Ramage 04 - -Governor Ramage RN by Dudley Pope

Author:Dudley Pope
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-04-26T23:00:00+00:00

Suddenly a seaman yelled and sat down, clutching his foot. Thedevil take it, Ramage thought, not more sea urchins! He walked over to the man, looked at the foot and realized Snake Island had prickly pear cactus. Sticking in the man's foot was the land version of the sea urchin: a small green disc with spines radiating from it, like a flattened dandelion clock.

"Just give it a tug," Ramage said. "Mind you don't get the spines in your fingers."

"Aye aye, sir," the seaman said patiently, and Ramage felt he was being reproached for not including the prickly pear in his earlier warning.

By now Appleby was halfway back to theTriton with the raft. The sun was lifting high over the horizon but the breezehad not come up, and Ramage saw there was a chance they would reach the brig before it arrived. If only he could get a raft-load of provisions from the ship early each morning before the wind came up, he could last out here almost indefinitely.

Suddenly a thought struck him. He was loading casks on to a raft, whereas most of them, if they were pitched over the side, would float and eventually end up on the beach by themselves.

Fishermen on Snake Island - if there were any - might findthem but they would soon spot the wrecks anyway, so there was nothing to lose by pitching at least some of them over the side and letting the waves and current do the work. It was too late today, but as soon as the carpenter's crew had made a proper shelter for the St Brieucs, and a galley, they could make a rough boat which half a dozen men could use to get out to the wrecks each day.

A few minutes before noon, when the heat of the sun made men find shade before they stopped to talk, Southwick reported that the casks of provisions and water had been landed safely and stored at the back of the beach, covered with a topsail to serve as a tarpaulin, and the sail in turn covered with palm fronds to conceal it from prying eyes.

For the spare muskets, powder and shot, the seamen had collected small, flat rocks - there were plenty of them littering the ground - and built what looked like a large oven, between the provision store and the beach, for use as a magazine. It reminded Ramage of the donkey shelters so familiar in Italy. Branches served as roof beams, with canvas over the top, to weatherproof it.

The men were now lining the walls and floor with canvas to keep out the damp.

Southwick was particularly pleased with its position; he had chosen it, Ramage was glad to note, midway between the provision store and the beach, so the Marine sentries guarding the store and the beach - which Ramage had decided was to be the place where everyone would live - did not have to march out of their way, and would pass it twice for every once they passed the store.

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