Ramage and the Saracens r-17

by Dudley Pope

  Two points to starboard and trim the yards and sheets. That should bring them across Le Jason's transom. How was the Frenchman going to get off? He had run ashore at an oblique angle; there was just a chance that if he ran all his guns over to the larboard side, hardened in the sheets on the starboard tack and prayed for a strong gust of wind, then he might just come clear. But Ramage realized that would not help: the Frenchman probably had no rudder, or at least not one that functioned, and without that the wind would just blow him harder aground. Was he actually aground on the beach, or an offlying shoal? It was hard to tell from this angle.

  Ramage decided that a hundred yards was as close as he was going to approach; there might be a spit of land or a spur of the shoal stretching well out, and having the Calypso going aground on the same bit of shoal would be a piece of irony he could do without.

  "Do you need me here, sir?" Southwick asked. "Otherwise I'll go and give a hand clearing up that mast."

  "No, I can manage," Ramage said. "The sooner we get that wreckage down on deck the better. It'll be ripping the topsail any minute."

  The two pieces of the mast, along with the yard, were swinging like pendulums on pieces of rigging and halyards, and each time the ship rolled or there was a stronger than usual puff of wind, they slammed into the side of the topsail. Ramage could not understand why the splintered ends of the broken mast had not yet torn the canvas. Yes, he could order the topmen to furl the topsail, but the Calypso would be hard to handle with only the maintop-sail, and anyway Aitken needed the topmen to secure the wreckage.

  Two hundred yards to go. Two hundred yards to sail and he had to make sure the Calypso passed about a hundred yards off the Frenchman's stern. The square on the hypotenuse - no, that did not apply because the hypotenuse was on the other side. Well, there was some mathematical formula to cover the situation, but he was damned if he knew it.

  "You're sure Mr Bowen didn't need help?" he asked Orsini.

  "No sir," Paolo said firmly. "There are only five wounded and he has them bandaged up. It was a shot from the first broadside," he added, to show Ramage that Bowen had plenty of time.

  Once again Ramage stared over the starboard bow. They were approaching Le Jason fast now and Ramage imagined the French gunners hurriedly reloading the sternchasers. They would be under no illusion: they would know that within a matter of minutes they would get up the full raking broadside from the Calypso and the quarterdeck would be swept with shot. But - there, again a red wink and spurt of smoke as they opened fire at what must be the extreme traverse of the gun. Again Ramage did not hear the shot: perhaps it hit the hull well forward.

  Five hundred yards . . . four hundred . . . three hundred . . . The Calypso'?, gunners would sight her out of the corner of the ports. Two hundred yards, and a hundred: gun captains would be taking up the strain on the lanyards and the second captains would have cocked the locks and jumped clear. Fifty yards and he could see the lettering on Le Jason's transom. The other sternchase fired and Ramage felt rather than heard a thud as its shot hit the Calypso's hull.

  The leading gun in the Calypso's starboard broadside coughed and Ramage saw a spurt of smoke. Then the second gun, and the third. He picked up the telescope and trained it on Le Jason's stern. Yes, there was a cloud of dust, so at least one shot had ploughed through the planking on the transom. Yes, another puff of dust as another shot smashed through. Suddenly he saw a black shape rear into the air above the taffrail and realized that a roundshot had dismounted one of the sternchase guns.

  One by one the Calypso's guns fired. A shot sent up a spurt of water twenty yards short of the French frigate: one of the gun captains had fired on the downward roll so that his shot fell short. It was an easy mistake to make: a matter of a second late in tugging the lanyard.

  And that was the last gun. Ramage saw the spurt of dust it caused as it hit the comer of one of the sternlights. Now the guns crews would be hard at work sponging and ramming - worming too, by now, in case a piece of burning cartridge was left in the bore and likely to explode the next cartridge prematurely.

  Suddenly Orsini was gesticulating at the French frigate and Ramage glanced across in time to see her courses being let fall. He snatched up the telescope and saw the yards being braced round and the sheets trimmed so that as soon as the huge sails tumbled down they filled and bellied out. A moment later the fore and main topgallants were let fall and as soon as the halyards had hoisted them the yards were braced and the sails trimmed.

  What on earth was going on? As far as a puzzled Ramage could see, setting the sails would only drive Le Jason further up the beach. But the French captain must have a very good reason. And a moment later he saw what it was.

  The frigate began to move slowly, and as soon as she had way on her yards were braced sharp up and she began to claw offshore.

  At that moment Southwick hurried up the ladder, red-faced and breathless. "You've seen, sir? The dam' fellow wasn't ashore after all!"

  Ramage shook his head. "No, he must have been caught on a spur of rock, And his rudder wasn't damaged after all: they must have had it hard over to try and get off."

  "I hope the rock stove in a plank or two," Southwick growled.

  Ramage realized he had a chance to rake the Frenchman's bow as he clawed off the shore and gave new orders to the quartermaster. It meant altering course only a point or two and the Calypso would pass fifty yards or so ahead of Le Jason before her captain had got his ship squared away properly for the beat to windward that would get him clear of the coast.

  He shouted orders through the speaking trumpet to get yards braced and sheets trimmed, and then he bellowed down to the gunners to get ready for a target to larboard.

  So an easy time passing up and down raking a stranded French frigate was turning back to be a battle of broadsides: Ramage thought of the six men killed already. What would be the butcher's bill before the sun went down? In all the actions he had fought up to now, in the Mediterranean and the West Indies, he had never suffered heavy casualties. Was his luck going to run out today? He had already had one lucky escape: if that ship of the line had pinned the Calypso across her bows, she would have sent across a boarding party which would have slaughtered most of the ship's company. Was this damned frigate going to do a lot of damage through lucky shots, like the one that had brought down the mast?

  Ramage snapped out another order to the quartermaster and then asked South wick: "What about that damage forward?"

  "They'll have the wreckage lowered in a few minutes, sir; there's no chance of damage to the topsail now."

  "I hope it won't take too long; I want those men back at the guns."

  "Mr Aitken has it under control, sir," Southwick said soothingly. "I say, are we going to rake that fellow again?"

  "We're getting into the habit," Ramage said lightly. "Not that it seems to be doing him much harm."

  "We've smashed in his sternlights!" Southwick said.

  "Yes, but it's his jibboom and bowsprit we want to smash. Right at the moment we're doing as much damage as a crowd of mice."

  By now Le Jason was plunging her way seaward, the waves from the shallower water slapping into her bow and sending up small sheets of spray which darkened the foot of her forecourse. She was beginning to pitch slightly and her Tricolour streamed out aft like a board.

  As the Calypso sailed northwards to pass across Le Jason's bow with fifty yards to spare, she too began to knock up the spray, her starboard bow shouldering into the waves, sending the sea drifting aft over the deck like heavy rain. Ramage could taste the saltiness on his lips and noted that the wind was increasing, though the sky apart from a few scurrying clouds was clear and the usual bright blue that was special to this corner of the Tuscan coast.

  Raking broadsides: he doubted if he had fired as many in his whole life as he had fired against Le Tigre and Le Jason. But as far as Le Jason's fighting ability was concerned - apart from the dismounted sternchase gun - he might as well be bombarding her
with snowballs.

  Well, in a couple of minutes he would have his next chance: with a bit of luck this broadside would really damage her bow. Even bring the foremast toppling down? He shrugged: one could only hope.

  A gust of wind caught the Calypso and she surged forward, her bow wave hissing down her sides. The masts and yards creaked, acknowledging the gust rather than protesting at it.

  "Orsini - whip round and tell the gunners they've two minutes!"

  Ramage was sure that giving the gunners a warning when he could was increasing their accuracy: he had noticed that the broadsides had been fired with a comforting regularity, rather than three guns going off at once. The regular fire meant that the gun captains were firing when the enemy was precisely in their sights, rather than jerking the lanyards hopefully.

  He looked across the larboard bow at the French frigate. One minute to go - and Orsini should have got to all the gunners by now. Half a minute - and he could begin to make out details of the Frenchman's rigging and patched sails. She had a figurehead but they had not bothered to paint it; the old paint was faded and peeling. Was that as a result of the Revolution, that seamen no longer bothered about things like figureheads? In the King's ships they were prized and regularly painted, and many of them were covered with canvas in rough weather to protect them.

  Then the Calypso's first gun fired with a satisfying cough. The smoke would bother Aitken's working party, but they would have to cough and bear it: the faster they cleared away the wreckage the sooner they would be out of the smoke. They would not, of course, because most of them belonged to the guns, and as soon as they finished they would return to the guns - and the smoke.

  The guns settled down to firing regularly and once again the smoke streamed aft up to the quarterdeck. Ramage watched the French frigate's bow with the telescope but could not spot any hits. Two shots fell short, sending up tall spouts of water, but there seemed to be no damage to the jibboom or bowsprit.

  Southwick, also watching with a glass, gave a disgusted sniff. "Don't know what's happened to our gunners," he said disgustedly. "If they can knock us about with a sternchaser, we ought to do better with a raking broadside."

  By now the Calypso had passed across Le Jason's bow and Ramage gave orders for her to go about, so that on the starboard tack she would range up alongside the French ship, exchanging broadside for broadside.

  As the Calypso swung round on to a parallel course and while the gun crews prepared the starboard broadside, Ramage wondered whether to let fall the maintopgallant.

  As if the French captain read his thoughts, he saw Le Jason begin to clew up her courses and, a minute or two later, start furling her topgallants, so that - now she was afloat again - she was back in a fighting trim of topsails only, matching the Calypso. Once again Orsini was sent round the gundeck with the orders that they should fire as soon as their guns bore, and Orsini had not returned to the quarterdeck before the first gun fired.

  The range was about a hundred yards and Ramage decided to halve it, giving an order to the quartermaster to ease over to starboard half a point. The last few guns of the broadside had just finished firing when Le Jason opened fire, the usual red winking eyes passing down her side. Ramage heard an occasional thud as one of the French ship's roundshot landed but there were no screams of wounded men and no reports of damage.

  Aitken came up to the quarterdeck to report that the wreckage of the foretopgallant mast had been cleared away, along with the remains of the yard.

  "We have a spare mast, and a topgallant yard, and the carpenter says that anyway he can fish the damaged yard, sir," he said. "The sail/has only one tear in it, about eight feet long, so it won't take long to patch that."

  Ramage nodded. They had been lucky: if the shot had landed a few feet lower, it might have been the foretopmast, bringing down the topsail.

  For the next ten minutes the two frigates sailed almost alongside each other, exchanging broadsides, but without either ship showing much damage. Five more of the Calypso's men were killed by roundshot or cut down by splinters and number nine gun was dismounted by a random shot which came through the port and smashed into the carriage without hurting any of the men.

  With the glass Ramage could see that the Calypso's gunners were firing reasonably accurately: the French frigate's side was now pockmarked with rusty marks showing where roundshot had punched their way through the hull. But she still kept up a regular rate of fire, replying broadside for broadside, aiming for the Calypso's hull, instead of following the usual French habit of firing at the rigging in the hope of dismasting the enemy.

  They had been sailing alongside each other at a range of forty or fifty yards when Ramage commented to Aitken: "We seem to be drawing ahead of her."

  "I had that impression, too, sir. Yet she has the same sails set and they are properly trimmed."

  Ramage examined the frigate through the glass. Yes, there were a few more shot holes but she was still firing as fast, with smoke streaming out of her ports. Then he noticed a thin stream of water pouring over her side.

  "She's got her pump going," he commented. "An odd time to be pumping the bilges."

  Then he could see with the naked eye that the stream of water was getting larger: the pump must be working harder.

  The water was clear, not stained, so it was not just a question of pumping the bilges to get the last few tons of water out of the ship to increase her speed. Had a lucky shot stove in some butts of fresh water? No, there was more water being pumped out than could be accounted for by that.

  Again and again the Calypso's broadsides coughed out. Ramage thought of crashing alongside the ship and boarding her, an idea he later dismissed when he thought of the casualties.

  Then Paolo Orsini said respectfully: "Sir, she seems to be a little deeper in the water."

  And she was: as soon as Ramage inspected the French ship carefully, he could distinguish that she was throwing up a bigger bow wave and the pump dale was emptying as much water over the side as the pump could handle.

  "She's got a bad leak," Southwick said happily. "But it's not from one of our shotholes, I'll be bound. She's not been rolling enough for any hits 'twixt' wind and water to cause her much trouble."

  Ramage saw movement up in the bow and looked with his telescope, startled to see a group of men round the anchors. Suddenly an anchor dropped from the cathead and was then cut adrift so that it fell into the sea.

  "Look at that!" Southwick bellowed, pointing astern, where a boat was bobbing half submerged in Le Jason's wake. "And there's another!" he exclaimed. "My oath, they're cutting their boats adrift."

  "And their anchors," Ramage said. "They're trying to save weight!"

  At that moment he caught Aitken's eye and both men nodded.

  "She stove in a plank or two when she went aground: probably stranded on a rock and strained herself when they sailed her off," Ramage said.

  Southwick groaned and Ramage stared at him.

  "I was thinking of rescuing all those Frenchmen," the master explained. "They'll probably outnumber us!"

  "And all the men in the other frigate," Aitken said. "We'll have five hundred prisoners!"

  "Steady on," Ramage said. "We haven't captured either ship yet and this fellow is showing no sign of surrendering."

  "Well, we don't want to board her unless we want wet feet," Southwick growled.

  "No, we'll just hold off as we are and watch her sink."

  And a few thousand pounds in prize money will vanish before our eyes, Ramage thought. There will be head money for the prisoners - but what a risk, to saddle the ship with so many survivors. But there was no question of leaving them to drown: the captain was cutting away the boats and anchors, and presumably the spare yards, masts and booms would be next to go.

  Obviously he would have started all the fresh water, sieving in the casks so that the water ran into the bilge and could be pumped out. That would save him - well, if he was halfway through his cruise, about twenty-fi
ve tons.

  "We haven't finished with her yet," Ramage reminded the two men. "As far as I can see, every one of her guns on this side is still firing ..."

  Ramage tried to put himself in the place of the French captain. A bad leak, every spare man at the pump, cranking the handles round as fast as possible to keep a steady stream of water pouring into the pump dale and over the side. But men could only pump for a certain amount of time before becoming exhausted, and it was obvious since the ship was becoming lower in the water and the captain was getting rid of all the extra weight he could, that the leak was gaining on him: more water was leaking in than the pump could deal with. So it reduced itself to an interesting problem of time: just when would the captain decide that the battle with the leak was irretrievably lost, and surrender his ship? Or perhaps he was one of those fanatical captains who would fight on, letting the ship sink under him. Or he might have the sense to turn the frigate round and run her ashore properly, stranding her so that he could save his crew but knowing the British could never refloat his ship. Strand her and set her on fire after the ship's company had scrambled to safety.

  Well, the way Le Jason was ploughing on eastward, keeping up a high rate of fire from her broadside guns, obviously her captain was not going to give in easily.

  ' He beckoned to Orsini. "Go down and see Mr Bowen: ask how many casualties we have up to now."

  "We're taking quite a few hits," Southwick said.

  "At least they're not doing their usual dismantling shot trick," Aitken commented. '

  Coincidentally, at that moment the carpenter came up to report to Ramage: "Just sounded the well again, sir," he said. "We're not making any water."

  Ramage nodded. "Very well; carry on, sound every ten minutes and report to me."

  "We're rolling just enough to get an unlucky one 'twixt wind and water," Southwick said. "So's he," he added, pointing at the French frigate, "but he's getting sluggish: not rolling nearly as much now."

  "Makes her a steadier platform for the gunners." Aitken commented.