"I can never have too much," Southwick answered, "but I doubt if we'll get much more that matters from Empedocle. I'll make fair copies of these for the rest of the flotilla and a copy of the map for our gallant major."

Ramage looked up at Aitken. "How are the troops getting on with embarking and disembarking from the boats?"

"Very well, sir. Far better than I expected. We have a lot to thank Hill for: he suggested putting a Marine in charge of every five soldiers, to show them how to do things, and it was so successful that I took the liberty of suggesting it to the first lieutenant of the Amalie. Then Kenton started the boats competing against each other, and that spread to the Amalie. "In fact," Aitken said, "the only question mark now seems to be whether the gunnery in the Amalie and the two sloops is up to the standard we like."

Ramage nodded. Gunnery training was very much up to individual captains. Some made an obsession of it; others scarcely bothered because guns firing scorched paintwork and scored decks. Well, the flotilla could sail south under easy sail for a couple of days and give the guns' crews plenty of exercise.

In the meantime, Ramage thought, he would have to put a lot of thought into how they were going to attack Sidi Rezegh. And that, he realized, was the wrong way of thinking about it: they were not going to attack Sidi Rezegh as such; they were just going to raid the place and free the slaves from the barracks and the women from the brothels: if that could be done without disturbing the Saracens at prayer in the mosque, so be it.

It had been interesting making the charts and the map: it had given shape to somewhere that had hitherto been only a name. Now, if he closed his eyes, he felt he could imagine the look of the place. In fact, once Southwick had completed his first fair copies, he would try and draw an elevation of the place: that would help the flotilla find their way about. Not every sailor, Marine and soldier could read a chart or a map.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

By now Jackson had become an authority among most of the ship's company: he had been on shore with the captain and master at all three ports and he had heard them discussing their findings.

"I tell you what bothers me," Stafford said as he sat at the mess table, "and that's how many of these A-rabs we'll find at this place."

"Arabs," Jackson corrected. "You worry too much. Everything will be all right."

"It was a damned close-run affair at Licata," Stafford maintained stubbornly. "I still don't know what would have happened if the Calypso hadn't turned up like that."

"We'd have scraped through but we'd have lost a lot more men," Jackson said.

"Well, we lost enough as it was. I ask you, this time we've got to capture a whole A-rab town."

"No, we haven't," Jackson said mildly. "We're just going in to rescue the slaves and the women. That's all."

"That's all, eh?" jeered Stafford. "You don't really think these A-rabs are going to let us walk off with their slaves just like that, do you?"

"They might not be able to stop us. If we're quick."

"Quick? Well, you said yourself there's a fort at the entrance to the harbour."

"Steady, Staff. If you'd known the odds would you have been happy at Licata? Yet it worked out all right."

"Sheer luck," Stafford declared. "We was lucky."

"But luck always comes into it," Jackson persisted. "It's good luck if it happens to you, and bad luck if to the enemy. And admit it, Staff, with Mr Ramage we get more than our share of luck."

"Is it luck?" Gilbert asked quizzically. "Most of the time I think luck is good planning, and the reason for what you call Mr Ramage's luck is that he plans carefully."

"Is right," Albert said unexpectedly. "Luck no, planning yes. Bad plans that fail are blamed on bad luck. Is an excuse."

"Well, the Calypso turning up at Licata was luck," Stafford said stubbornly. "There was no planning about that."

"No, but there's no saying we'd have lost either," Jackson said.

"Come on, Jacko, you never thought we'd get out of there alive. What with all those skimitars."

"Scimitars," Jackson corrected automatically. "Anyway, I don't agree we'd have been beaten. Yes, we'd have lost a lot more men, but I think we'd have pulled through. The minute they realized all their boats were being sunk and they couldn't escape - that's when they'd have broke."

"You're saying that because your gun was firing on the boats," Stafford said. "You'd have thought different if you'd been out on the jetty playing cut and thrust with that screaming 'orde."

"Staff, I don't know when we haven't been fighting screaming hordes: it doesn't make any difference whether they are French or Saracen. You're as dead whether you get your head cut off by a Saracen scimitar or a French cutlass."

"Very comforting," Stafford said. "I'll sleep better tonight knowing that!" , "All those women," Gilbert said, as if talking to himself. "Just imagine, if those Arabs were raiding a town in France and carrying off all the young women. It is too horrible to think about."

"I know what you're going to say," Stafford said. "We have to take any risk to rescue the women. But 'ow are the Italian husbands left behind going to treat those women after we've rescued them? After they've been in an A-rab brothel for a few weeks? I'll tell you: they won't want anything to do with them. It's the women I feel sorry for. They're doomed if they stay in the brothels, and they're doomed if we rescue them. All these Italian men have a rotten streak in them: the streak of pride. They're quick to see an insult, but they won't be big enough to forgive those women something they couldn't avoid. If anyone's to blame it is the men, for not fighting off the Saracens."

"You're probably right, Staff," Jackson said, "but there's nothing we can do about it. Just rescue them and hope for the best."

"Kill as many Saracens as you can, that's the only revenge," Rossi said. "You're right about the Italian men; it's one thing I'm not proud about. Not that Sicilians are real Italians," he added.

"But it would be the same if the women were Genoese,'' Stafford persisted. "You chaps from Genoa would still treat them wrongly."

"We would and it would be unfair," Rossi agreed. "But that's the way life is, and you can't change it."

"Give the bread barge a fair wind," Stafford told Rossi, who was sitting at the outboard end of the table. "I'm hungry." He took out one of the hard biscuits that passed for bread and automatical!) rapped it on the table before starting to eat it. "These have gone soft already," he grumbled, inspecting it carefully for weevils. "I dunno, salt beef is too hard and the bread is too soft. This commission's lasted too long."

"You're getting soft; I don't know about the bread," Jackson said. "Must be old age. The years are beginning to show, Staff."

"Beginning to show!" Stafford exclaimed. "What about you? Is that baldness I see - or are you growing up through your hair?"

"We're all growing old," Gilbert said lugubriously. "Seeing each other every day, we don't notice it."

"Be that as it may," Stafford said, "Jacko's still losing his hair."

"He might be, but he's still the handsomest American on board the Calypso!" Rossi said unexpectedly.

"That's not difficult, since he's the only one," Stafford growled "Why, his head will soon take a shine."

Ramage sat squarely at his desk and put Southwick's two sketches in front of him. He looked at them for a few moments and then commented: "We're lucky: Sidi Rezegh could have been a lot more difficult."

"We'll need the right wind," Southwick said. "It's got to have a lot of north or south in it, if we are to get in and out."