Ramage's Devil r-13

by Dudley Pope

  If the bearing stayed the same and the sail drew closer the Calypso must be overhauling the strange vessel, and it was unlikely that the Calypso was being outdistanced. If the sail passed to starboard, then whoever she was must be bound north; passing to larboard would show she was going south.

  Southwick had heard the lookout's hail and came on deck, his round face grinning, his white hair flowing like a new mop.

  'Think it's our friend, sir?'

  'I doubt it; we couldn't be that lucky. She's probably a Post Office packet bound for Barbados with the mail.'

  Southwick shook his head, reminding Ramage of a seaman twirling a dry mop before plunging it into a bucket of water. 'We'd never catch up with a packet. Those Post Office brigs are slippery.'

  'Could be one of our own frigates sent out by the Admiralty with dispatches for the governors of the British islands, telling them war has been declared.' Ramage thought a moment and then said: 'Yes, she could be. She'd have sailed from Portsmouth before the Channel Fleet, of course, and run into head winds or been becalmed.'

  He looked round and realized that it had been a long time since he had given this particular order: 'Send the men to quarters, Mr Aitken. I want Jackson aloft with the bring-'em-near - he's still the man with the sharpest eyes. I must go below and look up the private signals.'

  He went down to his cabin, sat at the desk and unlocked a drawer, removing the large canvas wallet which was heavy from the bar of lead sewn along the bottom and patterned with brass grommets protecting holes that would allow water to pour in and sink it quickly the moment it was thrown over the side.

  He unlaced the wallet and removed five sheets of paper. They were held together by stitching down the left-hand side, so that they made a small booklet, a thin strip of lead wrapped round the edge hammered flat and forming a narrow binding.

  The first page was headed 'Private Signals' with the note 'Channel Fleet' and the date. The first two paragraphs, signed by Admiral Clinton, showed their importance: they were, with the Signal Book, the most closely guarded papers on board any ship of war.

  Ramage noted that the wording of the warning was similar if not identical to that in the document he had studied with Lieutenant Swan on board the Murex.

  Any ship of war passing through the area cruised by the Channel Fleet would have a copy of this set of flag tables for challenging and distinguishing friend from enemy. The system was simple: depending on the day of the month (the actual month itself did not matter), there was a special challenge with its own answer.

  There were four main vertical columns divided into ten horizontal sections. The first section of the first column contained the numbers 1,11,21,31, and referred to those dates. The section immediately below had 2,12,22, with 3,13,23 below and then 4, 14, 24, until the tenth section ended up with 10, 20, 30, so that every day in a month was covered.

  The next column had the same two phrases in each of its ten sections: 'The first signal made is- , and 'Answered by a-', and referred to the next two columns. The third was headed by 'Maintopmasthead', and gave the appropriate signals to be hoisted there, while the fourth and last column headed 'Foretopmasthead' gave the signals to go up there.

  Ramage noted that today was the eleventh of the month, and the date '11' was the second in the first column. The 'first signal' made would be a white flag with a blue cross (the figure two in the numeral code of flags) hoisted at the maintopmasthead and a blue flag with a yellow cross (numeral seven) at the foretopmasthead. One ship or the other (it did not matter which) would challenge first with those two, and be answered by a blue, white and red flag (numeral nine) at the maintopmasthead and a pendant over blue pierced with white (numeral zero) at the foretopmasthead. Numeral flags hoisted singly by a senior officer had a different meaning, but these were given in the Signal Book and there could be no confusion.

  The last page of the booklet gave the private signals to be used at night - combinations of lights hoisted in different positions, and hails. Ramage noted that whoever thought up the hails must have an interest in geography: the month was divided into thirds, with the various challenges and replies being 'Russia - Sweden', 'Bengal - China', and 'Denmark - Switzerland'.

  To complicate the whole system, the day began at midnight for the flag signals (corresponding to the civil day), while it began at noon for the night signals, and thus corresponded with the noon-to-noon nautical day used in the logs and journals.

  Ramage repeated the numbers to himself - two and seven are the challenge, nine and zero the reply. He put the signals back in the wallet, knotted the drawstrings, and returned it to the drawer, which he locked.

  How long before Jackson would be reporting?

  The cabin was hot: he longed for the loose and comfortable fisherman's trousers, but they had been taken away with the smock by a disapproving Silkin, whose face was less lugubrious now he had the captain regularly and properly dressed in stockings, breeches, coat, shirt, stock and cocked hat. That the breeches were tight at the knees and the stock became soaked with perspiration and chafed the skin of the neck (and rasped as soon as the whiskers began sprouting again three or four hours after shaving) was no concern to Silkin: to him those discomforts were the sartorial price a gentleman had to pay, and Silkin regarded any article of clothing as 'soiled' if it was only creased.

  Ramage knew that by now the men would be at general quarters: indeed, the Marine sentry had already reported that the men who would be serving the two 12-pounders in the great cabin and the single ones in the coach and bed place were waiting to be allowed in to cast off the lashings and prepare the guns, hinge up the bulkheads and strike the few sticks of furniture below the gundeck. Ramage picked up his hat and left the cabin, nodding to the guns' crews as he went up on deck and pulling the front of his hat down to shield his eyes from the sun, which glared down from the sky and reflected up from the waves.

  He told Aitken the flag numbers for the challenge and reply, said he did not want the guns run out for the time being, and then joined Southwick standing at the quarterdeck rail, looking forward the length of the ship. Men were hurrying about but none ran: each had that sense of purposefulness that came from constant training and which led to them using the minimum of effort needed to do a task. The decks had already been wetted and sand sprinkled, so that if the ship did go into action the damp planks would stop any spilt powder being ignited by friction and the sand would prevent it blowing about as well as stop feet slipping.

  The flintlocks had been fitted to the guns. Powder boys holding cartridge boxes sat along the centreline, one behind each pair of guns, while each gun captain had fitted the firing lanyard to the lock, the lanyard being long enough for him to kneel behind the gun and fire it well clear of the recoil. A small tub of water stood between each pair of guns with lengths of slowmatch fitted into notches round the top edge and burning so that any glowing piece fell into the water. They would be used only if a flintlock misfired. The cook had just doused the galley fire at the order for general quarters, and the slowmatch were the only things burning in the ship.

  Below, 'fearnought' screens, thick material like heavy blankets, would have been unrolled and now hung down to make the entrance to the magazine almost a maze. Where men had now to jink about to get in, it was sure no flash from an accidental explosion would penetrate. The gunner was down inside the magazine, wearing felt shoes so that there could be no sparks inside the tiny cabin which was lined first with lathes and then plaster thickened with horsehair, and that covered with copper sheeting. The only tools allowed inside were bronze measurers, like drinking mugs on wooden handles, and bronze mallets for knocking the copper hoops from barrels of powder.

  Close to each gun, stuck in spaces in the ship's side where they could be quickly snatched up, were cutlasses, pistols and tomahawks - each man knew which he was to have, because against his name in the General Quarter, Watch and Station Bill would be a single letter, C, P or T.

  In less than a minute, Ramag
e knew, just the time it would take to load and run out the guns, cock the locks and fire, nearly two hundred pounds of roundshot could be hurling themselves invisibly at an enemy, each shot the size of a large orange and able to penetrate two feet of solid oak. Yet to a casual onlooker the Calypso was at this very moment simply a frigate ploughing her way majestically across the Western Ocean, stunsails set and all canvas to the royals rap full with a brisk Trade wind, the only men visible a couple of men at the wheel, three officers at the quarterdeck rail, and a couple of lookouts aloft.

  Yet all this was routine: in the Chops of the Channel a frigate might be sending her ship's company to quarters every hour or so, as an unidentified and possibly hostile vessel came in sight. In wartime every strange sail could be an enemy. Admittedly, one saw a great many more ships in the approaches to the Channel and few would prove to be enemy, although so-called neutral ships trying to run the blockade were numerous. For a surprising number of people, Ramage noted, profit knew no loyalty - or perhaps it would be truer to say that whichever nation provided the profit had the trader's loyalty as a bonus.

  'Deck there - mainmasthead!'

  That was Jackson, and Ramage let Aitken reply. The American's report was brief.

  'Reckon she's a frigate steering north, sir. Too far off to identify but you'll see her in a few minutes, two points on our larboard bow.'

  Aitken acknowledged and turned to Ramage, who nodded and said: 'Take in the stunsails, Mr Aitken.'

  As soon as Aitken gave the order, there seemed to be chaos as men ran from the guns, some going to ropes round the mast, to the ship's side where stubby booms held out the foot of the sails, and others went up the ratlines.

  Bosun's mates' pipes shrilled and they repeated the order: 'Watch, take in starboard studding sails!'

  After that it was a bellowed litany, making as much sense as a Catholic service in Latin to a Protestant but curiously orderly and impressive.

  Main and foretopmen were standing by waiting for the order to go aloft, along with men named boomtricers in the station bill for this manoeuvre. Then the orders came in a stream - 'Away aloft... Settle the halyards ... Haul out the downhauls... Haul taut... Lower away ... Haul down ...' As the tall and narrow rectangles of sail came down and were quickly stifled on deck before the wind took control, more orders followed to deal with the booms, still protruding from the ends of the yards and the ship's side like thin fingers.

  'Stand by to rig in the booms ... Rig in!... Aft lower boom ... Top up ... Ease away fore guy, haul aft...'

  Then, to the men stifling the sails on deck: 'Watch, make up stunsails.' Aitken raised the speaking trumpet: 'Stand by aloft...'

  The quartermaster was already giving orders to the men at the wheel: with the starboard stunsails down and no longer helping to drive the ship along, the larboard stunsails, yet to be taken in, were trying to slew her round to starboard and needed a turn on the wheel to counteract them.

  Then came the same ritual for the larboard stunsails, until with the canvas rolled, the booms taken in and the topmen and tricers down from aloft, Aitken gave the final order: 'Watch carry on at general quarters.'

  At last Ramage let his brain function again. He had tried to shut it off when the sail ahead was first sighted: he wanted to store the sound of that first hail until, perhaps half an hour later, Jackson would report that the vessel was a French frigate similar in appearance to the Calypso and steering the same course: evidence enough that they had finally caught L'Espoir - although quite what he did then, he did not know.

  Now, however, his lack of ideas did not matter: the ship was unlikely to be L'Espoir because she was going in a different direction. A frigate, yes, but following the sea roads imposed by the wind directions, probably bound for Europe but first having to go north nearly to Newfoundland before turning eastward, unless she wanted to try the slower Azores route.

  Probably Royal Navy, possibly returning from the Far East or South America, but more likely the Cape of Good Hope. Anyway, she would not know the war had started again, and if she was British he was obliged to give her captain the news. Nor could he begrudge the time because L'Espoir could be ahead or astern, to the north or the south, so any delay or diversion could lead to her discovery. Patience, Ramage thought, as he glanced aloft at the tiny figure of Jackson perched in the maintop. It was the one thing needed by the captain of a ship of war, it was one of the virtues he had always lacked.

  'Look,' Stafford said, pointing at the shiny metal rectangle of the flintlock, 'you see the flint there, just like wiv a pistol or musket.'

  He waited for Gilbert to translate to Auguste, Albert and Louis and then continued: 'Only you don't have no trigger like a hand-gun. Instead the lanyard - well, translate that.'

  He paused because he really meant that the flintlock of a great gun did not have the kind of trigger that you put your finger round, and he was rapidly realizing that a good instructor was a man who could explain complicated mechanisms and thoughts in a simple way. Jackson was good at it. The captain was fantastic.

  'Yers, well, this lower bit is the trigger: when yer put a steady strain on the lanyard (yer don't jerk it),' he emphasized, 'it pulls the trigger part up towards the ring the lanyard threads through down from - translate that!' he exclaimed, having lost both the lanyard and the thread of his explanation.

  Gilbert looked up politely and said gently: 'Stafford, we can see very well how it works. Your very clear explanation - it is not really necessary.'

  'Ah, good,' sighed a mollified Stafford, with a triumphant glance at Rossi, who had earlier been jeering at the Cockney's attempts to explain the loading and firing of the Calypso's 12-pounders. 'Now, here is the pricker.' He held up a foot-long thin rod, pointed at one end and with a round eye at the other, and for which he as second captain of this particular gun was responsible.

  He passed the pricker, which was like a large skewer, to Gilbert to inspect and waited while the others looked. 'Ze prickair,' Auguste repeated. 'Alors.'

  'No, just "pricker",' Stafford corrected amiably. 'Now, you saw the flannel what the cartridge is made of and what 'olds the powder. Well, now, forget that for a minute and we'll go back to the lock. That's got to make a spark what fires the gun ...'

  He waited for Gilbert's translation and noted to himself that the French seem to make things sound so difficult.

  'Well, you see this 'ole 'ere leading down into the barrel - same as in a pistol, the touch'ole. Well, instead of just sprinklin' powder in the pan and lettin' it fill up the touch'ole, so that when the flint sparks off the powder and sends a flash of flame down the touch'ole to set off the charge ... No, well, in a ship the roll or the wind could ... well, we put a special tube in the touch'ole and sprinkle powder in the pan and cover the end...'

  Gilbert translated a shortened version.

  'Now, just remember that. But the flash down the touch'ole won't go through the flannel of the cartridge. Ho no, nothing like. That's why we use the pricker. Before we put in the tube, we jab the pricker down the touch'ole and wriggle it about so we're certain sure it's made an 'ole in the cartridge right under the touch'ole, and that means if you looked down the touch'ole you'd see the powder of the cartridge - if the light was right, o'course.'

  Gilbert translated but the other three men, who had already worked it all out, having seen the little tubes in their special box, were beginning to suck their teeth.

  'Now, in goes the tube and we pour some powder into the pan and cover the end of the tube, just to make sure the spark of the flint really makes it take fire ... The tube explodes (well, not really, it makes a flash, which goes down the touch'ole of course) and that explodes the powder in the flannel cartridge -'

  'And forces the shot up the barrel and out of the muzzle,' Gilbert said quickly.

  'That's right! Good, I'm explaining it clearly enough, then,' Stafford said smugly. 'Next, now we know 'ow to fire the gun-'

  'We must learn how to load it,' Rossi said triumphantly. 'Yo
u forgot that!'

  'I was goin' to explain the dispart sight,' Stafford said sulkily.

  'Only the gun captain uses that,' Rossi said. 'Leave it to Jackson to explain.'

  'Oh well,' Stafford said in the most offhand manner he could contrive, but which did not reveal his relief as he realized that in fact he did not really understand how a dispart sight worked, 'we'll do loading now.'

  Gilbert coughed. 'We watched when you had gunnery practice the day before yesterday,' he said. 'It is the same as for a pistol except you "swab out" the barrel. "Swab out" - that is correct, no? And you "worm" it every few rounds with that long handle affair which has a metal snake on the end. To pull out any burning bits of flannel cartridge which might be left inside -'

  'Yes, very well, I'm glad you've understood that,' Stafford said, tapping the breech of the gun with the pricker and preening himself in the certainty that the Frenchmen's understanding was due to his explanation. 'The rest is obvious: you saw how we use these handspikes' - he pointed to the two long metal-shod bars, like great axe handles - 'to lift and traverse the gun. "Traversing" is when you aim it from side to side, and you say "left" or "right", not "forward" or "aft". Now, to elevate the gun, you -'

  'Lift up the breech using a handspike as a lever,' Gilbert said.

  'That's right,' Stafford said encouragingly. It was not as hard to explain difficult things as he had expected, even when your pupils are Frenchmen who do not speak a word of English.

  'Then,' Gilbert continued, reminding Stafford of his role as translator, 'you pull out or push in - depending on whether you are raising or lowering the elevation - this wooden wedge under the breech. What you call the "quoin", no?'

  'Well, we pronounce it "coin", but you are understanding.'

  Rossi chuckled and said: Tell the Frogs about "point-blank".'

  Gilbert grinned at the Italian. 'We have a rosbif explaining to a frog with a Genovese watching. What is a Genovese called?'