Ramage's Signal Read Online Free Page B

Quite what that had to do with Minorca, Martin could not understand, but he had the wit to realize that one could also phrase the question another way—what had Minorca to do with Aspet and Foix? Then he realized that the distant island was a likely destination for a French frigate; no coastal lookout would be at all surprised to see the
Calypso
bearing away in that direction.
    Deciding that he would not speak unless in answer to a question—that was the safest way of not making a fool of himself—Martin watched the Captain, who was now looking at the drawing on the slate which Aitken had put down on one side of the desk.
    It was curious how his Lordship (Martin still worried about referring to him as the Captain, which he was, or his Lordship, which he was also, even though everyone said he did not use his title) looked at the slate and then the chart, then at Rennick and then back to the chart, without moving his head. His face was deeply suntanned and lean, his cheekbones high and his nose hooked, but the eyes were what attracted attention: they were brown and deep set, almost hooded, so that as he stood looking down at the chart Martin was put in mind of a hawk he had once watched closely as it sat on a bough: it did not move its head but the eyes missed nothing.
    Yet, Martin realized with a shock, the Captain was only six years older than himself: until the birthday a couple of weeks ago he had assumed Mr Ramage was—well, approaching forty, and was startled to discover he was not yet thirty. He did not look forty, or even thirty; it was simply that to have crammed so much action into so few years meant that Captain Ramage was still alive only because of a series of miracles. The hair had just grown back on that tiny bare patch on his head where he had been wounded in the West Indies—taking a Dutch island, Curaçao wasn’t it?—although the left arm obviously still gave him trouble: he sometimes held it awkwardly, as though the elbow was stiff with rheumatism.
    He saw Ramage point to some soundings marked on the chart, and Aitken wrote them in on the slate. The bay in fact was quite shallow: six and seven fathoms in the centre, but a gradual shoaling up to the beach probably indicated that the sand went well out. The wind was north-east, so it would be calm enough in there.
    Martin nodded with the rest of them when Ramage asked casually: “You all have the details in your memories?”
    Then Ramage said: “Before I roll this chart up and put it away, can you remember enough to take in a boat tonight, with no moon, and land it fifty yards to the west of the tower, on the bay side of the headland?”
    Several sheepish “Well sirs …” had Ramage sitting down in his chair again and twisting the chart round for them all, grouped in the front of the desk, to study it more easily.
    â€œTake as long as you need,” Ramage said. “If anyone wants to make notes or copy anything, here is pen and paper.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of ink, pen and a pad.
    As he looked at the group, Ramage suddenly had an idea which seemed so absurd that for a moment he thought he was just daydreaming. Then he thought about it again with deliberate concentration. It still seemed absurd, but a faint possibility of it working emerged like a drowning man waving a hand. He drove it out of his mind for a full minute, then let it back and considered it for a third time. Even limited success would need a great deal of luck, but there was one important factor in its favour—complete failure neither endangered the
Calypso
nor her disguise, nor killed a lot of men. That was a rare situation; probably sufficient to justify an attempt.
    Well, even his first plan, which he was about to describe to these men, had an air of absurdity about it. The second—really only the second part of the first—he would keep to himself for the time being. A few hours spent mulling it