Ramage's Signal

Although the old master spoke not a word of French, he always made himself clear: a tug at a shirt collar and a growl told the man it needed washing; an accusing finger pointing at uncombed hair or a badly tied queue was enough of a warning.

The French lieutenant was proving a worry to Ramage: the man had sunk into a deep gloom, convinced that if the British did not shoot him they would hand him back to his own people, who would lop off his head, although for what crime Ramage could not discover, because being taken prisoner was no offence on either side.

He decided to have another talk with the wretched fellow: he was still irritated at having more than thirty French prisoners on board and was thinking of releasing them as the Calypso sailed. However, doing that meant the Calypso's French disguise would be revealed.

Ramage called to a seaman to fetch another canvas deckchair and signalled to Aitken, whom he told to send a reliable seaman to bring the French lieutenant who, once he was seated in the chair, was to be guarded only from a distance.

'He's a sad puir fellow', Aitken said after the seaman had departed. 'Lost a louis and found a centime. I canna believe it's just because he's a prisoner.'

The 'sad puir fellow' came up the ladder from below, squinting with his eyes almost closed from the glare, and shuffling his feet as if on his way to the scaffold. The seaman guided him to the chair and when the man stood as though puzzled what to do next, gave him an unceremonious shove to make him sit.

Ramage nodded to him and said in French: 'The sun is strong.'

The French lieutenant said sadly: 'Yes, and my eyes are weak.' He looked incuriously round the Calypso's deck, appeared to notice the big hill in the centre of the bay, and equally incuriously looked farther round to the semaphore tower and the camp which for a year, until a few days ago, he had commanded. Now, Ramage was certain, he had no interest in it at all; he looked at it just as a sleepy dog looks up when roused in front of a fire.

'You are satisfied with the way your men are being treated?'

'My men?' He paused, obviously puzzled, and then said: 'Oh yes, they are all right, or so the sergeant tells me.'

'And yourself?'

The lieutenant shrugged. 'It is all a farce, m'sieur, and the sooner it is over the better.'

'What is a farce?' Ramage asked casually.

'Treating me as a prisoner.'

'What do I intend to do, then?'

'Shoot me.'

'I do not shoot my prisoners.'

'Then hand me back to the French authorities, which will be the same thing.'

'Why should setting you free - for that's what it would be - amount to the same as shooting you?'

'I shall be punished.'

'For what?' The man seemed to be almost in tears and Ramage was reminded of stories of penitents submitting to the Inquisition.

'There ... a ... deficiency ... they had an inventory ... when they return to Sète and compare what we have in our stores with what the inventory shows ...'

'There will be a difference?'

'A big difference.'

'In what materials?' Ramage was curious now; the scope for peculation seemed limited.

'Rice, flour, olive oil, wine ...'

'How did it happen? Where did it go?'

'The villagers paid a good price: their crops failed this year and they were hungry.'

'So you sold them Army stores?'

'It was not quite like that', the lieutenant said lamely. 'They were starving, you understand.'

'You could have given them food.'

'It came from them in the first place, all except the rice', the lieutenant explained.

'From them?' Ramage was puzzled but a suspicion was forming in his mind.

'Yes - you see, we requisition what we need for the troops.'

'But what did you sell to the starving villagers?'

'Well, the surplus.'

'How could there be a surplus if you requisitioned only what you needed?'

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. 'It was hard to estimate.'

'So having deliberately stolen - not requisitioned, but stolen - more than you needed, you then made a cash profit by selling it back to the villagers?'

Ramage's voice was so cold and his eyes seemed but slits, like sword blades viewed from the point, that the lieutenant said nothing.

'How did the Army authorities find a deficit?'

'We kept two sets of books and the wrong ones were given to the quartermaster's department at the time of the survey.'

Ramage stood up and stared down at the lieutenant, trying to control his anger. 'You rob your own people of their food and sell it back to them, and when your quartermaster's department find out, you feel sorry for yourself and fear the guillotine, eh? Well, I'd hang you - slowly. Get out of my sight' - he pointed to the ladder leading below and the seaman escort hurried back - 'in case I decide to do the job for your authorities.'

As soon as the man had gone below - bolting like a rabbit, in comparison with the way he had shambled up - Aitken came over to find his captain sitting down again and shaking with rage.

The Scot, who had never seen Ramage like this before, asked bluntly: 'What happened, sir?'

Ramage told him, and Aitken commented: 'It's a temptation to hand him over, isn't it, sir. But it'd give ourselves away. Of course', he added slowly, 'we could keep the French seamen and hand him over to the villagers. They'd probably string him up from a tree.'

Ramage shook his head. 'There's always a government informer in every village. It'd end up with the people of Foix being massacred.'

'We'll just make his life a bluidy misery, then', Aitken said. 'We'll have him wakened every half an hour at night for a start, with someone asking him if he's hungry.'

Ramage told him the phrase to use, and the Scot repeated it to himself a few times. 'That's not too difficult; I'll have some men from each watch practise it. His water ration can be a bit smelly. And his wine issue vinegary. And if he finds more weevils in his bread than usual, well ...'

Ramage nodded. 'But this sort of requisitioning is going on all over France where there's a garrison: the French Army lives off the land - even in France.'

The sun was dropping so low now its rays were coming under the awning. Down on his desk were fifteen sheets of paper, each intended for the master of one of the ships in the convoy, and each neatly written in French by Paolo last night. Paolo's handwriting was typically that of a Latin: he wrote French easily, his pen flowing without the hesitation of someone pausing to check the spelling of a difficult word.

Had the convoy arrived, Paolo would have been rowed to each of the ships in his French Army uniform and delivered a letter to the captain - in fact a brief paragraph of new orders - and the convoy's departure and subsequent capture would have been assured without a shot being fired. But Paolo's time - and the candle consumed in the lantern at the signalmen's hut - had been wasted.

Aitken said tactfully: 'Should I take over the saws and axes to the camp and arrange what the men have to do tonight, sir?'

'Yes. Make sure they destroy completely the mechanism of the tower, once they've brought it down.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'And don't forget to make sure the cattle are freed.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'And make sure Orsini brings back the signal log and the copies of the semaphore code.'

'Aye aye, sir', Aitken said patiently, sensing how his captain's disappointment over the convoy was now mixed with anger over the despicable French lieutenant. It would be unfortunate if any of the Calypso's officers or seamen made a bad mistake today - at least, within sight of the captain.

Aitken was just climbing down into the red cutter when there was a bellow from aloft, and out of habit he paused to listen.