Free Ramage's Signal by Dudley Pope

the Marines—but pick small ones: they’re going to have to wear French uniforms. We’ll strip the prisoners and give them seamen’s clothing, and your men will have to get the best fits possible.”
    Fifteen minutes later Ramage was scrambling over the bow of his gig as it was held by several seamen: in the last hour or so—he could not guess how long they had been because patches of cloud were now hiding the more obvious star constellations—a slight swell had started.
    In the darkness he could see a shadowy figure in the stern-sheets, lying awkwardly, sprawled sideways. Rennick reported: “That’s the French Lieutenant. They’ve got him in handcuffs and leg irons.”
    â€œYou can take off the handcuffs. If he tries to escape by jumping over the side, the leg irons will make sure he drowns. Now, you go back and garrison the place with your Marines and take Orsini with you: he will deal with any stray Frenchmen. I’m taking this Lieutenant to the
Calypso
and I’ll be back at daylight, but I’ll make sure those French uniforms are sent over for your men.”
    â€œVery well, sir; I’ll inspect my guards. There’ll be no sleeping sentries at the guardhouse!”
    â€œMake sure Orsini is always within hearing of the guardhouse: if any Frenchman turns up, the sentries must whistle for him and not talk …”
    â€œYes, sir,” Rennick said patiently, having received his orders several minutes earlier and understanding them thoroughly.
    The Marine sergeant pulled the French officer’s arms up, pushed the rudimentary key into the lock of the handcuffs, and then gave them a bang with the back of his cutlass to overcome the squeaky stiffness of the hinge.
    Ramage saw the Lieutenant cringing, obviously assuming that the removal of the handcuffs was a preliminary to removing his head with the same cutlass. Ramage waited while the man sat upright and then said coldly in French: “Sit quietly and nothing will happen to you.”
    â€œBut—who are you? What happened?”
    â€œYou will understand soon,” Ramage said, wanting to ensure as much surprise as possible when he came to question the man.

CHAPTER FIVE
    R AMAGE turned the lantern over his desk round on its hook so that the dim light fell on the leather pouch which Rennick had handed to him on the beach. Large and made of heavily grained, thick leather, once polished black, it was a relic of the monarchy or, more accurately, a sad representative of the new regime: the royal coat of arms had once been embossed on the flap, but someone had crudely scratched out the gilding of the
fleur-de-lys
without entirely destroying the pattern, merely disfiguring it.
    The pouch was stuffed with papers, many crumpled. Clearly Rennick and his men had been in a hurry when they grabbed everything. Ramage shook the papers out and spread them on the desktop.
    He reached out for a slim book, and then for something that looked more like a counting-house ledger.
    As soon as he opened the slim book he saw it comprised a dozen pages, perhaps more, and was the key to the semaphore code. The ledger was in fact the daily signal log, each entry signed. The first signal was dated more than a year earlier; the latest had been received “from the west” and sent on eastward an hour before sunset the previous evening. Each entry was written clearly and gave the name of “the chief signalman.” There were only two names, so presumably his guess about two watches during daylight was correct, and the senior of each was the “chief.” The writing was so good that obviously this log was the final copy of a rough log, or they scribbled a signal down on a piece of paper and transferred it to the log after it had been passed on.
    He decided to read through the last few days’ signals later; for the moment he was more interested in how the semaphore worked. It was an invention of the Ministry of