Another flash and a moment later the sound of the shot.

'I saw that one: just near the track. Must be a French patrol chasing them.'

'Yes,' said Jackson, 'the flashes are scattered.'

Realizing he could not help from where he was, Ramage snapped: 'Come on, we'll make for the end of the track and pilot 'em in!'

They dashed along the top of the dunes but every dozen or so paces one or other of them toppled over as his feet sank into a patch of particularly soft sand. The juniper and sea holly tore at their legs and thighs, and they had to dodge round the bigger bushes.

Then, almost sobbing for breath, they were level with the Tower and running down the side of the dunes to follow the river's sudden curve inland towards the lake.

As the land flattened out they burst through a wall of bushes and found themselves at the edge of the hard track: to the right it ended abruptly at the little bridge; to the left it ran straight, disappearing into the darkness towards Ansedonia.

Three more shots rang out and Ramage saw the flashes - all inland of the track. Jackson suddenly dropped on all fours and for a moment Ramage thought he had been hit by a stray ball, then realized the American had an ear to the ground.

'Cavalry - a dozen horses, at a guess, but scattered," he said.

'Can you hear people running?'

'No, sir: sound don't travel well through this sandy stuff.'

Should they both run along the track and try to fight off the pursuers? No, they'd only add to the refugees' confusion: better wait here. No - make a diversion and draw the fire: that was the only hope.

'Jackson!' In his enthusiasm he seized the American by the shoulder. 'Listen - they can get to the boat either along this track or by crossing the dunes farther up there and then along the beach. I'll stay on the track and you go up on the dunes. As the Italians pass we make sure they're going in the right direction, then make a diversion as the cavalry reach us. When I shout "boat" bolt back and get on board: horses won't be able to gallop on the dunes. Understand?'

'Aye aye, sir!'

With that Jackson,was scrambling up the side of the dune. An American who, a few years ago, was fighting the British, was now serving in the British Navy risking his neck on Tuscan soil to save some Italians from the French, who were once his allies against the British. It didn't make sense.

Ramage stared along the track, trying to glimpse a hint of movement in the distance. Realizing he was too close to the boat to make an effective diversion which would give the Italians time to get over the dunes, he ran fifty yards along the track.

He pulled the throwing knife from his boot and waited in the shadows of a big bush. God, except for the thumping of his heart it was now as silent as the grave. Even the cicadas had stopped their buzzing. Just shadows, and the moonlight, which bleached colours and courage alike.

A crackle of branches up the track: a faint rhythmic thumping of running feet. Another flash - someone shooting towards the track, from the seaward side this time. Then another shot, from landward. Now shouts - in French, calling on people to halt. Another flash and bang: a pistol shot, fired back up the track - the refugees were defending themselves. People running, calling desperately to each other in Italian, cursing breathlessly.

Now he could just distinguish a small group running towards him, jinking from one side of the track to the other to make themselves more elusive targets.

There was a jangle of horses' harness on the seaward side of the track - more cavalry coming along the beach?

'Jackson.'

'Here, sir!'

The American was up on the dune, thirty yards ahead.

'You divert the Frogs - I'll help the Italians: they must be all in!'

'Aye aye, sir.'

Ramage ran along the track calling. 'Qui, siamo qui!'

'Where?' It was Nino's voice.

'Here - ahead of you: keep running!'

'Madonna, we are nearly finished! The Marchesa is wounded!'

In a few moments he was among them: two men, presumably the refugees, were carrying the girl by the arms, her legs dragging in the sand. She was conscious. Nino and his brother were behind, guarding the rear.

Ramage thrust the two strangers aside, grabbed the girl's right hand in his left and pulled it towards him as he bent down, doubling her body over his right shoulder. Straightening himself up he gripped her right ankle as well with his left hand, leaving his right hand free, and still holding the knife. He began running along the track, towards the Tower.

'How near are the French?'

'Not fifty paces behind - a dozen cavalry or more,' one of the men gasped: 'We had pistols – that's why they aren't getting too close - but they're empty.'

She was light, thank God, but how badly hurt? Her head was hanging down over his back.

'In pain?'

'A little: I can bear it.'

'Madonna!' shouted Nino, 'look out!'

A sudden thudding of hooves close behind sent him bolting sideways into a gap between the bushes. He flung the girl clear and spun round to find two horsemen plunging after him through the gap, one behind the other, sabre blades glinting in the moonlight. They'd fired their muskets and had no time to reload.

Six yards, five . . . Ramage stood blocking the horsemen's path, deliberately showing himself. Four yards - up went the Frenchman's sabre . . . Ramage gripped the knife and swung his arm over his shoulder . . . The horse turned slightly as the rider reined it to one side, giving himself room to slash with the sabre. Ramage's arm swung down and the knife blade flashed for a second in the moonlight.

The sabre dropped and the man gurgled as he fell backwards, still holding the reins in one hand. The horse reared up, whinnying in fear, and the following horse ran into it; but the second rider pulled it round and galloped back out of the gap. The first horse turned and followed as its rider fell to the ground.

Ramage ran to the body, pulled the knife from the man's shoulder, slung the girl over his shoulder once again, and went back to the track. The second horseman had disappeared into the darkness and he called to the Italians, who emerged from the bushes near by.

'Come on!' Ramage yelled and ran along the track.

He heard a whistle to his right: Jackson was imitating the reedy note of a boatswain's call.

'We're carrying on to the boat, Jackson: hold on and cover us!'

'Aye aye, sir. Sorry about those two: they cut in ahead of me.'

The girl's getting heavy: it'll be almost impossible running along soft sand on the top of the dunes. Should he risk the water's edge, where the sand is hard?

'Nino!'

'Yes, Commandante?

*We must split up: take your people along the track. I'm going over the dunes and along the beach - I can't manage the soft sand!'

'Yes, Cammandante, I understand!'

This is as good a place to cross as anywhere. Hold tight,' he told the girl, and ran up the side of the dune, managing to use the momentum of their bodies to reach the top without stopping. He plunged on down the other side, but suddenly his feet sank too deep in the sand and he pitched over, sending the girl flying.

Hurriedly he untangled himself. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes - I can walk: it is easier in this sand. I've been trying to tell you that ever since you picked me up.'

'You're sure?'

'Yes,' she said impatiently, and he took her hand. She shook it free and a moment later he realized she had to hold up her skirts.

'My left elbow!'

He grasped it and together they reached the top of the next dune: now there was only one more valley and one more crest. Down they plunged and up again, then down the shallower slope to the water's edge. A moment later they were running along the tide-line, splashing through occasional shallow pools of water.

He glanced back along the beach: oh Christ! Four dark shapes, men on horseback, galloping straight towards them, fifty yards away. Obviously they'd both been seen. Could they get back up the dune in time?

'Quick, back up there and hide in the bushes.'

He pushed her when she paused for a second.

'You, too!'

'No - go on, hurry, for God's sake!'

'If you stay, I stay!'

He pushed her again: 'Go on or we'll both be killed.'

Two people arguing while four horsemen galloped up to kill them. Ludicrous, but anyway it was too late - she'd never make the bushes: the horsemen need swerve only slightly to cut her down. The sea? Not a chance - the horses could plunge out farther and faster.

Forty yards away, perhaps less. Ramage gripped his knife: one of them would die with him, he vowed viciously.

'When I say "Go", duck and run round the horsemen, then up to the dunes.'

He'd go for the leading horse and hope she could dart past in the confusion, escaping before they could rein round and give chase. If he leapt low, knife at the horse's throat, perhaps he could escape the sabre; but anyway the hooves would get him. Jesus, what a way to die.

Suddenly from the top of the dunes above and just ahead of the horsemen a dark shape appeared: a strange figure uttering weird cries which made Ramage's blood run cold.

The leading horse promptly reared up on its hind legs, sending the rider crashing backwards to the ground: the second horse, unable to stop in time, cannoned into it, and the rider slid over its head. The third horse shied and then bolted back the way it had come, hitting the fourth horse a glancing blow and apparently unseating the rider, who fell off but, with one foot tangled in the stirrup, was dragged along the ground as all four horses galloped back along the beach, leaving three men lying on the sand.

It had taken perhaps ten seconds and it was Jackson again -waving branches he'd wrenched off the bushes. The American ran down to the three men, cutlass in hand. Ramage shuddered, but it had to be done.

'Quick!' Ramage grabbed the girl's arm, and ran towards the boat. A few moments later he could see the break in the line of the beach where the river met the sea: there was the gig.

'Not far now!'

But she was staggering from side to side, swaying as if about to faint. He hurriedly stuck the knife in his boot, picked her up, and ran to the boat where eager hands waited to lift her on board.

'We've got one Italian here already, sir,' called Smith. 'Another couple of chaps came and went away again.'

'Right - I'll be back in a moment.'

Jackson and one refugee to come. But what about Nino and his brother? He could not leave them here - they'd never escape.

He ran up the side of the dune. A few hours earlier he'd been lying there in the shade of a juniper, day-dreaming... 'Nino! Nino!'

'Here, Commandante!'

The Italian was by the river bank, thirty yards away, towards the Tower.

Ramage ran towards him.

'Commandante- Count Pitti is lost!'

'What happened?'

Shots rang out farther back along the dunes as Nino explained.

'He was with us as we ran to the boat. But when we got there he was missing. Count Pisano is on board.'

'So is the Marchesa. Nino - do you and your brother want to come with us?'

'No, thank you, Commandante: we can escape.'

'How?'

'Over there.' He gestured across the river.

'Go now, then, and hurry!'

He held out his hand and each man shook it.

'But Count Pitti, Commandante!'

'I'll find him - now go, quickly!'

More shots, closer now. 'You can do no more: now go, and God be with you.'

'And you, Commandante. Farewell then, and buon viaggio.'

With that they ran down the bank and plunged across the river.

Ramage could hear harness rattling to his left, the seaward side of the dunes. He ran along the ridge but a flash only twenty yards away made him fling himself sideways into the shelter of some bushes. The Frenchman must be a poor shot to miss at that range.

As Ramage broke through the other side of the bushes he heard more shots and suddenly five yards ahead of him saw a body sprawled face downwards in the sand. He ran over and found it was a man wearing a long cape. He knelt down, pulling the man over on to his back.

The shock made his head spin: in the moonlight he could see there was no face, just pulp: a shot through the back of the head...

So that was the remains of Count Pitti. Now there was only Jackson to account for.

He ran to the top of the ridge and yelled:

'Jackson - boat! Jackson - boat!'

'Aye aye, sir.'

The American was still back there among the dunes.

Ramage knew his responsibility was now with the boat and its precious passengers, and ran down the river bank. A few moments later Smith was hauling him on board.

'Just Jackson to come. Haul her off the bar - ship the tiller. Now, inboard you men,' he said to the seamen in the water as soon as he felt the boat floating free of the bottom.

When they had scrambled over the gunwale and reached their places on the thwarts he snapped, 'Oars ready! Oars out! When I say "Give way", give way smartly: our lives depend on it.'

Where the hell was Jackson? He spotted a group of men fifty yards away along the beach: they were kneeling - French soldiers taking aim! Choose, man: Jackson's life or the lives of six seamen and two Italian aristocrats highly valued by Admiral Jervis? What a bloody choice.

Wait, though: the soldiers had been galloping hard: they won't be able to take a steady aim.

He saw a man silhouetted for a moment against the top of the nearest dune, but the glimpse was enough for him to recognize Jackson's thin, loose-limbed figure.

'Hurry, blast you!'

He unshipped the tiller again, put it on the thwart, and swivelled round, leaning over the transom ready to grab him. The American reached the water's edge and ran with the high step of a trotting horse as the water deepened.

Ramage was conscious of a stream of oaths babbled almost hysterically in Italian behind him just as he realized the French troops farther along the beach were firing. Someone was tugging his coat and pummelling him. Jackson had four yards to go.

The tugging and pummelling was more insistent: then he noticed a relationship between the Italian curses and the tugs. Now the man was pleading in high-pitched Italian. 'For God's sake let us get away: hurry for the love of God.'

Three yards, two yards, one - he grabbed Jackson's wrists and yelled, 'Right men, give way together - handsomely now!' He gave an enormous heave which brought Jackson sprawling inboard over the transom, and from the grunt the American gave it was obvious the rudder head had caught him in the groin.

'Come on, out of the way!'

Ramage helped him with a shove and hurriedly shipped the tiller: the men had been rowing straight out to sea, which would keep them in range of the French that much longer. He put the tiller over, steering directly away from the soldiers, so the boat presented a smaller target. Just as he glanced back there were three flashes at the water's edge and one of the seamen groaned and fell forward, letting go of his oar.

Jackson leapt across just in time to grab the oar before it went over the side.

'Fix him up, Jackson, then take his place.'

By the time the French had reloaded, the boat would be almost out of sight, down-moon and against the darker western horizon.

The Italian was now squatting down on the floor boards, almost at his feet: Ramage realized he was there only after hearing a low, monotonous, gabbling of prayers in Latin and noticing some of the seamen muttering uneasily, not understanding what was going on. Prayers are all right in their place, he thought, but if gabbling them like a panic-stricken priest upsets the seamen, then the boat isn't the right place - fear spreads like fire.

He prodded the man with his foot and snapped in Italian,

'Basta! Enough of that: pray later, or in silence.'

The moaning stopped. The soldiers would have reloaded by now. Ramage looked back and could still distinguish the beach.

He sensed the men were jumpy and it was hardly surprising, since they'd been sitting in the boat, or standing beside it up to their waists in water, while a good deal of shooting was going on near by.

'Jackson,' he said conversationally, to reassure the men, 'that was a frightful noise you made on the beach. Where did you pick up the trick of charging cavalry single-handed?'

'Well, sir,' Jackson replied, an apologetic note in his voice, 'I was with Colonel Pickens at Cowpens in the last war, sir, and it was mighty effective in the woods against your dragoons: they hadn't met that sort of thing before.'

'I imagine not,' Ramage said politely, turning the boat half a point to starboard.

'No, sir,' Jackson said emphatically. 'Only the last time I did it, 'twas against a whole troop of 'em in a narrow lane. They were chasing me, you see.'

'Is that so? Did it work?' he asked, conscious the men were listening to the conversation as they rowed.

'Most effective, sir: I had 'em all off, except one or two at the rear.'

'How did you learn this sort of - er, business?'

'Woodsman, sir; I was brought up in South Carolina.'

'Madonna!' exclaimed a voice in heavy-accented English from under the thwarts. 'Madonna! They talk of horses and cow pens at a time like this.'

Ramage looked round at the girl, conscious he had not given her a thought since he climbed on board the boat.

'Would you please tell your friend to hold his tongue.'

She leant down to the man, who was almost at her feet; but he already understood.

'Hold my tongue?' he exclaimed in Italian. "How can I hold my tongue? And why should I?'

Ramage said coldly in Italian: 'I did not mean "hold your tongue" literally. I was telling you to stop talking.'

'Stop talking! When you run away and leave my cousin lying wounded on the beach! When you desert him! When you bolt like a rabbit and your friend screams with fright like a woman! Madonna, so I am to stop talking, eh?'

The girl bent down and hissed something at him, keeping her voice low. Ramage, tensed with cold rage, was thankful the seamen did not understand: then suddenly the Italian scrambled out from under the thwarts and stood up in the boat, making one of the oarsmen lose his balance and miss a stroke.

'Sit down!' Ramage said sharply in Italian.

The man ignored him and began swearing.

Ramage said curtly: 'I order you to sit down. If you do not obey, one of the men will force you.'

Ramage looked at the girl and asked in Italian: Who is he? Why is he behaving like this?'

'He is Count Pisano. He blames you for leaving his cousin behind.'

'His cousin is dead.'

'But he called out: he shouted for help.'

'He couldn't have done.'

'Count Pisano said he did.'

Did she believe Pisano? She turned away from him, so that once again the hood of her cape hid her face. Clearly she did. - He remembered the Tower: did she think he cheated at cards, too?

'Well, he didn't go back to help his cousin,' Ramage said defensively.

She turned and faced him. 'Why should he? You are supposed to be rescuing us.'

How could one argue against that sort of attitude? He felt too sick at heart even to try, shrugged his shoulders, and then remembered to say: 'Any further conversation about that episode will also be in Italian: tell Pisano that. I don't want the discipline in this boat upset.'

'How can it upset discipline?'

'You must take my word for it. Apart from anything else, if these men understood what he was saying, they'd throw him over the side.'

'How barbarous!'

'Possibly,' he said bitterly. "You forget what they've been through to rescue you.'

He lapsed into gloomy silence, then said: 'Jackson - the compass: how are we heading? Don't use the lantern.'

The American leaned over the bowl of the boat compass for several seconds, twisting his head one way and then the other, trying to see the compass needle in the moonlight

'About south-west by west, sir.'

'Tell me when I'm on west.'

Ramage slowly put the tiller over.

'Now!'

'Right.' He noted a few stars to steer by. They had ten miles to go before passing a couple of miles off the south-western tip of Argentario. The wounded oarsman argued with Jackson, who finally let him row again and climbed aft to sit on the sternsheets opposite the Marchesa.

The girl suddenly said quietly, as if to herself, 'Count Pitti was my cousin, too,' and wrapped the cape round her more closely.

'The lady's all wet,' Jackson said.

'I've no doubt she is,' Ramage replied acidly. "We all are.'

To hell with it: why should he concern himself about the damp petticoats of a woman who considered him a coward. Then she sighed, slowly pitched forward against Jackson, and slid into the bottom of the boat.

Ramage was too shocked for a moment to do anything: even as she sighed, he suddenly remembered she was wounded: he was the only one in the boat who knew - except Pisano.

 

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Chapter 9

 

BY PUTTING floor boards fore and aft across thwarts, Jackson managed to rig up a rough cot for the Marchesa; but before they could lift her on to it, the seamen stopped rowing of their own accord and stripped off their shirts, handing them to the American to make a pillow.

The men began rowing again - a slight onshore breeze was raising a short lop which made the boat roll violently when stopped - and Ramage and Jackson lifted the girl on to the rudimentary cot. Ramage dare not let himself think how much blood she had lost; he did not even know exactly where she was wounded.

The two men wrapped the lower part of the girl's body in her cape and Ramage's jacket. While lifting her they saw the right shoulder of her dress was soaked with blood and Ramage decided it was worth risking using the lantern to examine the wound. If only he had a surgeon's mate on board....

He told Jackson to pass the compass to Smith who was rowing stroke and sitting nearest to them in the boat, only a foot or two away from the girl's head.

'Put the compass where you can set it, Smith: line up some stars and try to keep the boat heading west.'

He reached out and unshipped the tiller. Smith would have to keep the boat on course with the oars.

Now - to cut away the clothing and look at the wound. He pulled his throwing knife from his boot: ironic that it was still stained with the French cavalryman's blood. He held it over the side, washing the steel clean with sea water.

A ripping of cloth made him glance across at Jackson: the American was busy tearing a shirt into strips to use as bandages.

'Ready, sir?'

'Yes.'

He leaned over the girl - God, her face was pale, a paleness emphasized by the cold moonlight. Lying on her back, eyes closed, she might have been a corpse on an altar ready for a ritual burial. Didn't the Saxons put a warrior's body in a boat with a dead dog at the feet and then set fire to the boat?

Gripping the knife in his right hand, he took the neck of her dress with his left. Difficult - oh, to the devil with modesty: he was so shaky with worry for the girl's very life that the chance of seamen seeing a bared breast in the moonlight didn't matter. As he began carefully to cut the material he saw her eyes flicker open.

'Dove sono Io?' she whispered.

'Sta tranquilla: Lei e con amici'

Jackson was looking at him anxiously.

'She asked where she is.'

He knelt on the bottom boards so that by bending slightly his head was level with hers, and said: 'Don't worry: we are going to attend to your wound.'

'Thank you.'

'The light, Jackson.'

The American held up the lantern while Ramage slit the shoulder and sleeve seams of her dress, then the lace and silk of her petticoat and shift. They were stiff, and the bloodstains appeared black in the lantern light. With the last stitch cut he slipped the knife back in his boot and gently pulled away the layers of material. Each piece had an identical hole torn in it. The top of her shoulder showed white, almost like part of an alabaster statue, but just below, beneath the outer end of the collarbone, the skin was dark and swollen from an enormous bruise. Jackson moved the lantern slightly, so the light showed at a better angle, and Ramage saw the wound itself, in the centre of the bruise.

'Other side, sir...' whispered Jackson.

In other words, Ramage thought, did the shot go right through?

He stood up and bent over, tucking his left hand behind her and gently raising her left side until he could slide his right hand down the back of her dress, running his fingers softly over the shoulder blade and left side of her back. There was no corresponding wound: the skin was smooth - and cold, a cold which seemed to run up his arm into his body. He wanted to clasp her; to give her some of his own warmth; to comfort her. The shot, an alien, powder-scorched lump of lead, was still in her body, and the thought made him feel sick.

'Ask her if she knows how far away the Frog was, sir,' suggested Jackson.

Ramage leaned over and said gently: 'When the man fired, were you facing him?'

'Yes ... we didn't know the horsemen were there until the peasant called out. One of them fired just as I turned round.'

'How far away were they?'

'A long way: it was a lucky shot'

Lucky! thought Ramage.

When Ramage translated, Jackson said: 'That's good, sir: at that range the shot must have been almost spent. We might be able to get it out.'

Might! thought Ramage: to save her life they had to, before gangrene set in.

'You'll have to help me.'

Jackson put the lantern on the thwart, tore more pieces of shirt, and leaned over the side to soak them in sea water. Then, holding the lantern in one hand, he passed the wet cloths to Ramage.

'Tell me if it hurts too much,' Ramage whispered, and she nodded. He began bathing away the encrusted blood.

For what seemed like hours, but must have been at the most fifteen minutes, he tried to find where the shot was lodged in her flesh, using the point of his knife as a probe. She never flinched, never groaned, never once whispered that he was hurting her. Occasionally she just shivered, as though she had ague; but Ramage did not know whether it was from cold, fear, fever or reaction - he'd often seen men shaking violently after receiving a bad wound.

As he stood up, back aching and hands trembling, she seemed smaller, as if the intense pain made her shrink.

'It's no good,' he said quietly to Jackson. 'I daren't probe any deeper.'

The American gave him some dry cloth, which he folded into a pad and put on the wound. Finally, with the last strip of bandage tied in place, he re-arranged her clothing as well as possible, and wrapped the coat round her.

'That's as comfortable as I can manage,' he said apologetically.

'I am all right,' she said, 'I think you have suffered much more than I.'

She reached up with her left hand and touched his brow, and he realized he was soaking wet with perspiration. She turned to Jackson, and said, 'Thank you, too.'

Now he needed time to think.

'Give me the charts and lantern, Jackson; then get the compass and take the tiller. Continue steering due west for the time being.'

Ramage leaned back against the gunwale, lantern in one hand and charts in the other. His body felt shaky; his mind was full of a great black bruise; in fact the sea, the land, his whole life, was one black bruise....

The essentials, he told himself; concentrate on the essentials. If he could not get the Marchesa to a doctor within a few hours, the wound would go gangrenous; and gangrene in the shoulder meant death.

He had brought death to her cousin, Pitti. Had he brought - or rather, was he bringing - death to this girl? It seemed a long time ago - although it was only a couple of nights - that he'd read Sir John's orders. If only he'd returned to Bastia and raised the alarm, so that another frigate could have gone to pick them up...

Anyway, what for the moment could be salvaged? The Marchesa's safety was now his immediate concern. That solved the problem of his next move, and he unrolled the chart.

He needed a place where he could find - temporarily kidnap, if necessary - a doctor; and it had to be somewhere with a small bay or cove close by, so that he could hide the boat and get the girl on shore.

The neatly drawn chart stared up at him: the carefully inked outline of the islands stood out almost in relief, and the handwriting of the Sibella's late master - for it was his chart - showed the ports available. Port' Ercole was the nearest - he could see roughly where it was, almost in line with the peak of Monte Argentario. But the chart showed it was too rock-bound to be sure of finding a suitable place for hiding.

But following the coast of Argentario as it trended round in an almost complete circle from Port' Ercole, he saw a large bay only two or three miles short of the port of Santo Stefano: a bay called Cala Grande, with several little inlets and, more important, the cliffs almost sheer on all three sides.

Cala Grande - the Large Bay. Behind it, he noticed, were two small mountain peaks, Spadino and Spaccabellezze. How did they get their names? 'Little Sword' and 'Beautiful Cleft'. Like the cleft between her breasts, perhaps.

My God, he thought to himself, why can't I ever concentrate? He measured the distance. The men would have to put their backs into rowing. He rolled up the chart and put down the lantern. The sudden movements made the seamen glance up from their oars.

'Men,' he said. 'We are putting in to a bay about a dozen miles ahead, so that I can get a doctor for the lady. We've got to get there by dawn so that we can hide the boat.'

'How is the lady, sir?'

The man with the shot wound in the wrist was asking. Ramage was annoyed with himself for not telling them: after all, they had given the shirts off their backs for her - apart from risking their lives in the rescue.

'The Marchesa is about as well as we can hope. She has a shot in her shoulder, but I can't get the ball out. That's why we need a doctor...'

There were murmurs of sympathy: they knew much better than she how an untreated shot wound could end.

A man suddenly stood up in the bow. He had no oar and Ramage almost groaned: Pisano again.

'I demand...'

'Parla Italiano'snapped Ramage, not wanting the seamen to know whatever it was that Pisano intended demanding.

The man lapsed into Italian. 'I demand we continue to the rendezvous.'

'Why?'

'Because it is too dangerous to go to Santo Stefano: the French are in occupation.'

'We are not going to Santo Stefano.'

'But you just said—'

'I said we were going to a bay, and that I was going to get a doctor from Santo Stefano.'

'It is madness!' shouted Pisano. 'We will all be captured.'

Ramage said icily: 'I must make your position clear. In this boat you are under my orders, so control yourself. If you have anything to say, say it in a conversational tone: you are alarming the sailors—'

'I—'

'—and making a fool of yourself by squealing like a sow in farrow.'

'You! You—' Pisano was lost for words for a moment. '—You coward, you poltroon - how dare you talk to me like that! Assassin! It's your fault Gianna lies there wounded! And you deserted my cousin Pitti over there' - he gave a histrionic sweep with his arm and almost overbalanced - 'you, you who are supposed to rescue us!'

Ramage sat back. Perhaps if he let the man get it off his chest it would put an end to the tirade - for the time being at least.

'What's he on about, sir?' asked Jackson.

'Oh, he's upset about the Marchesa, and the other chap.'

'It's upsetting the men, sir,' Jackson said as Pisano continued shouting.

And it was: the man rowing just abaft where Pisano stood in the bow suddenly lost his stroke, so the blade of his oar struck that of the man in front of him.

'Pisanol' snapped Ramage, 'be quiet! That's an order. Otherwise I'll have you bound and gagged.'

'You wouldn't dare!'

'If you don't sit down at once I shall order the two men nearest you to tie you to the seat.'

The hard note in Ramage's voice warned Pisano it was no idle threat. He sat down abruptly just as the Marchesa, in a weak voice, called out:

'Luigi - please!'

She was trying to sit up, but Ramage reached out in time to stop her, his hand in the darkness accidentally pressing down on one of her breasts. He said in Italian:

'Madam - don't distress yourself. I let him talk in the hope his tongue would tire. But we can't waste any more time.'

She did not answer; and Ramage leaned back against the gunwale. If he'd been in Florence when he told Pisano he was squealing like a sow having piglets, the man would plan swift revenge. For a shallow fop like Pisano, the only thing that mattered in life was that he shouldn't make a brutta figura. Pisano's type could never understand honour in the normal sense: he would break an oath without compunction; cheat, lie and deceive without giving it a thought. In fact these things were part of his code; the code by which he and his kind lived their lives, so that anyone doing the same to him would not upset him unduly, since he would have been expecting it. But let anyone laugh because he tripped over a loose carpet, let someone even hint that he was not a real man, not the finest horseman, the most courteous fellow that ever entered a drawing-room, the most accomplished lover in Tuscany: let anyone cast a slur on his vulgar virility: then that person had a mortal, albeit cowardly, enemy. Someone like Pisano would never make an open challenge unless he had an overwhelming advantage: no, it would be a case of a few whispered words to a man with a dagger. Pisano's honour would be satisfied the moment he paid cash to the hired assassin reporting that he had completed the task.

Ramage noticed the outline of the boat and men was getting clearer. The oarsmen in the darkness looked like tombstones constantly bowing to him; but now their silhouettes were turning from black to dark grey, and the stars were growing dimmer. The false dawn, Nature's daily deceit. They had been rowing without rest for nearly three hours.

Once they reached Cala Grande, the port of Santo Stefano would be separated from them overland by the short and thick peninsula of Punta Lividonia. With luck, he'd be able to find a track from the cliffs above Cala Grande leading across the high ridge of rock forming the neck of the peninsula direct to the town - probably between the twin peaks of Spaccabellezze and Spadino.

Grey, grey, grey... the men were grey; the girl on her altar of bottom boards was grey; the waves surging past the boat in small toppling pyramids were grey and steely, cold and menacing to the eye. The wind was increasing slightly from the south and the boat was pitching gently like a see-saw as each wave coming up behind lifted for a few moments first the stern and then the bow as it swept forward.

 

Chapter 10

 

THE SEAMEN hauled the gig up the narrow beach at Cala Grande. Without waiting for orders from Ramage, two of them found a way to the top of the cliff and were soon hurling down bundles of light brushwood and dry grass which the others hurriedly made into a rough bed, using the grass as a mattress.

At a signal from Ramage, they lifted the Marchesa from the boat, using the bottom boards as a stretcher. They handled her with a gentleness which a stranger would not have credited: Ramage saw that each man showed a curious mixture of a proud but timid father holding his baby for the first time, and a well-trained seaman picking up a smoking grenade that might explode any moment.

Ramage had purposely not interfered, realizing their genuine concern for her. He also sensed there was no hint of lewd curiosity - although that would have been natural enough since most of them had not seen a woman for many months. Nor did it enter his head that they might be doing it for his sake as much as hers.

The seamen completely ignored Pisano as they went about their work; in fact they avoided him as though he was a leper. The Italian, unused to such treatment, reacted curiously, since in his estimation seamen were on the same level as peasants. He tried to start a conversation with Smith, no doubt realizing he was in effect third in command of the party. Although Pisano's English had a heavy accent, he spoke clearly; but Smith merely shook his head politely and said, 'Non savvy, Mr Jaw-me-down,' and Pisano had nodded, not realizing he was being answered in a mixture of sailors pidgin English and slang, as though he was a Negro who was also loudmouthed. When he asked another sailor for a drink of water, the man just looked him up and down and continued his work.

'Why do they not answer me?' Pisano asked Ramage.

'They are not obliged to do so.'

Looking at his watch, Ramage saw it was 8.30 am: high time he and Jackson were on their way to the town. He glanced along the beach, where two of the seamen were sweeping the sand, using the branch of a bush to smooth out footprints and the deep furrow left by the keel of the boat.

Already the air was hot, warning of a scorching day. Seaward he could see the island of Giglio a dozen miles away, a low, triple hump. The sun sparkled off the sea, and haze hung low on the horizon, faintly purple, blurring the line where sea and sky joined.

The rest of the men were sitting on the sand near the boat munching the bread and sipping the water that Jackson had just issued to them. Ramage called to Jackson and Smith. As soon as they stood before him he said:

'Listen carefully, you two: Jackson, you'll come with me to the village, and Smith, you'll be in charge here. If the Italian gentleman wishes to stay with the boat he'll be under your care' - he chose his words carefully - 'just as if he's one of the crew. You understand me, Smith?'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'The lady, Smith, is to be protected at all costs. I expect we'll be away two or three hours; but if we aren't back by sunset we shan't be back at all. In that case you'll launch the boat as soon as it is dark and take the lady to the rendezvous off Giglio. Report what's happened as soon as you get on board the frigate. You know the urgency ... Can you read a chart?'

'Sort of, sir.'

"Well, here it is: study it while I'm gone. If you don't meet the frigate, go on to Bastia. You understand? Carry on, then.'

As soon as Smith had gone back to the boat, out of earshot, Jackson said, 'Sir, would you like me to make absolutely sure that he...'

'Yes, but be discreet: I don't want them to fetch him a clout with the flat edge of a cutlass just because he sneezes.'

As soon as Ramage saw no one was within earshot of the girl, he went over and knelt down beside her. She was awake: her face was pale and her eyes bright, and he saw she had been trying to tidy her hair with her left hand.

'Madam,' he said quietly, and she at once put out a hand towards him. He was too surprised to do anything for a moment, then he took it in his, and she whispered:

'Where is my cousin?'

'Some distance away.'

'Lieutenant, I want to ask you a question. My other cousin, Pitti: you went back to him on the beach, did you not?'

The question was so unexpected that he stiffened, and the hand squeezed his, as if trying to tell him something she could not, or would not, put into words.

'Madam, I don't want to go over all that again; not now, anyway.'

'But you did?' she insisted. When he made no reply she said impulsively, 'I know you did.'

Oh, to hell with it. "You didn't see me: how can you know?'

'I just know: I am a woman. He was dead?'

Again he did not answer, but was puzzled by his own silence. What was stopping him? Suddenly he knew it was just pride - he was angry that anyone should doubt him. As soon as he realized that, he decided to tell her the whole story, but just as he was trying to think how to begin, she whispered, 'You need not answer. But Lieutenant...'

'Yes...?'

Her voice was very soft; he had to lean over to hear.

'Lieutenant ... my cousin Pisano is also a proud man ...'

Also! he thought Too proud to risk his skin for his cousin Pitti; but no matter.

'... I think he spoke in haste last night'

'Quite. I gathered that'

"With us,' she said gently, 'our men care only for una bella figura, while the English care only for their honour. Yet you men are all equally as touchy about it, whatever name you call it by.'

Again she squeezed his hand softly, as if aware an invisible wall was building up between them.

'For my sake,' she said, 'if for no other reason, be patient with him and with me. And' - her lower lip was trembling - 'and I am sorry for the trouble and danger I have caused you and your men.'

'We have our duty to do,' he said coldly.

She let go of his hand. Although it had been his voice, a vicious stranger inside him had spilled those six words without warning and without reason, while he wanted desperately to hold her in his arms and comfort her: to say he understood about Pisano; that he'd push over mountains, swim the Atlantic, lift the world on his shoulder for her sake.

He said, almost shyly: 'I am sorry: let us forget it. May I tidy your hair?'

She looked at him, wide-eyed with surprise, then said in sudden alarm, 'Is it too untidy?'

'No; but you left your maid behind...'

She snatched at the olive branch.

'Yes, wretched girl: she was pregnant. I left her in Volterra. It was as well I did; the ruthless Lieutenant Ramage would not allow me to bring such a luxury.'

'There was no need: I can do your hair.'

'Half a dozen times a day?' she asked mockingly. 'Anyway, there are other things a maid does for her mistress.'

Ramage felt himself blushing.

'You'll find a comb in the pocket of my cape,' she said.

He tapped the grains of sand from the teeth of the comb, took out the pins holding her hair in place, and began combing. Yes, it was wasting time - valuable time; but in an hour he would be walking in the same streets as enemy soldiers who would shoot him as a spy if they caught him, since he would not be in uniform. Should he tell her how he was going to disguise himself? No, not now: not to spoil these few moments.

'This is the first time a man has ever combed my hair ...'

'And the first time I've ever combed a lady's hair.'

They both laughed, and he glanced towards the men, suddenly feeling sheepish at the thought of the ribald remarks they were probably making, but they were taking no notice.

'I'm not the only barber in business on this beach.'

'Oh?'

'No - some of the seamen are tying each other's queues.'

' "Queues"? What are they?'

'Pigtails. Sailors call them queues. Very proud of them, too.'

Finally her hair was combed enough: it was black as a raven's wing feathers and curly, and he wanted to run his fingers through it; ruffle it and make her laugh and then tidy it again. Instead he began putting the pins back in, fumbling as he tried to arrange it as it was before.

'Tie it in a "queue" instead, Lieutenant.'

'All right, but keep still; I'll tie it to one side. We'll start a new fashion.'

'Your hair needs combing too, Lieutenant. It's all prickly at the back!'

'Prickly?' He put a hand to the back of his scalp and found the hair still tangled with dried blood and several matted ends stood up like a cockerel's comb.

'Why does it stick up like that?'

'I cut my head: the blood has dried.'

'How did you cut it?'

'It happened when the French attacked my ship.'

'The French did it? You were wounded?'

'Only slightly,' he said, putting the comb back in the cape and conscious of the watch ticking away in his pocket. 'Well, Madam - once again you're the most beautiful young woman at the ball. Now you must excuse me - I have a disagreeable task before I go off to the village.'

'Disagreeable?'

'Yes, but it won't take long. I'll soon be back with a doctor.'

He wanted to kiss her mouth; but instead he kissed her hand with an exaggerated flourish. 'A presto...'

He walked over to Pisano, who was sitting against a rock a few yards from the men.

'Come with me,' he said curtly.

Pisano followed Ramage beyond a group of large boulders. When they were out of sight of the seamen, Ramage said:

'I am now going to the village. In view of your remarks earlier today, you may prefer to stay on the mainland, instead of continuing the voyage.'

'Why do you think that?' Pisano asked warily.

'Do you or don't you?'

'I want to know—'

'Answer my question,' Ramage insisted.

'I wish to come in the boat, of course; it would be suicide to stay!'

'Very well. We are the same build, and your clothes are more suitable than mine for strolling through the village. I should be grateful for the loan of them.'

Pisano spluttered and began to argue, but Ramage cut him short.

'We are dealing with human lives, not vanity: the lives of seven of my men and the Marchesa, apart from you. So I don't intend taking unnecessary risks. Walking around in the uniform of a British naval officer is an unnecessary risk.'

'This ...this ... this is an outrage!' gasped Pisano. 'I shall protest to your Admiral!'

'You can add it to your list of protests,' Ramage said sourly.

With that, Pisano lost control of himself: jumping up and down, hands gesticulating violently, as if he was trying to catch flies, his face working with excitement, he began a long harangue.

Ramage began blinking rapidly and rubbing the scar on his forehead; cold perspiration was spreading over his body like dew falling in the darkness. He knew he was very near the limit of his self-control and in a moment or two he would pass it; then he could fight without mercy, or kill without compunction.

Pisano paused for breath and, as if for the first time, saw the Englishman's face: the thick eyebrows were drawn into a straight line, and looking into the brown eyes reminded Pisano of staring into a pair of pistol barrels. The long diagonal scar over the right eye and across the forehead made a sudden sharp white line across the tanned skin, the blood squeezed from the flesh by the intensity of the man's frown. The lower lip curved outwards slightly and the skin over the cheek bones and nose was drawn, as if too tight. For a moment, Pisano was very frightened.

Ramage made a great effort to keep his voice low and under control, and tried to phrase what he had to say so that he used as few words as possible containing the letter 'r'.

'Of all the things you say, only one concerns you: Count Pitti. I assure you he was killed on the beach. For the rest, how I ca - how I obey my orders concerns only me: I am wespons -1 am answerable to my superior officers.'

The apparent calmness of Ramage's voice was such a relief to Pisano that, suddenly finding his tongue, he yelled, 'Poltroon, liar! No doubt you surrendered your ship like the coward you are!'

'I suggest you remove your top clothing and stockings,' Ramage said coldly, disgust giving way to anger. 'The loan of your clothing to help save the Marchesa's life is not an unreasonable request. Shall I call a couple of my men to assist you?'

Pisano stripped off his jacket, waistcoat and lace stock, and flung them on the sand. He stood on one leg to take off a shoe before removing a stocking, fell down, and when he sat up again asked:

'You want my breeches as well?'

'No,' said Ramage, 'that would be too much.'

 

From the overhanging top of the cliff above Cala Grande Ramage looked down at the bay. There was no sign of the boat, nor where it had been beached: the men had made a good job of smoothing the sand. Below him seagulls were gliding almost motionless on the wind currents, watching for fish.

Until he and Jackson reached the cliff top, Ramage had not realized just how steep were the mountains of Argentario: he'd expected to find Spaccabellezze and Spadino not far above them, with only a gentle climb up to the cleft between the two peaks. Instead there was a steep slope of several hundred yards even to reach where the cleft began curving up to cross the ridge.

He guessed the long ridge continued to his left until it ended at the sea, forming the promontory of Punta Lividonia, and they had to cross it through the cleft to reach Santo Stefano. Jackson pointed to a mule track. It was halfway up the slope, running parallel with the ridge for half a mile before turning upwards to cross it at right angles.

'Yes,' said Ramage, 'that's the one for us.'

Once the two men reached the track they could look back down the slope and see the edge of Cala Grande. The sea, now the sun had risen higher, was the living blue of a kingfisher's wing feathers.

They came to the end of the level section of track and followed it round to the left, beginning the last part of the climb that would take them over the top of the ridge. Now they passed through cultivated land - if that was not too grandiose a name for tiny terraces jutting out of the hillside, like balconies. The walls of each terrace were made of interlocking stones and built to form three sides of a shallow box, the hill making the fourth side, and filled with red earth. Stumpy grapevines threw out shoots which the peasants trained along low frames of twigs and twine. Already the leaves were a mottled red and golden yellow and Ramage realized the vines were still laden with grapes. They were tiny, their topaz flesh tinged with red, and he had not noticed them at first because they blended with the leaves.

'Look,' he said, pointing.

In a moment Jackson had scrambled up on to the terrace and picked several bunches, which they ate.

'Not too bad - they are wine grapes,' Ramage explained. 'The peasants will pick them after the next rain.'

'What if it doesn't rain, sir?'

'Well, they'll pick them just the same and get less wine: it's the day of rain at the right time that makes all the difference to the harvest.'

Twenty minutes later they reached the middle of the cleft so they were astride the great ridge: on their right was Spadino, on their left the higher and nearer peak of Spaccabellezze. The track in front of them now began to drop down and curve to the left, following round the foot of Spaccabellezze, and for several hundred yards they walked between the high walls of terraces as if in an ornamental maze, and from among the complicated pattern of differently shaped rocks and stones the inquisitive heads of lizards, now turned brown to match the autumn colours, watched them pass with unwinking beady eyes.

Suddenly the walls ended on both sides and the two men found themselves looking down into a valley running parallel with the ridge on which they stood. The effect was dramatic: on the far side was a lower ridge with several more beyond, each higher than the other, so that the land rose and fell in great crests and troughs, like huge petrified waves beating at the foot of Monte Argentario itself.

Just to their right, astride the nearest ridge, was a very tall, narrow rectangular tower, like a thin box standing on end: another link, Ramage saw, in the chain of signal towers round Argentario which led to the fortress of Filipo Secondo in Santo Stefano itself. This one, well inland, was obviously specially built as a centre for those on the west coast, which formed a half-circle round it, like spokes radiating from the axle of a wheel. Most - the larger ones, anyway - were in sight of it, so presumably it could be used as a short cut to Santo Stefano, to save an urgent signal having to be relayed laboriously from one tower to another right round the coast.

Ramage paused for a few minutes, both for a rest and to study the wild, open beauty of the view. The great ridges and plunging valleys were a curious mixture of grey jagged rock and, where the slopes were less steep, geometrically precise plots of terraced land. The lower slopes were criss-crossed with what, in the distance, seemed to be fluffy balls of silver-green wool: olive trees, with grapevines growing among them, and between them yielding the oil and wine which were the peasant's life-blood.

'Come on,' he said to Jackson. They began walking again and almost immediately found themselves in an olive grove.

How lovely these slim, silver-green leaves: how twisted, gnarled and tortured-looking the stumpy trees and boughs, as if they symbolized the back-breaking toil that was a peasant's life, whether man or woman, from before puberty to rheumatic old age and despairing death.

Up here, high over the valleys, there was still the buzz of the cicadas, but less insistent than on the beach by Lake Buranaccio; and instead of the all-pervading perfume of the juniper, there were many odd smells: the occasional sour stench of donkey dung and the catmint odour which warned them snakes were near. Surely that was sage - Ramage snatched up some leaves as he passed and crushed them in his fingers. And rosemary - the heavy perfume of rosemary: 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance' - and Ophelia lying on a bed of branches, almost a bier, down in Cala Grande. And that's fennel, and here are daisies. 'I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died' - and, Ramage thought to himself, maybe I'm going mad as well, trotting along here quoting Hamlet to myself. But he realized that if he survived the next day or so he'd understand better Hamlet's desperate sense of loneliness.

As they rounded a bend the land suddenly dropped away in front of them: the main ridge curved to the left, towards Punta Lividonia, while a smaller ridge, like a wide buttress, ran downwards in a series of steps, ending at the sea to form a narrow peninsula separating the two small bays round which Santa Stefano was built.

Two-thirds of the way down the ridge, on a natural flat platform, stood the great, squat sand-coloured fortress of Filipo Secondo. It had a big courtyard on its landward side, nearest them, with wide stone steps leading up to the drawbridge.

In shape, harsh beauty and position it was typically Spanish, and from his position, a hundred feet above, Ramage could see that its guns completely dominated the bays.

La Fortezza di Filipo Secondo - the Fort of Philip the Second: the old tyrant of the Escorial who had launched his Armada against England. Spain's arm had been long in the days of its greatness, whether it held a threatening sword or a plump bride to a state it wanted to add to its Empire.

Now, a couple of centuries later, Filipo's alien fortress, standing astride an Italian fishing port, was flying the Tricolor of Revolutionary France: symbolic, in a way, of how the heavy seas of history constantly swept Tuscany - and yet never really changed it.

'What do you make of the guns ?'

'The half-dozen facing seaward are 32-pounders, I reckon, sir. The half dozen on either side - well, they look like long eighteens.'

Jackson's estimate agreed with Ramage's own. Thirty-two pounders - when fired from sea level they had a range of over a mile; but perched 150 feet up in the fortress it would be much more. He could imagine their effect on a frigate like the Sibella, with each shot more than six inches in diameter, the size of a small pumpkin, and weighing thirty-two pounds, plunging down on to her deck at an angle; on the weakest part of the ship.

Certainly those guns, if handled properly, could cover the half-dozen or so ships he could see at anchor in the bay to the left of the fortress, although the ships would have been wiser to have anchored between the two bays, right in front of the fort. Without thinking he noted the types of vessels - a brig, heavily laden, two small schooners, and two tartanes.

Jackson suddenly nudged him and Ramage saw a peasant and his donkey coming up the steep track towards them. The donkey, laden, with brushwood, almost hid its owner, who was getting a lift to windward by holding on to the animal's tail. As he passed, he eyed the two men with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

Ramage said a polite good morning and received a grunt in reply. He realized he was still holding his jacket and waistcoat over his arm and his black leather boots were covered in thick dust. He waited until the donkey had towed its owner round the bend in the track, then knelt down to brush his boots with the inside of the waistcoat. Thorns had scratched the leather and sea water had dried to leave salt encrusted in the cracks and round the welts. He rubbed harder and then gave up: only a brush and polish would do much good. He tied the stock and put on the waistcoat and jacket.

He was thankful a seaman's dress was almost universal: Jackson, apart from his light brown hair, would pass for a sailor of almost any nationality from one of the ships in the bay.

'Suits you, sir,' Jackson said with a grin: it was the first time he had seen Ramage out of uniform.

'I feel like a Florentine dancing master.'

They began to walk down the steep track to the town, stepping on stones and exposed pieces of bare rock worn smooth by scores of years' use by donkeys and human beings.

'Hmm, you could find this village in the dark just by following your nose,' grumbled Jackson, sniffing the air which was becoming overladen with the stench of refuse and sewage rotting in the hot sun.

And Ramage, alone with his thoughts, thought to himself, we are looking for a doctor, but we might end up needing an undertaker.

 

Chapter 11

 

AN UNSHAVEN, shifty-looking manservant ushered Ramage into a long, high-ceilinged drawing-room sparsely furnished in the usual middle-class Italian style - a couple of over-elaborate gilded armchairs, a Murano glass chandelier almost opaque with dust hanging from the ceiling and sprouting stubs of candles, a chest of dark wood with the inevitable coat of arms carved on the front covered with peeling paint and gilt, and a long, sad-looking couch covered with silk, the woodwork crudely lacquered.

The two small, high windows facing south had glass in them, but little light penetrated the layer of grime and fly spots. Just why did the sofa look sad?

'The doctor will be down in a little moment,' said the servant and went out, closing the door.

The man had not seemed suspicious; nor the peasant who had directed them to where 'II Dottore' lived, at the Casa del Leone, the House of the Lion, which was just below the Fortress and almost completely overshadowed by it.

Ramage, who had left Jackson outside on guard, waited for more than ten minutes before the small door opened at the far end of the room and a tubby little man in spectacles trotted in. He wore a velada, the long coat with tails which, gathered at the waist, spread out behind like a fan and gave him the air of a self-important pigeon. Nevertheless, his manner was deferential.

'It is indeed an honour to receive a visit from Il Conte,' he said, rubbing his hands as though washing them.

Ramage, when asked his name by the manservant had merely said 'Conte Brrrra', deliberately slurring the name: it was too risky either to use a real name, or invent one. He went through the ritual of introducing himself, again slurring the name, knowing the little doctor would never dare risk a snub by asking him to repeat it.

'How can I assist your Grace?' asked the doctor.

'A small matter - of no vast importance,' said Ramage, playing on the man's vanity, 'and one for which it grieves me to bother you; but one of my suite has been hurt in an accident: some damage to the shoulder ... I would wish that...'

'Of course, of course, your Grace.'

The little man was perhaps a little suspicious: he was still rubbing his hands, but at the same time studying Ramage warily over the top of his spectacles. Was it the accent?

'... Where is the patient, your Grace?'

'Not far from here.'

'On the road to Orbetello?'

'Yes, on the road to Orbetello.'

'Your Grace ... your Grace will forgive the question - your Grace is a foreigner?'

So it was the accent. 'No, but I have lived abroad since childhood.'

Ramage saw the doctor was covertly eyeing his boots: but they would reveal nothing because, though scratched and torn, they were obviously of good quality. The little man inspected the coat and waistcoat. Again, excellent quality, with the finest embroidery and gold buttons — thanks to Pisano.

'Would your Grace bring the patient here, please?' he asked finally.

'Unfortunately that is not possible: I am afraid to move her.'

'A lady? But a shoulder injury - there would be no risk if she came in your Grace's carriage.'

'That is the difficulty: all three of my carriages are damaged - hence the injury to this lady,' said Ramage, surprised at how easily the lies came but annoyed he'd forgotten to make up a convincing story. 'And as for moving her - I would not like to take the responsibility: she is ...' He hesitated deliberately, careful to put the emphasis in such a way that the doctor's curiosity would be aroused,'... she is someone very dear to me, you understand.'

Clearly the doctor did not: Ramage hoped he would imagine they were an eloping couple, but instead the little man seemed to have made up his mind about something.

'Your carriages, your Grace: where did the accident occur?'

'About two miles outside the town: a wheel came off the first coach and the other two ran into it. A wretched business.'

The doctor looked down at his hands and then brought them together, so the fingertips touched. He glanced up over the top of his spectacles again, and said cautiously, as if unsure of Ramage's reaction to what he was about to say:

'Your Grace will probably understand my reluctance to rush to your assistance when I tell you the road from Orbetello cannot be used by carriages: it is simply a track. Therefore I have difficulty in understanding how the accident occurred...'

He obviously had more to say and Ramage waited.

'However, we have just received reports that a British warship is in these waters: indeed, just before dawn today it sent boats into Port' Ercole, stormed the batteries, and captured several ships at anchor there. Your Grace speaks perfect Italian, but he does pronounce one or two words with just a hint - no more, I assure you - of an English accent....'

A cutting-out expedition just before dawn! Hell, he must have missed seeing the damned frigate by only a few hours. Had she been sent to meet him at the rendezvous? Hardly - there would not have been time.