realized that Aitken was obviously keen to know what he had found.
'Just his orders - the rest are routine.'
'But you read them all so quickly, sir. I didn't know you spoke Spanish.'
'It comes in useful sometimes. Now we'll have that captain up here with his officers, and see what we can find out. Perhaps you'd fetch them. We don't need Marines - you've a pistol, and I don't think there's any fight left in them.'
'I don't think they were issued with any to start with, sir, ' Aitken said dryly as he made for the door.
Ramage put the letters and signal book in a drawer and pitched the canvas pouches into a locker: it would do no harm to let the Dons think that no one was very interested in papers.
Aitken came back, leading the fat little captain and two young men, obviously his lieutenants but, from the foppish way they wore their clothes, probably owing their appointments more to the influence of their families than to their knowledge of seamanship.
'This, er, this gentleman is the captain of the brig, sir, ' Aitken said, 'I didn't catch his name.'
'You speak English?' Ramage asked pleasantly.
The Spaniard pointed to the elder of the two lieutenants, who stepped forward and bowed. 'I speak some English, ' he said truculently.
'Then introduce your captain and tell him I am Captain Ramage.'
The fat Spaniard's name was Lopez. Ramage, speaking slow and precise English, introduced Aitken and then waved for the three Spaniards to sit on the settee.
'I have some questions to ask your captain, ' he told the lieutenant, watched by a puzzled Aitken. 'You will translate. First, what are his orders, and who gave them?'
The lieutenant translated, and Lopez, his eyes on Ramage, said with relief: 'Ah - he hasn't read the letters. Tell him I was patrolling the coast - on the orders of the Governor of the province. Looking for smugglers.'
Ramage nodded as this was translated into careful English. 'And from which port did you sail?'
'Do not tell him, ' the captain said quickly, after the translation. 'Tell him Cumana.'
Again Ramage thanked the lieutenant. It was absurd how often people assumed that, because they had not heard you speak their language, you did not understand it.
'I want to know what ships are in Santa Cruz.'
The captain sniffed. 'Tell him I do not know. I have not been there for months.'
Ramage looked puzzled when the lieutenant translated. 'I am trying to find the English frigate, ' he said helplessly. 'Tell your captain that.'
Lopez was watching him closely as the lieutenant translated. 'I guessed that! Tell him she has sailed for Havana. Sailed a month ago.'
Ramage waited for the translation and then carefully arranged his features to show disappointment and disbelief. 'But . . . but, ' he stammered, 'she was in Santa Cruz six weeks ago! '
The lieutenant translated and Lopez, looking smug, said: 'Tell him to look for her in Havana. She escaped all the English corsairs! '
Ramage could not blame Lopez for his attempted deception, but was thankful he had met the William and Henrietta yesterday, otherwise Lopez might have succeeded. But the way the Spaniard was patting his knees, confident he had misled the Englishman, was irritating. It was time to jolt him.
'I hope your captain is telling the truth. I shall be looking into all the ports between here and La Guaira, and if I find he is telling lies it will be easy to punish him: he will be on board . . .'
The lieutenant translated, trying to conceal his nervousness - he was obviously wondering if he and the other lieutenant were included in the threat - and Lopez shrugged his shoulders: 'He'll never see her: he'll never get into -' he just caught himself in time to avoid naming the port '- the place, so we've nothing to fear.'
Ramage listened to the lieutenant's hurriedly invented answer: 'Captain Lopez says your frigate is not on the coast; you should look for her in Havana.'
Now Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh well, we've missed her, then. Still, I'm sure we'll find some prizes in Santa Cruz.'
'Santa Cruz?' the lieutenant exclaimed. 'Surely you will not try to enter there?'
'Why not? I have charts - and this is a powerful frigate, you know.'
'But the forts - they will blow you out of the water! '
'You, too, ' Ramage pointed out just as Lopez demanded to know what was being said.
The lieutenant said hurriedly that the English captain was going to enter all the ports, starting with Santa Cruz, and he had warned him that the forts would blow the ship out of the water.
'And us, too, ' Lopez exclaimed, beginning to turn pale. 'Ask him if we can be exchanged - there are many English prisoners at La Guaira. An exchange could be arranged. We must go first to La Guaira and send a message to the Captain-General. A flag of truce - the Santa Barbara could go in under a flag of truce while this ship waits out of range of the guns.'
Ramage listened patiently to the translation, his expression becoming more and more vague. 'Tell Captain Lopez my orders are clear: I cannot waste time making exchanges.'
'But - we will all be killed! ' the lieutenant exclaimed, his face white.
'There is that risk, of course. But you would have been killed if we had fired into you this morning.'
'But you didn't! You would never attack such a small ship! It would be dishonourable and cowardly! '
'A few years ago, ' Ramage said reminiscently, 'I commanded a cutter about the size of the Santa Barbara, perhaps a few tons smaller. She was sunk by a Spanish ship of the line.'
Lopez, his face running with perspiration, ordered the lieutenant to translate, but the young man was shaking now. He made an effort to translate coherently to Lopez: 'He hates the Spanish! He was in a small ship that was sunk by one of our ships of the line. This is his revenge - to have us all killed as he tries to get into Santa Cruz. Orders, he says; he cannot arrange an exchange because it is not mentioned in his orders. Caramba! That tells you what sort of man he is.'
'Compose yourself, ' Lopez said sharply, wiping the perspiration from his face with a large, lace-edged handkerchief. 'If we die then so does he! '
'But he doesn't care about death! ' the lieutenant protested. 'They're heretics, these English; they place no value on life; they glory in killing people.'
'I wish I could kill him, ' Lopez said bitterly. 'Anyway, it was your uncle that gave us the orders and made me take you as a lieutenant. A poor captain like myself can only obey the Captain-General. You asked him to let you sail in the Santa Barbara. You wanted to impress your friends with your bravery. You have only yourself to blame. Me - I am just an ignorant naval officer. I live or I get killed. I knew that years ago, when first I went into the Navy.'
Ramage snapped his fingers. 'What is Captain Lopez saying?'
The lieutenant looked down at the deck. 'He is shocked at your cruelty. You have no right to risk our lives with your foolish ideas! '
'Young man, ' Ramage said heavily, 'you know well enough what the buccaneers used to do along this coast a hundred and fifty years ago with people like you. Yes, they'd light a fire and hang you over it on a spit, or make you walk off the end of a jibboom . . .'
'You would never -'
Ramage deliberately looked disinterested and callous. 'Today, prisoners can fall over the side - accidentally, of course - and -'
'You would never dare! You would be punished. My uncle is the Captain-General of the province: he would protest to Madrid and -'
'How would he ever know?' Ramage asked casually.
Lopez, alarmed at his lieutenant's high-pitched protest, demanded to know what was being said.
'He threatens to roast us on a spit over a fire, like the corsairs did. I warned him. I told him my uncle would have him punished -'
'You did what?'
'I told him my uncle was the Captain-General of the province and he would be punished.'
'You fool, ' Lopez said contemptuously. 'Until now you were an insignificant lieutenant. Now, with your own tongue, you have made yourself a valuable hostage! '
Ramage told Aitken to take the prisoners away, and the lieutenant jumped up to continue his protests, but when he looked up at the English captain he found that the vague, almost bored expression was gone; instead a pair of deep-set brown eyes seemed to bore into him, and he realized with a suddenness that left his knees weak and his lips trembling that he should never have asked his uncle for the commission appointing him to the Santa Barbara.
Ramage watched with his telescope as Wagstaffe shouted orders through his speaking trumpet on the quarterdeck of the Santa Barbara. Swiftly men of the prize crew swarmed aloft and let fall the topsails, which were then hoisted and sheeted home. The brig gathered way and then turned north, away from the distant coast, and when she was a mile off Ramage nodded to Baker, now the second senior Lieutenant: 'Follow her and keep this distance astern.'
He waited until Baker had given the necessary orders and then went down to his cabin, where Aitken and Southwick were going through the roll of charts found on board the Santa Barbara. Some had been removed and sent across to Wagstaffe, but Southwick hoped to find harbour plans.
'Nothing of interest to us, sir, ' he grumbled. 'No chart at all of Santa Cruz. The rest - Cumana, Barcelona and the like - don't tell us anything we didn't know already. The Spanish don't seem very strong on charts.'
'Very well. We discovered more from the William and Henrietta than from this damned guarda costa - except that we now have on board the nephew of the Captain-General of the province as a prisoner.'
'The Captain-General's nephew, sir?' Southwick exclaimed. 'The whole province?'
'Yes. He began threatening me. Said his uncle would punish me if I took him on shore and roasted him on a spit or made him walk off the end of the jibboom! '
'I heard you remind him the buccaneers used to do that, ' Aitken said. 'He was terrified.'
'The Jocasta, sir, ' Southwick said anxiously. 'Did you find out anything about her?'
'No - except that she's in Santa Cruz. The captain was very anxious to assure me she had already sailed for Cuba, and the lieutenant warned me we'd be blown to pieces if we tried to get into Santa Cruz. That's why he's so scared.'
'What now, then?' Southwick asked. 'I see you've decided to head out to sea again.'
Ramage nodded casually. He could afford to be casual now he knew what to do. The Governor's nephew had not given him the new idea, but it had come as he watched the beads of perspiration forming on the young man's upper lip, almost as if the sheer terror it revealed had been the source of inspiration.
