by Dudley Pope
"Only thing is, sir," he said quietly, "do we want those Frenchies to see us rigging grapnels? It might give the game away."
Ramage nodded and called down to Aitken: "Tell the topmen to rig those lines as though they're working on the sails. Don't hoist a grapnel high enough for the Jason to see. It's to be a happy surprise for them," he added.
"Glad you're going to board, sir," Southwick commented, his voice low.
Ramage was curious why the old master had reached that conclusion - one that Southwick seemed to have had in mind for several minutes. "Why board? Their shooting was lamentable."
"By keeping the men hidden, seems to me, sir, that French captain is trying to make us think he wants us to board. But he's not such a fool as to think we'd fall for it, so I reckon he doesn't want us to board. He just wants us to think he wants us to, so that we'll do something else.
"That makes me think - what with his poor shooting just now, which was so poor it must have been deliberate - that what he really wants is to have us a hundred yards away on his beam where his guns can either smash our hull to matchwood or tear our sails to shreds. I reckon you're going to do just what he's scared of and what he's trying to lead us away from - like a lapwing running lame to lead you away from her nest."
"I hope you're right," Ramage said. "I don't fancy that frigate running around loose in the convoy, with us lying out here dismasted and those new captains on board L'Espoir and La Robuste -"
"- running around like moulting hens," Southwick finished the sentence. "You've just got time for a word to the men, sir - if you wanted to say anything."
Southwick knew quite well that Ramage hated these eve-of-a-fight harangues which many captains liked - those who made time for long speeches full of rounded phrases and stirring thoughts designed to make the men fight better. Ramage knew the Calypsos would fight well if no one spoke another word, but Southwick always disagreed, not because he thought the men would not fight so well, just that he reckoned they liked to hear a few words from their captain.
Very well, there was nothing worse than having Southwick walking round with a disapproving look on his face. Where was the speaking trumpet? He would just have time to include the topmen before they went aloft to reeve the lines for the grapnels. He gave a bellow which had every man turning to look up at him.
"Calypsos, I think the King would like to have that frigate (she's the Jason, by the way) back again before the reek of garlic stinks out the bilges. So we'd better retake her. It'll also mean we have a stronger escort for the convoy too, and yet more prize money. Not that any of you need it!"
Every man in sight seemed to be waving his arms and cheering and slapping each other on the back, so perhaps Southwick was right, though why fifty words, a sneer at the French and a joke about prize money should make any difference was beyond him. "So we'll board her," he concluded, "and I want the boarders away in a flash when the order is given. Once you are on board her, don't stand around gossiping; I want those prisoners secured quickly, otherwise it'll take all night to beat back to the convoy."
He tapped Southwick on the arm and nodded towards the quartermaster, who was continuing to watch the set of the sails and the compass and the four men at the double wheel. "Let's make sure we all know exactly what we're going to do," he said. "I don't want to have to be shouting orders at the last moment."
Southwick looked at him suspiciously. "You're not planning on leaving me behind again, are you sir?"
"Being left in command of a frigate is hardly 'being left behind'," Ramage said mildly.
"You know what I mean, sir, and you've used that argument at least a couple of dozen times. It's my turn now. Leave one of these youngsters behind - they all had a chance with those two," he added, nodding at the convoy where by now it was easy to see La Robuste and L'Espoir.
Southwick, old enough to be the grandfather of each of the officers and most of the petty officers and seamen, liked (indeed, craved) a good fight on the decks of an enemy ship as a drunkard craved a pull at a bottle except, Ramage thought ruefully, that he knew of a few drunkards who had been cured of their craving whereas Southwick's seemed to grow with each passing birthday.
"Very well, just this time. Martin or Kenton?"
Southwick shook his head. "I'd sooner see Wagstaffe left here, sir. The Jason's a well-found ship and looks to me as though she's commanded by a shrewd devil. Whoever stays on board here might . . . well -"
"- might have to take the convoy back to England, eh?"
Southwick grinned, but because that was what he had in mind he nodded. "We're all mortal, sir, and we've had a good run for our money."
"Very well, just listen to what I have to say to the quartermaster, then go down and find Wagstaffe. Tell him what I'm going to do and tell him he'll be left in command. And don't forget to collect that dam' meat cleaver!"
Southwick's enormous two-handed sword was famous. Most of the men in the Calypso carried a picture of Southwick, in some action or other, sweeping down the deck of an enemy ship, white hair flowing in the breeze, bellowing like an enraged bull and whirling the great sword over his head, scything his way through a crowd of the enemy as powerless to defend themselves against this apparent monster as a rabbit to evade a ferret.
Quickly Ramage explained to Southwick and the quartermaster what he planned to do, and both men nodded. There was nothing particularly subtle about it; both men understood that, given the circumstances, it was the only plan that stood a chance of success without a heavy loss of life.
Aitken and Wagstaffe both arrived on the quarterdeck together, and Ramage looked questioningly at the first lieutenant. "We haven't much time, Mr Aitken," he said.
The Scotsman recognized the tone because it was the nearest Mr Ramage ever came to being querulous, and he grinned cheerfully. "Lines for the grapnels are already rove, sir, and 1 have a couple of dozen men hidden below the bulwarks and securing the grapnels."
Ramage nodded. "Well, if I don't see them at work presumably the Jason won't. Now listen, the pair of you, this is what I intend doing." Quickly he explained that Wagstaffe would be in command of the Calypso. This brought an immediate protest from the second lieutenant that he would be left out of any fight and Ramage looked at both Aitken and Southwick. "There are times," he said with mock exasperation, "when I wish the three of you would go up on the fo'c'sle and settle all this among yourselves."
Southwick, fearing Ramage would change his mind, said hurriedly to Wagstaffe: "You're greedy. You had a good scrap with the last prizes and took command of one of them while I had to stay in the Calypso."
"Well, I am the second lieutenant."
"And I'm old enough to be your father and grandfather," Southwick growled, "and even if you are a commission officer, if you're not careful I'll put you across my knee!"
The remark was just enough to set them all laughing. Wagstaffe agreed it was Southwick's turn and looked serious when Ramage pointed out that having command of the Calypso gave him responsibility for the convoy, "Even though the captains of L'Espoir and La Robuste will take it from you the moment they know anything has happened to me."
Ramage left the deck for a few minutes, going down to his cabin and returning with a cutlass and belt slung over his shoulders and a mahogany case containing a brace of pistols. He knelt down at the case to load the pistols while Aitken hurried below, promising to collect Southwick's sword because the master was still busy with his quadrant.
Finally, as Aitken returned wearing his own sword and with a Sea Service pistol tucked in his belt, handing Southwick his sword and a pistol, Ramage told the master: "Put your quadrant away somewhere safe: we can rely on our own eyes now!"
Eyes, he thought bitterly, but not brain. What the devil was going on in the Jason?Was she really being sailed badly to lure on the Calypso?Why were all the men hidden - it could not be from fear of sharpshooters. At least the mythical Jason had a ship full of heroes to help him when he sailed in the Argo to find the Golden F
leece. Still, the equally mythical Calypso offered immortality and eternal youth to Odysseus when he was shipwrecked on her island. All of which, Ramage reflected, shows that recalling Greek mythology is a great help if you want to pass the time and keep your thoughts from getting occupied with more troublesome matters.
The Jason was on the starboard tack, with the wind fine on her starboard quarter. She would expect to be attacked on that side, from to windward, and no one but an idiot would attack from to leeward. From the Jason's point of view the Calypso would be unlikely to attack from to leeward because the wind would blow the smoke from her guns straight back on board, blinding her officers and choking the gunners. More important, if the Calypso attacked from to leeward, the Jason could drop down on to the Calypso, while the British ship would have to get up to windward to close the range. The weather gauge ... to many admirals they were the only three words that mattered, although they were as confining as a canvas straitjacket.
Yet those three words explained, Ramage reflected sourly, why several famous admirals had won peerages for what were tactical disasters, complete failures which the politicians (ignorant of tactics) had, by the judicious distribution of peerages and knighthoods, turned into great victories with stirring speeches in Parliament.
That was why Vice-Admiral Nelson had not made himself very popular among the Navy's senior flag officers: before his victories at the Nile and Copenhagen, it was enough for the admiral commanding a fleet to break the enemy line and capture three ships - then England rang the bells for a great victory and gave him a peerage. St Vincent took four ships in his victory - but two of those were captured by Nelson . . .
But the Nile and Copenhagen had set new standards: for three, read a dozen or more. Yes and give credit to Admiral Duncan at Camperdown because his victory over the Dutch was hard won and complete, and Rodney at the Saints. But the Glorious First of June, so proudly hailed by the old guard, was by the new standards a disaster, a Glorious Failure.
Very well, Captain Ramage, prepare for your attack on this strange ship the Jason . . . There's four hundred yards to go, you've made your little speech to rally the men, all the guns are loaded, the men have cutlass, pikes and tomahawks to hand, and pistols too; the grapnels are ready to fling on board the enemy.
He turned to the quartermaster, Pegg, who had taken over the job usually carried out by Jackson. He was a wiry, gipsy-faced seaman, famous in the Calypso for his hatred of Welshmen. "A point to starboard - as though we are going to pass the Jason five hundred yards to windward."
Pegg gave the order to the helmsmen as he brushed his carefully plaited black hair to one side and, grinning happily, muttered to himself: "But we ain't though, I'll bet all the takings from a Michaelmas Fair." Since he had been given instructions, Pegg was not taking much risk.
Ramage caught the sense of the gipsy's words and smiled to himself: the "takings" that Pegg had in mind were not the profits made by the stallholders, but the haul made by the "dips", the light-fingered pickpockets who regarded the fixed fairs as the times in the year when they could clear good profits to see them through the winter. Like a "dip" planning his campaign, Pegg could see that the obvious way of attacking the Jason was to overhaul her and settle down five hundred yards to windward and pound her with the 12-pounders, later perhaps closing in to give her a taste of the carronades loaded with canister or grape. But Pegg had sailed with his captain too long ever to expect the obvious: he had also learned that the obvious was the most easily countered.
A broadside first? Ramage knew there was no time to reload, so that the starboard broadside would be no better than a single pistol shot. What would be best, smoke, noise and confusion - or just silence: a cold-blooded silence?
Well, he was doing the unexpected and it had better be right: looking forward, he could already see Aitken going to each division, explaining to the officers in charge and the men serving the guns exactly what they were to do when the time came. Aitken stood, and was apparently talking, with all the authority of the man who knew for certain what would happen. A lucky fellow. Ramage thought and glanced at the two pistols in his belt. The flints were good and Ramage thought of the flint knappers tapping away with their special hammers so that the flints flew off like someone slicing a crisp cucumber. A man's life could depend on a good flint . . .
CHAPTER NINE
Ramage stood at the starboard side of the quarterdeck rail with Wagstaffe beside him. The quartermaster Pegg had moved between Ramage and the men at the wheel so that he should not miss a hurried order, but almost imperceptibly the Calypso was closing with the Jason. Even without a glass they could see the gingerbread work on the scroll on the transom: JASON was carved there, the letters picked out in gold against a red background. The scrollwork enclosing it all was picked out in blue. Not my choice of colours, Ramage thought, but obviously some other man's personal taste clashed with the normal dictates of heraldry. At least the name was gilded - the man who sought the Golden Fleece did not have to suffer the indignity of having his name painted in tawdry yellow.
There was Southwick, crouched down behind the bulwark, trying to hide the fact that he had occasional twinges of rheumatism. There was Paolo, still loyal to the midshipman's dirk but covering himself by having a cutlass in a belt over his shoulder and a pistol tucked into his belt. Yes, Paolo was as excited as an eighteen-year-old boy was entitled to be. He would be the target of every French sharpshooter in the Jason if they knew he was the heir to the Kingdom of Volterra (might even now be its ruler, if Gianna had been murdered by Bonaparte, which seemed very likely). Young "Blower" Martin had a pistol and a half-pike. Interesting that this time he had picked a half-pike against a cutlass, but he was small, and with a half-pike you could jab the enemy four and a half feet away, whereas you had to be breathing in each other's face to have much effect with the cutlass.
Martin's father, the master shipwright, would probably not recognize his son at this moment. Ramage had a feeling that the father regarded the flute as an unmanly instrument without realizing "Blower's" skill with more lethal instruments.
And there was the irrepressible third lieutenant, Kenton. There was no mistaking his red hair, heavily freckled face which was always peeling because he could not protect it from the sun, and his four-square stance - even though he too was crouching. Kenton's father, a half-pay captain, would be delighted at the eagerness with which Kenton awaited action.
Finally there was Aitken, brought up as a boy in the Highlands and the son of a former master in the Royal Navy. Aitken, tall with a thin, almost gaunt face, black hair and deep-set eyes, at first meeting seemed dour and spare with words, issuing them with the reluctance of a purser handing out candles (which he had to pay for out of his own pocket). But in fact Aitken had a droll sense of humour: he and Southwick sparked teasing remarks off each other which made the rounds of the ship.
All the Jason's guns were still run out, and even though he had looked carefully at each gunport, Ramage could see no sign of the guns' crews. He could now see two men at the wheel (two, not four as a British ship o' war usually had when going into action) and a man was walking round them who could be either the officer of the deck or the captain, but who certainly was not wearing the uniform of a post-captain in the Royal Navy. Or the uniform of anyone's navy. Trousers (did that mean he was a sans-culotte? Presumably) of dark-green material and a long coat one would expect to see on an English parson visiting the dying: it was black with a deep velvet collar. Who but a madman would wear a coat like that in the Tropics? Well, Ramage admitted, the fellow commanding the Jason seems quite at home in it.
Ramage turned to Pegg, eyebrows raised, and the gipsy face nodded to show that he understood the moment was fast approaching and knew what he had to do. It was not a straightforward manoeuvre, because no one would be tending sheets or braces, but Pegg had the kind of confidence that Ramage had spent years instilling into his ship's company against such a day as now.
Fifty yards . . . the
black paint of the Jason's hull was in even better condition than he had thought. Forty yards . . . there were a dozen brightly coloured shirts strung out on a washing line on the fo'c'sle. Thirty yards . . . although the Calypso was overhauling her, the Jason was making good speed: her wake formed the usual fascinating pattern of whorls. In a few minutes the Calypso's jibboom would be overhanging the Jason's stern like a fishing rod over a stream.
Ramage nodded to Pegg, who snapped out an order which had the four men spinning the wheel. To the captain of the Jason the Calypso was at last beginning to turn to starboard, sidestepping so that instead of following she came up alongside to starboard: on the windward side, with her whole broadside ready.
The Jason's captain would be making sure that all his gunners were at the starboard side guns: no frigate could man both broadsides at once, and if it was needed the men fired one side and ran across to fire the other.
There were still several yards between the Calypso's jibboom and the Jason's transom, even though the British frigate had begun her swing out, ready to overtake and come alongside.
Ramage watched the gap, narrowing his eyes as if to see more clearly. All he really saw was every one of his officers and Pegg anxiously watching him.
"Right, Pegg," he snapped and the gipsy, certain the order had been left a moment too late, shouted at the four men and flung himself on the wheel too, clawing at the spokes.
Slowly, as though with enormous dignity, like a dowager changing her mind, the Calypso's bow began to turn to larboard. To the watching men, it seemed as though the Jason was being pulled slowly to starboard and then, as the Calypso's extra speed became obvious, the Jason was gently pulled astern.
Ramage watched theJason's quarterdeck. Twenty yards. . .that curious black-coated figure was striding up and down and he had not looked at the Calypso for several minutes: it was as though he was unaware that she had been following and was now overtaking. All part of the play-acting, all part of whatever trap he was trying to set? Ramage was far from sure: all he knew was that the man would look perfectly at home striding among the dark-green yews and the moss-packed tombstones in an English cemetery, perhaps quietly muttering some prayer or psalm in memory of those who had taken up permanent residence.