards the glow which, even as they reached one of the points of the star, began flickering: an indication that what had begun as something small like a bonfire was becoming a rapidly spreading blaze.
"Eight . . . nine . . . thirteen . . . fourteen . . ." Ramage counted as Frenchmen came hurrying through the gate. "Most are carrying muskets. Here come more!" He continued counting. Twenty-one men had run round towards the burning macchia by the time he stopped, and Ramage was satisfied that even the sentry on the battlements had left his post to join the others, who presumably proposed trying to beat out the flames.