Ramage's Signal

by Dudley Pope

  “All of them short of men, it seems. The sooner we get under way the better.”

  “Aye, sir, otherwise we’ll find ourselves with a brace of tartanes on the end of our jib-boom; it’ll be like spitting pickled onions with a skewer.”

  “We’ll weigh and get out of the bay before we light the poop lanterns; that’ll give us a lead of half a mile,” Ramage said.

  Aitken, who had joined them in time to hear the last few words, laughed and said: “I was going to suggest that m’self, sir: it’s like being surrounded by fifteen drunken bullocks.”

  “Or nervous old ladies clutching smoking grenades,” Ramage said. “They’re so scared of collision that at first most will be out of control because they daren’t set enough canvas to have proper steerage-way.”

  “We’ll play the highwayman, then, and make a quick escape. Starting now, sir?”

  It was a good half an hour before the sailing time Ramage had put in the orders, a copy of which Paolo had delivered to each ship, but by that time the Calypso must be well clear of the bay, steering the correct course and the triangle of poop lanterns acting as a guiding star for the merchant ships.

  Ramage, knowing that a collision tearing away shrouds and bringing down a mast would not only wreck this operation but bring the whole cruise to a stop and result in them being made prisoners, gave the order. Southwick went forward while Aitken passed the word for the bosun’s mates to rouse out both watches without using their shrill calls and without hearty bellows in English. Their voices would carry a long way on a night like this.

  The topmen had already been instructed that all they would hear from the deck would be a sequence of numbers hailed in French. In fact—although Ramage had not made the point—it did not matter if they forgot the actual words for the numbers as long as they remembered the sequence. The third order, or hail, for instance, could only mean “Trice up booms.”

  Ramage silently ran through the list of things to be done or checked before going to sea. He had done it hundreds of times in the past when, as a midshipman or lieutenant, some of the tasks had been his responsibility. Now he had three lieutenants and a master to make sure they were done; but if even one was accidentally omitted and the ship damaged or endangered, the court martial would find the captain guilty of negligence. That was what captains were there for …

  All but the bower anchor stowed; boats hoisted in and secured; ensign staff down—the Tricolour had already been taken in—and the dog-vanes put in the bulwarks, their feathers checked in the corks, the lines securing the corks inspected for wear and twists; sails ready for loosing—he had looked them over with the glass before darkness fell; tiller and relieving tackle inspected—he had done that immediately once they had anchored after the mistral. If they were leaving from one of His Majesty’s dockyards, he or Southwick would check that they had all the charts needed for the voyage, which reminded him that young Orsini must make a start on the copies of the charts for the French ships, and Ramage decided his clerk could lose a night’s sleep too, helping him. The clerk was an idler, the official word for a day worker. There were not many of them in a frigate and they included people like the cook and his mate, the carpenter’s crew, men whose regular routine was interrupted only by general quarters or, as in the case of the clerk, an unusual situation …

  He could hear the steady clunk, clunk, clank as the pawls dropped into place with the turning of the capstan barrel. There was none of John Smith the Second’s fiddle tonight; although he played it as another man might strangle a cat, the men liked to have him standing on the capstan head, sawing away. A seaman glided up to Aitken in the darkness with a message from Southwick—the anchor was at long stay, Ramage guessed. He looked around for any French merchantmen anchored in the way—this was just the sort of situation when you found a badly commanded ship lying between you and your anchor so that as you hove in your cable you came up to her. The result was usually unpleasant, the other ship complaining that they mistook your anchor buoy for a fishpot marker. How few people realized that it often took more skill to anchor a ship properly than sail her. It was an old adage in the Royal Navy that “A ship is known by her boats,” because badly painted and badly handled boats always came from slackly commanded ships. Ramage had his own addition to that—a badly anchored ship was always incompetently commanded.

  By now the Calypso’s anchor was up and Aitken was calling aloft the unaccustomed: “Un … deux … trois …”

  Southwick had been correct in his claim that some of the ships had not anchored, because as soon as they saw the Calypso’s topsails let fall, they began setting sail.

  Once the frigate was clear of the Baie de Foix, Ramage told Aitken: “Have the poop lanterns lit,” and a few minutes later was cursing the sooty smell that the gentle north-westerly breeze would keep drifting forward across the quarterdeck.

  Southwick came bustling up, his work on the fo’c’s’le completed. “It’s the same as being the first out of church, sir; you avoid meeting all the people you don’t like.”

  “I can’t picture you in or out of a church.”

  “True, but my sister always makes me go to both matins and evensong when I am on leave.”

  “I should think so,” Ramage said. “She has a well-developed sense of duty.”

  “She’s more concerned with showing her brother off to the neighbours,” Southwick grumbled. “I don’t get the impression she worries too much about my immortal soul.”

  “Well, someone ought to, because I have the feeling”—Ramage waved astern towards the merchant ships now setting sail—”that it’s going to be strained for the next few days.”

  “Escorting a convoy with one ship is like leading a flock of sheep without a dog,” Southwick said crossly. “No one to chase up the laggards.”

  “Cheer up,” Ramage teased him. “It could be worse.”

  “I doubt it. I’ve never escorted a convoy of British ships where at least half the masters weren’t mules. But a mixture of French and Spanish—can you imagine it, sir?”

  “I can, only too vividly,” Ramage admitted. “And the Dons don’t trust the French anyway, and the French are already angry that the escorts—they were expecting more than a frigate—did not arrive.”

  “I know what I’d like to do,” Southwick muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Board the biggest two, send ‘em to Gibraltar as prizes, and sink the rest.”

  “So would I,” Ramage said quietly, “but the prizes would never get there. They’d be recaptured by the French or Spanish in a few hours, and we’d end up losing a couple of good prize crews.”

  “I suppose so, sir,” Southwick said grudgingly, puzzled because he knew the order sent to each of the ships was to make for a place in the opposite direction to Gibraltar, and that the Calypso was going to lead them there. And a discreet inquiry of Aitken showed that the Captain had not given a hint to the First Lieutenant either about what he intended to do with these mules.

  Look at them, he told himself, they’ve only just left the bay, and have the Calypso’s three lights to make for, as clear as a lighthouse, and they’re already spreading out across ten points of the horizon.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WILL STAFFORD had worked it all out without any difficulty, he told Jackson and Rossi. The Captain had very cunningly ordered the convoy to come to the bay; now he was going to lead it to Gibraltar, lowering the French colours as the Calypso hauled her wind to make up for Europa Point.

  The three men, off watch, were sitting on the fo’c’s’le gossiping and enjoying the mellow Mediterranean night, finding it too hot with the light following wind to go below.

  Jackson, pointing at the Pole Star, said mildly: “We’re steering about south-east. That means Sardinia, Sicily, Egypt or the Morea. It doesn’t mean Gibraltar, which happens to be in the opposite direction.”

  “We’re just getting a good offing before we turn into the Gut,” Stafford said airily. “We don’t
want to get caught in a Levanter with Spain to leeward. These mules couldn’t claw off a carpet, let alone a dead lee shore.”

  “They’ve been clawing off lee shores for years,” Jackson commented. “You don’t live long in the Mediterranean otherwise.”

  “Italy,” Rossi said, as though announcing its discovery. “The Captain is sailing back to Italy.”

  “On this course it could be—the southern part, anyway,” Jackson agreed. “But why Italy?”

  “He has friends there—I know,” Rossi said darkly.

  “The Marchesa’s living in England, Volterra’s occupied, we’ve just finished making the Calypso very unpopular round Elba, so can tell you the Captain has no friends there—I know!” Jackson said.

  “Why did Mr Orsini go to all the ships when they arrived then?”

  “Because he speaks fluent French,” Jackson said.

  “And Italian,” Rossi said triumphantly.

  “And Spanish!” said Stafford, not to be outdone.

  “So he could talk with the Spanish captains as well as the French,” Jackson said. “If he spoke a word of Italian tonight, it was to swear when he banged his shin on a thwart.”

  “How do you know he banged his shin on a thwart?” demanded Rossi. “You weren’t in the boat.”

  “My oath,” Stafford grumbled, “you really are ‘ard work, Rossi my old sparrer.”

  “Sparrer? Who is he?”

  “Sparrow,” Jackson said. “Stafford’s English is not very good. The bird. Little brown things, you see thousands of them everywhere.”

  “Why does he call me a sparrer, then? Rossignol, perhaps. I sing not so good as the nightcap—”

  “Nightingale,” Jackson corrected him.

  “—as the nightingale, then, but as for this sparrer—”

  “Look, t’aint nothing ter do with singing,” Stafford said. “It’s—well, where I come from to call someone ‘My old cock sparrer’ is like, well, ‘mate,’ or ‘chum.’”

  “Perhaps, but this cock sparrer I do not like,” Rossi said firmly. “They shit all over you. I know. Even in Milan Cathedral during the Blessing.”

  “All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Stafford said. “But why are we going to Italy?”

  “I didn’t say we were definitely going,” Rossi said impatiently. “I just hope we are.”

  “Why?”

  “This bloody Spanish blackstrap, that’s why,” Rossi said crossly.

  “The only true red wine is from Toscana—Tuscany, you call it. This Spanish vinegar the purser was given in Gibraltar—even Napolitani wouldn’t drink it, and they’re not particular if it is free.”

  “Mention it to the Captain,” Jackson teased.

  “Mama mia, you know how much he drinks.”

  Jackson looked astern. “Well, the convoy is forming up astern of us, so the course is south-east for the night anyway.”

  “Very strange,” Stafford said. “You must admit that, Jacko; it’s very strange.”

  “I admit that,” Jackson said readily enough, “but it’s ‘very strange’ things on Mr Ramage’s part that’s put a pile of prize-money in your pocket. How much are you worth now?”

  “A few ‘undred guineas,” Stafford admitted. “Enough to buy a nice quiet inn whenever I feel the urge to ‘run’ or the war ends.”

  “Don’t ‘run,’” Jackson advised. “They’d pick you up in a couple of days, and the soldiers would relieve you of your guineas, too.”

  “I was only jokin’, but I got enough put away for a nice wife and a nice old age. In fac’ I was thinking only the other day, the press-gang did me a good turn.”

  “Yes, you certainly wouldn’t have made a tenth of that burgling.”

  “Burgling?” Stafford was horrified. “I was a locksmith.”

  “Yes, we know,” Rossi said ironically. “Always working by night.”

  “Shut up!” hissed Jackson. “What’s that noise?”

  It was not a single noise but a continuous one, starting off with an eerie creaking and groaning aloft which quickly merged into a crackling like the snapping of dried sticks and reached a climax with a bang like a gunshot. The three men looking aloft and aft, up at the foremast, saw the foreyard break into halves and come crashing down to the deck, leaving the topsail on the yard above ripped to pieces and beginning to flog in the wind.

  Both Rossi and Stafford began to run aft but Jackson shouted to them to stop. In the few seconds it had taken to happen he had realized that as the two halves of the great yard—the second largest in the ship, seventy feet long and a foot and a half in diameter—hit the deck there had been no screams of pain, so it was unlikely that any injured men were trapped. And there was still more wreckage to fall—blocks the size of small church bells, perhaps the stunsail booms were still up there, caught in the rigging and yet to fall … As he waited his fears were confirmed; heavy objects thudded down on to the deck like falling round shot, blocks slid off the ropes or ripped tackles, great sections of the torn foresail, which had been furled on the yard, fell like bales of straw, still bound by gaskets and tangled in clew-lines and buntlines.

  Then he saw men coming from aft with lanterns, advancing cautiously. “Right lads, now we can go, but watch for anything else coming down.”

  Aitken and Southwick had been standing with Ramage on the quarterdeck when the yard broke; both had begun to run forward, both had been halted by Ramage for the same reason Jackson had stopped the two seamen.

  Once lanterns had been hurriedly lit, Ramage stayed at the quarterdeck rail as the First Lieutenant and Master went forward to begin with a search for injured men. Ramage knew only too well what had happened; all that mattered was first that no men had been hurt and second that the yard could be repaired. The carpenter was a good man and no doubt he and his mates could fish the two halves together again, because although the Calypso had spare topsail yards and topgallant yards stowed along the booms beside the boats, she did not have spare fore and main yards. He picked up the speaking-trumpet and called for the bosun.

  The man came running up the quarterdeck ladder as though answering a routine hail.

  “Get the spare topsail sent up on deck from the sailroom, and a pair of slings. Leave the new foresail for the time being. I want that topsail hoisted up and bent on first. From the look of it there won’t be much to save from the old one.”

  “No, sir. Pity the sheets didn’t part …”

  The topsail sheets passed through shoulder blocks at each end of the lower yardarm so that when the yard broke and fell its weight wrenched down on the sheets, which were secured one at each lower corner of the topsail, and tore it in half as one might rip a sheet of paper by pulling on the two lower corners.

  Now was the time that Ramage detested being the Captain: he would prefer to be forward there, going through the wreckage, making sure none of the men were trapped, seeing exactly what the damage was (apart from the broken yard, he would be lucky if two guns each side had not been dismounted and the carriages smashed), and assessing the best way of repairing it. Carpenters were skilled men but he found that sometimes they were narrow in their ideas.

  He turned away deliberately and walked slowly aft, making sure he did not have his night vision affected by the reflection of one of the poop lanterns on a shiny section of the taffrail. With his night-glass he looked at the ships astern. No formation, not a set of masts in line to show they were on the same course. To work out which tack they were on he had to reverse in his mind what he saw with his eye, as well as visualize the ships the right way up. He shut the telescope with an impatient gesture: all the ships lacked was a drover and his dog, then they would look like ewes on their way to the market. However, he had to be fair; the three largest ships were reasonably close to the Calypso’s wake and no doubt the rest would soon follow like children scared of the dark.

  He called to the quartermaster and was told the ship was handling well under the maintopsail alone, despite the flogging remnants of the
fore-topsail, and even as the man replied, Ramage heard the noise lessen and, glancing up, saw that topmen were already out on the topsail yard, cutting the lacings securing the remains of the sail, which floated down like ghostly nightshirts.

  Kenton came out of the darkness and saluted.

  “The First Lieutenant ordered me to report, sir. The foreyard broke in a split twelve feet long and Mr Aitken says it will be easy to fish. The foresail, as far as we can see because the gaskets still secure most of it to the pieces of the yard, can be repaired. Five guns—three to larboard and two to starboard dismounted, but only one carriage smashed.”

  “The injured,” Ramage interrupted. “How many?”

  “Oh, none, sir,” Kenton said, the surprise showing in his voice. “The deck is badly scored, a section of the starboard bulwark is stove in, but not a man hurt.”

  “Very well, what else?”

  “That’s all for now, sir: the carpenter is inspecting it. He will be reporting to you in five or ten minutes, but I heard Southwick say he reckoned the heat of the Tropics had made the wood brittle, and that bad weather a few days ago …”

  “Twelve feet, you say?”

  “At least, sir. A nice clean split. Glue, fish and woolding …” The carpenter was the next to report. He was a small, wizened man but because he refused to wear a hat his face and forehead always had a deep tan—a colour, Southwick always maintained, halfway between oiled teak and varnished mahogany, teasing the carpenter that he was carved from a wood unknown to man.

  Lewis was a Man of Kent, not a Kentish Man. He was always careful to explain that it was a matter of which side of the Medway a man was born. He had been born, in fact, within a few miles of one of Ramage’s uncles: while repairing a drawer of the Captain’s desk one day he had casually mentioned that as a boy he poached regularly over the uncle’s estate, and even as a grown man before the war, whenever he had leave he enjoyed taking out a ferret of a night and netting a few burrows.