by Dudley Pope
Had the first ship's captain not realized the danger? They were trimming her yards as if she was the only ship at sea, and as she came round on to a broad reach, all her sails bulging under the weight of the wind, she increased speed: this was her fastest point of sailing.
She was now on almost an opposite course to the Calypso and beading straight for her consort. Ramage gave a gasp: a collision was inevitable, and he gripped the capping on the rail at the forward end of the quarterdeck.
As he watched, the first ship's sails began to flutter as men let fly the sheets and braces in what was obviously a desperate last-minute attempt to get the way off the ship but by now, as the sound of the slatting canvas carried across to the frigate, the two ships were only twenty yards apart.
Already, Ramage could see that the jibboom and bowsprit that be had been aiming for was now pointing at the mainshrouds of the second ship and in a few moments would catch them as though the ship was a lancer lunging at a passing bush.
Southwick's exclamation of "Ye gods!" was overlaid with Aitken's awe-struck "Will ye no look at that!"
Then the ship crashed into her consort: jibboom and bowsprit mashed through the mainshrouds and brought the mainmast toppling down, the topmast and topgallant tumbling as though hinged. The foremast of the first ship tumbled forward as though Ac effort of staying upright was too much for it and crashed down on to the deck of the second ship.
The impact brought the two ships alongside each other and their remaining yards locked. For a moment or two the first ship's mainmast swayed and then, with no stays supporting it forward and with her consort's yards tugging on the larboard side, it toppled slowly and gracefully, leaving the ship, now bereft of two masts, looking strangely naked.
Ramage, hardly able to believe what he had seen, fought down an urge to giggle; expecting any moment to be killed and then seeing the anticipated killer suddenly reduced to helplessness was a new experience which left him weak with relief.
"I'll trouble you to bear away a point, Mr Aitken," he said in a voice which sounded oddly strangled.
"Aye aye, sir," Aitken said, his Scots accent thicker than Ramage had ever heard before. He watched the first lieutenant bring the speaking trumpet to his lips after snapping an order to the men at the wheel.
At that moment Southwick turned to Ramage, gave a prodigious sniff and commented: "They're a lubberly lot, these Frogs."
"And we should be suitably thankful," Ramage said.
"Look!" Orsini said excitedly, "there goes the other ship's foremast!"
They all watched as the mast fell forward, moving very slowly at first, and then crashing in a welter of wood splinters and dust, spreading the sails like a shroud over the fo'c'sle.
"Well, that evens 'em up; two masts each," Southwick grunted.
"We'll tack across their sterns, Mr Aitken: we need to get their names," Ramage said, thinking of the report he had to write. Describing the way that two French ships of the line had been dismasted and left wallowing helplessly alongside each other was going to be difficult enough, and it was straining credulity not to have their names.
The Calypso's sails slatted and banged as she tacked; sheets and braces were hauled home and she settled down on her new course which would take her diagonally across the sterns of the two crippled ships.
Ramage looked round the horizon. It was empty. What he needed now was a British ship of the line to heave in sight. Preferably two. Then they could take possession of the French ships and tow them into port, with the Calypso hovering round like a distracted moth . . . But the horizon was empty; the two ships were going to have to be left.
"Pity we can't take possession," Southwick growled.
"They might be dismasted but they still have their broadsides," Ramage said shortly. "One broadside could leave us like them!"
"True enough," Southwick agreed. "It's just that having two ships of the line lying there like that . . ."
'Ramage nodded but said: "I thought it would have been us."
He picked up his telescope as the two transoms came into sight. Slowly he spelled out the first name and Orsini wrote Artois on the slate. Then he saw the second name and spelled it out, L'Aigle. Neither ship - as far as he could remember - had been at Trafalgar. Which meant that almost certainly they were on their way back to Toulon after a visit to Egypt. Ramage shrugged his shoulders: it mattered little where they were coming from or going to: both had a lot of work to do before they could do anything but drift with wind and current.
Stafford, standing to one side of the breech of the gun and with a better view through the gunport, had seen the collision and had given an excited commentary. Until he had time to dash to the ship's side and look for himself, Jackson had not believed the Cockney, thinking he was indulging in some complicated joke.
What he saw left him speechless. When he found his tongue again he said: "And not a broadside fired! What do we do now -offer them a tow?"
"Yus," exclaimed Stafford. "Tow 'em to Toulon and get a reward from Boney!"
"Are we just going to leave them like that?" asked Louis, after looking through the port.
"I don't reckon we've much choice," Jackson said. "They may have lost their masts, but their batteries are still in place. Every gun loaded, too."
"I know how you feel, Louis," Rossi said sympathetically. "I'd like to go across and set fire to them."
Stafford laughed quietly to himself. "What a story we've got to tell. Two line of battle ships an' we didn't fire a single broadside."
"Bluff, that's what it was," Jackson said. "And carelessness on the part of the French captain. He tried to sidestep us when he saw we were after his bowsprit - and stepped right into his mate!"
"Very careless," Stafford said. "Look what a mess it's got him into."
"Got them both into," Louis said. "Neither would do as dancing masters!"
Two hours later, with the Calypso back on her original course, the two disabled ships were just tiny blobs far astern, their hulls slowly dipping below the horizon. In the frigate the men had stood down from general quarters; the guns had been unloaded, run in and secured. The deck had been washed down and the sand brushed out of the scuppers. The match tubs had been emptied and the slowmatches extinguished, rolled up in coils like light line and returned to the magazine along with all the flintlocks, prickers and cartridges.
Now the men were waiting to be piped to dinner; they were still gossiping excitedly among themselves about the collision and speculating on their fate if the French captain of the ship of the line had not lost his nerve at the last moment to avoid the Calypso. On the quarterdeck, Ramage was thinking of the report he had to write about the episode. It was a bizarre affair, and it was going to sound even more bizarre when reduced to the bare wording of a stylized letter to the Admiralty, beginning with the usual: "Sir, be pleased to inform their Lordships ..."
The report had to go to the Admiralty because he was sailing under Admiralty orders; otherwise it would be to a commander-in-chief, and he would probably be seeing the admiral personally at the time he handed in the letter containing the report.
The watch changed and the third lieutenant, George Hill, took over the deck from Kenton. Hill was an unusual man: debonair, tall and thin, he was bilingual, thanks to a French mother who had married his father, a banker, and then found herself almost completely unable to learn English.
He had a dry sense of humour which Ramage found amusing; he was a very competent officer, and the men liked him. Almost more important, he could make Southwick laugh.
"Have you ever heard of a collision like that one, sir?" he asked Ramage.
"No, never. But they were unusual circumstances."
"Perhaps we were lucky in coming across a Frenchman so sensitive about his jibboom and bowsprit."
Ramage laughed and then said: "If I'd been him I'd have been just as sensitive. If you're a Frenchman this is no place to lose a foremast."
"You'd already worked that out, sir?"
>
Ramage shook his head. "No," he said frankly, "at the time it seemed the only way of escaping from at least one of the Frenchmen. Not escaping really, of course, since we'd have been pinned by him, maybe even holed. But that would have been better than being trapped between them and pounded to pieces: we'd have lost most of the ship's company."
"Well, we've learned a new trick!"
Ramage held up a cautionary finger. "It's not one we're likely to be able to use again."
Hill grinned and said: "No, sir, true enough; I'm thankful we were able to use it once!"
Both men glanced aloft as the lookout at the foremasthead hailed.
"Land ho! One point on the starboard bow!"
CHAPTER THREE
Both Ramage and Hill picked up telescopes. Ramage could just make out a faint blur, a blue-grey hump with a dark cloud just above it. "It's probably the island of Capraia," he said shortly.
Was it a coincidence that the two French ships of the line had passed so close to the island? It was a barren sort of place, admittedly. It might be a good idea to pass close and have a good look: he would look a fool if the French had put a couple of battalions on shore there, though he could not think of a good reason why they should.
"We'll harden sheets so that we can lay the island, Mr Hill."
The third lieutenant gave an order to the men at the wheel and then picked up the speaking trumpet. The men on watch hauled on sheets and braces and the ship steered a couple of points to starboard, heading for an invisible place to windward of the island.
Capraia. From memory, there was just a small fishing port once protected by an old fortress called San Giorgio. And six years ago there was the tragedy of the Queen Charlotte. "Capraia, sir? Why does the name stick in my memory?" Hill asked.
"Pirates and the Queen Charlotte, I expect."
"Ah yes, she blew up, didn't she?"
Ramage nodded. "It's a barren sort of place but pirates love it. As far as I remember, the people living there appealed to Lord Nelson - who was in Leghorn at the time - to send them a ship to get rid of the pirates. His Lordship sent the Queen Charlotte, but while she was on passage and passing Gorgona at the north end of this group of islands she caught fire and blew up, killing more than six hundred men."
"So Capraia never did get rid of her pirates?"
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Probably not. We might find some there ..."
"Where do they come from, sir?"
"Most of them from the Barbary coast, I think. The local people just call them Saraceni. At one time nearly all pirates in the Mediterranean were Saracens, but now I suspect that quite a few of them are Algerines."
"There must be a good harbour there."
"No, it's just a small fishing harbour. The pirates only come there during the summer. That's why we aren't very likely to find any now - too early in the year: they don't want to get caught in a storm with no port to leeward."
By now Hill, who did not know the Mediterranean at all well, was intrigued at the idea of meeting pirates, and looked at the distant island once again with his telescope.
"What do these pirates do, sir?"
"Mostly raid towns and villages. Seize a few fishing boats, but mainly they're interested in targets on shore. They are not seamen; just Arab bandits with boats to get to the various islands. They even raid places on the mainland of Italy, looting, kidnapping men for their galleys and women for the brothels."
"I don't think I want to live around here," Hill said.
Half an hour later the lookout reported a small sail ahead, following up with a hail saying it was a fishing boat which had just altered course to cross ahead of the Calypso. Ramage pinched his nose. Altering course to cross ahead? That was unusual: normally, local fishing boats kept away from ships of war; they could be visited by pressgangs on the lookout for ablebodied men. It was not unknown for a party from a frigate to confiscate their entire catch.
"Send Jackson aloft with a glass," Ramage told Hill.
Jackson, rated one of the sharpest-eyed men in the ship, was soon shouting down to the deck that the fishermen were waving cloths, trying to attract the Calypso's attention.
What had the fishermen got to say? Surely they were not trying to sell their catch. Ramage shrugged: there was only one way of finding out.
"We'll heave to just to leeward of them," he told Hill. "Pass the word to Mr Rennick to have a dozen marines standing by at the entryport."
Rennick, the red-faced Marine lieutenant, would be only too glad of the opportunity to parade some of his men: he had about the most monotonous job in the ship. No, perhaps the surgeon did, since it was rare for any of the frigate's men to report sick.
At that moment Southwick came up on to the quarterdeck.
"Trouble, sir? I heard the lookout hailing."
Ramage shook his head. "No, just a fisherman up ahead who is trying to attract our attention."
"Probably wants to sell us some fish," Southwick said gloomily.
Ramage nodded. "That's what I thought. Still, some fresh fish would be welcome: our men don't seem to be having any luck with the lines we're towing astern!"
Southwick rubbed his hands together. "Yes, a nice tuna steak would not come amiss."
Ramage could see the fishing boat quite clearly now through the glass. It was quite large; he could make out eight or nine men on her deck, several of them waving cloths, probably their shirts.
Their little ship was flying no colours, but that was not surprising. They were almost certainly from Capraia, the island ahead.
Hill gave an order to the quartermaster, who passed it to the men at the wheel. The Calypso bore away a few degrees to larboard, so that the fishing boat was now ahead and under half a mile away.
She had once been painted red and blue, but now her sides were saltcaked and the nail sickness, the streaks of rust from the nails used in her planking, looking like dark tear stains. Her sails were so patched that there were more patches than original cloths, and as she pitched Ramage could see baskets on her foredeck, waiting for fish. Or maybe they held the catch they wanted to sell.
Ten minutes later the Calypso, her foretopsail backed, was lying stopped to leeward of the fishing boat and Ramage, the speaking trumpet reversed so that the mouthpiece was against his ear, was trying to understand what the fishermen, who seemed excited, were trying to shout to him.
Finally he put down the speaking trumpet. "It's no good, I can't make out a word," he told Hill. "Hoist out a boat and bring the captain over."
Southwick sniffed disapprovingly. "We're going to a lot of trouble for a pack of fishermen," he muttered. "Why not let 'em use the boat they're towing astern?"
"It'll be quicker using one of our own boats. And," Ramage said, "they're not trying to sell fish."
"You heard that much, then?"
"No, but all their baskets are empty - I can see them from here. So they're not selling fish. They may be reporting seeing some ships. Perhaps they saw the two French ships of the line and want to tell us about them!"
It took several minutes to hoist out a boat and then Jackson clambered down into it with a crew. The boat was rowed over to the fishing boat which, sails now lowered, rolled heavily.
The fishing boat's captain, when he came on board, was a tall man so thin his face was gaunt. He had several blackened teeth and very large hands on the end of extraordinarily long arms.
He saluted Ramage awkwardly and started off a long explanation in Italian which had a heavy local accent.
Ramage listened carefully, nodding from time to time, but otherwise standing with his head inclined forward while the Italian gesticulated frequently, holding up a finger to emphasize a particular point.
Finally the Italian finished his story, with Southwick, Aitken -who had come on deck as the Calypso hove-to - and Hill watching him impatiently, not having understood a word. They saw Ramage hold out a hand and the Italian shake it vigorously.
As the Italian went to the entryport
to climb back down into the boat, Southwick looked at Ramage questioningly. Ramage looked puzzled and shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. "It seems there are a lot of Frenchmen around these parts. He was reporting the two ships of the line but what really worries him is that there's a French frigate at anchor just outside the harbour at Capraia."
"Have they landed any troops?" Aitken asked.
"No, they marched some seamen through the streets - probably just to impress the local people - but that was all."
"And the frigate, she's still there, sir?"
"She was still there when that fellow sailed last night."
"So they're not interfering with the fishermen?"
"No, the fishermen are free to come and go. He couldn't think of any reason why the Frenchman is there."
"Just waiting for us to come and do him in," Southwick growled. "Two ships of the line and a frigate will make a good score."
Ramage nodded and rubbed a scar on his forehead. It was a gesture Southwick recognized at once, and knew there was no need for any more talk.
As soon as Jackson returned with the boat it was hoisted in. They watched the fisherman hoisting its lateen sail and draw clear, and then Ramage said: 'Very well, Mr Hill: let's get under way again. Steer direct for the island - you can just about lay it with this wind.''
Hill bellowed a string of orders through the speaking trumpet and the watch on deck hauled on the brace which swung round the foretopmast yard while other men hauled on the sheet, so that the sail filled and then curved into shape as wind filled it. From being dead in the water, stopped by the backed foretopsail's weight pressing against the thrust of the other sails, the Calypso slowly got way on: the water began chuckling under her stem, the men at the wheel had to brace themselves against the rudder's kick, and the ship came alive.
The frigate began to pitch as she beat up towards the island and Southwick spread a chart across the top of the binnacle and began to comment on what he saw.