by Dudley Pope
If he was the Barras's captain, what would he do? Well, make sure the Sibella is crippled - which is why he's now firing at the rigging - then run alongside in the last few minutes before darkness, board - and tow the Sibella back to Toulon in triumph. And that, he thought, is just what he is going to do: her captain is timing it beautifully, and he knows that for the last few hundred yards before he gets alongside, we'll be so close he can call on us to surrender. He'll know we can't repel boarders...
Ramage realized his own position was almost ludicrous: he was in command of a ship which, ghost-like, was sailing herself without a man at the wheel - without a wheel for that matter; but it didn't matter a damn anyway, because within half an hour he'd have to surrender. Unable to fight, and with the ship full of wounded, he had no alternative.
And you, Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage, he told himself bitterly, since you're the son of the discredited tenth Earl of Blazey, Admiral of the White, can expect little mercy from the Admiralty if you surrender one of the King's ships, no matter the reason. The sins - alleged sins, rather - of the father shall be visited on the sons, yea even unto the something or other generation, according to the Bible.
But looking around the Sibella's deck, it's hard to believe in God: that severed trunk with the legs encased in bloody silk stockings and the feet still shod in shoes fitted with elegant silver buckles, is the frigate's former Captain, and next to it presumably the First Lieutenant, whose days of toadying are finished. Ironic that a man with an ingratiating smile permanently on his face should lose his head. What a shambles: a seaman, naked except for trousers, sprawled over the wreckage of a carronade slide as if in a loving embrace, his hair still bound up in a long queue, a strip of cloth round his forehead to stop perspiration running into his eyes - and his stomach ripped open. Beside him another man who seems unmarked until you realize his arm is cut off at the shoulder—
'Orders, sir?'
It was the Bosun. Orders - he'd been daydreaming while all these men left alive in the Sibella waited, confident he would perform some miracle and save their lives: save them from ending their days rotting in a French prison. The devil take it: he felt shaky. Ramage made a great effort to think, and at that moment saw the foremast swaying. Presumably it had been swaying for some time, since the Bosun had already wondered why it had not gone by the board. Gone by the board...
Yes! Why the devil hadn't he thought of that before: he wanted to cheer: Lieutenant Ramage has woken up: stand by, men: stand by Barras ... He felt a sudden elation, as though he was half drunk, and rubbed a scar on his forehead.
The Bosun looked startled and Ramage realized he must be grinning.
'Right, Bosun,' he said briskly, 'let's get to work. I want every wounded man brought up on deck. It doesn't matter how bad he is: get him up here on the quarter-deck.'
'But sir—'
'You have five minutes...'
The Bosun was every day of sixty years old: his hair - what was left of it - was white. And the man knew that bringing the wounded on deck risked them being slaughtered by a broadside from the Barras. Only he hasn't realized yet, Ramage thought to himself, that now the Barras is firing only at the rigging; she's stopped sweeping the decks with full broadsides of grapeshot because she knows she's killed enough men. If she fires into the hull again the wounded below are just as likely to be hit by the ghastly great jagged wood splinters which the shot rip up - he'd seen several pieces more than five feet long.
Wounded on deck. Now for the boats. Ramage ran aft to the taffrail and peered over: some boats were still towing astern in the Sibella's wake, having been put over the side out of harm's way as the ship cleared for action. Two were missing, but the remaining four would serve his purpose. The wounded, the boats - next, food and water.
By now the Bosun was back.
We'll soon be abandoning ship,' Ramage told him. We must leave thewounded on board. We have four boats. Pick four reliable hands, one to be responsible for each boat. Tell them to take a couple of men - more if they wish — and get sacks of bread and water breakers ready at theaftermost gun ports on the starboard side. A compass for each boat, and a lantern. Make sure each lantern is lit and the boats have oars. Join me here in three minutes. I am going down to the cabin.'
The Bosun gave him a questioning look before turning away. The 'cabin' in a frigate could mean only the Captain's cabin, and Ramage knew that to mention going below to a man accustomed to seeing armed Marine sentries at every gangway and ladder when in action, to stop people bolting to safety - oh, the devil take him; there isn't time to explain. How much will the fellow remember when he gives evidence at the court martial that always followed the loss of one of the King's ships? If they live to face one...
In the cabin it was dark, and Ramage ducked his head to avoid hitting the beams overhead. He found the Captain's desk, and was thankful there had been no time to stow the furniture below when the ship cleared for action. Now, he said, deliberately talking aloud to himself to make sure he forgot nothing: first, the Admiral's orders: second, the Captain's letter book and order book; third, the Fighting Instructions; lastly - damn, the signal book would be in the hands of one of the midshipmen, and all the midshipmen were dead. Yet above all else the signal book with its secret codes mustn't fall into French hands.
He fumbled for the top right-hand drawer - he'd often seen the Captain put his secret papers in there. It was locked - blast, of course it was locked, and he had neither sword nor pistol to force it open. At that moment he saw a light appear behind him, filling the cabin with strange shadows, and as he swung round a nasal voice said:
'Can I help you, sir?'
It was the Captain's cox'n, a cadaverous-faced American named Thomas Jackson, and he was holding a battle lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other.
'Yes, open this drawer.'
Jackson thrust the pistol in his belt and walked over to one of the cannon on the larboard side of the cabin. The carriage had been smashed by a shot and the barrel lay across the wreckage. In the light of the lantern Ramage was startled to see the bodies of three men - they must have been killed by the shot that dismounted the gun.
The American came back carrying a bloodstained handspike, the long wooden bar made of ash and tipped with a metal shoe, used to lever round the carriages of the guns when training them.
'If you'd hold the lantern and stand back, sir ...' he said politely.
He swung the handspike so that the shoe smashed the corner of the desk. Ramage wrenched the drawer open with one hand and gave the lantern to Jackson.
"Hold it up a bit.'
He pulled the drawer right out. On top of several books and papers was a linen envelope with a broken seal. Ramage opened it and took out a two-page letter, which was headed 'Secret' and signed 'J. Jervis'. They were the orders, and he put them back in the envelope and tucked it into his pocket. He glanced at the books, the first of which, labelled 'Letter Book', contained copies of all recent official letters received in the Sibella and all those written. The second, labelled 'Order Book', contained copies of all orders the Captain had given and received, except, probably, the last one from Admiral Jervis. Next came the Captain's Log - usually little more than a copy of the one kept by the Master.
Then there was a sheaf of forms and signed documents — the Admiralty believed the King's ships could not float without having a vast number of papers on board to give them buoyancy. 'Cooper's Affidavit to Leakage of Beer' - hmm, that concerned the five casks found to be damaged at Gibraltar; 'Bounty List', 'Conduct List', 'Account of Paper Expended'... Ramage tore them up. Here was the copy of the Fighting Instructions - it was sufficient to destroy that - and the slim volume containing the Articles of War, the set of laws by which the Navy was governed. They were far from secret; indeed by law had to be read aloud to the ship's company at least once a month, and the French were welcome to them.
Apart from the signal book, and some charts, that was all he needed.
Rama
ge turned to Jackson. 'Go to the Master's cabin and collect all the western Mediterranean charts and sailing instructions you can lay your hands on, and the Master's log. Bring them to me on the quarter-deck. Put them all in a seabag with a shot in the bottom, in case we have to dump them over the side in a hurry.'
He noticed a strange quietness beginning to settle over the ship and as he made his way out of the dark cabin, fumbling for the companionway leading to the quarter-deck, he realized wounded men had stopped moaning - or maybe they'd all been taken on deck out of earshot - and he could hear once again the familiar creak of the masts and yards, and the squeak of ropes rendering through blocks. And there was a less familiar noise - the slop of water down in the hold, and strange bumpings: presumably casks of meat, powder and various provisions floating around.
The ship herself felt sluggish beneath his feet: all the life, the normal quick reaction of the hull to the slightest movement of the rudder, the exhilarating surge forward as an extra strong gust of wind caught the sails, the lively pitch and roll as she rode the crests of the swell waves and plunged across the troughs - all that has gone. Instead, as if she has suffered some ghastly internal haemorrhage, the ton upon ton of water swilling and surging about down below as she rolls is exerting its weight first on one side and then on the other, constantly changing her centres of gravity and buoyancy, and playing fantastic juggling tricks with her stability.
The Sibella, he thought, shivering involuntarily, is dying, like some great animal lurching through the jungle, mortally wounded and capable of only a few more steps. If a sudden surge of water to one side or the other doesn't capsize her first, then once the weight of the water pouring in through the ragged shot holes in her hull equals the weight of the ship herself, she will sink. That's a scientific fact and only pumps, not prayers, can prevent it.
As Ramage climbed up to the quarter-deck he had a momentary impression of stepping into a cow shed: the stifled moans and gasps of the wounded men sounded like the lowing and snuffling of cattle. The Bosun was carrying out his orders quickly, and the last of the wounded were being brought up: Ramage stepped back a moment to let two limping men drag a third, who appeared to have a broken leg, to join the rest of them lying in rough rows at the forward end of the quarter-deck.
None of the Sibella's guns had fired for several minutes and the wind blowing through the ports had dispersed the smoke; but the smell of burnt gunpowder lingered on, clinging to his clothes, like the curious odour that hangs about a house long after flames have gutted it.
Yes, the Barms was where he had expected to see her - just forward of the beam and perhaps five hundred yards away. He suddenly realized she had not fired for three or four minutes. She had no need to: the damage was done. It was hard to believe that less than ten minutes had passed since the Barras made that slight change of course; even harder to realize that she first came in sight over the horizon only an hour ago.
Ramage heard the mewing of some gulls which had returned after the gunfire and were now wheeling in the Sibella's wake, waiting hopefully for the cook's mate to throw some succulent rubbish over the side.
Over the larboard beam, the north-western end of the Argentario peninsula was beginning to fade in the darkness rapidly spreading across the dome of the sky from the eastward. Just here the land curved away and flattened out into the marshland and swamp forming the Maremma, which stretch southward for almost a hundred miles, to the gates of Rome. The next big port was Civita Vecchia, thirty-five miles to the south. That was shut, on the Pope's orders, to both French and British ships.
To seaward, beyond and above the Barras - which was now, in the gathering night, little more than a silhouette - the Dog Star sparkled, a pale blue pinpoint of light like a diamond on dark velvet. The Dog Star, the chilly downdraught of wind from the maintopsail, the rattle of blocks, occasional hails from lookouts, and the creak of the masts and of the timbers in the ship's hull - for many months they had been as much a part of his life as hunger and chill, heat and tiredness. And all of it reduced to a shattered ship manned by shattered seamen within a few minutes of the sails on the horizon being recognized as belonging to a French line-of-battle ship. There had been no time to escape, and as the Barras ran down towards them she had seemed a thing of great beauty, gently dipping and rising in elegant curtsies as the swell waves passed under her, every stitch of canvas set, including studding sails. Even as she ranged herself abeam to windward, her ports open, and the stubby black barrels of her guns poking out like threatening fingers, she had still been a thing of beauty.
Suddenly she had vomited spurts of greyish yellow smoke which, quickly merging into one great bank, had hidden her hull from view. Then she had sailed out of it, trailing thin wisps of smoke from her gun ports, while the Sibella appeared to lurch as she was hit by an invisible hail of shot: iron shot ranging in size from small melons to large oranges and which at that range cut through three feet of solid timber, sloughing up splinters as thick as a man's thigh and as sharp as a sword blade.
The first broadside had seemed more than the Sibella could stand; but she had sailed on, while the French used grapeshot in several guns for their next broadside. Ramage had seen these egg-sized shot fling a man from one side of the ship to another, as if punched by an invisible fist; others had collapsed suddenly with a grunt or a scream, death heavy inside them. He had seen several of the Sibella's 12-pounder cannon, each weighing more than a quarter of a ton, thrown aside by the Barras's round shot as though they were wooden dummies. Then he had been knocked unconscious.
After the little Sibella had been battered until she was a leaking wooden box full of smoke and flame, agonizing wounds, screams, defiant yells and death; after the majority of the eight score men who had made her a living thing and sailed her halfway round the world were at this moment lying dead or wounded, staining with their blood the decks they twice-daily scrubbed, it now seemed incongruous - blasphemous almost - that the stars could begin to twinkle and the sea still chatter merrily round the Sibella's cut-water and gurgle as it creamed away in the wake astern, showing for a few brief moments the path the frigate had sailed before smoothing away the memory that she had ever passed.
Ramage forced himself to turn away from the bulwark: day-dreaming again when all he intended to do was assure himself the Barras was still holding her course. He now had only ten minutes or so left in which to finish his plan, which would either save his men's lives or kill them. These were, he supposed, the minutes for which eight years of life at sea should have trained him to meet.
The Bosun came up and said, "We've got most of 'em up now, sir: about another dozen left. An' I reckon there's less than fifty of us still on our pins.'
He saw the Carpenter's Mate waiting.
'Just under six feet, sir. It's them new holes going under as she settles deeper.'
Ramage realized several dozen men near by, including many of the wounded, were listening.
'Fine - the old bitch will swim a lot longer yet. There'll be no need for anyone to get their feet wet'
Brave talk; but these poor devils need some reassurance. He glanced across at the Barras. Does her captain realize the Sibella isn't under control? With his telescope he can see the shattered wheel, and guess that if she could be manoeuvred her officers would have already tried to wear round in an attempt to escape.
'Bosun, as soon as the last wounded man is on deck, muster the unwounded here. I want a couple of dozen axes as well. By the way, who was the signal midshipman?'
'Mr Scott.'
"Have some hands look for his body and find the signal book. None of us leaves the ship until it's found, and you can tell the men that'
The American cox'n, Jackson, came up to him, holding a canvas sea bag.
'All the Master's charts and sailing directions, the log book, and muster book, which I found in the Purser's cabin, sir.'
Ramage gave him the documents from the cabin, with the exception of the Admiral's orders. 'Put these in
the bag. Men are looking for the signal book. Take charge of it when it's found. Now find me a cutlass.'
'The signal book, sir,' said a seaman, holding out a slim and blood-sodden volume.
'I'll take it,' said Jackson, and put it in the bag.
Ramage glanced across once again at the Barras. There was not much time left.
'Bosun! Those axes?'
'Ready, sir.'
Jackson came back, a couple of cutlasses under one arm. 'You'll be needing this, sir,' he said, handing him a speaking trumpet. The bloody man thought of everything. Ramage walked aft and scrambled up on to the hammocks along the top of the bulwark. Let's hope the French don't open fire now, he thought grimly. He put the speaking trumpet on his lips.
'Listen carefully, you men, and don't be afraid to ask about anything you don't understand. If you carry out my orders to the letter we can get away in the boats. We can't help the wounded: for their sakes we must leave them for the French surgeon to look after.
'We've got four boats that can still swim. From the moment I give the word you'll have only two or three minutes to get into those boats and pull like the devil.'
'Excuse me, sir, but how can we stop the ship to get into the boats?' asked the Bosun.
'You'll see in a moment. Now, the Frenchman out there.' He gestured with his hand. 'He's converging on us. In eight or ten minutes he'll be almost alongside, ready to board. And we can't stop him.'
At that moment the ship gave a lurch, reminding him of the water still flooding in below.
'If we haul down our flag, obviously we won't get away in the boats. So we've got to fool him to gain time. If we wait until he's almost alongside, then suddenly stop the ship, he'll probably be taken by surprise and sail on past us. But we've got to do it so quickly he doesn't get a chance to open fire. Before he has time to wear round again we've got away in the boats - after putting the ensign halyard in the hands of one of the wounded, so he can surrender the ship!'