Ramage's Signal

by Dudley Pope

  “Accidente!” Rossi said. “The Algerine could do with you as their admiral, sir, just to teach them how to sail our ships!”

  Chesneau simply shook him by the hand. “We are your prisoners again, m’sieu. Our freedom was brief—thanks to you.”

  Ramage grinned, and then noticed that they were rapidly drawing away from the dismasted Magpie.

  “Perhaps your men would be kind enough to lower the sail: it will take my men another five miles’ sailing to find out how it is done!”

  Chesneau barked out orders and the Frenchmen, putting down their muskets and pistols and grinning cheerfully, hurried to the halyard and vangs.

  Ramage caught Jackson’s eye and pointed to the muskets, and within a minute Baxter and Johnson were collecting up the small arms and taking them aft to the little cabin.

  Lying stopped half a mile to leeward of the Magpie, the Passe Partout looked as innocent as a vessel waiting in a calm and giving her men an hour or two to try their luck with fishhooks.

  Ramage and Martin watched the hulk of the Magpie. It was, Martin commented, hard to see the wreck for the Algerines: the ship looked more like a floating log covered with busy ants. Already they had cut away the sails to clear the after part of the ship, and now they were chopping at the shrouds holding the broken masts alongside the ship.

  “They’re in a panic,” Ramage said, “and either they do not have an effective captain or he was killed.”

  “Certainly Jackson’s swivels were quite effective—he found a few bags of musket balls and used them instead of round shot.”

  Ramage turned to Martin in surprise. “That was smart of him. Where were they?”

  “Actually the French master mentioned them to Orsini: he thought they’d be more useful than round shot. Jackson managed to get twenty-five into each swivel.”

  “One hundred and fifty musket balls in every broadside! Did he …”

  “Yes, sir: as the Magpie went across our stern, they managed to fire each swivel at her quarterdeck.”

  That was typically Jackson: he did not bother his Captain with the question of whether or not to substitute musket balls for round shot because he knew the answer and just went ahead and did it. And as a result it was unlikely that a man had been left alive abaft the Magpie’s mainmast.

  “There go the remains of her mainmast and the topmast,” Martin commented.

  “And the main boom and gaff,” Ramage said as he watched the spars float away.

  “Now they’re chopping like madmen to get the foremast clear.”

  “Yes,” Ramage said cheerfully, “and very soon someone over there is going to realize they have nothing left with which to jury-rig her.”

  Martin gave a boyish chuckle. The main boom could have been hoisted on shears and used as a jury mainmast, and the gaff could have made an emergency foremast. “They must have spare sails stowed below, but I can see the deck’s swept clean—yes, look over there, sir,” he said pointing to the east. “All that floating wreckage must be her smashed boats and the spare booms stowed alongside them.”

  “Well, they’ve a long row ahead of them,” Ramage said sourly, and Martin stared at him.

  “We don’t … ?”

  Ramage shook his head. “Here, take the glass and give me an estimate of how many men you think there are still alive on board.”

  Martin balanced himself, adjusted the focus of the glass and began counting in fives and had reached a hundred in less than half a minute. The next hundred took longer, and after two hundred and fifty he was counting in pairs.

  Finally he gave the glass back to Ramage. “Three hundred and seventy at least. Round the wheel the bodies are almost piled up.”

  “And the actual complement of the Calypso?” Ramage asked, to ram the point home.

  “Two hundred and twenty.”

  “And we have forty French prisoners from the semaphore station.”

  “I see what you mean, sir.”

  “No, you are just doing sums, two hundred and twenty of us against three hundred and seventy Algerines and 48 French. You don’t realize that every one of those Algerines regards you and me—in other words people who don’t worship their god—as infidels. When they capture an infidel they kill him or make him a slave. They do not surrender to infidels; they’d sooner die, which is why you can never capture an Algerine. If they’re outnumbered, they’ll blow the ship up or fight to the last man.”

  “So we leave them?”

  “We leave them,” Ramage said. “If they’d caught us, by now they would be flaying us, or using us as live targets for their muskets, or chopping off limbs with those damned scimitars of theirs.”

  He did not tell Martin that when the Calypso arrived, the Magpie would be battered until she sank. There were too many galleys rowed by hundreds of captured Dutch, Danes, French, British, Italians, Spaniards—anyone who did not come from Algeria or Tunisia and fell into their hands—for any Algerine to be shown mercy.

  The Calypso was a mile away now, tacking yet again in the long zigzag against the wind. He could imagine Aitken and Southwick running from one side of the quarterdeck to the other with their telescopes, trying to see exactly what had happened, and no doubt the lookouts aloft were receiving their share of abuse for not supplying more detailed answers.

  Rossi was proud of the way he had steered the Passe Partout and was just telling Jackson and Stafford for the third time how he and the Captain had turned the tartane under the Magpie’s flying jib-boom when the Cockney said impatiently: “While you was leaning comfortable against the tiller, Jacko and me and Baxter and Johnnie was usin’ the swivels to knock these h’Arabs down like starlings on a bough. ‘Ow many you reckon we got, Jacko?”

  “Twenty with each gun,” the American said soberly.

  “Madonna! These Saraceni die of fright, eh?”

  Jackson explained how, at the last moment, the French master had produced the bag of musket balls. “Nice and rusty, too,” Stafford said. “Teach them h’Arabs to chain up our chaps in galleys.”

  “And the Frenchies were cool enough, too,” Jackson said. “Each of ‘em was firing aimed shots with muskets and pistols, just like Mr Ramage told ‘em.”

  “Well, I thought we was all done for,” Stafford admitted. “I could feel me anchors draggin’ fer the next world. Surprisin’ how quick yer can fire a swivel when you ‘ave to.”

  “Now what is we doing?” Rossi asked Jackson.

  “Waiting for the Calypso to sink that schooner, I reckon.”

  “Is best,” Rossi said. “We rescue them and they kill us. More than three hundred and seventy of them; I heard Mr Martin counting.”

  Stafford shivered. “Ooh, I can feel ‘em nailing out my skin to dry in the sun. I’d make a lovely cushion cover in a harem.”

  “Here comes the Calypso,” Jackson said. “This tack’ll bring her practically alongside us.”

  “Jackson,” Ramage called. “Hoist number sixteen again.”

  “Aye aye, sir, number sixteen, ‘Engage the enemy more closely.’” As he extracted the flag from the bag he murmured: “If those heathens have any sense they’ll stop what they’re doing and start asking Allah, or whoever it is, to lend ‘em a hand.”

  As soon as the signal was hoisted the Calypso acknowledged it and bore away slightly. She looked a fine sight, spray slicing up from the stem, her port-lids open, the muzzles of her guns protruding like a row of stubby black fingers. Jackson noticed she was flying no colours—Mr Aitken must have decided he would not fight under French colours. Not that this was going to be a fight.

  First the Calypso’s fore and main courses were furled with all the speed and smartness as though she was coming into harbour with the admiral watching; then her topgallants followed until she was sailing under topsails and headsails, the fighting rig for a frigate.

  Paolo, standing amidships in the Passe Partout, felt cold, even though the sun was still scorching: his skin was covered in goose pimples and he wished he was on
board the Calypso, commanding a division of her guns.

  For centuries the Saraceni had raided the coasts of Italy; even now there was barely ten miles of coast not covered by a watch tower built—on the Tyrrhenian coast anyway—by Philip II of Spain as a warning system and defence against the Saraceni, who regularly landed from the sea by day or night and raided towns and villages. There was not a town in Tuscany that did not have a long history of attacks. La Bella Marsiglia—wasn’t that the name of the woman in one of the legends? She was beautiful beyond description and lived on the coast not far from Volterra. She was kidnapped by Saraceni raiders and taken away to their headquarters but, in the only Saraceni story he knew of that had a happy ending, the bey or dey of the city saw her before she was sold off as a slave, fell in love and married her.

  Thank goodness they never reached as far inland as Volterra, though the high walls with the nine gates should keep them out. Do the French continue the rule that the gates were shut an hour after sunset until an hour after dawn? Nine gates—and he was startled to find he could hardly remember their names now, except that the road from Rome came in at the Porta all’ Arco; from Siena and Florence by the Porta a Selci. He found it equally difficult to picture the Palazzo; all he could see in his mind was the great carved griffin over each main doorway, the arms and crest of the Kingdom of Volterra. He never did discover what dragon the griffin in the coat of arms was killing, but the griffin was certainly rampant and the victor.

  And there was the Calypso—he found himself cheering with the rest of them at the First Lieutenant’s seamanship: he backed the fore-topsail just to leeward of the Magpie so that as the frigate turned and stopped, the gun captains of the whole larboard broadside could aim almost at their leisure.

  There was a rumble, like the first hint of thunder in the mountains, and smoke spurted along on the Calypso’s larboard side and then began coming out of the open ports on the starboard side as the wind blew the rest of the smoke through the ship.

  Now the maintopsail was backed and the Calypso began making a sternboard so that her bow swung through 180 degrees and as she went slowly astern, passing the Magpie, she fired her starboard broadside.

  Paolo could picture the men hurriedly reloading the larboard guns now as the frigate’s yards were braced sharp up and she went ahead to pass under the Magpie’s stern and luff up on the schooner’s other side, once again backing her fore-topsail while her starboard broadside fired again. For the second time Aitken backed the maintopsail for another sternboard so that the frigate’s bow paid off and the larboard broadside would bear. Again the guns fired and Paolo could see the rippling flash from the muzzles, but the ship was becoming so full of smoke from four quick broadsides that the flashes were becoming glows. Despite the breeze the smoke was remaining, a low cloud hanging heavy, oily and opaque, blurring the Calypso’s outline.

  Paolo walked aft and asked Martin if he could use the glass: neither he nor Mr Ramage were using it. Before he turned the glass on the Magpie, Paolo saw that the Captain’s face was taut, as though the skin had shrunk; his high cheekbones seemed to have no flesh over them and his eyes were sunken, as if he had not slept for a week. Martin, too, was obviously upset; his face was white, and he was gripping the bulwark capping.

  The glass showed Paolo that the Magpie had been so battered by the Calypso’s broadsides that her planking and decking looked more like the sides of a cage. Men, Saraceni, were leaping over the side to avoid the round and grapeshot but they could not swim. And some of them, in moments before they jumped to their death, shook their fists first at the Passe Partout and then at the Calypso.

  Obviously Aitken was waiting for the smoke to clear, and Paolo saw Martin glance up at flag number sixteen, still hoisted at the peak of the Passe Partout’s lateen yard. Ramage saw the glance and knew what thoughts must be passing through Martin’s mind.

  “You must understand,” he said harshly, “that killing, robbing and raping are a religion to these men. You can’t train a fox not to kill hens; you can’t stop Algerines killing everyone who won’t bow before Allah. If you lowered a boat and rescued one of them now, the moment you dragged him on board he would pull out a dagger and kill you.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Martin said. “So Orsini told me.”

  At that moment the Magpie disappeared, sinking evenly as though lowered below the waves by some mechanical contrivance.

  Ramage said: “Mr Martin, would you be kind enough to signal for a boat so that I can return to my ship. You will remain in command of the Passe Partout until Mr Orsini feels confident enough to take over. In the meantime I presume you do not intend to keep number sixteen hoisted any longer.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE CALYPSO and the Passe Parout sailed back through the convoy and received a hero’s welcome: all the merchant ships cheered as they passed, three or four of them even firing salutes. Ramage thought of Chesneau, now a prisoner below in the Calypso along with the garrison of the semaphore station. Chesneau would hear the salutes and appreciate the joke; in fact Ramage decided to have him to dinner one day with Southwick, Aitken and young Martin. Orsini could come as well to help with the translation and enjoy a few hours’ rest from the Passe Partout.

  It was good to be back in the Calypso. Neither Aitken nor Southwick discussed his precipitate departure; in fact both took it as a matter of course, Southwick commenting that whether the Magpie had proved to be British or Algerine, he would have had to be there to make decisions.

  One fortunate effect was that the merchant ships now kept better station, and Martin, after the Passe Partout’s welcome by the convoy, was sent to the rear with orders to chase up any laggards.

  “When can we expect Martin back, sir?” Southwick asked that evening.

  Ramage told him what he had said to Martin and Orsini, and Southwick gave a rumbling laugh. “That’ll be the first time young Orsini ever badgered someone to teach him more mathematics!”

  “It should have an effect on both of them: Martin will have to keep on his toes and dredge his memory in order to run the ship, and Orsini will be prodding him—I hope.”

  Ramage went down to his cabin, telling Southwick to send down the master’s log. Sitting at his desk he saw the noon position noted down and the usual routine entries about winds, courses, distances and sail carried. Today’s entries recorded how much fresh water remained, that the ship’s company were employed “A.S.R.”—the abbreviation for “As the Service Required”—and that a cask of salt beef just opened and marked as containing 137 pieces in fact contained only 128. The contractor’s number stencilled on the cask was given and it was now up to the purser to try to get a refund from him. Like every other purser in one of the King’s ships, the Calypso’s would no doubt try, but government contractors thousands of miles away—indeed, even just down the road—had little to learn from the Algerines about robbery, and the Navy Board took no notice: commissioners of dockyards, notably ones like Sir Isaac Coffin, once a brave officer, were now rich men because of the bribes the contractors regularly paid them to look the other way. The contractor was paid by the Government for the amount of meat stencilled on the cask and the commissioner was paid off by the contractor, and the only ones who went short were the seamen …

  The noon position. The convoy was moving slowly. He took down a chart and unrolled it, put a finger on the position and looked across at their destination. Well, they would probably make better time after today’s scare, and with the Passe Partout cutting in and out, none of these mulish merchant ships would be reducing sail tonight. It was a habit of all shipmasters and no doubt forced on them by penny-pinching owners who did not want to give them big enough crews to reef and furl in the darkness if a squall came up. For the escorts, however, it was a wretched business because over most of the world’s oceans the wind usually dropped at night, not increased, and some of the big West Indian convoys would, no matter what the escorts did, make hardly any progress between dusk and dawn; indeed if th
ere was a foul current, they would often lose ground.

  Most frigate captains—all frigate captains, he corrected himself—did everything they could to avoid convoy duty. In the West Indies, being ordered to escort a homeward-bound convoy was a sure sign that the captain was out of favour with the admiral. Favoured captains were sent off cruising, searching among the islands and along the Main for enemy ships, capturing prizes, making plenty of prize-money—in which the admiral shared, of course.

  Now consider the case of Captain Ramage who by now, thanks no doubt to a few deaths among the hundreds of captains senior to him, and the fact that a few deserving lieutenants had recently been made post and thus joined the list below him to push him up a few places, had achieved a little seniority. At least, he was no longer the most junior.

  Captain Ramage had received orders from the Admiralty which many of his rivals would claim he did not deserve; to water and provision the Calypso for four months and then enter the Mediterranean and sink, burn or capture any enemy ships that he could and generally irritate and inconvenience the French.

  Wonderful orders, he had to admit. So what did Captain Ramage do? He deliberately arranged a convoy for himself! Not a British convoy, mind you, but a French one. And where was it sailing? Not in the West Indies or westward across the Atlantic, where one could usually rely on brisk Trade winds during the day, but the Mediterranean, where in 24 hours the wind, at this time of the year, could blow from nineteen different directions and vanish completely for the other five hours, leaving ships rolling and pitching, booms slamming, yards creaking, masts straining first the shrouds on one side and then the other, stretching so that the lanyards would have to be set up again at the first opportunity, and reducing men’s movements along the deck to a series of hurried lurches.

  Blackstrapped with a French convoy! Well, it would make an amusing story when told in the Green Room at Plymouth or by the naval members of Boodle’s or White’s, but for the moment he could only hope that Orsini knew the finer shades of French obscenities and Martin would not hesitate to let drive across a laggard’s bow or stern with one of those swivels.