'They were never as smart with Frenchmen inside 'em', he commented to Rennick. 'Even if the Frenchmen were shorter.'
'Yes. I've been trying to persuade the sergeant that although a couple of inches of ankle showing at the trouser leg would cause a sensation at Portsmouth, it doesn't matter here. He now agrees. He issued the uniforms', he added, 'so it's hardly surprising his own is the only perfect fit.'
Suddenly Ramage heard Jackson hailing from the top of the tower. 'Captain, sir! Captain, sir!'
Ramage, knowing the limitations of his own voice, nodded to Rennick, who bellowed: 'The captain is here, at the guardhouse.'
'Signal coming from Aspet, sir.'
'Very well.'
Ramage looked towards the corporal. 'Your men are a credit. Don't forget though, if anyone arrives, no talking, and blow the whistle for Mr Orsini.'
With that Ramage hurried over to the tower, noting that Rennick and the sergeant were heading for one of the huts, presumably to deal with the unfortunate corporal whose flint refused to spark.
By now the sun was well above the horizon, bringing warmth with it and putting new vigour into the insects which were beginning to buzz about the yellow flecks of flower among the gorse bushes. Feeling he needed the exercise, Ramage climbed the ladder, although he did it at a speed which made it clear to any onlooker that the captain was simply climbing the ladder to get to the top of the platform, not to demonstrate how topmen should go up the ratlines wearing breeches.
Paolo, eye glued to the telescope on its stand, and aimed at Aspet, was calling out letters of the alphabet which Jackson was writing down on a slate. Ramage looked over the American's shoulder and saw it was a signal from Barcelona to Toulon.
'That's all', Paolo said briskly, 'now dip the flag twice and then they can go to sleep again over there, happy in the knowledge we have the signal.'
'I wonder where that signal spent the night', Ramage reflected. 'It started off from Barcelona in broad daylight yesterday, for certain, but it was benighted before it travelled very far. It can have travelled through only two or three stations today.'
'Probably delayed by rain, sir', Jackson offered, 'especially when you remember how the thunderstorms roll down the side of the Pyrenees. Cuts visibility to a few yards.'
Paolo took the slate from Jackson and held it out for Ramage to finish reading. Then he asked: 'Do we pass it on, sir?'
Ramage shook his head. 'No, put it in the log and add a translation.'
'The fools may have trumped your ace, sir', he said sympathetically. 'One can never trust the Spanish.'
The signal when translated said quite simply: 'Convoy now fifteen ships refuses await escort and sails tomorrow.' Obviously 'tomorrow' meant today, because it was now only half past eight in the morning.
Ramage knew that only one question needed an answer now: would the Spanish (and probably French) merchantmen have left Barcelona before his faked order arrived telling them to make for Foix?
Most British convoys Ramage had ever seen - admittedly large West Indian ones, often comprising more than one hundred ships - took all day to get out of the harbour and sometimes all the next day to form up properly.
With Aitken, Southwick and Kenton on board the Calypso Ramage could spend the day at the semaphore station, although apart from giving an immediate answer to any questions concerning signals there seemed little else for him to do, and he enjoyed the atmosphere of the maquis.
Thirty-six hours from noon: that was about the earliest he could hope to sight the convoy, providing his signal arrived in time - and providing the real escort had not reached Barcelona. It was a sequence of events, he reflected gloomily, in which the word 'providing' appeared too frequently.
Idly he watched the Calypso and saw the red-and-green cutters being hoisted out. As soon as they were in the water they would be filled with water casks - Aitken's men were to spend the rest of the day 'wooding and watering': parties would be collecting firewood for the Calypso's coppers within the limits of the camp while others were filling casks with fresh water from the well. With luck the Calypso by the end of the day would again have thirty tons on board, the amount with which she had left Gibraltar to begin the present cruise. The cook was not going to be pleased with the wood, though; most of the trees were stunted and would yield logs more suitable for brightening the hearth of a cottage than heating a frigate's big coppers.
'Le Chesne, sir', Jackson reported to Orsini. 'They've got their flag up.'
'Answer and stand by', Orsini said, swinging the telescope round to the eastward and focusing it on the Le Chesne tower. Jackson hoisted and lowered the red flag and then picked up the slate. The signal was from Toulon and directed to station sixteen, which Ramage guessed was Séte. As Orsini called out the letters and Jackson wrote them down, Ramage realized the signal was a routine one about a discrepancy between stores reported used and the amount actually found in a recent inventory, and the commanding officer was required ...
As he climbed down the ladder and recalled the contents of the original French signal log, he decided that pilfering, selling government stores and taking inventories were the main occupations of the commanding officers of the various semaphore stations.
Two days later Ramage sat on the Calypso's quarterdeck in a canvas-backed chair in the shade of the awning, which was rigged again to provide shelter from the blazing sun returning after the mistral. The sea was calm with a gentle breeze from the west so that the frigate was lying parallel with the beach. Over at the semaphore tower, which he could see on the larboard quarter, the tiny awning was rigged on the platform and he could just make out two figures, Paolo and Jackson, swinging the telescope round from time to time, keeping a watch on Aspet and Le Chesne.
Aloft in the Calypso seamen kept watch seaward, but by now he was sure that the convoy had sailed from Barcelona direct for their destinations before his signal had arrived ordering them to Foix, and no doubt the French escort had joined them.
Tonight, he decided, the Calypso would sail to look for the convoy - though he was uncertain whether to head eastward, close along the coast, on the assumption that it had passed in the darkness, or southeast because perhaps it had found a different wind once it left Barcelona and could comfortably lay Marseilles, its first destination.
He was not sure whether his semaphore signal had been a wild idea and a waste of time, or whether it had been a good idea unluckily ruined by the impatience of the French masters of merchantmen. Anyway tonight, as soon as it was dark, the tower would topple under the Marines' axes, the barrack huts would be wrecked, the powder casks rolled into the sea, and the cattle turned loose - the villagers would soon find and appropriate them. Burning down the whole place would attract far too much attention to the Calypso - the flames would be seen for miles - and to the French the important part of the camp as a link in the signal chain was not the accommodation (which could be replaced by tents) but the tower, which was as easily destroyed by axes as flames.
A fruitless chase after the convoy, he thought miserably, then a few weeks' cruising along the French and Spanish coasts sinking xebecs, tartanes and suchlike small coasting vessels, and then back to Gibraltar because the time limit for his orders would have run out. He could destroy a few of the semaphore towers, every fourth one, say, but he could not see Their Lordships (or even the port admiral at Gibraltar) realizing what a blow that would be to the French naval communication system. The Board and admirals could understand ships captured or sunk; signals were dull affairs.
A few seamen in the waist were exercising French prisoners, allowing them up a dozen at a time. They were made to run round the fore and mainmasts a few times (they showed a great reluctance to exercise themselves voluntarily) and before they were sent below had to be inspected by Southwick.