Yet, ghastly as it all. was, he was saving his own men; he had dreaded sending them charging up the hill to attack prepared French positions. Those bodies out there, lying dead or, if wounded, coughing in the smoke, were enemy, not Calypsos. Not just regular enemies, either: if they were Dutch they were traitors to their own folk; if French they were privateersmen and little better than pirates, and perhaps a hundred of them came from Brune's ship and had helped murder the Tranquil people.
Slowly the scene became less ghastly; his imagination superimposed the neat staterooms of the Tranquil, where the blood of the raped women with their throats cut had stained carpets and settees. He found it a satisfactory thought that by now the Marines and the seamen in all the companies had reloaded their muskets and were kneeling, waiting for the next wave of the enemy to come through the smoke, which was now thinning. The flames were high up the hill, perhaps forty yards away now. Another twenty yards, he guessed, and they would have reached the top.
How many French were left? They must be crowded at the very top of the hill now. unless they were jumping off into the sea, but the Marine 'patrols sent out by Rennick to watch the beaches had not fired, showing that the enemy preferred the devil to the deep blue sea. Or course, from the very first the men on the hill had not known the fate of their comrades once they had run down the hill and plunged through the smoke: they would hear the firing but the clouds of rolling smoke prevented them seeing how the musketry from the Calypsos was cutting them down like corn before a reaper's scythe. When the smoke clears, Ramage guessed, the remaining enemy will surrender. Yet they might all make a dash before the last of the hill burned, preferring a sudden foray through the flames. It would be the flames rather than the smoke that made the men run: they would scorch anyone who stood and waited for them to pass.
And now another group of Frenchmen was running down - and the first of them was waving a white flag: a shirt tied to a cutlass. Ramage shouted to left and right for the companies to hold their fire, but even as he shouted he saw Stafford pause for a moment, and then correct his aim, and Jackson did the same thing, and even as he continued shouting the muskets thudded until the last of the running Frenchmen collapsed, a rag doll thrown on a rubbish heap.
Jackson stood up and turned to him. 'I don't think the men could hear you, sir,' he said quietly, looking Ramage straight in the eye. 'Leastways, not until all the muskets had fired.'
'No, sir,' Stafford confirmed, 'I didn't hear you order nothing; certainly not telling us to hold our fire. Probably deafened by all the shooting. Ain't that right, Rosey?'
The Italian cupped a hand to his ear. That's right. Staff; speak up, I can't hear.'
No quarter for the men who murdered the people in the Tranquil: dearly the Calypsos had already decided that, and as a result in that last rush perhaps a few Dutch rebels had been killed, but there had been only ten or fifteen behind the man waving the white flag.
The smoke was thinning out now; in the gusts Ramage could see the top of the hill. No one stood there, although a few men might be crouching behind rocks, seeking shelter from the hail of bullets that could be expected now there were only wisps of smoke to hide them.
He shouted for Rennick, ordering him to search the hilltop with the Marines, and waited for Aitken, whom he could see hurrying towards him. Well, now was the time to get reports from all the lieutenants and see what casualties there were. He took a small silver whistle from a pocket and blew .four quick blasts, the signal he had arranged before he left the bonfire.
It was a whistle of a curious pattern; a cylinder with an intricate Moorish design which was unrecognizable unless you looked at it from a particular angle, when it became clear that it was a representation of a woman's breast, the nipple forming the mouthpiece. It had been a present from Gianna, of all people; a present in a tiny velvet - lined case, tucked into his pocket as he left with a mischievous smile and a comment in Italian, spoken with a Neapolitan accent, which he had not understood but was probably lewd. This was the first time he had used it; a silver piece of erotica which signalled the end of the bloodiest and longest action he had ever fought.
The lieutenants came up and reported. No casualties - this was Aitken. One man sprained an ankle when he stumbled over a rock - Kenton. One man with powder burns of the face from a flash in the pan of his musket - Baker. A shoulder wound from a cutlass wielded by an over - enthusiastic shipmate - Wagstaffe. Apart from them, two men had stomach pains - brought on, according to an unsympathetic Aitken, by a surfeit of roast beef - while two of Kenton's men were almost crippled by the hairlike spines of prickly pear cactus which had penetrated the skin of their legs and festered overnight.
The second guide was sent off to Amsterdam, by way of the bonfire site, for more horses and carts to bring in the dead and wounded, and by the time Rennick and his Marines came down the hill to report that it was deserted, the Calypsos were busy carrying the French and Dutch wounded out of the smouldering scrub and making them as comfortable as possible clear of the smoke. The guide was told to bring back doctors if he could, but Ramage had little hope of that: they would still be busy patching up the wounded from the bonfire.
An hour later, leaving behind fifty men to look after the wounded and help load the carts when they arrived, he led his men on the long march back to Amsterdam, twenty miles away. Most of the men still had chunks of roast beef, and the sight of a seaman marching with a musket over one shoulder and a great haunch of beef under the other arm, the meat dusty from having been put down many times, made Ramage feel like Falstaff and wish there was a Hogarth or a Rowland - son to sketch the march. The column stopped from time to time to fill water flasks at the few villages or plantation houses that had wells or enough water in their cisterns, but the sun was well down over the western horizon before Ramage saw the first houses of Amsterdam.
It was then that the fact of the island's surrender really came home to him. The surrender agreement had been signed, the rebels and their privateer allies had been dealt with. Now it would be possible to leave the island with its Dutch garrison and sail for Jamaica, to report to Foxey - Foote about this latest addition to the British flag. He could take three or four privateers with him, and he might decide to burn the rest, just in case some of the Dutch took it into their heads to steal them - after all, Curacao had surrendered, but Britain was still at war with the Batavian Republic, not to mention France and Spain.
He marched along, cursing his blistered heels, aching shin muscles and dry throat, but the need to talk to the men at the half - hourly halts, making jokes, kept him wide awake. All the men brightened up as they came into the straight stretch of road leading to Amsterdam, now less than a mile away. His eyes seemed full of dust and ached from the glare they had been subjected to all day, but he was glad to see the masts of the Calypso above the roofs of the buildings.
Then, as the road turned so that he looked from another angle, he realized there was another set of masts to seaward of her. Another frigate was anchored in the channel almost next to her. He stopped, icy cold with sudden fear, and pulled open his telescope. Yes, a frigate with a Dutch flag. The missing Dutch reinforcements - and Maria's fiance - had arrived. Had she captured the almost helpless Calypso!