If you were paid for a job you never did, or paid very well to do a job for which you hired a deputy at a sixth of the salary, that was, as far as Ramage was concerned, corruption; it was legally stealing from the nation. Well, in the Royal Navy you could not be paid for commanding two ships at once!

He remembered a cynical comment his father had made some years ago, when Ramage had commented at the time on what he had found in the then current Royal Kalendar. "Corruption, my boy, makes the world go round. Great men have tried to put an end to it, but they all failed because always there are greedy men."

Aitken was pointing up at the clouds. "The highest ones are coming from the north, sir," he commented.

"There's no sign of a veer down here."

"Perhaps during the night, sir."

"Perhaps," Ramage said. "Try and time it so that we can get under way at dawn!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ramage was wakened next morning before daylight by the urgent voice of Orsini repeating: "Captain, sir; Captain, sir!" When Ramage sat up in his swinging cot, Orsini said: "Mr Southwick's compliments, sir, but the wind seems to have set in from the north."

"Tell Mr Southwick I'll be on deck in a few minutes."

With that a drowsy Ramage swung himself out of the cot and hurriedly dressed in the dark, cursing as he stubbed his toe against a chair. Why the devil did things always happen at night? Up on deck he found it a starlit night and the breeze was steady; it was obviously set in for several hours.

"What's the course for Sidi Rezegh?" Ramage asked South-wick.

"South by west, sir,"

"Very well, hoist lights telling the flotilla to get under way, and then hoist the signal for the course."

Southwick shouted for the watch to prepare lanterns and the wooden frame which would hoist them in a set pattern. As soon as the lanterns were lit and hoisted, Ramage gave another order: "Stand by to get under way, Mr Southwick."

It was a warm night and Ramage noticed Aitken joining him at the quarterdeck rail. "A very good time for the wind to change, sir," the first lieutenant commented.

"What time is it?"

"Just before four o'clock, sir. It should take us down to be off the port just after dawn."

"Couldn't be better. I wonder if Saracens are early risers."

"I suspect they are; they probably go to bed when it gets dark and rise with the sun."

"But do they keep lookouts in that fort, I wonder?"

"I doubt it," Aitken said. "Why should they? They probably haven't been attacked for a hundred years so they won't be expecting anything."

At that moment, as the frame was lowered again and the lanterns extinguished, Ramage told Southwick: "We'll get under way, course south by west, you said."

The watch on deck scurried round as Southwick shouted orders. Topmen hurried aloft to cast off gaskets and let fall the topgallants and topsails; the afterguard braced up the yards and tended the sheets. Soon the Calypso stirred to life: instead of being an inert mass wallowing in the sea, she began to pitch gently as the sails filled. The hull creaked as the planking worked against the frames; the yards creaked as they pulled against the pressure of the wind. And Ramage gave a shiver as the down draught from the mainsail chilled him.

Then he remembered the rest of the flotilla. "Mr Southwick -we've no stern lantern!"

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the startled master. "I completely forgot," he admitted. "I'll see to it at once."

The flotilla leader, in this case the Calypso, had to burn a lantern for the rest of the flotilla to follow, particularly at a time like this when all the ships were forming up again after lying to. For a few moments Ramage thought of the responsibility of getting a fleet under way; twenty or thirty ships of the line, not to mention attendant frigates. He thought of Lord Nelson manoeuvring his fleet the night before Trafalgar. Not only did his Lordship have the problem of manoeuvring the fleet, but he was having to work out what the enemy was doing, and make moves to counter them. And the enemy that night had made some strange moves. Suddenly he felt very humble; he had another frigate and two sloops under his command, and he had forgotten the elementary thing of a stern-light. Well, he thought, let's hope the lamp trimmer has done his job properly and the light is bright enough for the rest of the flotilla to follow.

Sidi Rezegh - at last they were really on their way to attack it. He wondered what Rear-Admiral Rudd's thoughts had been when he gave him the orders. It was strange that the Admiral had not committed any of his 74s. Admittedly it was unlikely that any of them would have been able to enter the port because of their draft, but they had enough guns to pound the place before landing a considerable number of troops, Marines and seamen. A 74 could easily land three times as many men as a frigate, and she carried more than twice the number of guns, of vastly superior calibre.

But Admiral Rudd had not seen fit to send even one 74. Why? Ramage thought the answer to that was simple and twofold: he did not think a 74 would be able to do the job, and he did not want either of his two captains saddled with failure. So he had been reduced to sending a couple of frigates and a couple of sloops, to show the British Minister (and the King of the Two Sicilies) that at least he was doing something. Ministers would know nothing of the tactical problems of attacking an enemy port, especially a strange one with the natural problems of Sidi Rezegh.

There was even a touch of irony: one of the frigate captains was his favourite, and he would suffer if the venture failed. Indeed, Ramage thought wryly, he might spend the rest of his life chained to an oar in one of the galleys if the failure was complete. He shivered: the price of failure would be very high.

That was the worst of these early starts: one's spirits were at a very low ebb at this time of the morning: prey to fears which would never enter one's mind in daylight, or when one's stomach was decently full of food and a hot drink. He guessed that most men were cowards at four o'clock in the morning - he was, and he freely admitted it. Now, Southwick was a man who never suffered from it; Southwick exuded four o'clock in the morning courage.

A cast of the log every hour showed that the flotilla was making just under six knots with a fair wind, and dawn brought a cloudless day, the early dawn shadowing the four hummocks of hills surrounding Sidi Rezegh. There was an air of excitement in the Calypso, whether it was among the men holystoning the deck, the watchkeepers occasionally hauling on braces and sheets to trim the sails to a slight change in wind direction, or the successive officers of the deck as the watches changed.

Major Golightly had his troops formed up on deck as soon as there was light enough to see and Ramage watched them performing arms drill amid clouds of pipeclay. Their boots thumped as they marched and countermarched v and Aitken, who was on watch, shuddered with each stamp.

"I hope they're not tearing up my deck with their damned boots," he muttered to Ramage. "If I'd known Golightly was going to march them up and down, I'd have waited before having the deck holystoned."

"The gallant major means well," Ramage said consolingly. "Just think of those soldiers thundering down the quay and chasing those Saracens. Why, the sound of their boots pounding alone should frighten them!"

By now the hummocks were getting close and with the glass Ramage could distinguish the town of Sidi Rezegh. It comprised a clump of white buildings, still pinkish in the early light, and the round fort at the end of the quay showed up dark. It was easy to make out the dome-shaped roof of the mosque, which seemed to be built on a slight hill in the middle of the town.