Wagstaffe shook his head. "No, sir, just the extra boat will be enough." He hesitated, and then began: "But, sir . . ."
Ramage raised an eyebrow, guessing what was coming.
"Could - well, sir, Baker is experienced now, and I feel I can be of more help if I -"
Ramage held up his hand. "You have this job for one reason. I need Aitken for something else. You are next senior. In fact if you make one mistake you'll wreck everything. I've told you all the alternatives that I can think of, but I can't be expected to guess everything the Dons can do."
He spoke very deliberately. "It's a great mistake to assume the enemy is a fooclass="underline" many battles are lost through underestimating the opposition. But sometimes the enemy can be more foolish than you expect, or unprepared, or a dozen other things. For instance, the three hundred soldiers on board the Jocasta have just been taken off and sent into the hills against the Indians. That was unexpected from everyone's point of view."
He tapped the top of the desk for emphasis. "The forts may blow us out of the water, the Mayor may come out in a gilded barge to take the Captain-General's nephew to a banquet, you might run the Santa Barbara aground, it might suddenly pour with rain so we can't see what we're doing . . . You agree all those things are possible?"
Wagstaffe nodded uneasily, wishing he had kept his mouth shut.
"Very well. In every case you will have to do the right thing without waiting for orders from me. And there could be a dozen more things."
The Second Lieutenant was still not convinced, but then Ramage said: "Aitken wants to change jobs with you. He doesn't know what I have in mind for him, but he'd like to command the Santa Barbara. Do you really want to exchange?"
Wagstaffe paused for a second and then shook his head vigorously. "No, sir; indeed, I'm flattered you have such trust in me."
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "You can do it, all right; it's just that I don't want you to underestimate what you might have to do. And remember, no more men on deck than the Santa Barbara had in her original Spanish crew - twenty, was it?"
"Twenty-one, sir. Oh yes, I need a fat man."
"Do you, by Jove! "
"The Spanish captain: he's a very distinctive - ah, shape. There's a spare uniform on board. I thought I might -"
"Take the cook's mate, " Ramage said, and laughed at the thought of the plump little man dressed up as the captain of the Santa Barbara. "Take care of him, though; no one slaughters and dresses a sheep better than he does. Any questions? Very well, you'd better get back on board the Santa Barbara and steer for Santa Cruz. But wait for a few minutes while I give Rennick his orders."
In his cabin an hour later Ramage looked round at Aitken, Baker, Southwick and Paolo. Either the plan was better than he thought or familiarity was breeding affection. He had explained it three times now - to Wagstaffe, Rennick and now the three staying with him in the Calypso - and so far no one had pointed out a flaw. Nor, he realized, had anyone pointed out how much it depended on luck, so their opinions were of little significance. He looked across at the First Lieutenant.
"Aitken - you have everything ready?"
The Scotsman tapped the rolled chart and signal book. "Ready for whatever is served up, sir."
"Baker . . . Southwick?"
Neither the Third Lieutenant nor the Master had any questions, and Ramage glanced across to Paolo, who was present as part of his training. "Orsini, you look as though something is bothering you! "
"Should I have a cutlass or a pistol, sir?"
Ramage smiled at the boy's eager face. "Have both. Now, you understand what you have to do?"
"Oh yes, sir! "
"Very well. Now, gentlemen, I want to emphasize this. In a few hours you'll be actors on a stage, but if you're unconvincing you'll get cannonballs fired at you, not boos and catcalls."
They all laughed, but they knew that the Captain was only just joking. Ramage guessed that no group of the King's officers had ever received such bizarre orders. He had a sense of unreality in giving them, and could only admire the way they had all simply nodded from time to time as he spoke, as though they were routine instructions for entering harbour and saluting the Commander-in-Chief. No doubting looks, no carefully worded questions intended to hint that the Captain was wrong. On the contrary: if anything they seemed both amused and pleased with their orders.
"Very well, Mr Aitken; muster the ship's company aft and I'll let them into the secret."
Ten minutes later Ramage stood on top of the big capstan looking down at his men grouped round him on the quarterdeck. He was puzzled and his face was flushed. Just at the moment the men should have been looking serious and listening attentively, they had burst out laughing. Jackson, the cook, Rossi, Stafford, the shrivelled little gunner were amused; they were slapping each other on the back and two or three were pretending to start a hornpipe.
Suddenly he realized the significance of their reaction and he grinned and waited for the laughter to subside, as though he had expected it. Then he held up his hand.
"Tomorrow, I'll remind you, is a new day. Half a dozen of you will have to clean up the decks, and the First Lieutenant will need half a dozen men to polish the brass -"
He broke off again as the men roared with laughter, and one man - was it Stafford? - called out: "Half a dozen men? You're spoiling us, sir." This was the moment to stop; they were in high spirits and just in the mood for the task in hand. He gave a wave, vaulted off the capstan and went down the companionway to his cabin, catching sight of Pico de Santa Fe as he turned. It was very close now, towering high and forbidding; he could imagine it being the legendary home of proud and vengeful Indian gods ...
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sun was low enough to throw the eastern sides of the tumbling hills and cone-shaped Pico de Santa Fe into deep shadow. The channel into Santa Cruz was now a dark slot cut through the cliffs, a forbidding canyon at the far end of which Ramage could just see the lagoon with the castle of Santa Fe crouched at the foot of the peak, a square block of stone, its battlements like bared teeth, its guns covering every inch of the entrance.
The wind was light, the sky clear except for streaks of cloud on the horizon, and Ramage felt strangely free. He looked down at his bare feet and was vaguely surprised to see his toes on the planking of the quarterdeck, the flesh startlingly white compared with his tanned hands. The white duck trousers were suitably creased and grubby but a good deal more comfortable than breeches and stockings. A bloodstained purser's shirt, open at the neck, felt light and loose after years of wearing a stock and heavy uniform coat. His hair was bound at the back with a bit of cord and like everyone else on board he was unshaven and unwashed. It took very little to change the Calypso into a ship apparently run by mutineers.
Southwick was pacing round the quarterdeck like a bear dressed up for a carnivaclass="underline" he too was wearing a pair of purser's trousers and a bloodstained shirt, and his usually unruly white hair looked more than ever like a twice-used mop. He had a pistol tucked into the top of his trousers; his great sword slapped against his leg as he walked. The once-smart First Lieutenant now wore a red shirt; his white duck trousers were smeared with blood and dirt. A black cloth served as a scarf tied over his hair and gave him the look of a Highland brigand.
The Calypso's cook was - under orders - swaggering round the ship with a great meat cleaver hanging from his waist; thirty men were perched in various parts of the rigging while a dozen more were skylarking, occasionally scrambling down the mainstay. The frigate yawed from time to time, and Ramage knew that all the Spaniards watching from Castillo San Antonio and its twin of El Pilar must realize she was being badly sailed. What they did not see was Jackson, acting as quartermaster and giving the orders to the men at the wheel which produced the sudden flapping of the topsails. The courses and topgallants were badly furled - it had taken Southwick an hour before he was satisfied with them, straining his patience as he complained that it was harder to furl them badly than neatly.