just down the track, hurried up.
At that moment Ramage, by now standing at the entrance to the guardhouse, was almost deafened by a pistol shot behind him and the grunt of a man hit by a bullet.
He spun round in the lantern light to see that the Frenchman he had earlier knocked out had recovered consciousness, somehow found a pistol and fired it at the nearest seaman. As Ramage cocked his own pistol and lifted it to aim, the Frenchman flung his own empty pistol at the lantern, knocking it off the table and putting out the flame of the candle. As the hut suddenly plunged into darkness, Ramage shouted: 'Everyone outside! Jackson, there's a window each side. Cover them in case any of these dam' Frenchmen try to escape.'
He waited a few moments hearing his own seamen in the guardhouse - the only ones to understand the order - scrambling out. That Frenchman should have stayed unconscious longer than that, but more important, Ramage knew he should have collected all the pistols: his carelessness had led to one of his men being wounded, perhaps even killed.
'Did anyone see who was hit?' he demanded once they got outside.
'Wilson, sir; we've got 'im 'ere', Stafford said. 'Not bad, so he says: just caught 'is right shoulder.'
'Is everyone out of the hut?' Ramage called loudly in English. There was no reply, and he asked Jackson: 'Windows covered?'
'Yes, sir.'
Ramage then said clearly and slowly in French, directing his voice through the doorway: 'Surrender! You are surrounded and the camp is taken!'
'Merde!' growled a voice from the far end of the hut, and another Frenchman obviously still dazed but able to think, exclaimed excitedly: 'The camp taken and not a shot fired? You think we are drunk to believe that?'
Time, Ramage thought; he did not have time for a long argument with these idiots. With one shot fired up to now (and, as luck would have it, at the nearest point in the camp to the village) another couple of dozen would not matter.
'You will come out, one at a time', Ramage said conversationally, 'with your arms in the air.'
'And be shot down like sheep going through a hole in the hedge', a third voice said bitterly. Three out of seven had regained consciousness.
'Paolo', Ramage said, and the boy came to him out of the darkness, cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other. Ramage said in English: 'Curse them in French for fools. I want to confuse them. They'll never credit two French speakers in a landing party.'
Succinctly Paolo told them that their hut was not the Bastille; on the contrary it was a pigsty which would in a few minutes become their coffin because they were -
Ramage tapped his shoulder after a suitable torrent of abuse and then continued, in a quiet voice: 'If you do not come out, we shall wait for daylight and shoot you down, one at a time, like starlings on a bough.'
There was no reply. Ramage heard whispering and crept up to the side of the door, where the sleeping sentry had been sitting. At least four of the guards had recovered consciousness. Two were for surrendering and two, including the man who had fired the shot, reckoned there had been only four or five rosbifs, and the seven of them, when the others had recovered, would be able to overpower them. They would all rush the door, he said. Any moment, he added, more of the garrison would arrive, roused by the shot. 'Merde!'he hissed. 'You saw how I shot one of them. Dead, the way he dropped. They're just privateersmen. You'll see.'
'What about that frigate that passed this afternoon?' a second man asked.
'We saw she was French - her colours were clear enough.'
'Why didn't she capture the privateer, eh sergeant?' the man persisted.
Ramage crouched by the entrance and, knowing the stonework would stop a fusillade of musket shot, waited for a pause in the Frenchmen's discussion and then said, in a conversational tone: 'You are outnumbered seven to one, gentlemen. Your rosbif enemies do not care whether they kill you or take you prisoner. They, through me, are leaving the choice to you. If you are thinking of waiting for daylight so you can use your muskets, let me remind you that a grenade thrown in at either window, or through this doorway which has no door, will blow you all to pieces. And if you doubt that Ramage lobbed into the room the heavy rock that he had picked up from the edge of the track and waited ten seconds after the ominous thud as it landed on the wooden floor and rolled two or three feet.
'- you can now consider yourselves lucky to be alive because that was a rock, not a grenade. I have just given you your last chance. Do you and your men surrender, sergeant?'
'Yes, mon colonel!'the sergeant said hoarsely, obviously deciding such perfidiousness with grenades could be contrived only by someone of such exalted rank. 'We lie in our bunks awaiting your orders.'
'Very well. Do you have a tinder box?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Pick up the lantern and light it.'
Ramage heard the man's movement, then the scraping as he found the lantern and set it on the table, the faint click as he opened the door and the scratching as he began striking flint on steel. Then Ramage went back to the track and told Paolo and Jackson what had been agreed.
Paolo, who had heard most of the talk in French with the sergeant, said miserably: 'Only one shot fired and it's all over.'
'You'd feel differently if you were Wilson', Ramage said unsympathetically. 'How is he, by the way?' he asked Jackson.
'Oh, Staff and Rossi bandaged him up and he's around here somewhere - he's left-handed anyway and wants to find a Frenchman to shoot.'
By now the glow in the guardhouse was turning into a strong light as the sergeant lit the candle from his tinder box and called: 'Colonel - we have the light. Now what are your orders?'
'Wait a moment.'
Those bunks were the best places for the prisoners.
'Jackson - we'll tie them to the bunks as Stafford suggested. He and Rossi can do the lashing - the fewer of our men in the guardhouse the better. Have two men leaning in at each window with pistols and tell 'em to shoot to kill at the slightest sign of trouble.
'I'll be inside with Rossi and Stafford; you stay at the door with Mr Orsini - and you'd better hold the lantern', he told the American.
While Jackson passed on the instructions to his men, Ramage gave the French sergeant his orders and stood to one side of the doorway, in shadow but able to see inside, watching as the seven men obediently climbed into their bunks, holding their arms out sideways so that their wrists hung over the edge each side.
Startled by a thudding noise, Ramage discovered that Stafford was cutting lengths of line with his cutlass, using the doorframe as a chopping board, passing each one to Rossi, who was counting in Italian. 'Cinque ... seis ... siete... is enough, Staff.'
Jackson called: 'My men are ready at the windows, sir. But if there's any trouble, do make for the door, sir!'
'I will', Ramage assured him. 'Shooting pistols in a room is fifty times more dangerous than facing a ship of the line's broadside!'
As he walked into the guardhouse, Ramage said to Stafford: 'Secure that plump, bald fellow first. He's the one that shot Wilson.'
The two seamen had one more man to secure when suddenly there was confused shouting on the track immediately outside the guardhouse. Jackson shut the door of the lantern and in the darkness pushed Orsini away from the doorway, out of the line of fire.
Ramage, nearly blinded by the darkness, made for the dark-grey rectangle of the doorway and as he moved tried to distinguish the voices. Obviously a group of Frenchmen from one of the barrack huts was attacking, or the alarm had been raised in the village and the local militia had been called out.
The moment he was outside the door the first thing he heard - indeed he seemed surrounded by it - was a barrage of cursing in the English of a dozen counties or more. New voices, he realized; not the men of Jackson's party.
'Stand fast, all of you!' he bellowed.
In the sudden silence that followed he said: 'This is Captain Ramage's party. Who has just arrived?'
'Sorry, sir, it's Rennick, but we heard a shot and we thought the guards had overpowered you. The lantern was throwing shadows and in the last rush we didn't recognize -'
'Mr Rennick', Ramage interrupted him, 'don't apologize for trying to rescue me! I was careless, which is why you heard the shot and Wilson has a bullet in his shoulder. But you? How about your parties?'
'All five barracks are secured, sir; all the French troops embarked in the two cutters and on their way out to the Calypso.'
'Did you -?'
'And here are all the papers in the camp, sir', Rennick said, handing Ramage a large leather pouch. 'Nothing was destroyed. There's just one officer, and I took the liberty of holding on to him in case you wanted to question him immediately. He's under guard and sitting in your gig.'
'Very well, Rennick, that's excellent: it's been a good night for your Marines, and give them my thanks. Perhaps you'd take over this French guard - we'll ferry them out to the Calypso in the gig, but first I'd like to talk to that lieutenant.'
'The cutters will be back very soon, sir', Rennick said. 'They'll be bringing a half platoon of Marines with them - I didn't know whether or not you'd want a garrison here.'
Ramage realized that the French prisoners had the uniforms he needed. Suddenly his wild idea seemed possible. 'Yes, it's a job for the Marines - but pick small ones: they're going to have to wear French uniforms. We'll strip the prisoners and give them seamen's clothing, and your men will have to get the best fits possible.'
Fifteen minutes later Ramage was scrambling over the bow of his gig as it was held by several seamen: in the last hour or so - he could not guess how long they had been because patches of cloud were now hiding the more obvious star constellations - a slight swell had started.
In the darkness he could see a shadowy figure in the sternsheets, lying awkwardly, sprawled sideways. Rennick reported: That's the French lieutenant. They've got him in handcuffs and leg irons.'
'You can take off the handcuffs. If he tries to escape by jumping over the side, the leg irons will make sure he drowns. Now, you go back and garrison the place with your Marines and take Orsini with you: he will deal with any stray Frenchmen. I'm taking this lieutenant out to the Calypso and I'll be back at daylight, but I'll make sure those French uniforms are sent over for your men.'
'Very well, sir; I'll inspect my guards. There'll be no sleeping sentries at the guardhouse!'
'Make sure Orsini is always within hearing of the guardhouse: if any Frenchman turns up, the sentries must whistle for him and not talk ...'
'Yes, sir', Rennick said patiently, having received his orders several minutes earlier and understanding them thoroughly.
The Marine sergeant pulled the French officer's arms up, pushed the rudimentary key into the lock of the handcuffs, and then gave them a bang with the back of
