'The sentries guarding the hostages will be the only ones left behind,' Ramage said. His stomach was knotted with tension; his knees seemed to have lost their strength even though he was lying down. He grasped his cutlass, muttered a warning to Aitken and Orsini and, turning his head towards the men lying in the macchia behind him, snapped: 'Get ready ... on your feet. . . follow me!'
With that he rushed across the gravel towards the wicket gate, tugging a pistol from his waistband with his left hand. Aitken, Orsini and Rossi were racing each other to be the first through the little doorway while behind him it seemed a cart was unloading gravel as twenty men charged across the parade ground. Although Orsini just beat him to the door, the moment he was through Ramage looked to his right: yes, there was the guardroom, and in front was an inner courtyard formed by the walls of the fort itself. The blazing macchia had become an enormous lantern which showed the guardroom door swinging open: every man in it must have bolted outside.
Half left - yes, that door must lead to the two big rooms where the hostages should be, and he swung round towards it, slowing from a run to a brisk walk. Suddenly, the door flung open and a man stood in the opening, saw Ramage and the men behind him, and grabbed a musket. As Ramage realized that he and his party were lit by the burning macchia, now behind them, the Frenchman took one look at the gleaming cutlass blades, shouted a challenge and raised his musket.
Hearing the click as the Frenchman cocked the lock of the musket and knowing he had no time to change to his right, Ramage fired his pistol left-handed. The man collapsed, his musket going off as he toppled over, and Ramage heard the whining 'spang' as the ball ricocheted off one of the walls.
One down - but how many more left in there? Any one of us running through that door is a perfect target for other sentries inside. No time to think: drop the empty pistol, switch cutlass over to the left hand, tug out the second pistol with the right, cock the lock, and now he was hurling himself through the door, waiting for an agonizing pain as a musket ball slammed into his stomach.
A small hall - anteroom, rather. A man at the far side, crouching and shouting, a musket on the ground in front of him. Yes, another guard who did not understand what was going on but, seeing his comrade shot dead, had the wit to throw down his gun and surrender to whatever was the threat.
'Rossi!' Ramage shouted and saw the Italian dash past him heading for the cringing man, anticipating the order. By then Ramage had the next door open and found himself in a short corridor with a door at each end. Which first? He snatched a lantern from its hook and turned left. The damned door was locked but even as he tugged at the handle Rossi pushed him to one side without a word, trying one large key. No, it would not turn. He gave it to Ramage. 'The other door,' he said as he thrust a second key into the lock, wrenched the door open and flung it back.
Ramage saw that a lantern inside showed several people in the room and, turning to Aitken, snapped: 'You look after this crowd. Rossi took the keys from that last sentry: I'll open the other door.'
By now the corridor was full of men: Ramage found Jackson and Stafford beside him and the American grabbed the lantern, holding it up high as Ramage fitted the key in the lock of the other door. It turned easily and, flinging the door open, he jumped rather than leapt inside, covering as many of a group of men as he could with his pistol. None was armed but all seemed frozen as they stared at Ramage, who was lit from behind by the lantern which Jackson still held high.
'Who are you all?' Ramage shouted.
'English prisoners . . . British hostages .. . Are you British? . . . What's all the shooting? ... Is the fortress on fire . . .?'
Ramage held up his hand. 'Please, you're all shouting at once! I'm Ramage, from His Majesty's frigate Calypso. If you are hostages follow that man, Mr Orsini, and hurry: he'll lead you along a track to a cliff top and then down to our boats. But hurry: don't stop for clothes or personal treasures!'
'The women!' one of the men shouted, 'they're in the other room!'
'By now they're on their way to the Calypso,' Ramage snapped. 'We found them first! Now, hurry along! Orsini? Ah, there you are. Get moving - you don't need any lantern thanks to Hill's men setting the macchia ablaze!'
He stood back as the hostages hurried out. He saw two men kneeling down on the ground. 'What the devil are you doing?'
'Putting on shoes!'
'Get out!' Ramage said angrily. 'Run barefoot - a few blisters on your feet won't matter: if you don't hurry you'll have twenty Frenchmen using you for target practice!'
The two men hurriedly followed the others, leaving Jackson and Stafford waiting for orders. Suddenly a cursing Southwick stumbled into the room. 'So help me, all the damned birds have flown!'
'What happened to you?'
'That guardroom: you didn't wait to inspect it!'
'It was empty - the door was swinging.'
'Ha!' Southwick sniffed. 'Well, I found three French soldiers lying on cots, trying to sober up and understand what was going on! A fourth was already on his feet, roused by the shots and trying to load a pistol.'
'Where are they now?' Ramage demanded.
'Waiting for a burial party,' Southwick growled, and Ramage saw that at least a foot of the master's sword blade did not reflect the lantern light: instead it was a dull reddish-black.
'Right,' Ramage said. 'That's the two groups of hostages and the Marines on their way. 1 hope Orsini doesn't curse in Italian because it'll make the men suspicious.'
'That's all right, sir,' Southwick said. 'I sent young 'Blower' along with him to whip up the dullards and no one'd ever mistake him for a foreigner.'
'Just look round in here in case any of the prisoners did leave any treasures behind and start grumbling,' Ramage told Jackson, who walked round with the lantern.
'Shall we blow this place up?' Southwick enquired eagerly. 'I've a fifteen-minute length of slowmatch tied round my middle.'
'Only fifteen minutes? A stomach like that will take an hour's length! No, we won't blow it up, it's more of an ornament than a threat if we ever want to attack Port' Ercole again. Nothing, Jackson, just clothing? Right, let's get back to the ship.'
Outside the courtyard the light was by now even brighter: several acres of macchia must be burning, the fire steadily spreading across the sage, juniper and thyme, fanned by the breeze that had earlier worried Ramage.
Southwick paused for a moment, looking round at the fortress walls which were harshly outlined by the flames beyond. 'Those buckets - must admit I didn't think they'd work, sir. I thought the banging about would put out the coils of slow match burning in the bottom.'
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'If the buckets didn't work, the alternatives were having men holding burning match as they made their way up the cliff and along the top, or having them scratching away in the macchia with flint and steel, and then lighting slowmatch. And you know that's the time when the flint won't spark - or it starts raining and the tinder gets soaking wet.'
Ramage led the way out through the wicket gate and almost immediately a small red eye winked over on his left and a musket ball thudded into the heavy gates a foot away.
'Quickly - out, or we'll be trapped,' Ramage snapped. 'The blasted French are coming back!'
Several more musket shots sent balls thudding into the gate and Ramage could see that the French were returning the way they had run out, but keeping closer to the walls. He knew he had one advantage - the burning macchia outlined the French, while the four Britons were against the dark walls of the fort, lit only by the general glow of the flames.
But the French had muskets - which they were no doubt busily reloading now - while the four Britons had only pistols. The French could fire at two hundred yards' range; the Calypsos would be lucky to hit anything at twenty.
Did the hostages get away safely? They must have: there were no bodies lying between the door and the edge of the macchia. Very well, every minute he could hold this damned French garrison here at the fort gave the hostages an extra minute to reach the cliff and scramble down to the boats.
As he crouched against the fort's wall beside the gates Ramage could see the French troops forming up in two lines, the nearest kneeling and the second standing. He pointed them out to Southwick. 'A regular firing squad!'
Southwick gave an uneasy sniff. 'They must have twenty muskets. They'll just pick us off one by one as we bolt across this gravel . . .'
'That's five musket balls each,' Ramage commented. 'Still, gravel isn't suitable for a quadrille, so we must keep these fellows occupied for a while.'
With that he raised his pistol, aimed carefully at the French (noticing an officer pacing up and down behind the two files of men, obviously giving orders) and fired. The ball might reach - with enough impact to break an egg.
Turning to Jackson and Stafford, he said: 'Fire at them - not together, just enough for the flashes to make them nervous.'
Hurriedly he reloaded his own pistol, cursing that he had thrown away the other one. Powder, wad, ball, ram, wad, ram: flip open the pan cover, priming powder into the pan, snap the cover closed, rammer slid back under the barrel, cock the lock...
He looked up to see the row of French muskets again winking red eyes but heard only an occasional ball ricochet from the wall.
'They can't see us: they're aiming at the flashes of our pistols. Reload, but don't fire again until I give the word.'
Yes, the French would be puzzled, with a couple of acres of macchia to windward of the fortress blazing merrily and obviously set on fire by whoever was attacking the fort. Looking at the dancing flames, Ramage guessed that the garrison commander must reckon it was the work of more than twenty men. Then he had seen men - only four - coming out of the fort, but he would think that no enemy dare attack with fewer than - well, seventy-five men: fifty to attack the fort while twenty-five set fire to the macchia. The Frenchmen must be worrying where the other forty-six were . . .
No wonder the commander was not leading a charge back into the fort: he must suspect that by now the hostages were released, even though still inside the fort.
Ramage almost laughed aloud as he pictured the Gallic shrug: why walk into trouble when they could cover the gateway and pick off the attackers and hostages as they tried to escape ...
The Frenchman would have counted four men and assumed that dozens more were to come. He must assume they were either Italian guerrillas or British, but it was unlikely that he realized that most had already left the fort before he came in sight of the wicket gate. He would think he was seeing the first four, never guessing they were the last.
'Southwick, work your way along there -' Ramage pointed inland, away from the flames and the waiting French, '- and after twenty yards fire at our friends over there.'
'But it's hard enough to hit 'em at this range without adding another twenty yards!' Southwick protested.
'You're not supposed to hit them,' Ramage said ironically. 'The muzzle flash represents another twenty of us waiting to attack the wily French.'
