out of the smoke with a white flag or waving a shirt, or just shouting that they have surrendered: there's no point in continuing this aimless slaughter. Except, he realized, that the Dutch rebels knew they'd get no mercy if they fell into the Governor's hands because they were traitors, and French privateersmen by the nature of their bloody trade expected no quarter and rarely gave it. But piles of dead and wounded lying on a scorched hillside ... this was not the kind of war that Ramage had seen before nor, he realized, queasiness sweeping over him in waves, could he stomach much more of it. Then, before he could do or say anything, another group of Frenchmen came pouring down the hillside, screaming and coughing, rubbing their eyes and yelling defiance, and, as soon as they broke through the line of flames and made clearer targets, he heard Kenton calmly giving fire orders to his company. Again there was a volley of musketry; then, as some of the enemy still ran on, he heard a crisp voice telling a company to open fire with pistols, and a moment later he realized it was his own, and a crackle of pistol shots brought down the rest of the men.
The Calypsos were now busy reloading their muskets, and he could see, just this side of the flames, what seemed a low parapet and then, as a puff of wind blew the grey coils of smoke clear for a moment, that it was built of bodies. An arm waved here and there, a man staggered upright and collapsed, vague movements which made the barrier seem alive - as indeed parts of it were.
Yet, ghastly as it all. was, he was saving his own men; he had dreaded sending them charging up the hill to attack prepared French positions. Those bodies out there, lying dead or, if wounded, coughing in the smoke, were enemy, not Calypsos. Not just regular enemies, either: if they were Dutch they were traitors to their own folk; if French they were privateersmen and little better than pirates, and perhaps a hundred of them came from Brune's ship and had helped murder the Tranquil people.
Slowly the scene became less ghastly; his imagination superimposed the neat staterooms of the Tranquil, where the blood of the raped women with their throats cut had stained carpets and settees. He found it a satisfactory thought that by now the Marines and the seamen in all the companies had reloaded their muskets and were kneeling, waiting for the next wave of the enemy to come through the smoke, which was now thinning. The flames were high up the hill, perhaps forty yards away now. Another twenty yards, he guessed, and they would have reached the top.
How many French were left? They must be crowded at the very top of the hill now. unless they were jumping off into the sea, but the Marine 'patrols sent out by Rennick to watch the beaches had not fired, showing that the enemy preferred the devil to the deep blue sea. Or course, from the very first the men on the hill had not known the fate of their comrades once they had run down the hill and plunged through the smoke: they would hear the firing but the clouds of rolling smoke prevented them seeing how the musketry from the Calypsos was cutting them down like corn before a reaper's scythe. When the smoke clears, Ramage guessed, the remaining enemy will surrender. Yet they might all make a dash before the last of the hill burned, preferring a sudden foray through the flames. It would be the flames rather than the smoke that made the men run: they would scorch anyone who stood and waited for them to pass.
And now another group of Frenchmen was running down - and the first of them was waving a white flag: a shirt tied to a cutlass. Ramage shouted to left and right for the companies to hold their fire, but even as he shouted he saw Stafford pause for a moment, and then correct his aim, and Jackson did the same thing, and even as he continued shouting the muskets thudded until the last of the running Frenchmen collapsed, a rag doll thrown on a rubbish heap.
Jackson stood up and turned to him. 'I don't think the men could hear you, sir,' he said quietly, looking Ramage straight in the eye. 'Leastways, not until all the muskets had fired.'
'No, sir,' Stafford confirmed, 'I didn't hear you order nothing; certainly not telling us to hold our fire. Probably deafened by all the shooting. Ain't that right, Rosey?'
The Italian cupped a hand to his ear. That's right. Staff; speak up, I can't hear.'
No quarter for the men who murdered the people in the Tranquil: dearly the Calypsos had already decided that, and as a result in that last rush perhaps a few Dutch rebels had been killed, but there had been only ten or fifteen behind the man waving the white flag.
The smoke was thinning out now; in the gusts Ramage could see the top of the hill. No one stood there, although a few men might be crouching behind rocks, seeking shelter from the hail of bullets that could be expected now there were only wisps of smoke to hide them.
He shouted for Rennick, ordering him to search the hilltop with the Marines, and waited for Aitken, whom he could see hurrying towards him. Well, now was the time to get reports from all the lieutenants and see what casualties there were. He took a small silver whistle from a pocket and blew .four quick blasts, the signal he had arranged before he left the bonfire.
It was a whistle of a curious pattern; a cylinder with an intricate Moorish design which was unrecognizable unless you looked at it from a particular angle, when it became clear that it was a representation of a woman's breast, the nipple forming the mouthpiece. It had been a present from Gianna, of all people; a present in a tiny velvet - lined case, tucked into his pocket as he left with a mischievous smile and a comment in Italian, spoken with a Neapolitan accent, which he had not understood but was probably lewd. This was the first time he had used it; a silver piece of erotica which signalled the end of the bloodiest and longest action he had ever fought.
The lieutenants came up and reported. No casualties - this was Aitken. One man sprained an ankle when he stumbled over a rock - Kenton. One man with powder burns of the face from a flash in the pan of his musket - Baker. A shoulder wound from a cutlass wielded by an over - enthusiastic shipmate - Wagstaffe. Apart from them, two men had stomach pains - brought on, according to an unsympathetic Aitken, by a surfeit of roast beef - while two of Kenton's men were almost crippled by the hairlike spines of prickly pear cactus which had penetrated the skin of their legs and festered overnight.
The second guide was sent off to Amsterdam, by way of the bonfire site, for more horses and carts to bring in the dead and wounded, and by the time Rennick and his Marines came down the hill to report that it was deserted, the Calypsos were busy carrying the French and Dutch wounded out of the smouldering scrub and making them as comfortable as possible clear of the smoke. The guide was told to bring back doctors if he could, but Ramage had little hope of that: they would still be busy patching up the wounded from the bonfire.
An hour later, leaving behind fifty men to look after the wounded and help load the carts when they arrived, he led his men on the long march back to Amsterdam, twenty miles away. Most of the men still had chunks of roast beef, and the sight of a seaman marching with a musket over one shoulder and a great haunch of beef under the other arm, the meat dusty from having been put down many times, made Ramage feel like Falstaff and wish there was a Hogarth or a Rowland - son to sketch the march. The column stopped from time to time to fill water flasks at the few villages or plantation houses that had wells or enough water in their cisterns, but the sun was well down over the western horizon before Ramage saw the first houses of Amsterdam.
It was then that the fact of the island's surrender really came home to him. The surrender agreement had been signed, the rebels and their privateer allies had been dealt with. Now it would be possible to leave the island with its Dutch garrison and sail for Jamaica, to report to Foxey - Foote about this latest addition to the British flag. He could take three or four privateers with him, and he might decide to burn the rest, just in case some of the Dutch took it into their heads to steal them - after all, Curacao had surrendered, but Britain was still at war with the Batavian Republic, not to mention France and Spain.
He marched along, cursing his blistered heels, aching shin muscles and dry throat, but the need to talk to the men at the half - hourly halts, making jokes, kept him wide awake. All the men brightened up as they came into the straight stretch of road leading to Amsterdam, now less than a mile away. His eyes seemed full of dust and ached from the glare they had been subjected to all day, but he was glad to see the masts of the Calypso above the roofs of the buildings.
Then, as the road turned so that he looked from another angle, he realized there was another set of masts to seaward of her. Another frigate was anchored in the channel almost next to her. He stopped, icy cold with sudden fear, and pulled open his telescope. Yes, a frigate with a Dutch flag. The missing Dutch reinforcements - and Maria's fiance - had arrived. Had she captured the almost helpless Calypso!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Southwick was angry, puzzled and disbelieving. He told Ramage that soon after daylight he had received a letter - or, rather, he had opened a letter - from the Governor addressed to 'Captain Lord Ramage' saying that a Dutch frigate would be arriving in Amsterdam at noon, and that 'normal salutes will be fired'.
''Normal salutes' indeed!' Southwick said crossly. 'I don't know who the Governor thinks he is, but that letter shows he's forgotten he's no longer the Governor, and how dare he give orders to one of the King's ships. Or, rather, the captain of the King's ship that's taken the island's surrender! As if we'd salute an enemy ship!'
'Not 'orders', surely?' Ramage asked mildly.
'Orders, sir: you wait until I show you the letter. I have it locked up at the moment. The Delft- that's the frigate - will salute the Governor, then salute us, and we return gun for gun. The British flag will be hauled down half an hour before she comes in through the forts, and the flag of the Batavian Republic hoisted. We will not 'commit any hostile act' against her, and so on. And the Dutch flags were still flying at sunset . . .'
'You'd better get me the letter,' Ramage said.
He had come on board weary and apprehensive. The Delft was anchored two hundred yards away towards the channel entrance and despite the Governor's letter Southwick had the Calypso's guns loaded, the few men on board had been sent to general quarters, and he had taken in on the spring to the anchor cable to turn the whole ship so that her starboard broadside was aimed at the Delft. It was not a noticeable move; the wind was holding the Calypso across the channel and she had to be turned only a point for all the guns to bear, and the spring was on the larboard side, away from the Delft. The Dutch flags on the forts: Ramage suspected that could be the most significant part of the whole business. Hoisting them in place of the British flags for an hour or so, so that the Delft came in and gave the former Governor a chance to explain the situation - yes, that made sense. Then the British flags should have been hoisted again.
Exactly what was the status of the Delft? That was a puzzle. She was a Dutch ship and therefore an enemy, and she had entered the main port of an island which had surrendered to the British, all of which made her a British prize. But the Dutch flags were flying, on the former Governor's orders, so the Delft's captain could claim that he did not know the British now controlled the island, and had the Dutch flags not been hoisted he would not have entered. And so the arguments could go on.
The fact was, Ramage decided, that the Governor (the former Governor, rather) had interfered in something that was not his concern. Unless . . . unless he was going back on the surrender terms, now that the Delft had come in - and, Ramage thought ruefully, now that the British had disposed of all the rebels and French privateersmen.
Southwick came up on deck with the letter and Ramage moved closer to the gangway lantern to read it. Shorn of its polite verbiage, it bore out the master's description, except that Southwick had not mentioned that under van Someren's signature was his own description, 'Governor'. In all official communications, especially in circumstances like these, every word was significant.
