Ramage & the Rebels

by Dudley Pope

  What is going on? The Calypso hove-to and now a dozen or more seamen on the foredeck under Mr Aitken and Mr Southwick. Two men passing a line outside of everything to the jib-boom end. And a seaman balancing out there—is that a heaving line he’s holding, half the coil in each hand? Yes, and one end of the heaving line is being made fast to the line leading back to the foredeck. If only he could ask the Captain, but Uncle Nicholas looked preoccupato: he was rubbing the upper of those two scars over his right eyebrow, and Paolo remembered one of the first lessons he had ever learned from Jacko, or perhaps it was Rossi: when you see the Captain rubbing that scar, keep clear!

  Accidente! Just look at La Créole now! They’ve eased the sheets and are just—what is the word, just “jilling”—across our bow! They’ll collide, rip out our jib-boom, spring the bowsprit, tear away the forestay and bring the foremast down—why doesn’t someone do—but the Captain is just standing there watching. Rubbing the scar, but not bellowing orders. In fact, Paolo realized, no one was speaking a word: whatever was happening was planned.

  With La Créole sailing slowly at an angle across the Calypso’s bow, the man holding the heaving line on the jib-boom end was balancing himself as the whole bow gently rose and fell on the swell waves. Now he’s twirling the coil in his right hand and the men who had passed the heavier line from the foredeck to the jib-boom end are holding it out clear, as though to prevent it snagging on anything. But why should it snag?

  That schooner! There’s Mr Lacey standing beside the men at the wheel. He’s just standing there like a statue. One of the men heaves down a spoke or two. The hiss of the schooner’s bow wave—he could see every plank in the hull, every seam where the heat of the sun had shrunk the wood. He wanted to shut his eyes as the schooner hit the jib-boom but was even too frightened for that.

  Suddenly the man on the jib-boom jerks as though shot—now the thin snake of the heaving line is darting towards the schooner’s main chains. Men seize it as the schooner crosses ahead and the men along the Calypso’s jib-boom jump back after letting go of the line, as though it was suddenly hot. The line is racing over the bow—it’s secured to the cable and now that too is going over the side after the line, and they’re hauling in like madmen in La Créole!

  Now the first words in the Calypso came from Mr Wagstaffe, clear across the open water—to brace up the fore-topsailyard, so that it draws. Now he leans over for a quick word to the quartermaster and the men at the wheel heave at the spokes. And Uncle Nicholas is just standing there, quite still except his eyes move—from La Créole to the Calypso’s jib-boom, to the fore-topsail, to the wind-vane on top of the bulwark nettings, to the foredeck and that heavy cable which is smoking where it chafes on the bulwark as it goes over the side. He hasn’t said a word nor made a movement.

  It had all happened, Paolo realized, exactly as the Captain had intended. It had taken—well, perhaps three minutes. Three, Aunt Gianna, not one. But to what purpose? The cable was paying out slower than he expected—La Créole was deliberately spilling wind from her sails to move slowly; the Calypso, with her fore-topsail now drawing, was gathering way and Mr Wagstaffe was getting her into La Créole’s wake. Now he could see the heaving line and the heavier line had been taken on board La Créole and men were hauling vigorously to get the end of the Calypso’s heavy cable on board.

  Now Mr Wagstaffe was bellowing orders to furl the topsails. And courses. Furl, not clew up. But the topmen are making a poor job of passing the gaskets: the sails look like so much old laundry. And Uncle Nicholas is just watching and nodding to Mr Wagstaffe, obviously approving. And the courses—bundling up the canvas, that’s what the men are doing, not furling. The jibs are being dropped and just left at the bottom of the stays, as though milady was stepping out of her clothes.

  What are those men doing with the ensign? No, it isn’t the ensign, there’s too much white. A broad expanse of white cloth. And of blue. And red, too, wide strips of plain colours with no design. Ah, now they have the blue ensign of old Foxey-Foote, and they are bending it on below this other flag. Mr Wagstaffe is pointing upwards, and they’re heaving down on the halyard, and hoisting the flags.

  Accidente! The fools! They’ve hoisted a big French Tricolour above the British ensign! And Uncle Nicholas is looking at them as they go up, the cloth blowing out straight in the wind, and he is making some joke to Mr Wagstaffe.

  A shout from Mr Aitken on the fo’c’s’le and Mr Wagstaffe yells at the men at the wheel. They spin the spokes—ah, yes, the strain is about to come on the cable; all of it is off the fo’c’s’le now; it leads direct from the Calypso’s bow to La Créole’s stern. And La Créole has hoisted a large French Tricolour. There’s no British flag under it, though.

  To anyone sailing past now, Paolo suddenly saw with almost bewildering clarity, it looked as if the French schooner La Creole was towing in a British prize …

  Ramage flicked over the pages of the French signal book. Poor quality paper, bad printing, and very few signals, perhaps a third of the number contained in the British book, so pity French admirals trying to make their wishes known to their captains. Still, there were enough for his purposes and the sailmaker and his mates had made up enough flags, even if some of the cloth was stiff because it had been coloured with thinned paint.

  It would never work. The captain of the French frigate would never fall into the trap. Instead of saving his men’s lives, Ramage knew now he’d end up with half of them killed and the other half taken prisoner. He looked at the French frigate, a mile away and beating up to them fast. It was not too late to call it all off; to cut the cable, warn Lacey, let fall the Calypso’s topsails and fight.

  A few words to Aitken, who was now officer of the deck, would be enough: “Belay all this nonsense, Mr Aitken; cut the cable, let fall the topsails and we’ll fight ‘em ship to ship!” That was all it needed, and the only thing that prevented him from saying it was his pride, which was working like a gag.

  Yet a few days ago—yesterday, in fact—he had been sure it would work. He’d thought of the idea, spent a couple of hours trying to find faults in his plan, and had spent many hours since looking for loopholes. So why did he now think it would not work? The explanation was quite simple, of course: he was a coward, and before any action he always had these moments of quiet desperation, quiet panic, quiet fear. The quiet coward. Some men were secret gamblers, others secret drinkers. Some were wife-beaters, and others had nameless secret vices. And you, your Lordship? Oh, I’m a secret coward …

  Now it was too late to change his mind; the French frigate was slicing her way up to them, spray flying from her bow, port lids triced up, guns run out, Tricolour streaming out in the freshening breeze. Her sails were patched and the wetness of her hull could not hide the lack of paint. She was being sailed well but her Captain was letting her sag off, so she’d have to tack to stay up to windward … Now she was furling her courses. Very sensible and the standard move before going into action. She should clew up her topgallants, too—ah, yes, she was doing that now, and the men were going out on the yards to furl them.

  The Calypso must be a puzzle to that French Captain: sails bundled untidily on the yards, ports closed, a dozen or so men lounging on top of the hammock nettings, idly watching the approaching frigate just as they might look incuriously at passing bumboats in port. The large French Tricolour hoisted over the British ensign showed she had been captured. She was obviously French-built, so presumably had been a British prize. But there could be no doubt about the little schooner bravely towing her towards Amsterdam: French-built, Tricolour flying, her decks lined with men.

  More important, Ramage had reckoned, the French Captain of La Créole would have shifted to his new capture, the Calypso. Apart from having considerably more comfortable quarters, it would be the obvious place for him. Now it all depended on the Captain of the approaching French frigate. Was he a flashing-eyed revolutionary or a rough sea-lawyer the Revolution had dragged up from the lower-dec
k and put in command? Or a former royalist who had hurriedly turned his coat in exchange for keeping his neck intact and getting promotion? By now France was getting over the shortage of trained captains caused by the Revolution’s habit, in the first few months, of executing anyone that looked like an aristocrat, a bout of republican enthusiasm which had killed off France’s best captains and admirals and often put in their place men who made up in political glibness what they lacked in seamanship or leadership.

  Whatever the type of man commanding that frigate, Ramage knew the whole success or failure of his operation depended on him seizing (and keeping) the initiative. The enemy ship was now close enough that telescopes could distinguish flags.

  “Hoist the French challenge,” he told Aitken, and warned Orsini: “Watch for the reply.”

  Two seamen hurriedly hauled at the halyard on which the three flags of the French code making up the day’s challenge were already bent. Ramage was thankful that the French system of challenge and reply was less complex than the British—and the page on which it was printed in tabular form and which had been slipped into the signal book was for a whole year.

  He aimed his telescope at the French ship. Over there the French Captain would be puzzled all right. The Frenchman would be assuming that the schooner’s Captain would be only a lieutenant and therefore his junior. He had every reason to think that he would now take command of the whole situation; that he would escort La Créole and her prize into Amsterdam (and no doubt find a way of claiming a hefty share of the prize-money).

  Three flags were jerking their way aloft and almost immediately, before they were properly hoisted, Orsini reported, his voice squeaking with excitement: “She’s made the correct reply, sir. And there go her pendant numbers. I’ll have her name in a moment, sir.”

  The boy glanced down at the book. “Pendant number one three seven, sir.” He turned to the back of the book where ships of the French Navy were listed by their numbers. “One three seven is La Perle, sir.”

  Moments were counting now: La Perle, approaching from the Calypso’s quarter, would have read her name on the transom and wasted time looking her up in the list: she was not there because her name had been changed when she became part of the Royal Navy. So La Perle’s Captain, already no doubt puzzled by the fact the challenge had been made by the Calypso and not the obvious victor, La Créole, would have no way of being sure of the seniority of the officer in the Calypso who had made the challenge.

  “Quickly now,” Ramage snapped. “Hoist one three seven and the signal for the captain to come on board—46.”

  So far so good: 46 ordered “the captain of the ship designated” to come on board the ship making the signal, and anyone seeing it hoisted would assume (Ramage hoped) that the officer making it knew he was the senior. The Captain of La Perle would guess that whoever was on board the Calypso knew his seniority, but he knew nothing of the Calypso. More important, he knew no lieutenant commanding La Créole would have the impertinence to order him on board. La Perle’s Captain should be very puzzled but, if Ramage’s guess was correct, he would obey. Any officer in that Frenchman’s position would (if he had any sense) obey because if he came on board and found that a junior officer had given the order, he could spend the next day or two making the fellow’s life a misery.

  The violent flapping of cloth, sounding like a squall hitting a line laden with wet laundry, made him glance up. The flags were being run up smartly, with Paolo almost dancing with impatience as he spurred on the two seamen hauling at the halyards.

  Ramage resumed his watch on La Perle. As she danced about in the circle made by the telescope he could see just how scruffy she was; her guns were run out, of course: seventeen a side, so she was pierced for thirty-four. But as she heeled in the gusts there was a dirty mark all the way along her waterline, the mark of a ship that spent much time in harbour without her captain making sure a boatload of men with scrubbing brushes kept her clean. And the yards—rust streaks marked the wood and the canvas, showing no one bothered to have the irons of the stun-sail booms chipped and scraped and painted. Rust marks weakened canvas, quite apart from looking untidy. The headsails sagged even though the wind was little more than a stiff breeze, showing that the forestays were slack and no one had bothered to take up the slack in the halyards as the ropes stretched. The sight of La Perle would give any British admiral—

  “She’s acknowledged, sir,” Orsini called.

  Aitken did not even look round; Southwick was still taking a bearing of her. The only person to catch Ramage’s eyes as he glanced across the deck was Jackson. Was the American the only one who realized that everything had depended on that signal? Not everything, Ramage corrected himself, but at least the success of the first part of his plan.

  How odd to see the Calypso’s decks so bare! A French frigate within three cables (he could distinguish men on board her now, so she was less than 700 yards away) and getting ready to heave-to to send over a boat—and the only sign of life on the British ship’s decks was the men lounging on the hammock nettings, two or three watching from the fo’c’s’le, and a few men on the quarterdeck.

  He was wearing a seaman’s white duck trousers and an open-necked blue shirt with a cutlass-belt over his shoulder; Aitken and Southwick had also borrowed clothes from some of the men and also wore cutlass-belts, without cutlasses. No breeches in sight—hurrah for France; this was the age of the sans-culottes. Breeches meant oppression; trousers stood for democracy. The Calypso’s decks were a picture of egalitarian slackness—viewed from La Perle anyway. The Frenchmen could not see the men waiting below, more than one hundred and fifty of them, ready to race up, trice up the port lids and run out the guns, which were already loaded, with handspikes, rammers and sponges lying beside them, and trigger lines neatly coiled, not in their usual place on the breech of each gun where they might be spotted by a sharp-eyed Frenchman aloft with a telescope, but on the deck.

  The Captain of La Perle was going to have to scramble on board as best he could: the Calypso was making only a couple of knots or, rather, La Créole was, and could not be expected to stop for him. Scrambling (and the prospect of it as his boat approached) would help keep the French Captain’s mind occupied, Ramage thought; he must be wondering why the Calypso had no canvas set to help La Créole. The frigate could of course be under tow for several reasons, not the least was damage to her steering, but some canvas set would make the schooner’s task much easier.

  Now La Perle was heaving-to; her fore-topsail was being hauled aback and a boat was being hoisted out with the stay tackle.

  Orsini and his seamen had hauled down the flags and were bundling them up again. The boy was bright enough, the way he had learned the French signal code in a few hours. It was a pity he had such difficulty with mathematics, but Ramage always felt hypocritical at punishing the lad when an exasperated Southwick insisted. Ramage’s own mathematics were poor; they had been sufficient to let him pass the examination for lieutenant and be thankful that no one would ever test him again for the rest of his naval career; once past lieutenant promotion did not depend on the mysteries of mathematical figures.

  The boat was being held alongside La Perle; now the men were settled in it. And the last man going on board must be the Captain. A squat, powerful-looking man with a fighting sword slung over his shoulder: no dress sword for him. They let the sternfast go, then the painter, and then the men at the oars were pulling briskly and clumsily for the Calypso.

  “Look at them, sir,” Jackson muttered disgustedly. As the Captain’s coxswain he always commanded the boat carrying Ramage, and he was offended by the way the French boat was being rowed. “I’ll bet they’ll lose an oar before they get alongside.”

  Ramage laughed—louder than he intended, but it was a relief to have La Perle’s Captain on his way, even if his boat’s crew rowed like drunken smugglers dodging a Revenue cutter.

  “Mr Aitken, I want four men ready to take that boat’s stern-fast and painter, b
ut warn them not to speak a word while they’re doing it; I don’t want those Frenchmen to get any warning.”

  Five minutes later Ramage was waiting a few feet back from the entry port. Jackson, Stafford and Rossi were standing nearby, looking like undisciplined seamen, but each had a pistol tucked into the top of his trousers and wore a cutlass. To La Perle’s Captain they were obviously some of the guards who were having a breath of fresh air, relaxing from the task of guarding the English prisoners held below.

  Aitken stood beside Ramage, a telescope under his arm and clearly the second in command. As Ramage waited, finding himself rubbing the scar over his eyebrow and cursing the sun’s glare—he could not wear his hat—he knew the deception need last only two or three minutes, perhaps less; just the time it took to get the Captain on board and the French boat astern, where it would tow with its crew still on board, a perfectly normal procedure.

  Suddenly a plump, wine-mottled face topped by a narrow-brimmed straw hat appeared at the entry port, rising as its owner climbed up the last of the battens. The man was the same height as Ramage with broader shoulders and a stomach long ago run to fat. His arms were long and he walked two or three paces without swinging them. Creased, unbleached canvas trousers, a dark-red shirt, blue eyes, a face unshaven for a couple of days, greasy skin that had not been washed for the same length of time … But, Ramage realized, La Perle’s Captain had the look of a reliable man and was probably a good seaman. A boatswain promoted by the Revolution?