Somehow the Torre di Buranaccio (where at one point in the misunderstanding she had presented a pistol at him and was quite prepared to fire it) was a beginning. It had brought him to the notice of Nelson, then of course only a commodore, and Lord St Vincent (then only Sir John Jervis, since the battle for which he received his earldom and title - and in which Commodore Nelson and Lieutenant Ramage had played an exciting part - had not yet taken place).
Maps, he reminded himself firmly and stared down at the one spread on the desk, weighted down to stop it rolling up again. So there it was, a slightly skewed square of land with the small lump of Argentario hanging off the left-hand corner. Argentario was a diamond-shaped, mountainous island joined to the mainland by two causeways. Between them on the mainland was the small fortified town of Orbetello but, more important, the northern causeway joined the mainland just opposite where the track to Pitigliano turned inland from the Via Aurelia, which ran along the coast only a few yards inland and along which so many Roman armies had marched to and from Rome.
So follow that track from the Via Aurelia. After a couple of miles it went through the first village, which was not as big as its name, la Barca del Grazi, and whose sole importance seemed to be that it was a fork where another track branched left to many more hill towns forming a chain round the foot of Monte Amiata. Damnation, it was hard to follow the track without traipsing off along the side roads of boyhood memories, when he and his mother and a couple of coachmen (there were plenty of bandits across the Maremma, and highwaymen lurked near inns favoured by wealthy travellers) explored Tuscany. They had stayed at most of the hill towns where the inns were so small that often mother and son occupied the only available rooms and the two coachmen had to lodge with friends of the innkeeper. And a church built after 1300 was regarded as recent.
So on the road to Pitigliano . . . That was the shortest and easiest approach by road and without going down to Montalto di Castro and taking the road - little more than a track - that ran along the edge of Lake Bolsena, twisting to come into Pitigliano from the east, the opposite direction, it was the only way. One could start off from Montalto di Castro and scramble across country through the corner of Lazio, but that meant risking running into marshes at the northern end of the Maremma. More important, apart from the swampiness of the marshes forming the Maremma (which extended all the way down to Rome) they were notorious for malaria: there was something in the damp air which meant that people living in the hamlets on the road to Tarquinia and then on to Rome were plagued with ague. He did not want to risk any of his men falling victims - not after years in the Tropics when he and the surgeon, Bowen, kept the Calypso free of all the diseases which so far had killed thousands more men out there than fighting the French. Very well, he told himself, you have refreshed your memory about the track to Pitigliano; now decide how you get to the track to start off and how you then proceed along it. How the Admiralty people loved that word 'proceed': along with 'whereas' it must be their favourite. No captain was ever ordered to 'go', and no captain in his report ever 'went': always 'proceed' or 'proceeded'. Along with 'prior' and a few other words which fools and lawyers used like pointing fingers because they were almost illiterate or too lazy to think, 'proceeded' had a high place on the list of words Ramage would like to remove from the language.
So, picking up where you interrupted yourself at the thought of 'proceeding', consider first just how you will 'proceed' along the dusty track to Pitigliano with your merry men. And, of course, when you get there, what you do about finding and rescuing the British hostages. Let us (for the moment) not bother with getting back to the coast with them: there will be time enough to consider that when you find (to your astonishment) that the plan so far has worked. Ah, yes, he thought, I must remember to start that section of my report to the Admiralty with the Board's favourite word, 'whereas'. Indeed, after the traditional 'I have the honour to report', he would slip in a 'whereas' to introduce his reference to the orders he had received.
Ahem. He coughed in a little mime for his own benefit. We are getting ahead of ourselves; at the moment the Italian mainland is a good hundred miles away from the Calypso, and Pitigliano is another thirty miles inland . . .
Did the French carry the important prisoners in carts or coaches, or did they have to march? And if march (which was most likely), was it all the way from France? Or were these the Britons caught when the war began again while visiting southern France, and the Grand Tour cities of Italy? That was more probable. Marching along those dusty roads . . . still, it might have been winter, when they would be ankle-deep in mud. They probably spent the night in barns, sleeping on straw. Just as unpleasant for the French guards, of course, if that was any comfort. He pictured a column of men, possibly in chains, trudging along a muddy road, with French guards, unshaven and just as muddy, trying to count them from time to time, and cursing them and telling them to hurry .. . And he also pictured men like Stafford and Southwick and Hill and Kenton and Martin, up to all sorts of tricks to make the life of the guards more miserable. With that picture in his mind he bent over the map once again. It was now obvious how to do it - wasn't it?
CHAPTER FIVE
For once Ramage was thankful that his clerk was an unimaginative man: when Ramage hastily transferred from the Murex to the Calypso after the escape from Brest, he had stuffed all his documents into a canvas bag and forgotten them.
Now, when he wanted to examine some of those documents again (they included excellent original French passes with only the names faked), he assumed they had been thrown away - until he casually mentioned them to the clerk, who disappeared without comment to return a few minutes later from his tiny cabin-cum-office with the greyish-blue sheets, several of them headed by the French National government seal. Six sets of documents, used for the escape of the four Frenchmen (who were now members of the Calypso's crew), for himself, and for Sarah . . .
Like rescuing Gianna, that wild rush in Brest seemed a lifetime ago; the only proof that it had ever happened was the sight of the four Frenchmen carrying out their duties on board the Calypso - and yes, these documents he now held in his hand. No Sarah, no Murex. But do not start thinking about all that now, he warned himself. Examine the documents and think how you can get hold of some more sheets of this crudely made paper so favoured by French authority.
There were three types of documents. He was not so interested in the wording as in the seals of the various ministries at the top of each page. The first paper was a passeport, issued by the local Committee of Public Safety. He remembered Gilbert (who had obtained them so that they could go into Brest from the Count of Rennes' château, where they were trapped) explaining that there were in fact two kinds of passeport - one for foreigners, and another for French citizens visiting another town. A passeport for a Frenchman allowed the holder to travel back and forth from his own town or village to a named town: visiting a third town required yet another passeport. Anyway, at the top of the first page were the arms of the French Republic and underneath was a printed form, the various blank spaces filled in with a pen.
The next document (intended for Sarah) bore the coat of arms of the province of Brittany and certified that she had been born in Falaise, in Normandy, but on marriage had removed to Brittany. More important, it was signed by the préfet of Brittany.
The third document was headed with the printed words 'LibertéEgalité', and centred between the two words was an oval with an anchor symbol in the centre and 'Rep.Fran.Marin' round the inside. Yes, he had remembered correctly the stationery of the Ministry of Marine and Colonies. Although the document itself and the signatures were genuine, the rest of the details were false - it was a discharge from the Navy of France.
Unfortunately, he had no document issued by the French War Ministry; but he decided that of the Ministry of Marine (with a sufficiently bullying manner when presenting it) would be enough.
He held up a page to the light. Very poor-quality paper: it had a sad greyness that with a black border would serve for sending a letter of condolence to a defrocked cleric. Yet would a guard or the commandant of a prison expect documents always to be written or printed on the same quality paper? Surely a few ministries must have decent notepaper. This stuff was the best that the papermakers could produce (or all that the Republic would pay for) after years of blockade by the Royal Navy. Now, during that eighteen months of peace, surely some ministries had managed to get better paper. Anyway, that would be a good enough explanation, particularly if given in the sort of hectoring voice which implied that anyone doubting it was not au courant with the present situation in Paris.
Now he must talk to Gilbert, who had obtained these documents in France. Presumably the French system, with barrières every few miles along most roads and at the approaches to all towns, would not be used in Italy, if only because it would need thousands of men. Nevertheless the French Army of Italy was one of occupation . . . sentries, paid spies, cavalry patrols, all would be needed.
Ramage called the Marine sentry to pass the word for Gilbert. A couple of minutes later he told the Marine to send for Midshipman Orsini as well: it was now two or three years since Paolo had escaped from Volterra and made his way to England by way of Naples, but he might remember some French regulations which could help prevent mistakes.
How much to tell them? It would be asking a lot of Gilbert not to relate to the rest of his mess (Jackson, Stafford, Rossi and the other three Frenchmen) why the captain had sent for him. Orsini would keep his mouth shut because, apart from anything else, it concerned his own country, and he would not want to risk any slips. Which led to the decision whether or not to take him.
Paolo might by now be the new ruler of Volterra: that was the first consideration. If Gianna was dead, he would certainly be by right of succession, even though Volterra was at the moment occupied by the Army of France.
If Paolo was captured and identified by the French, his throat would be cut - having murdered Gianna, the French would be delighted to dispose of the Marchesa's nephew and successor. Yet one must consider that Paolo knew all this countryside like the back of his hand. Italian was, of course, his native tongue but, being an educated young man, his French was fluent and his English marred by only a very slight accent.
So, Ramage thought, by not taking him I lose a guide, a young man speaking French and Italian, and perhaps more important, one who looks French or Italian: a sallow skin, jet-black hair, a narrow face which anyone who had travelled would at once identify as Italian or Spanish. A Mediterranean face, in fact.
What would Gianna have expected? Suddenly he could see her face and hear her voice: for a moment she seemed to be in the cabin with him: a memory, or a ghost, but most certainly Gianna, and at her most decisive. 'Paolo has been in action with you a dozen times. More, in fact. A French roundshot could have knocked his head off at any time. One is, my dear Nicholas, just as dead from a roundshot as a dagger thrust - or the musket balls of a French firing squad. And, dear Nicholas, can you bear the reproachful look in the boy's eyes when you tell him you are not taking him?'
Gianna's voice was so firm, so determined, so real in his imagination that the sentry's knock bringing him back to reality made him blink, still expecting her to be there.
'Send them in!' he called, and waved Paolo and Gilbert to sit down. Paolo sat in what had become known as 'Southwick's chair' and Gilbert perched on the edge of the settee, combining the discomfort of a servant sitting in his master's presence (a hangover from the château) with the nervousness of a seaman unexpectedly summoned to the captain's presence.
Ramage then realized that with the Calypso just off the Italian coast, even if both Paolo and Gilbert bellowed the Admiralty's secret orders through speaking trumpets, there was no enemy close enough to hear them.
