'Well, I doubt if they're warning anyone about us', Ramage said briskly, 'because we must have passed several of these towers already without recognizing them, and each would have seen us and could have reported it.'
'Perhaps this one is just reporting that we're passing now?' Aitken ventured.
Ramage shook his head. 'What are we making? Perhaps two knots. We've been in sight - close enough for them to identify us as a frigate - for more than an hour. They'd have passed such a message a long time ago.'
'They've stopped signalling now', Aitken said. 'Two men are walking away from the base of the tower, making for a hut. Ah, now there's a third who seems to have come down a ladder from the top of the tower.'
'Where are they going?' Ramage asked sharply. 'Note which hut.'
'The third man is carrying something rather carefully . . .'
'A telescope?'
'Yes, sir, it could be.'
'He was probably watching the next tower acknowledging each word of the signal.'
'Ah, I can see a little platform on top', Aitken said. 'The ladder goes up to it. Even has an awning. Trust the French. A shelf for a flask of wine, too, I'll be bound.'
From the tone of Aitken's voice, with its soft Perthshire accent, it was hard to know whether the sin was in the luxury of the awning, the drinking of wine, or being French. Ramage finally decided it was probably all three.
'Two are going to the first hut on the west side of the headland and which has a flagpole outside; one - the man with the telescope - is going to the next farther inland, probably reporting to the garrison commander. Now another man has just walked round the base of the tower and gone to the third on the east side. The fourth and fifth huts are the same size. There's a sixth, much smaller and with a chimney. Probably the kitchen.'
Ramage looked through his telescope. Each hut could accommodate at least a dozen men. What size would the garrison be? Three men were needed to pass a signal, so a signal watch would comprise three men. They would be on duty only during daylight, which in summer lasted about sixteen hours. Four hours on and four off meant two watches a day for six men. Plus a cook. Plus sentries - two on duty at any one time throughout the twenty-four hours. Two hours on and six off. Eight men.
The province's Army commander would hardly have welcomed the setting up of the semaphore stations if each one needed six signalmen, eight infantrymen and a cook. And knowing how expert were soldiers (and sailors, too!) in getting authorization to have the largest complement to do the least work, there'd be a lieutenant as the commanding officer, a quartermaster and probably even a carpenter and his mate to do repairs when an extra strong gust from a mistral or Levanter blew out some panels of the semaphore shutters. At least nineteen or twenty men; more counting sergeants and corporals. It seemed absurd but, to be fair, a soldier would never understand why the official complement of the Calypso, a 32-gun frigate, was 230 men - not that she was ever lucky enough to have that many, in the same way that any battalion was usually short of men.
Ramage looked up to find Southwick watching him, his chubby, suntanned face wrinkled in an unspoken question.
The old man had taken off his hat, and his white hair, in need of a trim and soaked with perspiration, looked like a new mop just dipped in a bucket of water and shaken. Aitken had closed his telescope and was waiting too. Rennick, the Marine lieutenant, had joined them, anxious not to miss anything.
In the meantime the Calypso was stretching along to the westward, a few miles short of the little town of Foix, flying French colours as a legitimate ruse de guerre, and Captain the Lord Ramage had, in a lead-weighted canvas pouch in the drawer of his desk, written orders from the Admiralty suitable for one of the few King's ships (if not the only one) left in the Mediterranean, and certainly the sort of orders that one of the most junior on the list of post captains dreamed about.
'What now, sir?' Southwick finally asked. He had served with Ramage for four or five years, was old enough to be his father, and had been in action with him a couple of dozen times, regarding fate as being unfair because while Captain Ramage had been wounded four or five times so far, Southwick had not received a scratch.
'What now, Mr Southwick? Why, we just sail past, dipping our colours politely if the signal station salutes us. I trust you have a lookout watching particularly in case they extend that courtesy, and a man at the halyard?'
Ramage turned away to hide a smile as Southwick's face fell and the old man, utterly dumbfounded, glanced questioningly at Aitken and Rennick. Ramage went below to find his cabin reasonably cool - more than anywhere else it benefited from the quarterdeck awning - and unlocked the bottom drawer.
He took out a canvas pouch, along the bottom of which was sewn a thick strip of lead, heavy enough to sink it if it was thrown over the side in an emergency, and which was held closed like an old woman's purse by a heavy line passing through grommets. He undid the knot and slid out a small book, little more substantial than a pamphlet and printed on cheap, greyish paper.