book told him that there were great blocks of stone and many sculptures left there after the Carthaginians sacked the city five hundred years before Christ.
'At least the Saraceni did not burn your town,' Ramage said gently. 'At least your survivors still have somewhere to live.'
'Some life,' the mayor said bitterly. 'I have lost a son and three nephews, and a niece. And the people call me lucky: many of them lost more.'
The man was about to cry, and Ramage knew of no way of comforting him: there was no way of disguising the fate of the men and women he had lost, and at the moment there was no guarantee that another such raid would not happen.
Ramage said his farewell, and with Rennick and the Marines he walked back down the hill again.
As they walked, Ramage told Rennick what the mayor had said. Finally Rennick said: 'I wonder if I would have been so controlled if I had lost so much.'
'I don't know if he is controlled or stunned. I think it is too soon after it happened. It'll be another week or two before he realizes exactly what he's lost. Or what has happened to them. Yes, he knows they've been captured; but he hasn't yet thought about the galleys and the brothels. That is what will break him up.'
Back on board the Calypso, he called Aitken and South wick to his cabin and repeated to them the mayor's story. Their reaction was the same as Rennick's.
'There's no chance of rescuing any of them, that's the terrible thing about it,' Southwick said.
'It's obvious that the Algerines have hundreds of slaves,' Ramage said. 'And no one dares guess how many women go into the brothels.'
'It's a pity we can't do something about it.'
'That's what the British government has been saying for a hundred years,' Ramage said. 'But first you have to capture Algiers. Then half a dozen other places. And by the time you have captured them, most of the slaves will have been put to death. There's no man alive more ruthless than a Saracen.'
'Where now?' Southwick asked.
'We'll just carry on eastward along the coast. Porto Empedocle is the next place, and I have a feeling we shall arrive there too late.'
The mayor of Porto Empedocle told a similar story to that of the mayor of Sciacca: the Saraceni had arrived three days earlier, turned out all the men and women and lined them up in the street, and then taken their pick. The mayor had lost four nephews but as the good lord had not seen fit to give his wife any children, he had not lost any sons. The Saraceni had gone off with their prisoners, seventy men and thirty women, many of whom were crowded into fishing boats stolen from the harbour.
'We shall never recover,' the mayor said. 'We have lost our best young men and our boats. What is there left?'
And Ramage knew he was right: there was nothing left. On the ridge above Empedocle stood the temples of Agrigento: a vast Greek city whose now ruined walls enclosed a couple of square miles. At the height of its power, it was estimated, the population had been a million people. Even before then the Cretans had tried to capture the city for five years. And what did it all mean now for the mayor of Empedocle, grieving at the Saraceni raid? Nothing, Ramage decided; it simply emphasized how, in the sweep of history, none of it mattered.
As Ramage returned to the Calypso in the cutter he considered the three days. If he was correct, the Empedocle prisoners were still on their way to Algiers or Tunis, or wherever the Saracens were based.
Back in his cabin, relating to Aitken and Southwick what the mayor of Empedocle had told him, Ramage repeated the information about the three days, and Aitken immediately said: 'We should find that the next port, Licata, hasn't been attacked yet.'
'Not only that,' Ramage said, 'but we have eight or nine days to get ready for the next attack.'
Aitken shook his head: he was puzzled and dispirited. 'From what all the mayors have been saying, the Saracens have picked up another twenty or so boats. If they started off with twenty - and I doubt if they had fewer than that - they now have forty. How can we deal with forty boats even though they won't be carrying guns- at least half of them won't, anyway. It'll be like trying to snatch sprats out of a barrel: those tartanes and galleys will be just as slippery.'
It was a point which had been worrying Ramage since he first arrived off the coast: how could a lumbering frigate sink the fast and agile Saracens? Because it was a question of destroying them, not just driving them off. Drive them off today and they'll be back next week, or the week after, warier but just as determined.
Southwick gave an enormous sniff, and Ramage recognized it as the warning that he had an important pronouncement to make.
'We can't do it,' he said. 'There's no way. I don't usually say something is impossible, but there is no way we can stop forty boats - or even twenty - and destroy them, even if they are drawn up in a regular line of battle, which of course they won't be, being Saracens.'
'I've been thinking the same thing for days,' Ramage admitted.
'But so far I can see no alternative but to wade right into the middle of them and sink as many as we can.'
'I don't think we'll sink many,' Southwick said. 'They're all fast and weatherly craft. Tartanes can eat their way to windward and those damned galleys can turn on a penny piece.'
'Makes me think we shouldn't be at sea,' Ramage said enigmatically.
The little port of Licata, some thirty miles along the coast, was the next place to visit. Nor was it difficult to find: it stood at the mouth of the Fiume Salso and a big castle, Castel San Angelo, was built on Monte Ecnomo on the western side of the town with the church of San Angelo, which had a very prominent cupola, on the eastern side.
The Calypso anchored off and Ramage went in with the cutter. He was surprised how small was Licata, and it seemed too unimportant for the Saraceni to raid. Nor had it been attacked. The mayor was a sturdy, grey-haired man who regarded Ramage as a saviour.
'When we heard every port had been attacked between here and Marsala,' he said, 'we gave ourselves up for lost. But then at the last minute you arrive with your great ship, Commandante. Our prayers have been answered just in time.'
Ramage held up his hand to stop the man. 'We can't do much against so many of their vessels,' Ramage said. 'We think they'll have about forty or more, and how can just one ship destroy them?'
The mayor looked crestfallen. 'But you have such a big ship, and all they have will be tartanes and galleys.'
'Yes, I know,' Ramage said patiently, 'but they are very agile. It would be like a man in a large boat with a trident trying to spear little fishes. You spear one but there are many more ...'
'Then send your men on shore and help us fight the Saraceni in the streets,' the mayor said, and immediately Ramage knew his idea was a practical one, and he wished he had discussed it with Aitken and Southwick.
'How many people are there in Licata?' Ramage asked.
The mayor shrugged his shoulders. 'Who knows? Perhaps four thousand, but maybe only three.'
'How many men have you who can fight?'
'Fight? It will be mostly with swords and cudgels: I doubt if there are fifty fowling pieces in the whole town, and the powder for them is probably damp.'
'Very well, how many with swords and cudgels?'
'Young men who can fight, perhaps two hundred. Most of our men are now old and decrepit; not fit for much more than sitting in the sun and puffing a pipe.'
'And what about water?'
'Plenty - we have two good wells. Why?'
'If I land a hundred men they can bring provisions but they'll need water. Not just for a day or two but every day until the Saraceni arrive. If they arrive, that is.'
'They'll come,' the mayor said grimly. 'They're picking off the ports like ripe oranges. We're the next to last one along this south coast. They'll come all right.'
He is right, Ramage told himself, and nodded. 'Yes, I think they'll come - in six or seven days.'
The mayor looked puzzled. 'What makes you so sure? Why not tomorrow, or the next day?'
Ramage explained the timetable for the previous raids, and how it seemed that the Saraceni needed twelve days or so to take the prisoners back to their base and return to the coast of Sicily. Empedocle had been raided three days before the Calypso arrived, and the frigate had taken a day to get here because of light winds, making four days in all since the raid on Empedocle.
The mayor was now getting excited: he had been living with the thought of a Saracen raid for so long that he had given up hope; now Ramage's arrival had changed everything.
Ramage interrupted his spate of excited speculation with a harsh remark. 'We must destroy these men, every one of them. There is no point in driving them off. Drive them off and they'll be back again in days or weeks.'
'Yes, yes, we must trap them,' the mayor exclaimed.
Ramage nodded. 'I am going back to my ship to make plans,' he said. 'Be patient; I shall return.'
CHAPTER TEN
Ramage's cabin was crowded: as usual Southwick sat in the armchair, Aitken, Kenton and Martin were crowded together on the settee and Hill and Rennick stood either side of the door, their beads canted because of the low headroom.
Ram age looked up from his desk and said without any preliminaries: 'There's little doubt that Licata will be the next target for the Saracens, probably in about eight days' time.'
With the exception of the first lieutenant and master, the rest of the officers looked startled; as though their captain had started fortune telling. Ramage immediately noticed and went on to explain how he had reached that conclusion.
As Ramage finished with his estimate of the number of vessels that the Saracens would have, Hill said: 'How are we going to tackle that number, sir?'
'We aren't,' Ramage said shortly. 'There's no way we can. In other words we can't deal with them at sea.'
He stopped with that remark and it was left to Hill to echo, questioningly, the phrase: 'At sea?'
'Yes,' Ramage said briskly. 'We've got to destroy these damned pirates, and the only way we can do it is trap them on shore. They might outnumber us - probably will - but we'll have to make up for that with surprise.
