CHAPTER THREE

When you were beating down Channel against a strong westerly gale, spray slashing like buckets of icy water slung violently at anywhere you are unprotected (neck, third button down on the oilskins), and the dreadful chill while the cold and wet gather before their slow creep down the spine, the sky just a swirling grey mass merging with the rain squalls, two reefs in the topsails and deck seams dripping water on to hammock, kitbag and last items of dry clothing, you thought wistfully of the Mediterranean.

Blue skies, purple seas, a warm wind always from the right direction; the smell of pines when close in with the shore; the air clear and bracing when out of sight of land ...

Yet the reality of the Mediterranean was nearly always different, Ramage reflected: heavy rain, gale-force winds (usually heading you) and the clouds the same swirling grey mass. Perhaps a degree warmer than the Chops of the Channel, but the wind just as violent with the seas shorter, but that made them much more uncomfortable.

Oh yes, and the winds had fancy names - take the French, for example. A nor-wester was the mistral, but getting caught by a mistral meant three or four days of fighting a gale. Then the tramontane, "across the mountains", and because of that it was a bitterly cold north to north-east brute that blew hard and chilled your very marrow. Then the levant, blowing at gale force for days from the east, hell if you are trying to get through the Strait into the Mediterranean (though usually you could shelter in Gibraltar), but murderous on ship, men and sails when you are trying to reach the Tyrrhenian Sea along the west coast of Italy, whether by rounding the southern tip of Sardinia at Cape Spartivento or sneaking through the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia.

You left that decision until the last possible moment in the hope that the levanter veered a little and became the céruse, blowing from the south-east so that, with luck, sheets could be eased. (It was beyond even thinking about aponant to put in an appearance, from between south and south-west, or the labéfrom the west-south-west.)

Yet, Ramage thought sourly, if you have sailed enough you think of the West Indies with the constant trade winds blowing briskly from the north-east - if there was not a calm lasting days, or a hurricane, or a week of south-east winds bringing torrential rain which reduced visibility to a ship's length.

Usually, however, whatever the wind direction, it had some east in it, and usually your course had some east in it too, so you were still beating to windward, but the difference was that the buckets of spray hitting you in the face were warm - at least for the first few minutes, until they soaked your clothing.

So why did a sane man go to sea (unless encouraged by the pressgangs, which were very persuasive)? Few men beating to windward in heavy weather would admit they ever had a choice: poverty, pressgang, dodging debtors, sent to sea as a midshipman because of a family tradition . . . dozens of reasons. Of course, given a decent wind, a clear sky (or one speckled with Trade wind clouds), and the attitude immediately changed: hurrah for the life of a sailor . . .

Ramage noted that the only man in sight who seemed to be enjoying this levant at the moment, blowing at what the French would term at least grand frais with a sea très grosse, was George Hill, the new third lieutenant. He was the thin and nonchalant lieutenant (debonair, one might say, when his sou'wester and oilskin coat were not streaming spray and rain and his face not white and tinged with blue) who had been appointed provost marshal "upon the occasion", guarding Ramage while he was under an arrest during the recent court-martial brought by the madman, Captain William Shirley.

After starting off as a very officious young lieutenant, Hill had by the end of the trial, been asking Ramage to be considered when the next vacancy occurred in the Calypso. And that had come almost at once when Wagstaffe was made first lieutenant of a seventy-four, which allowed Kenton to step up to take Wagstaffe's place, leaving the third lieutenant's berth vacant for Hill.

"Blower" Martin stayed as fourth lieutenant, but he was content: indeed, he had confided to Ramage that he needed another year's experience before being promoted.

Hill, despite his (when dry) debonair, almost flippant manner, was proving a good seaman. His manner for the first week or so had put off Southwick and Aitken: they were not used to a man who could make light of the most important things in their world. Hill used the expression "putting a fold in the laundry" to describe reefing; "that hook thing" was an anchor; rope of any size became "string" (including the ten-inch cables); and splicing was "that embroidery stuff". Taking a sight was "having a wink at the red eye", and all caused long faces until they discovered that Hill could splice with the best of them and liked nothing better than racing the topmen aloft and laying out along a yard "to get a bit o' exercise".

Southwick had to admit that Hill worked out a sight as though he had been navigating since childhood. In fact, the master had grumbled: "Whatever Hill has mathematically, I wish young Orsini would catch it." From there it was a short step to putting Hill in charge of drumming mathematics into Orsini, and Hill was apparently having some success (according to Southwick), although his teaching methods were unorthodox. Ramage often heard Orsini hooting with laughter while working out a noon sight under Hill's watchful eye, but Southwick reported that nine times out of ten the calculations were now correct: Orsini's habit of adding when he should subtract, or being just one out in all additions and subtractions, now seemed to be a thing of the past.

Both Kenton and Martin liked Hill and soon dropped into his habit of treating life with levity, and even Aitken confided to Ramage that the gunroom was a good deal more cheerful now Hill was on board.

Ramage saw the master, looking like a wet bear in his oilskins, lumber up the ladder and work his way across the quarterdeck, walking cautiously from one gun to another so that he had handholds against the violent rolling.

"Cape Spartivento's about fifteen miles on our larboard bow, sir, unless the current is stronger than usual."

"I'll be glad to bear away a bit when we round it," Ramage admitted.

"Fighting a levanter the length of the Western Mediterranean doesn't make for accurate dead reckoning," Southwick muttered, "so Hill had better keep a sharp lookout."

"Come now, you had a sight of the sun a couple of times yesterday," Ramage said teasingly. "I saw you scurrying around with your quadrant, and chasing Orsini, too."

"Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by Nature's benevolence," Southwick growled, and Ramage detected the influence of Hill in the remark.

"You should be. I assume you are ready for the sun to break through?"

Southwick glanced up at the thick, shapeless clouds streaming overhead. "Oh yes, sir; I have my quadrant tucked in my sou'wester, and I left my books of tables open in my cabin - along with sharpened pencils."

Ramage nodded: if Southwick could still joke, things were not too bad, although as far as Ramage was concerned he seemed to have been beating to windward for most of his life.

The grey skies, the endless waves racing past to the westward, the Calypso's labouring progress (she seemed to plunge her bow down in the same place every time, throwing up welters of spray), gave him too much time to think. To reflect. To feel guilty. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord St Vincent, admittedly a crusty old fellow, said that when an officer married he was "lost to the Service", and Ramage began to suspect he was right. Hardly a minute passed without him thinking and worrying about Sarah, and he was damned sure he could not be blamed because he worried whether his wife was dead or a prisoner. Killed or captured, he told himself bitterly for what must be the millionth time, before their honeymoon was properly over. If only he knew for certain, one way or the other. Yet if he knew that Sarah was dead, there would not be much purpose left to life: it was only the thought that she was a prisoner that gave his life any direction.