taffrail: Ramage wanted to pace the weather side between the quarterdeck rail and the taffrail, but if he did that now it would be obvious (and unnecessarily rude) to Sir Henry that he was avoiding conversation.
It was curious about plovers. In Kent they were called peewits, which was a fair approximation of their cry. But how did they learn that trick of shamming injury to a wing to lure intruders away from the nest? Or did it come to them naturally, like swimming to ducklings and baby moorhens? Hmm, night was falling fast: darkness was getting a helping hand from the haze, which was almost thick enough to log as a faint mist.
Time to reassure the French frigate. He called a new course of north-north-west to Aitken. This would be radical enough to be immediately noticed by the ship astern, and within moments Aitken was shouting orders which braced the yards and trimmed the sheets as the wind came round on to the larboard quarter.
Peewits. Curious how his mind kept returning to those black and white, crested birds! They were not even sea birds. If you walked across a field they wheeled overhead, with their irritating 'peewit' cry, warning everything else, from partridges to hares. Some people liked plovers' eggs to eat but as far as Ramage was concerned they were small and fiddling; he suspected that to the gourmets the fact that they were seasonal and hard to find rather than their delicacy accounted for their popularity.
Southwick now came up to him. 'Glad you came round six points to larboard, sir: I was about to remind you about those 'ants' - we were steering straight for them.'
'Ah, yes: they'd be hard to spot in this visibility, especially if our course had taken us through the middle.'
'Aye, we'd have lost the light by the time we got there,' Southwick commented.
Peewits scratching at the top of anthills: again the black and white birds with the paddle-shaped wing tips came to mind. Yes, he could just imagine them pecking away at anthills, searching for a meal - providing, of course, that they liked ants. Perhaps they preferred mole burrows and molehills, new ones, a happy hunting ground yielding fresh worms.
He looked astern at the French frigate, now becoming a blur. Yes, she had altered course too. Perhaps she too was bound for Porto Ferraio, or her captain had just decided to shelter there for a couple of days, and visit the sister ship. The island of Giglio was now out of sight - and Argentario, too. No, perhaps there was just a hint of a heavier greyness in the distance - Monte Argentario was big. From memory, though, in a scirocco the upper half of the mountain was usually hidden in cloud streaming to leeward, so it was probably his imagination.
He now looked over the starboard bow and let his eyes run slowly aft. No sign of the mainland of Tuscany. Punta Ala had mountains to the south, and Talamone some to the north, while in between (with the Bocca d'Ombrone in the middle) it was flat. The Calypso and the frigate astern could both be in the middle of the Atlantic as far as landmarks were concerned. The nearest land, if you wanted to flatter it with that description, was the Formiche di Grosseto, the ants. With peewits pecking at them.
Ramage suddenly saw it all clearly, and he turned to Southwick. 'Do you think you can give me a fairly exact course to the Formiche di Grosseto?' he asked. 'No, that's asking too much. No, first give me a course to meet the coast south of the Ombrone river: then we can check our position exactly once we spot those forts at the mouth of the river.'
'But it'll be dark long before we get within miles!' Southwick protested.
'The moon, remember the moon,' Ramage chided. 'It'll be up very soon. It's nearly full and it'll penetrate the clouds just enough to be as useful as an ostler's lantern.'
'We could just as easily run up on the coast!' Southwick grumbled crossly. 'If you'll forgive me saying so, sir, it's just madness to try and dodge Johnny Frenchman astern by going inshore like that!'
Ramage grinned. 'You know I always go slightly mad with a full moon!'
'Slightly!' Southwick sniffed, and made for the quarterdeck ladder and the rolls of charts in Ramage's cabin.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ramage walked aft to speak to Sir Henry. The admiral was (as he accepted with perfect correctness) simply a passenger, but as a man he deserved some hint of what Ramage was planning.
'He doesn't seem to worry much about challenges,' Sir Henry said, nodding astern towards the French ship. 'Just follows us like a stray dog hoping for a pat on the head!'
'He probably thinks we are making for Elba, sir,' Ramage suggested. 'Porto Ferraio would be just the place to shelter from a scirocco. Or he may be based there.'
'Anyway, you're leading him away from Port' Ercole,' Sir Henry commented. 'But no doubt you have plans for when you get nearer to Elba. For after dawn tomorrow. Tomorrow! I must admit I'm finding it hard to get adjusted: this morning we're prisoners in Castello at Giglio: this afternoon we're having dinner on board one of the King's ships; this evening we're being chased by a French frigate!'
Ramage noted that the admiral did not ask what Ramage's plans were. He was either being very tactful, or keeping his own yards clear. By not knowing about Ramage's intentions (and therefore neither approving nor disapproving), if Ramage subsequently faced a court-martial or court of inquiry, the admiral would be in the clear.
Ramage was sufficiently sure of himself not to give a damn, but he was curious because he was beginning to like Sir Henry and there was one class of people for whom Ramage had unconditional contempt and that was trimmers. What was it Swift had written? Ah, yes.
'To confound his hated coin,
All parties and religions join,
Whigs, tories, trimmers.'
Trimmers: men who hovered, always ready to change sides or allegiances if there was any advantage to be had. Politicians were always trimmers by nature; no man not a natural trimmer would go into politics in the first place. But generals, admirals, prelates and the like could be trimmers by choice (turncoats by a less polite name). Was Sir Henry trimming or being tactful?
'Although we're now steering for Elba,' Ramage said casually, 'we'll soon be coming back to the north-east.'
'North-east!' Sir Henry repeated, his brow wrinkling. 'Oh, thanks for warning me: I'd have been alarmed, otherwise!' He thought a few moments, and then looked questioningly at Ramage, nodding astern towards the French frigate as he spoke. 'Do you think he'll follow you? Especially if he's bound for Porto Ferraio? Might think you have some special orders.'
So Sir Henry was being tactful, not a trimmer! 'I've considered that, sir. If he doesn't follow, we'll just be grateful and go back to Giglio!'
'We need luck,' Sir Henry said. 'By the way, I hope I'm not in the way up here?'
Ramage, embarrassed at having such a senior admiral being so tactful, said quickly: 'No, sir, of course not: you and Lord Smarden have the freedom of the ship.'
Sir Henry smiled and nodded again, and Ramage sensed that he too shared his own distaste for Admiral Keeler, as well as for General Cargill.
Ramage saw Southwick coming up the quarterdeck ladder. 'If you'll excuse me sir: the master is bringing me the new course.'
Southwick handed Ramage a piece of paper.
'Nor'east by north a quarter north? Very precise, Mr Southwick. Are you sure you've allowed enough quarter points for a northgoing current?' Ramage asked teasingly.
'I wrote it down in the hope you'd bet me a guinea I'd be wrong, sir,' Southwick said. 'That course should bring us precisely between those two southern towers, the Torri dell' Uccellina. The northern one is tall and reddish, if you remember, and stands on a hill a thousand feet high, and the other is short and dark grey.'
Ramage looked at Southwick, pretending doubt. 'All right, a guinea. Mind you, it hasn't escaped my notice that we'll see Monte dell' Uccellina first, and from that we'll be able to spot the tall tower . . .'
Southwick grinned cheerfully. 'Better a mountain well ahead than breakers under the bow! That sandy beach'll have just the right slope to put us high and dry if we hit it. And, sir, that course assumes you'll be altering course now . . .'
Ramage gave the piece of paper to Aitken. 'We'll steer that and hope for the best,' he said. 'And watch our friend astern!'
Aitken gave the course to the quartermaster, who asked for it to be repeated. Southwick muttered: 'There you are, sir, people think you've gone off your head!'
Aitken picked up the speaking trumpet and was already shouting orders to trim the yards and sheets as the four men at the great wheel turned it, two standing to windward and two to leeward, while the quartermaster kept an eye on the nearest of the two compasses and the weather luffs of the sails.
Slowly the Calypso's bow swung round to starboard, putting the wind nine points on the starboard quarter. Such a change in course would hardly go unnoticed in the French frigate, even though the visibility was closing in rapidly as night fell.
There was no mistaking the tension in Ramage as he watched the frigate astern. She had not altered course: instead she ploughed on to the north, sails bellying, bow shouldering aside the waves in great smothers of spray. No phosphorescence, Ramage noted thankfully. But no hint of her altering course either: she is ignoring the Calypso. And that is ironic - but no! The outline of her hull is changing, her yards are being braced up, the distance between her three masts is narrowing . . . Finally the masts were in line. Once again the frigate was following in the Calypso's wake.
'Wonder what they're thinking now,' commented Southwick.
'Her captain has probably just remembered that we never answered his challenge,' Ramage said. 'I was hoping he'd carry on to the north and leave us alone so we could go back to wait in the lee of Giglio.'
'It's an odd feeling, running away from a Johnny Crapaud,' Southwick commented, 'even if it's not really running away.'
'You sound like that damned general,' Ramage said coldly. 'To him battle is 'a direct frontal attack in regular order' - no matter that the Austrians lost every battle where they tried it against the French.' Ramage thought for a moment and added bitterly: 'Why should I be responsible for killing even one Calypso if I can capture or destroy that damned frigate without losing a single life?'
