Ramage At Trafalgar r-16

by Dudley Pope

  He thought for a few moments and then said to Martin, resuming the conversation interrupted by the lookout: "If we spend a few weeks blockading the Combined Fleet in Cadiz, you're going to wear out that flute of yours!"

  "Ah," Martin said triumphantly, "I used some of my prize money to buy a third one, sir. So now I have one for the sailors, a good one for serious music, and a masterpiece for special occasions and as a reserve."

  How often has prize money gone on a flute? Ramage wondered.

  Ramage went down to his cabin and re-read the letter Sarah had written. Somehow rounding the Ness had put a great distance between them - a great geographical distance. If he went on shore at Portsmouth he could take a 'chaise and be with her in a few hours - a fanciful thought for the captain of one of the King's ships bound for Cadiz in wartime . . .

  He brought his journal up to date, filling in courses, speeds and wind direction, read his orders again from Lord Barham, looked at the chart of Spithead and the east side of the Isle of Wight, and then just sat and stared round his cabin. It was going to be very different serving in the fleet: attention to salutes, always watching the flagship (and the senior frigate) for flag signals and repeating them as necessary, sending in weekly accounts to the flagship (something he had not done for years), accepting hospitality from other captains and entertaining them in return ... all very nice for those captains who enjoyed a social life and slapped each other on the back; it was very unpleasant for a captain who had been lucky enough to spend several years with independent orders, his own master within the limits of the orders he had been given.

  He woke up nearly two hours later, Startled at having dozed at his desk, and stiff-necked. There had not been much sleep for the past few nights - taking on powder at Black Stakes was a long, tedious and nerve-racking business, eating cold food because the galley fire could not be lit, and waiting for the crash of a barrel or case of powder slipping out of the cargo net and about to blow the ship apart.

  He stared at his watch, calculating time: he had been in his cabin for three hours: by now the Isle of Wight should be close on the weather bow. He went through to the bed place and washed his face, using the jug of water and pewter basin kept in the special rack along with soap, razors and towel. Jamming his hat on his head and vaguely feeling guilty (although any captain was entitled to a nap), he went on deck.

  And there it was: the massive bulk of the Isle of Wight on the larboard hand, stretching from St Catherine's Point in the south to the Foreland at the eastern end. And over there, fine on the starboard bow, the low land from Selsey Bill, with the Owers off the end, reefs of rocks waiting for the unwary, and stretching round to the westward and gently rising to the hills behind Portsmouth.

  St Catherine's was almost obscured now behind the cliffs of Dunnose, and ahead the Foreland was hiding St Helens from view, although a ship drawing as much water as the Victory would have to anchor well out.

  Southwick snapped his telescope shut.

  "Is she there?" Ramage asked.

  "Did we have a wager on it, sir?"

  "No, we didn't. Can you see her?"

  Southwick shook his head. "The anchorage is partly hidden by the Foreland," he said almost hopefully, but then admitted: "But I can see a couple of frigates and a brig anchored there, further out (I reckon) than a three-decker like the Victory would be ..."

  "So I was right - His Lordship wasted no time."

  "Looks that way, sir," Southwick agreed reluctantly.

  "We'll have to go right up through Spithead and look into Portsmouth," Ramage said. "She might have gone in to the dockyard for water or provisions. We'd look silly if we sailed for Cadiz, leaving the Victory behind ..."

  Southwick sniffed, and after years of experience Ramage understood Southwick's sniffs as other men understood speech. The master was indicating (without saying a word) that carrying on north to look into Portsmouth was wasting valuable time which could better be used trying to overhaul the Victory.

  It was tempting: with this nor'west wind the Calypso could get out through the Chops of the Channel on one tack: a glorious fast stretch clearing Ushant by twenty miles, and (if the wind held) bearing away for an equally fast run across the Bay of Biscay to the Spanish Finisterre, almost in sight of Ferrol and Coruña, where the enemy fleet had been hiding until finally they made a bolt for Cadiz and were sighted by Blackwood in the Euryalus.

  Damn, damn, damn ... he had been doubtful that they could get round to St Helens before the Victory sailed but (quite absurdly, he admitted) he had hoped, regarding it as a challenge.

  Now, stretching out of the Channel alone, at least there would be no question of keeping station on the Victory, forever watching for flag signals and busy taking vertical sextant angles of her mizenmast to make sure they were the precise distance off. Now - well, now they would be able to chase the wind, tacking as necessary without signal, noting the headlands and distances run . . .

  A drunkard's life was measured out in tots of liquor, but a sailor's life in headlands, Ramage thought, particularly the last hundred miles before Land's End. There was Start Point at the western end of Lyme Bay, quickly followed by Prawle Point and Bolt Head if you were bound along the coast to Plymouth.

  You left Plymouth and cleared Rame Head (with the next the Lizard if you were having to tack out of the Channel in a southwesterly); otherwise there was Gribben Head, showing the way into Fowey, and then the Dodman, just past Mevagissey, and some nasty overfalls, the Bellows, for any ship that kept in too close. Then St Anthony Head at the entrance to Falmouth (with more overfalls, the Bizzies, close by). You came out of Falmouth and cleared the next big headland, the Manacles, and after that the Lizard and the deep Mount's Bay ending with Penzance as it came round to Gwennap Head and Land's End.

  And that, Ramage thought, is the story of any seaman who over the centuries has struggled up or down the Channel, trading, fighting, attempting to identify this headland or that shoal in daylight, fog or darkness, or driven by a storm and smashing into one of them.

  Quite deliberately he had not thought of the Cornish coast: now he had his own estate at Aldington, the thought of St Kew was less pressing, but fifteen miles or so inland north of the Gribben was St Kew . . .

  Do not, he warned himself, think of the French coast opposite where you honeymooned with Sarah and where the sudden renewal of war trapped us in Brest. He shuddered when he thought of the risks he had inflicted on Sarah. And finally, sent to England after the fleet had arrived, she had been captured by privateers . . . no, these waters held no happy memories.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  By the time the Calypso was running across the Bay of Biscay, all sail set to the royals with a brisk north-westerly still blowing (the same wind that had taken them down Channel, first to call in at Portsmouth and then along to the Lizard so that clear of Ushant they could bear away for the run to the Spanish coast), Ramage knew there was no chance of catching up with the Victory.

  "This wind has been blowing for several days," Southwick declared crossly, as though somehow the Victory had been cheating. "She picked it up and was probably off the Lizard as we rounded Dungeness."

  "Shows we were slow off the mark," Hill said. The tall and diffident third lieutenant delighted in teasing Southwick, who was old enough to be his grandfather.

  "Slow off the mark be damned," Southwick exclaimed. "We were out of that dock and down the Medway like scalded cats."

  "Ah, it was the navigation that let us down," Hill said sadly. "Wandering round the Thames Estuary like a befuddled curate at the wedding of the landlord's daughter; we lost the tide at the North Foreland and had to fight the current all the way through The Gull - I've never seen the Goodwins pass so slowly - and look how wide we passed Dungeness. I won't mention the stretch up to Spithead, and that leisurely amble along to the Lizard . . ."

  "If you paid more regard to sail trimming, we'd get along a lot faster," Southwick said wrathfully. He pointed upwards. "Just look at those
topsails ... if the captain comes on deck . . ."

  Hill stepped out quickly to look up first at the foretopsail and then at the maintopsail, ducking to see them properly. He came back to Southwick, puzzled. "What's wrong with the foretops'l?" he demanded. "It's drawing well. The maintops'l, too."

  "Oh, are they?" Southwick said innocently. "I didn't say they weren't."

  Hill grinned, acknowledging that Southwick was entitled to mild revenge. "Tell me," he said, "what's it going to be like as part of the fleet? I've never served with a large fleet."

  "Very hard on lieutenants," Southwick said. "Signals, reports, station keeping, sail trimming . . . I've known lieutenants go mad with the strain and leap over the side, screaming."

  Hill, realizing that Southwick could not miss such an opportunity to get his own back, and pretending to ignore it, said: "You've had a lot of fleet experience?"

  "Yes, and I'll warn you right now, His Lordship's problem off Cadiz is going to be keeping the fleet supplied with provisions and water. He won't have enough transports, so we'll probably be used to go through the Gut to Tetuan and pick up bullocks . . . Very smelly, bullocks are."

  "You're joking!" Hill exclaimed, but he sounded nervous.

  "Am I? Look at it from the admiral's point of view. He's short of transports and he needs several hundred bullocks a week to feed the fleet, so they don't eat up their provisions, which they'll need in the winter if it's going to be a long blockade. He is trying to lure the Combined Fleet out of Cadiz to fight. Do you think he's going to send away ships of the line to collect bullocks?"

  "Well, no, but a frigate can't carry many live bullocks."

  "Who said anything about live ones? Kill 'em and salt 'em down, my lad. So along with the stink there's blood and salt everywhere. And flies: the sky'll be black with flies. Arab flies," he added darkly.

  "I don't believe you," Hill said in a voice which was intended to be a flat denial but sounded more like a hopeful plea. "What about water - the fleet'll be just as short of water as meat."

  "That's no problem, with Gibraltar down there. If it's not getting bullocks, it's water. Casks everywhere. Ship laden down, the very devil to handle because there's no way to trim her properly, and back and forth to Gibraltar. It'll be a flip of a coin whether we get water or bullocks. And God help us if we get a Levanter ..."

  "Ah, but who's keeping an eye on the enemy? That's where the admiral needs his frigates: his eyes, Southwick, his distant eyes, watching and instantly ready to signal over the horizon that the enemy is out. Using the new telegraphic code!"

  "Have you been hoarding your tot?" Southwick inquired. "You sound to me like a hopeful drunk."

  "But His Lordship does need frigates!"

  "Oh yes," Southwick agreed. "We know that Captain Blackwood is already at Cadiz, commanding a small squadron of frigates: he told Mr Ramage that."

  "There you are!" Hill said triumphantly.

  "Ah," Southwick took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair and jammed the hat back on his head. "Ah yes, and do you think that Captain Blackwood, having his own little squadron of frigates who now know the job inside out - apart from the captains being friends of his - is going to send his frigates off, to salt down bullocks or hoist casks of water on board?"

  Hill shrugged his shoulders. He admitted to himself that there seemed to be a lot of common sense in what Southwick was saying, and it did not bode well for lieutenants. He just had time to run his eye over all the sails as he saw the captain come up the companion way.

  Hill waited for the captain to glance round the horizon before standing close by at the quarterdeck rail. He took a deep breath and ventured: "Southwick was just telling me about the bullocks, sir."

  Ramage's eyebrows rose. "Was he, by Jove. And what are his views on bullocks?"

  "Very smelly, he says, and salting them down is miserable work. So many flies."

  "I imagine it is," Ramage said sympathetically. "Why, are you thinking of going into business as a supplier of salt tack to the Navy?"

  "Oh no, sir. Southwick and I were just talking about what sort of work the Calypso will be doing when she joins the fleet."

  Ramage glanced at Southwick and then said: "Ah, salt tack and fresh water, eh?"

  "Yes, sir. Southwick explained the problem of supplying a blockading fleet, and said His Lordship would rely on bullocks from Tetuan and fresh water from Gibraltar."

  Ramage looked at Southwick again and then said to Hill: "And you expect the Calypso will have to act as a transport - the fleet being very short of transports."

  "Yes, that's what Southwick reckons."

  "Did Mr Southwick give any idea how many bullocks, live or salted, the Calypso could carry, compared with a transport?"

  "Well, no sir; he did make the point that His Lordship would not spare the line-of-battle ships to go down to water themselves."

  Ramage gave a dry laugh. "Come, Mr Hill, in what sort of weather could the Calypso transfer casks of fresh water and salt beef (let alone live bullocks) to a ship of the line?"

  "Well, it'd need to be pretty calm," Hill admitted.

  "So His Lordship is going to chance the supplying of his fleet on the vagaries of the weather?"

  Hill looked doubtfully at Southwick. "How else would he supply them, sir?"

  Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "We're only guessing that he's short of transports, but he's certainly desperately short of frigates. I can assure you, Hill, that there'll be frigates close up to Cadiz even if there are only half a dozen ships of the line waiting in ambush over the horizon. The enemy can see the frigates but they can only guess how many ships of the line are waiting out of sight - but within signalling range of the frigates. With respect to our reverend master, Mr Southwick, I suspect Lord Nelson will detach ships of the line, a few at a time, to make the dash to Gibraltar and Tetuan. He always wants his men to have as much fresh food as possible: they can use the fresh and keep the salt beef and pork in the casks."

  Hill turned accusingly to Southwick, who grinned and said: "That'll teach you to question my navigation, laddy!"

  On the tenth day out from Spithead, Southwick reckoned that they had passed the great rocky promontory of Cape St Vincent (so steep and riddled with caves that the booming of breaking seas could be heard for miles). The Calypso steered east-south-east with a good south-westerly breeze and good visibility. Cadiz was not far off.

  "We have to keep a sharp lookout for three mountain ranges," he said. "Well, Orsini?"

  The young midshipman looked blank and an irritated Ramage, standing within earshot, snapped: "I gave you a lesson about this coast the last time we were passing, on our way to the Mediterranean."

  "I can remember about the Duke of Medina Sidonia, sir, who commanded the Spanish Armada and owned land nearby, but . . ."

  "Tell him, Southwick . . ."

  "You know the coast runs north and south, eh?" Southwick asked sarcastically.

  A chastened Orsini nodded.

  "Well, about forty-five miles north along the coast from Cadiz is a range of mountains called the Sierra de Ronda, with the Cabezo del Moro more than five thousand feet high. We should sight them first on this course, and the Cabezo is rounded.

  "Then comes Pico de Aljibe, three and a half thousand feet high and just over thirty miles along the coast from Cadiz. It doesn't have a sign on it but its sides slope up gently.

  "The third one, twenty miles along the coast from Cadiz, is the one that belonged to your friend the late Duke of Medina Sidonia. You remember of course that it's shaped like a sugar loaf, has a tower near the top, and the village of Medina Sidonia looks like a white patch on the west side . . ."

  "Yes," Orsini exclaimed triumphantly, "all the houses in the village are painted white. And I can remember Cadiz and Rota, too, and the river running into the Bay of Cadiz is the San Pedro."

  "Splendid," Southwick said and, turning to Ramage, commented: "You see, sir, midshipmen are better than performing bears: they can talk."


  Ramage nodded and told Aitken: "Hail the lookouts, tell them what to look for, and give them bearings. Incidentally," he added, "we'll probably find the fleet some distance from Cadiz: the admiral won't want to frighten the enemy into staying in port..."

  "Aye, and young Orsini, you'll know the shoreline of Cadiz well enough soon," Southwick said. "His Lordship will have a frigate or two close up to Rota and Cadiz - a mile or two off - and a line of repeating frigates to within sight of the fleet. Tack, tack, wear, wear . . . and where do you go if there's a westerly gale, eh? Not up on the beach, I trust."

  Orsini knew enough not to answer, and he watched as Aitken picked up the speaking trumpet and hailed the foremast and mainmast lookouts.

  It has been a long chase, Ramage thought, and we did not catch up with the Victory. Well, Lord Nelson was in a hurry but he could not have made Captain Hardy drive the big three-decker any harder than the Calypso had been sailed. But a bigger ship with a much longer waterline length would always be faster if there was any weight in the wind - and it had been just the right wind for the Victory . . .

  Half an hour later the foremast lookout hailed that he could just see clouds that seemed to come off the lee of a mountain; fifteen minutes later he confirmed one mountain and reported more cloud to the south of it.

  Ramage looked at Orsini. "You know what to look for now, so take a bring-'em-near and aloft with you!"

  Orsini seized a telescope and made for the ratlines of the mainmast shrouds, climbing at the run.

  "I wasn't fair to him," Southwick commented. "He's a good lad. And just look at him, he's going up like a topman!"

  "So he should," Ramage said dryly. "When I was a midshipman his age, my captain expected midshipmen to go aloft faster than topmen."

  The master chuckled. "Yes, but topmen don't have to remember places with these outlandish foreign names."

  "They're not foreign to Orsini: remember, he speaks fluent Spanish. Cabezo del Moro means 'The Moor's Head' to him - which I'm sure it doesn't to you: and although he doesn't know it, I expect he's distantly related to the Medina Sidonia family anyway - these Spanish and Italian families were always marrying each other."