Once again Ramage looked along the line of mountains. He had never seen a shoreline so constantly beaten by rollers; there was always a jagged line of boiling surf thundering into the foot of the cliffs, flinging up fine spray which hung as a heavy mist, blurring the slots and crevices. Yesterday he had occasionally seen small boats inshore, fishermen from the villages built wherever there was a gap in the cliffs or where a bend in the coast formed a sheltered bay and gave them a lee. They must be hardy men, working under a blazing sun with a heavy sea running most of the time. Presumably starvation faced them if a week of heavy rollers prevented them from launching their boats.
The Jocasta was making a fast passage: with this soldier's wind the hourly cast of the log showed she was making an effortless ten knots. During the night he had expected the stunsails to carry away at times as occasional but brief gusts came up astern without warning.
The Main was a strange and unpredictable coast, and he wished he had sailed it before. This curious light over the mountains, for instance: as the sun came up it had not washed the peaks in its usual pinkness; instead it had cast a cold, almost whitish light, bringing with it an almost frightening clarity and throwing harsh, sharp-edged shadows. Every crack and crevice, valley and distant precipice showed up in the telescope as though it was only five miles away, instead of twenty. In contrast, there had been a haze yesterday which, up in the Leeward and Windward Islands, always warned of strong winds to come. Now today there was this clearness. It could mean anything or nothing. Southwick's notebook referred to calderetas sweeping down from the mountains, but gave no further details. Still, if they occurred only once or twice in a year there was no reason to suppose they would bother the Jocasta . . .
He was getting jumpy; it was as simple as that. He had been lucky at Santa Cruz and if he had had any sense he would be on his way back to English Harbour. Instead he was bound for La Guaira, commanding - as far as any onlooker was concerned - His Most Catholic Majesty's frigate La Perla. Only another dozen miles to go; already Pico Avila was looming up high, towering over La Guaira just as Pico de Santa Fe stood at the back of Santa Cruz.
He looked down at his clothes. Providing he did not wear a hat, they were similar enough to the Spanish naval uniform. Southwick, with his chubby face and flowing white hair, would hardly pass for a Spaniard but, he told himself, people usually saw what they expected to see: at La Guaira they were waiting for Captain Velasquez to arrive in La Perla . . .
Southwick walked up to report on his inspection: "The tiller ropes are sound, sir, and so are the relieving tackles. Hardly a new rope in the ship but nothing needs changing. Just as well, since there isn't a spare coil anywhere. We might get some from the Calypso when we meet her."
"Very well. We'd better start getting ready for entering La Guaira."
Southwick eyed him curiously. "Aye, aye, sir. We'll be anchoring?"
"I don't know yet, but the Spaniards will be expecting us to, so we have to have everything ready."
"The men at quarters?"
"Yes, but hidden below the bulwarks. Guns loaded but not run out and boarders standing by."
Southwick obviously had many more questions to ask, but he nodded and said: "Very well, sir, I'll see to it."
Aitken, as First Lieutenant, had to know what was going on, and Ramage walked aft to where he was standing near the binnacle and gave him his instructions. "I'll take the conn, " Ramage said. "We'll be there in two or three hours."
By now the grindstone was hard at work, one man working the handle, another pouring water into the trough through which the bottom of the stone turned, and a third moving the blade of a cutlass across the spinning wheel. He then sighted along the blade and, when satisfied, put it to one side, picking up another from the waiting pile.
The sun was getting hot; already the deck was uncomfortably warm and Ramage began pacing the quarterdeck. The glare from the waves as they surged past the frigate made his eyes ache and it would get worse as the sun climbed higher.
Paolo, having satisfied the Master that he could now work out the distance off by the vertical angle, was marching up and down, hands clasped behind his back, a frown on his face.
"Mr Orsini, " Ramage said, "you look worried. Are sines and tangents still bothering you?"
"Oh no, sir. It's my dirk. The blade is chipped and I was hoping I could put it on the grindstone before they stow it."
"How on earth did you chip it?"
"When we boarded the Jocasta, sir. I was warding off a cutlass, and I think the blow made a dent in the edge."
Ramage stared at the boy. "You boarded the Jocasta with your dirk?" he demanded.
"Why yes, sir: it's a very good dirk: the best that Mr Prater had. Aunt Gianna went with me to Charing Cross - Mr Prater is the best sword cutler in London - and told him she wanted the finest dirk for me."
"I know all about Mr Prater, " Ramage growled, "but that dirk is not for fighting! Why, it's only a twelve-inch blade. I've told you before, use a cutlass."
"But I had a cutlass as well, sir, " Paolo protested. "I was using my dirk as a main gauche, but I had to ward off one Spaniard's blade with the dirk and kill him with the cutlass."
A main gauche! In the days when duellists paid little attention to rules, a man held a dagger in his left hand, hoping to use the sword in his right hand to swing his opponent round with a parry, leaving him wide open to a jab from the dagger. Paolo had learned duelling in Volterra; his tutor had obviously impressed on him the merits of surviving.
"Very well, " Ramage said, "you can have five minutes. But let the seaman put the dirk on the stone; you'll grind away half the metal! "
Aitken was going round the deck and as he called names from a list in his hand men went obediently to collect boarding pike, tomahawk or cutlass. Ramage noticed that the first thing a man did was to examine the point or edge and some, with obvious grunts of disapproval, went over to the grindstone.
As soon as Paolo came back to the quarterdeck, his newly sharpened dirk slung round his waist, Ramage gave him a key: "You'll find a Spanish signal book in the second drawer of my desk. Bring it up here, and look through it. You'll find it easy enough to understand."
If anything happened to Gianna, or she died without having a son, her nephew Paolo would be the next ruler of Volterra. Well, he was getting a good training in leadership. Perhaps Gianna was shrewder than he had given her credit for when she asked him to take Paolo as a midshipman. She knew better than anyone what was needed in a ruler of that turbulent Tuscan state, where treachery was a commonplace and, once the French were driven out, revolution would probably join it. He shivered at the thought of what Gianna would face when she returned to Italy. The way things were at the moment, with the French armies victorious from the North Sea to the gates of the Holy City, it was some consolation (for him anyway) that it would be a long time before she could go back to Volterra.
He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts. For a few moments he had been among the smoothly rounded hills of Tuscany, and it was almost a shock now to find himself staring at the sharp peaks of the Main - peaks which made him feel uneasy for reasons he could not understand but which, from long experience, he knew he should not ignore. And yet, he thought helplessly, what was it that he ought not to ignore?