'They'll be enough,' Hill said confidently and excused himself.
'He doesn't seem nervous,' Aitken commented. 'Bit o' luck getting him when Wagstaffe was promoted. Now, sir, about our party. I've put the seamen in the lead, with Rennick's Marines following. Rennick's not very pleased but I pointed out that he would insist on his men wearing those clod-hopping boots!'
'You're quite right,' Ramage said. 'The most important part of this is going to be done crawling on our bellies, and seamen with just pistols and cutlasses are less likely to make a noise. Rennick will get his chance if any real fighting starts. Right, we're ready so -' he took out his watch and turned it so the moon lit the face, '- as it's almost half past one we can move off. We'll give Hill's party a couple of minutes' start along the edge of the cliff, then Orsini and Rossi can lead us to the fort.'
The track (now used only by goats and sheep and the lone contadino) dipped and climbed and twisted as it led to Forte della Stella which, as the patchy cloud drifted across the moon, alternately disappeared in the darkness and then reappeared, almost ghostly and unreal, its grey stone walls fleetingly silvered, but stark, remote and menacing. As the track took a final turn which brought them in sight of the main gate - the only gate, Ramage corrected himself - he decided that it was time for the final approach on hands and knees.
'This track curves round to the left on its way to Port' Ercole, and leaves the Fort on the right,' Orsini explained quietly. 'About two hundred yards farther ahead there's a fork to the right, a smaller track which goes off to the fort, but Rossi and I took a short-cut through the macchia, starting here. It's about one hundred and fifty yards to the gate.'
Ramage again pulled out his watch, waited for a cloud to drift clear of the moon, and saw they had taken only ten minutes. Hill's men would not be in position yet, and the Calypso's third lieutenant knew he was not to start until at least half an hour after leaving Ramage's party. Twenty minutes to go ... More than enough time, Ramage decided.
Even after letting Rossi and Orsini get three or four yards ahead, so that the sage and juniper bushes they pushed aside did not spring back in his face, Ramage felt his cheeks and forehead smarting with many scratches from unexpected long twigs. The dam' pistols chafed the skin at his waist and seemed to have stove in his lower ribs. The cutlass lashed on his back thudded monotonously against his spine, despite the canvas covering and marline lashing, and every sage and thyme bush and juniper must be the home of a hundred hungry mosquitoes.
The smell of thyme and sage (and rosemary - 'That's for remembrance') brought back memories of the desperate affair several years ago not far from here (in fact he could see the Torre di Buranaccio on the mainland from the cliff top) when he and Jackson had rescued Gianna. Another lifetime; now, crawling on his belly towards the fort, it was hard to believe he had ever been there, and that for years he had thought he loved Gianna, and cursed the differing nationalities and religions that prevented them marrying.
Then, some years later, he had met Sarah and married her. Now Sarah was probably drowned, and Gianna murdered by Bonaparte's men, and here was Captain Ramage back again, a few miles from where the first part of the story began. Only now he was alone. Alone, probably a widower though his thirtieth birthday was distant, and crawling on his belly, with Jackson once again close behind him.
One day this thrice-blasted war would end, and he would go on half-pay and return to St Kew to live on the family estate. Cornwall attracted him and there would be a job for Jackson, who did not want to return to America, and the widower and bachelor would gently slide into old age, nodding knowingly about a newly born foal, cursing a late frost which caught blossom on the apple trees, and making sure the men doing muckspreading had plenty to drink. Rheumatism would set in and he and Jackson would creak and reminisce over old times. About rescuing Gianna, capturing the Calypso, raiding Curaçao, sailing into Trinidada off the Brazilian coast (no, they'd both keep off that because it would remind them of Sarah), and they'd reminisce too about this affair.
Already his knees felt almost raw: there was as much rock here as hardened earth - indeed, it was the sort of ground on which sage and juniper thrived. Yes, in the quiet of St Kew they would sit and reminisce of an autumn evening - as long as they survived the next hour. And the nearer they crawled to the fort, which seemed to double in size every twenty yards, the remoter seemed the chance of this gamble succeeding.
It was a gamble, and Ramage recalled how pompously he had told Sir Henry a day or so ago that he was contemptuous of gamblers because the element of chance could usually be removed by careful planning. Sir Henry had nodded politely, although most likely he wanted to laugh aloud. Anyway, his stake was down; the dice were rolling. And now Orsini was whispering urgently that they were about thirty yards from the end of the macchia and the beginning of the gravel square in front of the fort. Ramage turned and passed the order back for the column to halt.
Giving enough time for the word to pass from man to man in a whisper, Ramage then told Aitken, who had been following him, that everyone should unwrap his cutlass (but keep it down low so that the moon did not glint on the blade) load pistols and put them on half-cock.
Ramage did not pass orders for the Marines: Rennick knew exactly what he was doing. Ramage pictured Southwick unwinding the long strip of canvas from his great two-handed sword, which could take off a man's head with a couple of blows. One blow, probably, if rage put extra strength in Southwick's arms.
'Report back when everyone's ready,' he told Aitken, who started the order off on its whispered journey. By the time the answer came back Ramage had both his pistols at half-cock and tucked back into his waist belt, and the canvas off his cutlass, which was now waiting on the ground beside him.
'I can see your face very clearly,' he told Aitken. 'That cork blacking has worn off.'
'Afraid you're the same, sir,' Aitken muttered. 'The perspiration has washed it away. And I didn't bring any spare burnt corks.'
'Oh well, I don't expect we'll meet anyone we know,' Ramage said lightly. He picked up his cutlass. 'Very well, we'll go on until we reach the gravel, and then wait for Hill.'
Five minutes later Ramage peered at the gates from the edge of the bushes as Orsini pointed and whispered. 'There, you can make out the sentry standing just to the left of that black oblong, which is the small doorway. The door must be open. We called the others doors, but they're really gates, and what was the proper English word for the small door? I'm afraid I have forgotten already.'
'A wicket gate. A Dutch word we've adopted, I think, although the Welsh refer to a 'wicked' gate.'
'Like Rossi. The Welsh obviously mean a gate just like that,' Paolo said. 'It's a wicked long run to reach it!'
'If you're going to make such poor jokes,' Ramage muttered, 'we'll speak Italian!'
He rolled on his side and pulled out his watch. Five minutes to go. Or, rather, five minutes until the time from which Hill could start.
Paolo nudged him. 'Look, sir. Up on the battlements to the right: there's the other sentry.'
Ramage watched the soldier march - no, he was strolling - and saw that he was making a complete circuit of the fort. He was not keeping a lookout on the seaward side - in fact, from the way he progressed it seemed highly unlikely that he was keeping a lookout for anything in particular. Would Hill have seen him? And would he be planning to start the attack once the sentry was out of sight from him on the landward side of the battlements? From down here among the roots of the sage and juniper, it was hard to judge the breeze, but it was light enough for Ramage to hear the faint rustle of the leaves. Yes, the breeze was still there, and the clouds showed that at least high up it had not changed direction.
He turned to Aitken. 'Crawl alongside me and have a good look round.' He passed on Orsini's observations, and Aitken nodded. 'Let's hope Hill has seen that sentry,' he murmured, echoing Ramage's thoughts. 'If he times it right, it could give us an extra couple of minutes. . .'
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A nightjar in a clump of olive trees over to the west of the fort kept up its lonely and monotonous quark . . . quark, a call so regular that Ramage stopped timing the seconds and used the bird. Otherwise there was silence. Then the sentry at the wicket gate coughed and spat, the silence making him seem much closer than thirty yards. The moon shadows cast by the boltheads made the big wooden gates look speckled with a heavy black rash.
The sentry up on the battlements, now almost at the opposite side from Hill and his party, sneezed violently and apparently startled the nightjar, which missed a beat. Had something happened to Hill? Had he missed his way? No, that was impossible: he had only to follow the edge of the cliff and then strike through the macchia towards the fort.
Ramage stared at the sentry beside the gate. Not beside it but leaning back against it. He was too far away to see if his eyes were shut, but Rossi could be right: the man was probably dozing standing up.
Ramage sniffed, and sniffed again. He held his breath, trying to sort out the smells. Sage and thyme, yes, but... He sniffed again. Yes, there was the sharper smell of bonfire smoke. Both Orsini and Aitken then nudged him simultaneously from either side. Burning (smouldering, anyway) sage and grass - not a strong smell, just a whiff, really. And then another whiff, stronger this time, and a third.
He twisted his body to the right so that he could look over to the windward side of the fort, then he watched the sentry at the wicket gate. The man did not move: grass and macchia fires were common enough at this time of the year, and anyway once the macchia really started blazing there was nothing to be done. If the flames spread to olive groves, the effect was spectacular: an olive tree started flaming and then suddenly exploded like a great firework as all the oil in the fruit (if they were still on the tree), the leaves and the branches blazed fiercely with the heat of a furnace so that a small pile of fine grey powder would be all that remained of a large tree; the kind of ash left by a good cigar.
More whiffs and then the smell became constant - and yes, beyond and to windward of Forte della Stella there was now a faint pinkish-yellow glow, a glow which grew brighter as Ramage watched, and seemed to throb.
He heard Aitken sigh and mutter: 'It's going to work, sir.'
The sentry on the battlements suddenly started shouting and then the other sentry at the wicket gate seemed to wake with a start, pause a minute or two and then dash into the fort, yelling - presumably at the guardhouse because Ramage almost immediately heard more confused shouting coming through the wicket gate.
While the glow increased until the whole eastern side of the fort was awash in a reddish-yellow light, a bugle suddenly blared out urgently inside the fort, obviously sounding an alarm, and a moment later several men rushed out through the wicket gate and, pausing a moment to get their bearings, turned left and then ran round the fortress walls towards the glow which, even as they reached one of the points of the star, began flickering: an indication that what had begun as something small like a bonfire was becoming a rapidly spreading blaze.
'Eight . . . nine . . . thirteen . . . fourteen . . .' Ramage counted as Frenchmen came hurrying through the gate. 'Most are carrying muskets. Here come more!' He continued counting. Twenty-one men had run round towards the burning macchia by the time he stopped, and Ramage was satisfied that even the sentry on the battlements had left his post to join the others, who presumably proposed trying to beat out the flames.
