Ramage's Trial r-14

by Dudley Pope

  That had been the first thing that Ramage had considered: to him a natural reaction on first sighting a strange sail was, did she menace the convoy?

  "I think we'll accept that the Jason - if that's who she is - doesn't have such efficient officers as the Calypso."

  "Probably has a less tyrannical captain," Aitken said in one of his rare flashes of dry humour.

  Certainly a more erratic one, Ramage thought: the Jason was leaving herself with less than a mile in which to clew up courses, furl royals, round up and then back the foretopsail ready for the Calypso's approach, and unless she had a full ship's company (which was unlikely: if she had 150 men out of an establishment of 210 she would be lucky) the next few minutes could provide an object lesson in how not to handle a ship. A lesson which would not be lost on Aitken, Wagstaffe, Kenton and Martin, he noted grimly.

  He was always thankful when some other ship, friendly or enemy, made mistakes which provided lessons for them: he had taught them just about all he knew; they had reached the stage where they were eager and well prepared to work things out for themselves. In effect he had taught them to add. multiply and. subtract; now they had to tackle the various sums that sea life threw at them. So far, each one (and Orsini, too, of course) had come up with the right answers.

  Suddenly his mind slipped back several years and he saw himself through Southwick's eyes, a green young lieutenant put in command of the Kathleen cutter, knowing how to sail the damned ship but with precious little idea how to command her. That was the hardest part of teaching leadership - making young men realize that being able to tack a frigate in a high wind through a crowded anchorage proved only that they could sail a frigate, not necessarily lead men into battle. Yet going into battle and winning was their ultimate task.

  And all that, he told himself crossly, is how Captain Ramage spends valuable seconds daydreaming instead of displaying the leadership he is always talking about.

  But that damned Jason was showing no sign of getting ready to heave-to; she was surging along like a runaway horse tearing down a lane dragging a laden haywain.

  Ramage walked over to the compass and glanced at the quartermaster, Jackson. There was no need to ask the question.

  "She's just steering straight for us, sir: her bearing hasn't changed from the time we went to quarters."

  So the Jason was approaching with the wind on her starboard quarter. To pass the Calypso or to round up at the last moment without the risk of a collision, she would almost certainly turn to starboard and then back a topsail. By the same token the Calypso, beating up to her on the larboard tack, with the wind on the larboard bow, would have to come round only a point or two to larboard to back her foretopsail, or bear away to starboard if there was any risk of a collision.

  Southwick came up to the quarterdeck, obviously expecting that there would have to be some smart sail handling in the next few minutes and knowing he would be needed.

  "Hope the captain of this frigate isn't senior to you, sir," he muttered.

  "That thought just crossed my mind, too," Ramage said. He was sufficiently young and his name was low enough on the Post List that the odds were that the captain of the Jason was senior to him, and therefore safe from anything Ramage could say about the way he handled his ship. But should he be junior . . . Ramage would take perhaps two minutes and never raise his voice, but the Jason's captain would not act so stupidly again.

  "From her pendant numbers she's the Jason," Ramage said.

  "Aye, one of those three Thames-built frigates launched just before they signed that peace."

  Southwick's comment was followed by one of his famous contemptuous sniffs which were a language of their own. Ramage recognized this one as referring to the peace treaty: a comment.on the stupidity of Addington in falling for Bonaparte's carefully baited agreement which gave him breathing space to restock his empty armouries, granaries and shipyards. The peace had lasted eighteen months, and the politicians were congratulating themselves instead of being impeached. Ramage dare not think of the Navy's condition if the First Lord had snatched that brief period of peace to carry out the threatened reforms. They were laudable and long overdue, aimed at rooting out corruption in high places and low, but not something to start in the middle of a war. Except, of course, St Vincent and Addington had been too shortsighted to realize that Bonaparte's Treaty of Amiens was simply an eighteen-month pause between campaigns.

  And still the Jason came on. He lifted his telescope again and examined her carefully. She was getting too close in view of her odd behaviour. Her guns were run out on both sides, tiny, jutting black fingers. Her ensign was British, but she had lowered her pendant numbers. Ah ... they were beginning to clew up the courses, but slowly, as though the ship was manned by cripples or the old and infirm. No, he was not being fair because the Calypso's ship's company had served together for years and as far as sail handling was concerned it mattered not at all whether it was blowing a gale or the ship was becalmed, whether tropical sun dazzled or it was a dark night.

  "Took long enough," Southwick commented. "Perhaps half the ship's company's down with black vomit - could be," he added. Ramage wondered - sickness usually hit a newly arrived ship, and the Jason did not look as though she had been very long in the West Indies. A ship serving in the Tropics somehow acquired a bleached look; the sails would be faded, the paint on the hull would show it, even though recently applied . . . Somehow the frigate looked as though she was fresh from England. It was a feeling that Ramage could not have explained, and when he mentioned it to Southwick the master nodded. "Not a sheet of copper sheathing missing, as far as I can see. That alone rules out much service in the West Indies!"

  Ramage looked astern at the convoy. The great mass of ships was now far enough away that they merged into a narrow band on the horizon, a band which now took on the colour of the sails like a faintly reddish blur of smoke. Yet the Jason's lookouts would have spotted it; her officers must have examined it with their telescopes. It must be obvious to the captain of the Jason that the Calypso was one of the convoy's escorts, so why all this prancing about?

  Ramage lifted his telescope once more. Yes, the other frigates had obeyed his instructions: L'Espoir had moved out to starboard, up to windward of the convoy and able to cover the front by running down to leeward. La Robuste had moved across from the leeward side to take the Calypso's place astern and to windward. So the convoy was still covered: until they were all well away from the islands there was always a chance of French privateers attacking from Guadeloupe. That butterfly-shaped island had plenty of bays providing perfect bases for privateers. They could sail westward to intercept ships bound from Barbados to the more important islands to the northwest, like Tortola; or eastwards to intercept the Europe traffic. These privateers should be kept under control by the Royal Navy ships based in Antigua, but these days few people placed much reliance on English Harbour, which seemed to have an enervating effect on anyone based there.

  Meanwhile what the devil was the Jason up to? Now half a mile away and steering an opposite course to the Calypso, she was perhaps five hundred yards over to larboard, which meant she would pass too far off to hail. She had no signals hoisted; nor would there be time to answer if she hoisted one now. And Ramage had no idea who commanded her. . . someone senior, or some young fool at the bottom of the Post List who wanted to cut a dash?

  The Calypso was slicing her way up to windward but unable to close the five-hundred-yard gap. Considering she had not been careened, her bottom must be cleaner than he thought. But what the deuce was he to do with this Jason idiot? Just bear away as she passed and run back with her to the convoy? Why the devil did he not hoist a signal?

  Probably, Ramage decided, her captain was a man sufficiently high on the Post List who had identified the Calypso and guessed who commanded her and now wanted to catch him out in some silly game - like hoisting a signal at the last moment and demanding an instant answer. The price of a little hard-earned fame in the N
avy, Ramage had discovered, was to be the object of envy (jealousy was perhaps too strong a word) of all the failures who were senior on the Post List. They wanted, it seemed, to prove that he had feet of clay, and Ramage could almost hear the refrain - "There, that shows him he's not as clever as he thinks he is!" It was tiresome, boring even, for someone quietly doing his job . . .

  "Watch out!" Southwick bawled just as Ramage saw the Jason suddenly turning to larboard to cross the Calypso's bow. But was there room? Not if the Calypso continued slicing her way up to windward: there would be an almighty collision in a minute or two, with the Jason's starboard bow slamming into the Calypso's larboard bow.

  "Back the foretopsail!" Ramage shouted at Aitken and turning to Jackson snapped: "Hold her steady as she goes; the moment we get the foretopsail backed I don't want her to make a ship's length of headway."

  A ship's length would make all the difference whether the Calypso's jibboom missed or touched the Jason's shrouds and that in turn would decide whether the Jason tore out the Calypso's foremast by ripping away the jibboom and bowsprit, or the Calypso sent the Jason's masts by the board as her jibboom scraped along her shrouds like a small boy running a stick along a fence.

  Seamen raced from the guns to the foretopsail sheets and the braces to haul round the foretopsail yard by brute force. Ramage had already seen that he could not help them by turning the Calypso into the wind because that could carry the frigate those few yards extra which could bring the Jason crashing into him.

  But a quick look at the other frigate showed that she was making an attempt now to avoid a collision: it seemed that she was just determined to shave across the Calypso's bow and if there was any risk of a collision it was up to the Calypso to make the appropriate move.

  Ramage was aware that Jackson was cursing the Jason's captain with a monotonous fluency but his words were drowned as the Calypso's foretopsail slatted and banged when the yard was braced round, and a glance over the side showed the frigate slowing down, as though she was sliding on to a sandbank. And there was the Jason running obliquely down towards them from only a hundred yards away. Ramage could now see patches stitched into her sails; her bow had grey patches of dried salt on the black paint. Her figurehead, brightly painted, was probably a representation of Jason himself. Although the guns were run out, black and menacing, there was not a man in sight: no seamen's faces at the gunports, no one on the fo'c'sle waving a cheery greeting (perhaps after thinking the captain had run things rather close), no one shouting a message through a speaking trumpet.

  Suddenly the gun poking out of the first port gave an obscene red-eyed wink and then gouted smoke and, as the thunder of the explosion reached the Calypso the second gun fired, then the third and fourth in a ripple of flame, smoke and noise . . .

  The Calypso was being raked by a British frigate, Ramage realized in a shocked rage and the shots were passing over with a noise like ripping calico: raked at a few yards' range and both ships had British colours hoisted.

  The French poltroons who had captured the Jason were using a perfectly legitimate ruse de guerre when approaching under false colours, but the rules of war required that she lowered them and hoisted her own proper colours before opening fire . . .

  And there was not a damned thing that he could do about avoiding the rest of the broadside because by now the Calypso was stopped hove-to, dead in the water and a sitting target as the Jason raced by.

  But the Jason would pass in a few more moments and as Ramage listened for the crash of the Jason's shot tearing through the Calypso's hull and the screams of his men torn apart by shot or splinters, he shouted at Aitken to brace up the foretopsail yard and get the frigate under way again, otherwise if the Jason was quick she could wear round and pass across the Calypso's stern, raking her again with the other broadside.

  Ramage saw, however, that if he was quick enough he could turn the Calypso away to starboard in an attempt to follow the Jason, preventing her from passing astern. Everything depended on whether or not the Jason's captain had anticipated him heaving-to, suddenly stopping the ship. Ramage thought not: anyone foolish enough to pass so close ahead, risking a collision but (more important in the light of the raking) making it harder for his gunners, who had to fire at a sudden blur passing the port instead of having a good look at the target fifty yards away, anticipated nothing.

  The last of the Jason's guns fired and out of the corner of his eye Ramage could see the Jason's transom as she continued on the same course as before. Both Southwick and Aitken now joined him, the master bellowing through the speaking trumpet from time to time as the foretopsail began to draw. Jackson gave hurried orders to the men at the wheel to meet her as the bow began to pay off in the moments before the frigate came alive, moving through the water so that her rudder could get a bite.

  "Damage, casualties?" Ramage demanded of Aitken and was startled by the puzzled look on the Scotsman's face.

  "No casualties, sir, but a few sails torn and some rigging cut - nothing important."

  Southwick saw the unbelieving look on Ramage's face. "That's quite right, sir: those gunners were all aiming high."

  Oh yes, an old French trick: dismantling shot to tear sails and rigging to pieces but leaving the hull and spars undamaged so that when they boarded the helpless ship they need only hoist up some spare sails and bend them on, and knot the parted standing, and splice the running rigging, and they had a ship they could use.

  But what were the French doing? They were not racing for the convoy, nor were they tacking or wearing round to attack the Calypso again. What was their target? Their objective? The attack on the Calypso had been more like a flippant gesture than an act of war . . .

  "You'd think they were just passing on their way to Guadeloupe!" Aitken exclaimed wrathfully, "and they didn't even bother to wave . . ."

  "Follow in her wake," Ramage instructed Jackson, and Aitken began giving the orders to trim the sheets and brace the yards.

  Ramage found himself tapping his cupped right hand with the barrel of the telescope, which he was still holding in his left hand. His brain had apparently stopped working: the shock of what had just happened had, in its unexpectedness, numbed him.

  "Well," he asked Aitken, "we've a few minutes before we catch up with that scoundrel. Any ideas?"

  "Absolutely none sir!" Aitken admitted. "Why, I was waving at her when you ordered me to back the foretopsail, and that - well, that woke me up as I watched to see how close we were to a collision. Thirty yards, I reckon. Then the broadside started."

  Ramage turned to Southwick, who shook his head as a woman might spin a mop after it had dried. "Same with me, sir. I was waving to the scoundrels when they began firing. I thought her captain was being very silly and showing off by passing so close across our bow. She looked like the Jason, though."

  "She was the Jason all right," Ramage said. "I recognized her and remember her figurehead, and she had it carved on her transom and nicely picked out with real gold leaf ..."

  "So why did she open fire on us?" Southwick asked. "Must have been captured by the French. But those damned French gunners were drunk or something to have aimed so high."

  "After our sails and rigging," Aitken said.

  "Don't believe it," Southwick exclaimed. "They were firing roundshot. The Jason probably doesn't have dismantling shot in her locker, since few British ships carry it, but if you're after sails and rigging you use grape or case. A keg of case or grape through a sail shreds it well enough. A roundshot - well, you can see -" he gestured aloft, "- just a hole punched through the cloth; nothing that can't be patched or stitched."

  "Very well," Ramage said, watching the Jason as the Calypso finally turned into her wake, "all that's over. What's she going to do now?"

  "Beats me," Southwick admitted. "She's not even heading for the convoy. I'd understand her raking us in the hopes of sending one of our masts by the board, and then carrying on to attack the convoy - she's nicely placed to windward for that
."

  Aitken took his hat off and scratched his head, a signal which Ramage interpreted as meaning he had a suggestion about which he was doubtful. Ramage looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  "I was wondering, sir, if whoever commands the Jason is puzzled because the convoy is surrounded by three French-built frigates? If he's a Frenchman, could he have thought three French frigates had captured the convoy and he was coming down to join us to drink a toast to Bonaparte? Then suddenly at the last moment he saw we had British colours and bore up to rake us? That would account for her captain staying on the same course now and not making for the convoy."

  Before Ramage had time to answer, Southwick had seized on the same flaw that Ramage had spotted. "Why was she flying the Jason's pendant numbers and British colours, then? If she thought the Calypso was also French, surely she'd have been waving a Tricolour and some French signal or other? But approaching another French frigate under British colours - that'd be asking for trouble, apart from being quite unnecessary."

  Aitken nodded. "Yes, you're quite right: I didn't think long enough before I spoke."

  "We haven't much time," Ramage said, "so let's hear thoughts when they arrive!"

  "What do you reckon, sir?" Southwick asked.

  The more Ramage thought about it, the more puzzled he became. He acknowledged Jackson's report of the Jason's course. "I'm certain of only one thing: we aren't going to find any answers by following her so far astern: let fall the courses, Mr Aitken. Out with your quadrant, Mr Southwick, and let's have some angles on the Jason's masts: I want to know the minute we start overhauling her."

  As Aitken turned away, calling out orders, Paolo, obviously annoyed at having no role to play so far, asked: "No signals for La Robuste or L'Espoir, sir?"

  "No, they know that they have to stay with the convoy. This is just the moment that a privateer lurking on the horizon would be praying for."