Southwick did not bother to complete the question.
'If we don't pick him up, he'll come over to us after we've anchored.'
'Yes, I see, sir,' Southwick said and did not understand at all. To him, the prospect of anchoring the two frigates close in under three French islands which were probably bristling with batteries was something that did not bear thinking about.
The Calypso hove-to just long enough for the frigate's cutter to be hoisted out and rowed to La Robuste to collect Paolo, Jackson and the four Frenchmen, and bring them on board. Gilbert and his men had been puzzled and nervous from the moment that Wagstaffe, after reading the instructions delivered by the boat's coxswain, had ordered them away.
They were brought up to Ramage on the quarterdeck and he smiled the moment he saw their long, nervous faces. He led them aft to the taffrail and, speaking quickly in French, gave them their instructions. They talked among themselves, embarrassed, for a couple of minutes and then Auguste nodded reluctantly.
'Me, sir. They've chosen me.'
'Very well,' Ramage said. 'I'm sure you'll do it well. Go down to the great cabin. Silkin is there. Gilbert, you go with him, as translator.'
With the cutter now towing astern - the shallower water brought calmer seas so there was no need to hoist it in again - the Calypso steered for the western end of Île Royale, followed by LaRobuste. Seen from this angle, against the flat land of the shore, the island seemed like the end of a lozenge, crowding Île St Joseph, which was much smaller and only ninety feet high. The resulting channel was wide but the water brown, obviously shallow. Here and there short branches of wood floated on the sea but did not drift, merely moving up and down. Southwick pointed out several to Ramage, who tapped the old man on the shoulder. 'You're lucky to have your navigation confirmed like that - the local fishermen have put their pots down round the bank, and those bits of bough are their buoys. The only trouble is you don't know if the pots are for lobsters and therefore close to rocks, or fish, in which case they'll be further away.'
'All the same to me, sir,' Southwick declared cheerfully. 'I don't want to take us within a mile of that bank! And these islands - I wouldn't want to stay here a week, let alone a year. If I was a Frenchman I'd take care I didn't fall foul of Bonaparte and get sent out here.'
'If you were a Frenchman you might not have the choice. The Count of Rennes just wanted to be left in peace.'
Southwick sniffed in agreement, recognizing that in two sentences the captain had summed it all up.
'At least we beat L'Espoir,' he said, gesturing at the empty anchorage. 'Tell me, sir, did you expect to?'
'Hopes were fighting fears. When it was dark I didn't expect to, but if it was a nice sunny day with a fresh wind - well, I hoped.'
'And now, sir?'
Ramage purposely misunderstood the question. 'We heave-to and wait for the pilot off the western end of the island, then we'll anchor a cable further seaward than he says. Four fathoms, soft mud, single anchor. I told Wagstaffe in the orders I sent across to anchor as far inshore of us as he dared, so the gap between the two ships is at least a cable, preferably two.'
Southwick was puzzled. 'I hope young Wagstaffe doesn't run on the mud. Soft mud and a lee shore. Think of the suction on that hull...'
Laughing at the thought, Ramage said casually: 'We can always use the boats to lay out an anchor or two for him; then all hands to man the capstan. With the fiddler standing on top to set them trotting, we'd soon have him off!'
Southwick looked like a bishop to whom the suffragan's wife had just made a very improper suggestion, but Ramage saw no point in explaining everything in detail because there was a good chance he would have to abandon the plan. Which plan? There were two now and he was muddling himself. Well, he meant the one he had just explained to Gilbert and his men, the one which had occurred to him only a couple of hours ago. Call that the first plan, even though it was the last to arrive in his head. The second plan, which followed only if the first was successful, was the original idea, the one that had come like a wind shadow, and it was surrounded with ifs as thick as a blackthorn hedge intended to keep boys out of an apple orchard. The second plan did not even begin until L'Espoir hove in sight. Providing the first worked, and providing L'Espoir hove in sight, then there would be plenty of time to tell Southwick all about the second.
'Deck there, mainmasthead here!'
'Deck here,' Aitken bellowed up, not bothering with the speaking trumpet.
'There's a strange little craft ahead of us, sir: through the glass it looks like a canoe with a sail on a sprit. Four men in it.'
'Very well, keep reporting it,' Aitken said and turned back to Ramage. 'That'll be your pilot, sir,' he said with a first lieutenant's usual lofty disdain for local pilots.
'Heave-to to leeward of them so they can drop down to us. Now, our colours are stowed. Mr Southwick, tell the men no one is to speak English while the pilot boat is near. Nor is any bosun's mate to use his call. There's no need for the pilot to mistake us for an English frigate ...'
'Mistake us?' Southwick repeated the phrase and then took his hat off, scratched his head, and ran his hand through his hair before jamming his hat back on. He took up the speaking trumpet and bellowed the length of the ship. Without much apparent effort his voice carried Ramage's order to every man.
'Now stand by to back the foretopsail, Mr Aitken,' Ramage said and could have bitten his tongue. Aitken knew what to do, and giving him unnecessary orders must be irritating.
Now he could see the pilot boat with the naked eye. Yes, it was a large dugout canoe, with a stubby mast and, like a canted boom, a sprit stuck out diagonally, holding out the square sail. And it was an old sail obviously sewn up from odd pieces of cloth. But for all that the canoe was skimming along, and through the glass he could now see there were three blacks actually handling the boat while a white man tried to sit in a dignified manner. But, judging from the urgency with which one of the others scooped water over the side using a calabash shell as a bailer, he must be sitting in a few inches of water.
The movement of the pilot canoe so intrigued him that Ramage did not notice that the Calypso was turning head to wind to heave-to until her bow swung and the canoe and Île Royale suddenly shifted from the larboard bow to amidships on the starboard side.
Ramage walked over to the skylight above his cabin and called down in French. He listened to the reply, laughed and looked round for Louis and Albert, who were still waiting by the taffrail.
'Wait for Gilbert and Auguste at the top of the gangway,' he told them in French. 'You really understand what I want you to do?'
'Indeed we do, sir,' Louis said. 'We are proud to be able to do it!'
Ramage nodded and grinned. One Englishman was usually reckoned to be equal to three Frenchmen, but not these Frenchmen. What had changed them? Gilbert and his three friends probably held their own political views as strongly as a Revolutionary sailor in Bonaparte's Navy. Was it leadership? He shrugged because he had no idea: it was so, and for the moment that was all that mattered.
The pilot canoe was only a hundred yards off, and he walked back to the skylight and warned Gilbert and Auguste, but there was no reply and a moment later he saw them joining Louis and Albert at the gangway.
Ramage took off his coat and untied his stock, bundling both up with his hat and stuffing them under one of the guns.
'Mr Aitken ... Mr Southwick ...' he pointed at what he was doing, and each man hurriedly removed his hat, coat and stock.
Now the master, his white hair caught by the wind, could pass for - well, a rural dean, an amiable grocer, a tenant farmer who was now leaving the heavy work to his sons ...
'You still don't look like a Republican, sir,' Southwick said doubtfully. 'Perhaps the hair? Too tidy?'
Ramage ran his fingers through it. 'You have the advantage of me, I must admit,' he said wryly.
'The breeches and silk stockings, sir?' Southwick said, his voice still doubtful. 'Don't forget those whatever they're called, the sans cullars.'
'Sans-culottes. No, don't worry, we don't need to dance on top of the hammock nettings!'
With that Ramage left Aitken and Southwick on the quarterdeck and went down to the entryport where Auguste stood watching the canoe, which was now beginning to round up to come alongside, one of the men casting off the sheet and stifling the sail by standing up and clasping it to him as he reached for the mast. The other two blacks picked up paddles and began paddling the canoe the last few feet in the calm water provided by the Calypso's bulk.
Ramage gestured to Auguste, who took the telescope Ramage held out to him. Tucking it under one arm and straightening his shoulders, the Frenchman said with a grin: 'I shall find it hard to be an ordinary seaman again, sir.'
Ramage stood to one side beside a gun while Auguste went back to the entryport and Gilbert, Louis and Albert stood close to him.
There was a faint hail and Albert hurried forward with the coil of rope he was holding. From the top of the hammock nettings he threw an end down to the canoe and one of the blacks seized it. The canoe was almost level with the entryport when the pilot began to stand up.
Auguste leaned over slightly to shout down at him. 'M'sieu, listen carefully. This frigate and the one astern have come from Brest, and a third is due any day - we lost company with her.'
'Very well, captain,' the pilot answered. 'There is plenty of room in the anchorage. You bring us many prisoners, eh?'
'We bring you possible sickness and death,' Auguste said sadly. 'Brest has la peste. We lost five men from it the day after sailing. The other frigate' - he gestured astern - 'lost nine. I dare not think what has happened with the third frigate: I suspect we lost sight of her because she had so much sickness...'
'The plague? Brest a plague port? Nine - no, fourteen - dead? Quarantine! You must stay at anchor! No one to come on shore. Six weeks from the last case. Here, cast off!' he snapped at the seaman, who let go of the rope as though it was a poisonous snake.
As the canoe drifted away the pilot stood up and shouted: 'I will report to the governor, but six weeks you stay -'
Auguste and Gilbert screamed back at him: it was an injustice, it was mocking their misery, it would leave them short of medical supplies and provisions ...
Louis and Albert joined in. There was no wine and very little water left. Now they would get the black vomit, as well as having the plague, and anyway what authority had the pilot to give such orders?
'I'll show you!' the white-faced pilot screeched back as the canoe drifted away. 'No one is to come near the shore: you stay on board. Tell the second frigate and the third when she comes in because I am not coming out again for six weeks. I know the governor will order sentries to shoot at anyone approaching the shore. That's an order; I have the authority!'
'Assassin, cuckold, pederast, Royalist traitor!' Auguste bawled and stood aside to give the others a chance while he thought up more insults.
'You wait until the Minister of Marine hears of it!' Gilbert bellowed. 'Then you'll be a prisoner here, not the pilot!'
The pilot knew he was far enough away to be at a disadvantage shouting against the wind, but he took a deep breath. 'Perhaps - if you live long enough to get a message to Brest. But you'll all leave your bones on the beach over there ...'
'Your mother was a careless whore!' Auguste yelled and then shook his head. 'It's a waste,' he grumbled, 'he's too far away.' He handed the telescope back to Ramage. 'Was that satisfactory, sir?'
A grinning Ramage patted him on the back. 'Perfect. As I watched you all it was obvious the Calypso had at least four captains!'
