Ramage's Challenge Read Online Free Page B

coast: the mountains rolled inland like giant, petrified waves and were given the resounding name of Sierra Nuestra Señora de la Luz (and, as if to carry on the Arab tradition of Yibila, one of the peaks just east of Tarifa was named Tetas de la Luz). The next peak, Ramage noticed from the chart, had an earthier name—Gitano.
    Southwick came on deck and glanced round. Seeing Ramage walking to the quarterdeck rail he came over to join him. “We’re far enough out not to have to worry about the off-lying dangers, sir,” he commented.
    Ramage said teasingly, “Yes, one of the fastest ways of being put on half-pay must be to run aground on La Perla!”
    â€œEasy enough to do as you go into Gibraltar, if you lose the wind with a strong east-going current, or a white squall hits you.”
    â€œA court of inquiry will have heard it all before!”
    â€œTrue,” Southwick admitted. “I wonder how many of our own ships over the years have ended up on those rocks, let alone Spanish and Moorish. But who named them? ‘The Teeth’ would be fitter!”
    La Perla was in fact a group of rocks usually covered and lying half a mile offshore, just where an unwary ship from the Atlantic and bound for Gibraltar might be tempted to take a short cut. Or, as Southwick had noted, where a ship losing the wind and caught in the currents and eddies (which often ran at three knots) would end up.
    The Rock: one of the most impressive places in the world, Ramage thought; perhaps
the
most. One can compare it with an enormous block of wood attacked by a madman with an axe. The north and east sides are almost vertical, like the end of a box; the western side, now on the larboard bow, is a steep slope, while the side facing the Strait is a series of steps, or terraces, which end at the aptly named Europa Point.
    Ramage felt hungry and thirsty and irritated by the slack current which was slowing the
Calypso.
Nature was determined to make him wait and wait before opening those damned orders. “Come down and report when Europa Point bears due north,” Ramage said, “and bring Aitken with you.”
    Captains hated sealed orders, which were to be opened at a certain position, or on a certain date. There was always the chance that one might subsequently be accused of opening them earlier. The best method was the one just adopted by Ramage: telling the first lieutenant and master to report to his cabin at the time appointed for opening the orders. Then there were witnesses, and (if it could be allowed) they could read the orders and discuss the ways and means of carrying them out.
    He went down to his cabin, unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took out a canvas bag. It had brass grommets round the opening and a sturdy drawstring passed through the rings. The bag was heavy because inside there was a small pig of lead to make it sink quickly if thrown over the side in an emergency, to avoid capture.
    Ramage took out the packet, secured the bag again, and returned it to the drawer. Sealed orders. Well, they looked just like any other letter from the Admiralty—an outer cover of thick paper folded once from each side and the overlapping flaps joined by a large seal, the red wax covered with thin, white paper before the Admiralty seal was impressed. Ramage wondered for the thousandth time how the Admiralty acquired that seal. Presumably, it originally belonged to their predecessor, the Lord High Admiral, who would have used it until his office was “put into commission”—handed over to several individuals who became the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. But a fouled anchor— one with the cable twisted round the shank—was hardly suitable; in fact, it would be hard to think of a more lubberly symbol.
    The Mediterranean—well, it was a change from the West Indies (and that brief foray south of the Equator). “Being black-strapped,” the sailors called it, a catch-all