by Dudley Pope
“We left them in a mess,” said Jackson. “Could they have got the yards up?”
“They’d ‘ave escaped with what they got up already,” Stafford said scornfully. “Topsails, t’gallants—enough to get under way.”
“True enough,” Jackson agreed, “providing our raking broadsides didn’t do any damage. When we swept the deck I saw a lot of damage. Must have cut a lot of cordage, apart from putting paid to that main-yard.”
“We shall know in a few minutes,” Gilbert said, getting up and going over to the port. “No, we’re not far enough round to see yet.”
“Who is making a bet?” Auguste asked. “I bet a tot that she is still there. Any takers?”
“Done!” exclaimed Stafford. “I say she’s gone.”
“Who’ll bet that if she’s gone we don’t start chasing her?” Jackson asked.
“Cor, you’d ‘ave to be mad to take that bet,” Stafford said scornfully. “If she’s gone she could only have gone round to the westward, and Mr Ramage’ll be after her like lightning.”
“We’d never catch her,” Rossi said. “She’d have a two-hour start on us.”
“But she’d be under reduced canvas,” Jackson pointed out. “She won’t have her main course up. She’ll be just jilling along under topsails and topgallants.”
“Two hours is two hours,” Rossi said doggedly. “Why, she’ll probably be out of sight—there’s plenty of haze about.”
“Let’s wait and see,” advised Jackson. “We’ll know in a few minutes whether or not Staff’s won his tot.”
Up on the quarterdeck Ramage waited as impatiently as Stafford as he watched the coastline with his telescope.
“It’s nice seeing our fo’c’sle clear of prisoners,” he commented to Southwick.
“Aye, but they’d had all the fight washed out of ‘em!”
“Maybe,” Ramage agreed, “but it only needed one hothead to rouse them up.”
“It would have taken more than one hothead,” Southwick said. “Most of them had swallowed a lot of the Mediterranean, and all they wanted to do was sick it up.”
Ramage gestured ahead. “I thought that dam’ frigate was anchored in this next bay, but it’s not the right shape.”
“No, it’s another mile or so yet. And the bay cuts in so you won’t see anything until you pass the first headland.”
Aitken said: “I expect the ship’s company are making bets whether or not she’s still there.”
“What odds are you offering?” Southwick asked jocularly.
“If I was a betting man—which I’m not—I’d give twenty to one that she’s gone,” Aitken said. “She’ll be halfway to Toulon by now.”
“We’ll see,” Southwick said calmly. “If she’s gone we’ll have a hard time finding her in this haze—it seems to be getting worse.”
“She’s still there,” Ramage said calmly. “I can see the trucks of her masts over the headland.”
“Twenty to one, eh?” Southwick said to Aitken. “Don’t start taking bets—you’d be bankrupt in short order. Horses are more unpredictable than Frenchmen!”
Ramage tapped one hand with the telescope. “If they’ve hoisted their colours again—and are still anchored as before—we’ll rake ‘em a few times: they’ll probably take the hint and haul down their colours again.”
“I wish we could rake her across the bow,” Southwick said. “There can’t be much aft for us to smash up.”
“I want to sail her out of here,” Ramage said sharply. “So we don’t want to risk any damage to her jib-boom or bowsprit.”
“Oh, I realize that, sir,” Southwick said. “It was just getting rather boring raking her stern!”
“Just bear with us a little longer,” Ramage said sarcastically.
“Anyway, they may haul down their colours again as soon as they sight us.”
“They couldn’t have seen us coming back, sir?” Aitken asked.
“I thought of that—in fact I was trying to spot them,” Ramage said, “but the bay they are in cuts up to the north-west, so they can’t see out to the east or north-east.”
“So, we’ll surprise them,” Aitken said cheerfully. “We’ve been surprising Frenchmen a lot today.”
“As long as they don’t start surprising us,” Ramage said. “Let’s not get too confident.”
He gave Aitken a helm order to start rounding the headland and looked for Orsini. The young Italian was standing five yards away, pretending he could not hear the conversation.
“Go round all the guns on the larboard side and warn them that they will probably be raking the Frenchman in about five minutes,” he said. “And tell the officers that the Frenchman is here.”
His telescope showed the stunted, gnarled olive trees growing along the headland, their leaves glinting silver as the wind caught them. There were dark green patches where cactus grew in sprouting clusters. The ground was rocky: there was little soil on this eastern side of the island and what little grass there was had been ripped up by goats, whose tracks made spiders’ web trails.
Le Tigre must be lying in the same position, head to wind and her bows to the east, her stern pointing at the far headland and leaving little room for manoeuvre. At least, that much he could make out from the position of her masts.
And then suddenly the Calypso had rounded the first headland and there, fine on her larboard bow, was Le Tigre, looking much the same as when Ramage had first seen her. The main-yard was still down on deck but her stern was still out of sight. The Tricolour had been hoisted again; it streamed aft in the breeze in what seemed to Ramage a pointless act of defiance. Not so pointless, he corrected himself: Le Tigre thought she had been rescued by Le Jason; she was not to know about that rock further up the coast.
“It’ll be like a wasp’s nest on her quarterdeck,” observed Southwick. “They never expected to see us again.”
“There were times when I didn’t expect to see her,” Ramage said sourly.
He turned to Aitken. “We’ll rake her astern with our larboard broadside, if you please; pass thirty yards off her transom.”
Round shot this time at a range of thirty yards. And if they approached carefully, at right angles to the French ship, only a few of the enemy’s guns would be able to fire at them.
The Calypso’s first broadside smashed even more of the French ship’s transom into dust: it always surprised Ramage just how much dust was created. Dust you could see, clouds of it; splinters, many six feet long, you could not see: they were flung up faster than the eye could detect, and they scythed along to kill more men than the round shot.
The smoke of the guns was just sweeping across the quarterdeck, setting the three officers coughing, when Ramage gave the order to wear round and cross Le Tigre’s stern on the other tack.
Slowly, with sails slatting and men hauling at the braces, the Calypso wore round and, after reloading their guns, the crews ran across to the starboard side to be ready for the next broadside. As Aitken shouted orders for trimming the sails the Calypso steadied on her new course and increased speed.
Southwick, staring grimly at Le Tigre’s stern, growled: “She won’t be able to take many more broadsides like that!”
As he spoke, the Tricolour fluttered down, something first seen by an excited Orsini. Ramage at once seized the speaking-trumpet and shouted to the guns to cease fire, but five had already fired before the order was understood through the ship.
“Serves ‘em right,” Southwick commented unsympathetically. “They should have hauled down their colours the minute we hove in sight.”
Two frigates in one day: as Ramage thought back to how the day had begun—with the prospect of destruction by those two ships of the line—he was hard put to believe what he saw. But the Tricolour had been lowered at the run and he had to admit that, with the prospect of another raking broadside, he could not blame the French captain. Blame him, yes, for not getting the yards across and preparing to get under way, instead of assuming that the
other frigate would drive off the Englishman. But that was a piece of unjustifiable optimism since he knew that both ships were evenly matched.
“Back the fore-topsail, Mr Aitken,” Ramage said, wanting to heave-to outside the arcs of fire of Le Tigre’s broadside: there was no need to start trusting the Frenchman just because he had hauled down his colours.
But he was back with the same problem: what to do with prisoners. Only this time he would have almost a whole ship’s complement, less those killed by the Calypso’s broadsides…. Well, it was the same problem, and there was the same answer: put the prisoners ashore while Le Tigre was repaired and got ready to be sailed away by a prize-crew from the Calypso. But the prisoners from Le Tigre would not be half-drowned men unlikely to put up a fight. “We’ll anchor, Mr Aitken. And then I want a boat-gun fitted in the cutter.”
And that was the only safe way of putting the Frenchmen ashore: loading the cutter with a boat-gun and a dozen marines with muskets, and using it to escort the other boats ashore with the prisoners. But first he had to go over to Le Tigre and take her surrender. Was the captain still alive?
The French captain was dead; he had been killed when Ramage had ordered the Calypso’s guns to sweep Le Tigre’s decks. Ramage saw that the ship’s first lieutenant had been so shocked by the attack and the death of his captain that instead of getting the ship ready for sea he had spent the time having the men clear up the ship and prepare the bodies for burial. More than thirty bodies were lined up on deck, neatly sewn into their hammocks, and waiting for the funeral service to be read.
The lieutenant, Christian La Croix, had met Ramage at the entry port and immediately offered his sword, as though scared that if he did not do it immediately Ramage would open fire again.
La Croix told Ramage that Le Tigre had originally been part of a force which had included the two line-of-battle ships, but she had sprung her main-yard and foreyard and had been ordered into the lee—as it then was—of Capraia. The wind had changed, making the island a lee shore, but the captain had not considered the wind strong enough to be a threat.
The captain had never expected to see a British ship, and he had been caught completely unawares when the Calypso had suddenly appeared round the headland. The first raking broadsides had swept through the ship, cutting men down in swathes. They could not manoeuvre and thus could not bring any guns to bear, and when the captain was killed, the lieutenant had decided the only thing he could do to stop the slaughter was to surrender, and hardly had he hauled down his colours than he saw Le Jason (also part of the original force but detached to inspect a distant sail) returning. The Calypso and Le Jason had engaged each other immediately, and when the Calypso had not returned two hours later he assumed she had been taken. A wrong assumption, he admitted ruefully.
Then, he said quite openly, the Calypso had suddenly reappeared, round the northern headland this time, and once again caught him unprepared. He had not seen the masts of the British frigate approaching; the first he knew was when a lookout saw the ship rounding the headland with her guns run out.
Ramage had been told all this story while they stood on deck by the entry port. He was quite ready to take La Croix’s word for it that the dead captain’s cabin no longer existed.
After returning the lieutenant’s sword—much to La Croix’s surprise, since he thought that by surrendering he had brought dishonour on himself twice in one day—Ramage told him that he intended putting all Le Tigre’s ship’s company ashore, except for the wounded, who would be taken to the Calypso for treatment. Those too badly wounded to be moved would be treated on board Le Tigre. The ship’s surgeon, Ramage said, would have to remain on board as a prisoner. In the meantime one of the officers could read the funeral service over the dead.
Back on board the Calypso, Ramage revised his orders. The prisoners would be ferried ashore in the two cutters, and the jolly-boat would be armed with a boat-gun and would carry a dozen marines. The two cutters would be rowed to the shore keeping either side of the jolly-boat. If the French prisoners tried to take control of one or other of the cutters, Ramage instructed, the men at the oars should jump over the side, leaving the way open for the boat-gun in the jolly-boat to open fire.
Orsini was put in command of the jolly-boat with Jackson and his boat crew, with marines to handle the gun, which fitted on the forward thwart and fired two pounds of musket balls.
To take the first boatload of prisoners ashore, the jolly-boat was rowed over to Le Tigre and she stayed close to the entry port while the cutters went alongside. Two marines searched each man as he came down the ship’s side to make sure that he was not concealing a pistol or a knife.
The wind was kicking up a chop as the two cutters and jolly-boat set off on their first trip to the shore. Orsini, proud and excited at commanding a little flotilla of three boats, kept a sharp lookout and steered for a forty-yard-long stretch of beach between rocks. There was a slight swell breaking on the sand but each boat had a grapnel ready to drop as it went in and which would prevent its stern from swinging round so that the boat broached.
Ramage had left Hill and a dozen seamen on board the French ship to supervise the transfer of prisoners and had taken Lieutenant La Croix over to the Calypso: he would remain a prisoner of war on board. La Croix had been taken below under guard and Ramage was idly watching the two cutters return empty, escorted by the jolly-boat. Suddenly he saw the cutters as they approached Le Tigre quickly swerve away and wait about thirty yards from the entry port. The jolly-boat went up to the entry port, paused for three or four minutes, and then turned and headed for the Calypso.
A puzzled Ramage called Aitken and Southwick and went to wait at the entry port. As soon as the jolly-boat came alongside and hooked on, Orsini hurried on board and saluted Ramage.
“The French prisoners have seized Mr Hill and the marines,” he reported angrily. “They warned me and the cutters to keep off …”
“What are their demands?” Ramage enquired.
“They made none, sir. I think they just seized our people without any plan.”
“Do they have a spokesman?”
“There’s a big fat seaman who shouted down at me. He looks like the ringleader.”
Ramage thought for a moment. If he made a single mistake now there would be an inglorious stalemate: a stalemate which he had caused by not putting a strong guard on board Le Tigre. He had assumed, since she had surrendered and could not get under way, that all her men were helpless. Clearly they were not.
“Go back to Le Tigre,” he told Orsini. “Tell the ringleader that we shall start raking his ship as soon as we get under way again, and will go on raking her until they hoist a white flag showing they surrender.”
“But Mr Hill … ?” asked Orsini.
“Mr Hill and the rest of them will have to take their chance,” Ramage said abruptly.
As Orsini scrambled down to the jolly-boat, Ramage gave his orders. Southwick was told to get the ship under way again—which meant letting the fore-topsail draw—while Aitken was ordered to make sure the guns on both broadsides were loaded, and the crews were distributed as evenly as possible, since many men were away in the two cutters and jolly-boat.
“Supposing the French put Hill and the rest of our men right aft, sir?” Southwick asked.
“I’m assuming they will,” Ramage said bitterly, “in which case they’ll be killed—if we have to open fire.”
Southwick nodded reluctantly, because he liked Hill. “I suppose we have no choice.”
“None that I can think of,” Ramage said.
By now the fore-topsail was drawing and she began to wear round to pass across Le Tigre’s stern.
“Pass the word to the guns that they are not to fire the first time we cross Le Tigre’s stern,” Ramage told Aitken. “But we shall tack and pass back, if necessary, and they will open fire with the starboard broadside.”
“Pass just close enough to keep our yards clear,” Ramage said to Southwick.
As the Calypso turned, Ramage watched the group of Frenchmen by the entry port. The jolly-boat had been up to the ship and, now that Orsini had delivered his warning, was rowing clear, followed by the cutters. Ramage could imagine the debate among the French: they could now see the English frigate, with guns run out, manoeuvring to deliver another of her raking broadsides which had already killed so many Frenchmen. Would the fat spokesman (ringleader, most likely) now realize that he had just signed the death warrants for another score or so of his shipmates?
The Calypso slowly turned as though to bring her larboard broadside to bear as she passed across Le Tigre’s stern, and Ramage watched the French ship closely. He had decided to make one false run to give the French time to find a white flag: they would have to make one up from an old sheet, or even hoist up a square of canvas, though the colour would be far from white.
As Ramage’s telescope swept Le Tigre’s stern, he saw running men waving shirts. Then the Tricolour was hoisted a few feet and then hauled down again. There was no mistaking the movement.
“They’re surrendering again,” Southwick said with a contemptuous sniff. “They can’t find a white flag!”
“Keep going,” Ramage said. “It won’t do ‘em any harm to think they’re going to be raked again.”
The Calypso passed close under Le Tigre’s stern without firing and then wore round to pass back again and returned to her original position, where she hove-to.
Almost immediately Orsini was alongside with the jolly-boat and coming on board for orders.
“Bring that spokesman over here, and then carry on with the cutters taking men ashore,” Ramage said. “But I want to talk to the fat man.”
Orsini said: “I thought you were going to rake her, sir: it looked very frightening from the jolly-boat.”
“It had to look frightening for the bluff to work,” Ramage said.
“You mean you would not have fired, sir?” Orsini asked.
“That fat man thought so, and that’s all that matters,” Ramage said.
“I thought you would, too,” Orsini said with a shiver. “I thought I’d seen the last of Mr Hill.”