by Dudley Pope
“There’s something out there, just south of Vacca,” Ramage said to Southwick as he hurried aft to the binnacle box drawer to get the night-glass. He was back in a moment and resting his elbows on the capping of the rail to steady the glass.
“It’s a ship …”
“What’s her course, sir?”
“I think she’s heading for the gulf … Blast this glass; it’s hard to work out everything upside-down … Yes, she’s on the starboard tack, the moon is lighting up her sails well. Not much wind out there … Yes, I have the line of her masts now … she’s probably heading for Cala Piombo. That’s about twelve miles from here at the south end of the gulf, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Southwick said. “An easy anchorage to make for on a moonlit night ‘cos you can pick up that tower.”
Ramage concentrated for another minute or two, knowing it was very easy to make mistakes with the night-glass because, apart from showing ships upside-down, it also made them appear to be on the opposite tack.
“Our lads will have a long row down there with boats,” Southwick said. “Still, if she sights us all anchored this end of the gulf, perhaps she’ll change her mind and join us.”
“That might be a mixed blessing,” Ramage said grimly. “She’s a French ship of the line.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHILE Southwick sent away the two cutters and pinnace to take off the French from the three remaining merchant ships and the jolly-boat rowed over to recall the gig and launch when they left the beach, the bosun’s mates hurried through the Calypso sending the men to quarters.
Quickly and quietly they wetted and sanded the decks, put match tubs between the guns, half filling them with water, and set out larger tubs in which the sponges could be soaked when sponging out the guns. The gunner took the large, bronze magazine key from Ramage and went below to begin issuing flintlocks, lanyards, prickers and powder horns to each of the gun captains and be ready to issue cartridges to the powder boys.
Southwick was looking at his watch and cursing.
“We’re lucky the dam’ French 74 isn’t steering for us; I’ve never known the men to take so long!”
“You must be patient,” Ramage murmured, knowing his own reputation as the most impatient man in the ship. “Don’t forget we hardly have a gun captain left on board: nearly all the men are doing someone else’s job, and they’re not used to it.”
“Aye,” Southwick admitted, “but they’ve been exercised enough at exchanging jobs.”
“It’s not the same. Telling every fourth man he’s a casualty and making the rest move round is no good because each replacement sees what the previous man was doing.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Southwick said, and Ramage admitted the thought had only just come to him. In future—if there was a future, with a ship of the line coming into the gulf like the door of a trap closing—he would start all exercise at the great guns by jumbling the men’s numbers. Or perhaps just subtracting three, so everyone had to change.
He swung the glass back to the French ship. She was still well outside the gulf and clewing up her main and forecourse, so she would enter the gulf in a leisurely fashion under topsails alone. In this light breeze! If her bottom had the usual crop of barnacles and she was in fact making for Cala Piombo, or even the one to the north of it, she had at least fifteen miles to sail, and she must be making only three or four knots.
All that made sense. If the French captain had never been into the gulf before, he was coming in under the worst possible conditions (barring a gale, of course): running in at night before a west wind meant he was coming up to a lee shore and sailing straight towards a full moon still low on the horizon, so that all the hills and cliffs were shadowy, making it very difficult to judge distances. The land at six miles would look as though it was only three miles away.
In fact, Ramage realized, almost giving an audible sigh of relief, the Calypso herself would be indistinguishable against the shadow of the cliffs and hills behind her, which from the Frenchman’s position were higher than her masts. The French 74 would spot some of the merchant ships anchored much farther out, but they would be easily identifiable; just the coasting vessels she would expect to find anchored for the night in a place like the Golfo di Palmas.
With the night-glass Ramage could see the jolly-boat, gig and launch returning to the Calypso from the beach and, a moment later, spotted one of the cutters leaving a merchantman. Only one? Then he detected movement beside another merchantman and saw the second cutter leave her and head for the shore. Either the men commanding the cutters were confident or disobedient, because both cutters were supposed to tackle a ship together … Well, as long as there were no flares or flashes of musketry to attract the attention of the 74, it did not matter. It was, he thought, the sort of thing young Orsini would do—or Martin. Or, he admitted, himself when he was a midshipman or lieutenant.
Southwick now went through what Ramage knew only too well as his disapproving ritual. First he took off his hat and scratched his head; then he ran his fingers through his flowing white hair to straighten it out; then he jammed his hat back on again, rubbed his stomach with a circular motion, as though trying to assist his digestion, and then gave a sharp sniff.
“We cut and run, eh, sir, as soon as she’s anchored?”
It was, of course, the only sensible thing to do: they would be able to see the 74 anchoring down at the other end of the gulf and the moment she had an anchor down and was busy furling sails the Calypso would cut her cable—indeed, they could start weighing now if they wanted to avoid losing both anchor and cable—let fall her topsails and courses, and beat out of the gulf, staying as far to the north as possible: shaving between the south end of Sant’ Antioco and Isolotto la Vacca. The Frenchman, eight or ten miles to the south, would never catch them …
“Seems a pity, doesn’t it?” Ramage said casually, trying to remember the details in Orsini’s list of the main cargoes carried by the remaining merchant ships. Aitken had gone off with the six ships carrying the most valuable cargoes; those left here at anchor, and which he had been intending to burn tomorrow, were stowed with mundane things like the poor-quality powder, whose prize value Southwick had just been bemoaning.
Half an hour later Ramage and Southwick finally reached a compromise in the quiet of the cabin, and Ramage admitted that it improved the chances of success. Ramage had first intended using one ship, which he would command, leaving Southwick on board the Calypso.
This had brought an immediate and explosive protest from the Master.
“Sir, I’m beginning to think you reckon me too old, or getting too stupid; this job is one for a lieutenant or master, not a post captain. I’m the only officer you have, but …”
“Nonsense,” Ramage said, and to smooth Southwick’s pride, freely admitted: “It’s not lack of faith in you; I’m just being greedy.”
Southwick had guessed that from the start, but he also knew that a display of injured pride represented his only chance of seeing any action tonight.
“Let me look at the list of cargoes again,” Ramage said. Orsini’s writing, never very clear, had been little more than a scribble, done standing up as he talked to each master at Foix.
Most of the eight ships were carrying powder, but only two, the brigs Muscade and the Merle, carried any substantial quantity. The first had more than seventy-five tons on board, the second more than one hundred and fifty.
Ramage tried to picture one of them exploding. Unlike powder in a gun, where the only way the explosive force could go was up the barrel, powder stored in a ship’s hold would explode in every direction; there was no way of aiming or channelling it.
It was like prize-fighting: if your opponent swayed back when you punched him on his jaw, much of the force of your blow was lost. But if you managed to hold his head with your left hand and then hit him with your right, you might not kill him but would certainly knock him out, because the full force of the blow would be
concentrated on a small area. The crowd betting on him might well set about you with stools, bricks and walking canes, but you would have the satisfaction of winning the fight.
He needed exactly that for the attack on the French 74—a hand holding one side to avoid losing most of the effect of a merchantman exploding on the other.
The answer was, of course, to have a merchant ship exploding on each side at the same moment. And that was how the compromise came about.
“Who will you leave in command of the Calypso, sir?” Southwick asked.
“I’ve no choice: under the regulations it must be the next senior officer after you, which means the gunner.”
Southwick gave a rumbling laugh that lasted a full minute. “The gunner!” he finally gasped unbelievingly. “He wouldn’t even take responsibility for eight men and a jolly-boat, let alone command of one of the prizes in Aitken’s convoy. Now he’s going to be stuck with the Calypso. Sir,” he asked pleadingly, “may I be the one to tell him?”
“Yes—and you’d better warn him that if neither of us comes back, he’ll have to take the Calypso to Gibraltar.”
“I think Bowen had better be standing by with some medicinal brandy!”
“You know, Bowen wouldn’t even blink if I told him that he had to get the Calypso to Gibraltar.”
“He certainly wouldn’t,” Southwick agreed, “but he’s an unusual surgeon.”
“Yes, and he can play chess.”
Southwick grinned ruefully. “I’m getting the average down, sir; I doubt if I lose two games out of five to him these days.”
“I’m glad of that, but we’d better start preparing those two ships. The Frenchman won’t be inside the gulf for another half an hour, but it’s going to take time for us to get the Muscade and the Merle down to Cala Piombo, if that’s where she anchors.”
“These blasted French names,” Southwick grumbled, “what do they mean?”
“Muscade is nutmeg—I expect she was sailing to the spice islands of the West Indies before the war. Merle is simply ‘blackbird.’”
Southwick nodded and picked up his hat. “I’ll go up on deck and see where our French friend has got to. I expect you’ll want to pick our men.”
After the Master had gone, Ramage took a pencil. He did not need the muster book to choose the men. From what he could remember of the Muscade and the Merle, both were brigs of similar size, about two hundred and fifty tons. He had not considered them for Gibraltar because he guessed the Admiral would refuse to buy in French powder.
He and Southwick needed the minimum number of men for the operation to keep the boats light. Escaping afterwards would mean rowing like madmen for several minutes. The fastest boat was the gig, so Southwick should have it for the Muscade. He would take one of the cutters with the Merle.
There would be no seconds-in-command; it would be a brief voyage for both brigs. A man at the wheel, eight topmen, three men to handle grapnels, three more for sheets and braces, and then light fuses, and a boat-keeper, and that would be all. That made sixteen, seventeen adding in himself or Southwick. The gig carried sixteen, with eight at the oars, so each boat would be only two-thirds full. The same for the cutter. The totals did not allow for casualties, but that could not be helped.
Small arms? A few pistols and cutlasses, but there should be no fighting. They would need several axes, plenty of slowmatch, flint and steel, and some lanterns to light the film.
Southwick came down the companion-way and into the cabin as the sentry announced him.
“She’s still about a mile or more outside the gulf beyond Sant’ Antioco. She’s not making more than a couple of knots under topsails.”
“The Captain’s nervous of the gulf all right, but he may not have a decent chart.”
Ramage quickly outlined his plans and his orders for Southwick, who protested at being given the gig. “That’s the captain’s boat,” he said. “You should have her, sir.”
“I prefer a cutter, and anyway the boat carrying your weight has to be light.”
Southwick grinned and patted his stomach. “Have you chosen your men yet, sir?”
“No—I’d like to have Jackson and Stafford, but I suggest you muster the topmen and divide them up. Some Marines for the slowmatch, seamen for the grapnels. Oh yes, and boat-keepers: as we’re towing our boats they might get painters tangled …” There was no need to elaborate on that risk.
“Can I go and tell the gunner now, sir?”
Ramage grinned and nodded. “Then we’d better get over to our ships. At least we won’t have to bother to weigh or buoy the anchor cables!”
Southwick paused a moment. “Ten minutes for the slow-match—isn’t that rather long, sir?”
“Ten minutes is not a very long time to get everyone down into the boats and row a hundred yards.”
“I suppose not, sir, but I was thinking of the French boarding and putting ‘em out.”
“They won’t know where to look; they’ll be taken by surprise and will assume the Merle and Muscade are fire-ships, so they’ll be expecting flames.”
Ramage scrambled up the side of the Merle, a pistol-butt grinding into his ribs, and followed by Jackson and the rest of the men in the red cutter, leaving behind only the boat-keeper. He kept the painter clear of the chain-wales and port-lids as another of the men let the boat drift aft and then made up the rope on a convenient cleat with a cheery: “You’ll be best off if we make any mistake wiv the powder!”
Two seamen held lanterns while another two swung big mauls to drive out the wooden wedges holding the battens in place round the edge of the coamings to free the heavy canvas cover protecting the thick hatch boards.
“Just get out three boards,” Ramage said, and the canvas was rolled back enough for them to be lifted up.
Even the weak light of the lantern showed that Ramage’s guess had been right, and the powder had been stowed in the aftermost of the brig’s two holds: the copper hoops of the powder barrels reflected a dull redness. They were well stowed with shifting boards. “Bung up and bilge free,” Ramage thought to himself: the bung of each barrel was uppermost, and none of the barrels rested against the side, or the bilge, of the ship. A wise shipper always paid a premium and specified that his goods, if in barrels, should be stowed “bung up and bilge free,” but the master of a ship carrying so much powder needed no urging: a bung working itself loose as the ship pitched would mean, if the barrel was not stowed bung uppermost, that a sixth of a ton of powder would cascade into the bilges and, despite the copper hoops, if one barrel rubbed against another, it could cause sufficient friction to ignite a few grains—fewer than a dandy would bother to blow from his sleeve if he spilled some snuff—and that would be enough to destroy the ship.
The top tier of barrels was only three feet below the level of the hatch coaming, and Ramage looked round for Stafford.
“You have those lengths of fuse?”
“Aye aye, sir.” Stafford held up a canvas bag.
The sight of the bag made Ramage angry again. He had asked the gunner for lengths of slowmatch that would burn ten minutes, with a foot left over at one end. The damned man had backed and filled, saying he could not be certain of the burning time of a length of slowmatch between five minutes and thirty. Finally Ramage had decided to use the much less rugged fuse, and fortunately the Calypso’s magazine contained two types made from mealed powder, the finest available. But again the gunner had avoided specifying the speeds at which they burned, and an enraged and frustrated Ramage had made the man bring up his notebooks and found that they recorded that fuse made from good mealed powder burned at the rate of three inches in seven seconds and the other twelve inches in one minute. Ramage chose the slower and had then given the whole coil to Jackson and Stafford. After doing a quick sum, he told them to cut ten eleven-foot lengths. That would give each one ten minutes’ burning time, plus a foot.
Five lengths had been handed over to Southwick for the Muscade, and now Stafford had five length
s for the Merle. Fuse burned fast, so for this sort of work long lengths were needed; on the other hand, with the longer fuse, as Jackson had pointed out, there was the advantage that when the fuse was first lit the flame was farther from the powder.
Already two seamen were calling from the outboard end of the starboard maintopsail yardarm to a third standing below. Ramage heard a thud as a rope dropped, then the rattle of chain. They were fitting the first of the grapnels which would hang from all the yards at varying heights, ready to catch in the French 74’s rigging or any hull projection so that the Merle stuck to her like a burr on a woollen sock.
The topmen, without awaiting orders, were already aloft, checking over the gaskets holding the sails furled and slackening them, and making sure of the lead of halyards. As soon as they finished their work, the grapnel men would trace the leads of braces, sheets and tacks.
After glancing at his watch by the light of the lantern that Jackson was carrying (Ramage and Southwick had decided that apart from the 74 being too far away to see any lights, it would be quite natural for lanterns to be in use on board merchant ships at anchor) he found they were several minutes ahead of the rough schedule.
Ramage went back to the opened hatch and found Stafford and another seaman, Wells, inside and grunting as they gently tapped out the bung of a powder barrel using a small copperheaded maul.
Stafford glanced up and saw Ramage standing in the moonlight looking down at him. “Yer know, sir, gives yer a funny feelin’ sittin’ on top o’ a hunerd an’ fifty tons o’ powder!”
“I’m sure it does. Try standing,” Ramage said unsympathetically. “And even though I’m up here, I doubt if the extra inch of deck planking gives me much of an advantage.”
“S’pose not, sir, but this bluddy bung … ah! Here she comes.”
The moonlight was bright enough for Ramage to spot the small hole in the top of the barrel and see how carefully Stafford wiped the bung clean of powder and put it down beside the maul. Then he pushed a finger into the hole, obviously testing how far it was to the powder, which always shook down like flour in a jar.