Ramage & The Freebooters

by Pope, Dudley

  ‘More than that,’ Gorton corrected. ‘From the time she passes us until she gets to the entrance, sir? That’s about three hundred yards.’

  Ramage nodded, feeling embarrassed at his earlier pomposity.

  ‘Yes, and from where she’s anchored now to here is a good six hundred yards. So if the Triton’s waiting hove-to six hundred yards off the entrance and gets under way at the same time, she can beat in…’

  ‘And catch the privateer in the entrance and either drive her on the rocks or blow her to pieces with a broadside!’ Gorton said triumphantly.

  ‘Preferably both!’ Jackson added.

  ‘Preferably both,’ Ramage repeated. ‘Now listen, Gorton, the Jorum’s cable isn’t likely to help this time – they might see it and panic, but I doubt it. Yet for the Triton to have the best chance – she’s going to have trouble weathering the headland if the wind doesn’t shift – the Jorum’s going to have to make a diversion; just enough to stop the privateersmen from concentrating too hard!’

  ‘We didn’t do too badly last time,’ Jackson said.

  ‘No – but that was in the dark. How many rockets left?’

  ‘Only two,’ Gorton said. ‘I counted ’em just now. Plenty of powder and shot for the swivels and musketoons, and we can make some smoke with false-fires.’

  By now Ramage was hardly listening. He’d been putting off the decision for some time, but now he had made up his mind. Whoever was commanding the Triton if she hit a rock or was put aground, so the privateer escaped, would face a court of inquiry and probably a court martial. It was not fair to leave Southwick to face that.

  But – and this was the reason for delaying the decision – Southwick would be very disappointed if Ramage resumed command now. Yet Ramage knew he should: the chances of intercepting the privateer without damage were – well, slender. Southwick might hesitate to ram, for example; but losing the brig would be a small price to pay if it finally squared the privateer’s yards.

  ‘Gorton, I’m returning to the Triton and you’ll–’ he broke off, remembering for the first time since they’d escaped from the lagoon that Gorton was by no means under his command, and corrected himself. ‘I propose leaving some Tritons on board here, and I’d like you to remain with your men and take command of the whole party.’

  ‘Fine, sir!’ Gorton exclaimed excitedly, ‘we’ll do the best we can!’

  ‘Very well. I’ll take Jackson, Stafford, Evans and Fuller. How many Tritons do you want?’

  Twenty minutes later Ramage was standing on the quarterdeck of the Triton, relating to Southwick everything that had happened since he’d boarded the Jorum off Grenada, and then hearing the Master’s report of what he had done with the Triton.

  Southwick rounded off his report with a reference to the usefulness of the bonfires on the headland and then added: ‘Two seamen under open arrest, I’m afraid, sir.’

  ‘What charges?’

  ‘Fighting, sir.’

  ‘Fighting?’

  ‘Yes sir – while at quarters.’

  Ramage sighed. Seamen fighting with each other while the ship was cleared for action…

  ‘What were they fighting about?’

  ‘We had the grindstone up on deck to put a sharp on some of the cutlasses, and the men lined up for their turn. Seems these two started arguing about who was in front of which…’

  ‘Not fighting with cutlasses, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Well, in a way. One punched the other who fetched the first man a clip on the side of the head with the flat of his cutlass.’

  ‘Drunk?’

  ‘No, neither of ’em.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, that can wait.’

  Ramage picked up a telescope and looked at the entrance to Marigot. On the southern side of the outer bay he could see the Jorum quite clearly, with the first privateer grounded on the north bank opposite. Beyond them the gap in the palms where the raft had been smashed aside gave him a good view of the second privateer on the far side of the inner bay, directly in line with the gap. It wasn’t quite light enough yet to distinguish men moving about.

  Southwick joined him. ‘Having a look at the lie of the land, sir?’

  Ramage nodded. ‘I was just thinking how the raft of palm trees fooled us.’

  ‘’Twas a good job young Stafford told me about it when he came on board: if I’d seen that gap in daylight I’d have wondered why the hell we never sent a boat in to look when we were up this way last week.’

  ‘I still don’t know why we didn’t spot there was something odd.’

  Southwick chuckled. ‘Don’t fret over that, sir. I had a good look at the chart. What happened is our chart’s a bit out – it shows the lagoon smaller than it really is. And both those sandspits have each grown out another ten yards. The chart’s fifteen years old…’

  ‘Where did we get it from?’

  ‘Master of one of the frigates in Barbados gave me a sight of his and I made a copy. Original survey was by the Jason.’

  ‘I wish there’d been time to get my father’s charts before we left England.’

  ‘Yes,’ Southwick growled, ‘but it’s time Their Lordships started issuing charts. We’d have been in a mess if I hadn’t been able to copy that one. And this damned coral sometimes grows a foot a year, so if the chart’s fifteen years old a shoal can have fifteen feet less water over it.’

  ‘We need an Irish pilot,’ Ramage said dryly, and Southwick laughed at the memory of a story well known in the Fleet of a frigate bound for an Irish port several miles up a river. The pilot seemed such an odd fellow that the captain asked if he knew the river well. Just as the pilot assured him he ‘Knew every rock in it’, there was a thump that shook the ship, and he’d added: ‘And that’s one of ’em, sorr!’

  After telling Southwick to shift the Triton’s position by five hundred yards, keeping her hove-to farther to the north so that she could lay the entrance with the present wind, and call him the moment there was a sign of movement on board the privateer, Ramage went below to his cabin for a brisk wash and shave and change into clean clothes.

  One look in the mirror startled him: the reflection showed a stranger with bloodshot, wild-looking eyes, cheeks sunken with new wrinkles slanting out down either side of the mouth. This stranger staring at him had the look of a man hunted – like a fleeing privateersman who’d stolen the tattered and dirty uniform of a King’s officer.

  The steward came in with hot water. He refrained from asking how it had been boiled since, with the ship at general quarters, the galley fire had been doused. An hour ago on board the Jorum, he mused, the idea of clean clothes, hot water and a sharp razor seemed remote, just a memory of a way of life led many years earlier. Now, vigorously brushing the lather on his face, the hours in the Jorum seemed equally remote. Opening the razor and nestling his little finger under the curved end, he took the first stroke and swore violently as the blunt blade seemed to be ripping the skin from his face. The damned steward – he could get boiled water without a fire, press clothes splendidly, serve at table so unobtrusively as to seem invisible. But stropping a razor was beyond him.

  Angrily Ramage hooked up the leather strop and hurriedly stropped the razor first on the coarse side and then on the smooth. Gingerly he tried it. Not much better, but thank goodness he had a full set, seven ebony-handled razors, each with a different day of the week engraved on the heel of the blade. In future, he decided, six days shalt thou labour and the seventh thou shalt not shave! He stuck out his chin for the last few strokes when there was a shout from on deck: ‘Captain, sir!’

  He went to the skylight and answered.

  Southwick called down excitedly: ‘The Jorum’s hoisted a blue flag – looks more like a shirt, sir!’

  ‘Very well – she’s spotted activity on board the privateer. Acknowledge it. When it comes down it means the privateer’s weighing.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  The comfortable tiredness Ramage had felt soaking into him as
he shaved had now vanished. But the rest of the lather was drying on his face, tightening the skin unpleasantly, and Southwick was still standing there, waiting for orders.

  ‘I’ll finish shaving, Mr Southwick.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Just as Ramage turned away Southwick called down again: ‘Blue flag’s coming down, sir!’

  ‘I’ll finish shaving, Mr Southwick.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Southwick said with as much disapproval as he dare register.

  As he finished the last few strokes with the razor Ramage reflected it was a crude way of calming Southwick. Despite his original grumbling the old man had obviously enjoyed his brief hours in command of the Triton and was now thirsting for action. But Ramage knew that in the next half hour he needed every man on board the Triton to stay as calm as possible: one slip through excitement and the ship would be wrecked and the privateer allowed to escape. Then, in the mirror, he saw his own hand trembling – tiredness, of course. He looked himself in the eyes and grinned. Perhaps not tiredness but, thank God, not fear.

  And that dam’ fool steward had put out his second-best uniform, as though it was Sunday, and there wasn’t time to get out an old one. Hurriedly Ramage pulled on the silk stockings, dragged on his breeches, tucked in his shin and looked round for the stock. Hmm, perhaps not such a dam’ fool – the silk was pleasant against his neck. Boots – another pair, highly polished, and he had changed the throwing-knife over to them.

  Pistols – newly oiled and reloaded. That’d be Jackson. He tucked them into the waistband, put on his coat and slipped the cutlass belt over his shoulder. A seaman’s cutlass looked out of place – he should have an expensive, inlaid sword – but a cutlass was more effective. Jamming his hat on his head and ducking to dodge the beams, he went up on deck.

  Southwick handed him the telescope.

  The privateer was under way with her foresail and mainsail set. Men at the bow were catting the anchor and a jib was being hoisted. They had little more than a breeze; hardly strong enough to flatten the creases in the flaxen sails. Bow waves rippling over the flat water in ever-lengthening chevrons reminded Ramage of sailing a model boat across a village pond. Two knots? She was about level with the jetty, which meant she was two hundred yards short of the sandspits and five hundred yards from the Jorum.

  Ramage looked across at Marigot Point on the north side of the entrance, and then at the south side. A line joining the two was four hundred yards from the Jorum.

  ‘It’ll be like a horse race with a starting line at each end and the finishing line in the middle!’ Southwick commented.

  ‘Brace up the foretopsail, if you please, Mr Southwick.’

  Southwick bellowed orders, the yard was trimmed round and the brig gathered way.

  ‘Full and by, Mr Southwick.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ the Master said, turning to the quartermaster. With the chance of eddies from the hills, keeping the brig sailing as close to the wind as possible was going to be difficult.

  Ramage walked over to the binnacle, looked at the compass and then at the windvane at the mainmasthead – east-north-east. Hm… It was going to be close. To succeed, Ramage had now to sail into the bay with the Triton hugging the north shore, forcing the privateer to keep on the south side and passing close to the Jorum.

  Close-hauled the Triton could sail six points off the wind; in other words she could steer south-east, which meant she could just about sail parallel with the north shore – and a glance showed him she was already doing that. But if the wind veered a few degrees, just fluked a little to the eastward, she would have to bear away into the middle of the channel. And then God alone knew what would happen.

  If she couldn’t immediately wear round and sail out of the bay again, she’d run aground. Indeed, once she was half-way into the bay there probably wasn’t room enough to wear round whatever happened, unless he box-hauled – juggling with the sails so she went astern to bring her bow round, or club-hauled, letting go an anchor over the lee side so that it suddenly dragged the brig’s bow round. Then, by cutting the cable and leaving the anchor behind, the Triton would be able to sail out again.

  But although either would be a close-run thing, neither would be necessary if he timed the manoeuvre correctly. Southwick’s simile about a race, with the privateer starting at one end of the course and the Triton the other, wasn’t a bad one; but Ramage knew success depended on him making sure both sailed the same distance… The privateer would be three hundred yards from the Jorum as she passed between the two sandspits, and the Triton would be the same distance from Gorton’s schooner, approaching from the opposite direction, when the cliff on the south side of the entrance bore south-west.

  And Ramage suddenly saw the privateer was that very moment in the channel between the two spits. He twisted round to see the bearing of the south side of the entrance. South by west – so he was already fifty yards or more behind in the race.

  Damn and blast; he always seemed to be daydreaming. The sky over the hills to the south was pinkish now: it’d be sunrise in fifteen minutes. But he realized fifty yards didn’t matter too much – they’d meet that much this side of the Jorum, and by then Gorton and his men would have done their best. And the cable might have scared them…

  Southwick said: ‘Shall I start the lead going, sir?’

  ‘No point; we’re committed to this course. But I’d be glad if you’d go forward and keep a lookout for isolated rocks.’

  The privateer was past the spit now and running before the breeze: a soldier’s wind with her booms broad off, her sails tinged by the pinkish light of the rising sun.

  The leeches of the brig’s sails fluttered and Southwick turned on the quartermaster: ‘Steer small, damn you.’

  Must have been a back eddy off the cliffs because the fluttering stopped even before the men began to turn the wheel. And the cliffs were close. No wonder Southwick wanted a man in the forechains heaving a lead – it wasn’t often that one of the King’s ships drawing eleven feet forward and nearly thirteen aft sailed so close inshore!

  The privateer was bearing up a few degrees now to follow the slight bend in the channel.

  Was her captain left-handed or right-handed? It might make a difference, Ramage suddenly realized, since in the next few minutes he had to guess which side the man would try to dodge past the Triton: had to guess moments before the man gave any indication by altering course or trimming sails. A right-handed man would tend to keep to his left, to the south side of the channel. And the Triton hugging the north side might decide him. If he was right-handed.

  At each of the Triton’s ten carronades the crew stood ready: each gun was loaded with grapeshot; each had the lock fitted in place with the captain holding the trigger line in his right hand, the second captain standing by ready to cock it at the last moment. There’d be no last-minute traversing because they’d fire as the privateer passed. And a seaman was peering out of each port, quietly reporting to the captain of his gun the privateer’s position.

  And near each gun the high bulwarks bristled with cutlasses, pistols and tomahawks tucked into any fitting that would hold them, ready to be snatched up the instant Ramage gave the order to board.

  Gracefully – for she was a rakish-looking schooner with a sweeping sheer – the privateer followed the curve of the channel, keeping to the south side. She had perhaps two hundred yards to run before she reached the Jorum. So far so good, Ramage thought – unless the Triton hit a rock. And there wouldn’t be time to avoid one, so Southwick was wasting his time. He called the Master back to the quarterdeck.

  Southwick had just arrived aft when the dull boom of a gun echoed between the cliffs, followed by another, then several at once.

  As Ramage looked over at the Jorum, cursing Gorton for opening fire too soon, he was startled to see there was no smoke from her swivels and Southwick exclaimed: ‘It’s that damned grounded privateer!’

  So the survivors must have gone back on board! Sm
oke was drifting away from her, towards the Triton. And because she had turned to starboard before she went aground, her larboard-side guns covered the entrance; covered the approach Triton, with the range decreasing every moment.

  ‘Poor shooting, all fell short,’ Southwick said disgustedly. ‘Still, up fifty yards and the next broadside should get us.’

  ‘Give ’em a hail and tell ’em.’

  More gunfire – coughs rather than the heavier thumps of the grounded privateer’s guns. And now smoke was drifting away from the Jorum. Then a curious popping, six distinct shots. Gorton had fired his swivels, then the musketoons, to harry them.

  ‘I hope he reloads in time for our friend,’ Southwick commented.

  ‘He will, but anything that distracts our friend is a help.’

  She was half-way between the spit and the schooner: 175 yards.

  ‘Second broadside’s due now, sir.’

  Out of the mass of cordage that made up the Triton’s standing and running rigging – it weighed more than seven tons – only half a dozen pieces were really vulnerable; but if even one of the half dozen was cut by a stray shot the Triton…quickly Ramage dismissed the thought.

  By now the second broadside should have arrived, but it hadn’t. Did that mean Gorton’s swivels and musketoons, sweeping the deck almost as effectively as if raking her, had killed or wounded enough of the men working the guns?

  Nor was there a second broadside from the Jorum. Gorton was saving that for the second privateer, which was close now and bearing away a few degrees to stay in the deepest part of the channel.

  Along the Triton’s larboard side the cliffs were receding and becoming less vertical, the bare rock hidden by bushes.

  The privateer was obviously making a knot or so more than the Triton, and Ramage was thankful. He’d misjudged the point where he intended meeting the privateer: the whole bay was closing in, and there was less room to manoeuvre than he thought. The fact the privateer would be well past the Jorum before he intercepted her was to the Triton’s advantage. Nice of the enemy to cover up one’s mistakes.

  Unwittingly emphasizing it, Southwick said conversationally: ‘Reckon you’ve timed it nicely, sir. He’s still got that cable…’