Ramage and the Freebooters

by Dudley Pope

  Ramage turned and ran aft, surprised to hear himself screaming ‘Tritons!’ and instinctively striking sideways as a sword blade gleamed momentarily in the darkness. Sensing rather than seeing there was a group of four or five men standing near the tiller, he slashed at the dark shape of his attacker with the cutlass while trying to drag a pistol from his waistband with his left hand.

  A surge of Tritons overwhelmed the men by the tiller and, as Ramage realized his opponent was a better than average swordsman the man suddenly flung his cutlass at Ramage’s head and leapt over the side into the water.

  Within a couple of minutes there was almost complete silence on the schooner’s deck and the croaking of frogs and screams of frightened birds was all Ramage could hear as he hurriedly checked his men. No one had even a scratch to report. The first two privateersmen were dead beside the bulwark; two of the five standing aft were dead, the rest dying.

  ‘Jackson! Make the prisoners say what happened to Gorton. Evans, you ready with those signal rockets? Right, fire one and make sure it doesn’t foul the rigging!’

  Even before Jackson had time to start, one of the Tritons was calling that Gorton and the rest of the Jorum’s crew were tied up in the cuddy, and a minute later, while Ramage peered around him, trying to make out where the schooner was and if the two privateers were nearby, Gorton came up, swinging his arms as if he was cold.

  ‘You’ve got the ship back then, sir!’ he exclaimed. ‘Sorry about this slapping but the ropes numbed my arms. We’re in Marigot, sir. They didn’t make any secret of it. As soon as someone called Dupont came on board – he’s their leader – we were going to have our throats cut!’

  Ramage peered round, still trying to spot where the privateers were anchored and Gorton said, ‘There’s one of them over there…’ pointing to the east, where Ramage could just pick out the shape of a vessel dark against the mangroves growing to the water’s edge. ‘And the other’s just beyond.’

  ‘Find a–’

  He spun round with an oath as a sudden hissing roar and a flash behind him seemed a prelude to the schooner blowing up; but a rocket snaking up into the sky to burst into five red stars told him Evans had carried out his orders.

  ‘Gorton – keep an eye on those privateers: watch for boats pulling over towards us. Can you find your night-glass?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  ‘Jackson – take all the men with musketoons and half a dozen more and get out along that jetty: stop this fellow Dupont and his men!’

  What now? Everything was happening so fast and not at all the way he had expected: instead of all twenty of the Tritons fighting a sudden, short and savage battle with all the privateersmen, it might now turn into a long-drawn-out siege, with the Jorum a fortress.

  Could the Triton ever get into here? If the privateers put springs on their cables and hauled themselves round they could train their broadsides on to the Jorum…

  Jackson had already assembled the men with musketoons and had them scrambling over the bulwark on to the jetty, but he was arguing with several other men who wanted to be among the other half dozen.

  ‘Take more, Jackson!’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’ With that Jackson and the rest of the men were scrambling over the bulwark and running along the jetty.

  Gorton called: ‘Boats leaving both privateers, sir.’

  Ramage acknowledged. Would they try to board, or land on the shore and attack along the jetty?

  But what was puzzling him was Gorton’s certainty that this was Marigot Bay. It seemed completely landlocked.

  ‘Where’s the entrance?’

  Gorton grunted. ‘That’s what’s puzzling me, sir. There’s the high hills to the south – they’re clear enough. And to the north – that’s the ridge there. Well, the entrance is between the two.’

  ‘But it’s closed off completely – why, you can see palm trees growing across.’

  ‘I know, sir.’

  Suddenly a loud popping and flashing of flame at the landward end of the jetty showed that Dupont and his men were attacking. The musket flashes seemed almost continuous from landward, punctuated by the occasional heavier boom of one of the Tritons’ musketoons firing. Jackson’s men were heavily outnumbered – and they hadn’t much shelter. Even worse, they were having to stay close to the jetty so Dupont’s men couldn’t cut off their escape route back to the schooner.

  Ramage rubbed his brow. From the other side the privateers’ boats were approaching fast. No shooting – obviously they were hoping they wouldn’t be seen; hoping that Dupont and his men attacking along the jetty would occupy the Tritons’ attention.

  And in the meantime the Jorum was secured alongside the jetty, no longer a Trojan horse but a bullock tied up in a stall at the slaughterhouse. And the French call us rosbifs, Ramage thought irrelevantly.

  Although the musket-fire on shore was easing, it was now interspersed with the challenge ‘Triton!’ showing it was almost hand-to-hand. The privateers’ boats were perhaps fifty yards away. And he felt a slight breeze on the back of his neck, from the north-east he noted automatically, and then nearly jumped with the realization it was blowing towards the palm trees on the sandspit…

  Should he or not? Out of the frying pan? Well, the pan was pretty hot… He yelled out a string of orders: for the grenade men to wait on the larboard side, others to stand by to cut the mooring warps, with more ready to push the Jorum clear of the jetty. The remainder, he shouted, were to stand by at the schooner’s taffrail with pistols, ready to fire along the jetty.

  Who to send to Jackson?

  As if sensing the thought, Gorton said: ‘What can I do, sir? I’m standing here like a spare topsail halyard.’

  ‘Get along the jetty to Jackson. Tell him as soon as I shout “Tritons!” he’s to get his men back on board. We’ll try to cover them with pistols.’

  ‘What about–’

  ‘Get moving, Gorton!’

  The man cleared the bulwark in one leap; a moment later Ramage heard him running along the jetty. Then he cursed – he’d forgotten to tell him to shout when Jackson was ready…

  The privateers’ boats – five of them – were closing fast, moving silently like water beetles across a village pond, silent but heading directly for the Jorum. Each one of these freebooters knew more about boarding an enemy in the dark than any twenty men in one of the King’s ships. If only Jackson arrived back as they… No, that was asking too much.

  Five boats, twenty or more men in each. A hundred men, and Dupont had – forty or fifty? He felt sick. Trojan horse! It’d been a wild idea and Wilson had known it – that was why he had wanted that report written for the Governor. An obituary. A two-page obituary for twenty Tritons.

  As he stood frightened and despairing that once again he had acted without enough thought, he felt the wind chill on his cheek. The offshore breeze had begun, and a few moments later he saw the fronds of the palms moving gently as it reached them.

  But better the Jorum stranded on the beach by those palms, where they would have something of a moat all round them, than stuck here at the end of the jetty.

  He filled his lungs and shouted: ‘Jackson! Are you ready there?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  ‘Tritons!’

  He was almost screaming now with excitement and relief.

  ‘Aft there – ready with your pistols! Shoot down anyone without a white headband – but watch out for Gorton!’

  Feet thundering along the jetty, pursued by musket shots. The dull flash and crack of a musketoon as the Tritons covered their retreat.

  ‘Cast off all lines!’

  Ropes splashed into the water forward, and then aft.

  A quick glance round showed the privateers’ boats were twenty yards off.

  ‘Grenade men – stand by to light your fuses!’

  Then he thought of Evans and shouted for him, hoping he hadn’t gone with Jackson.

  The Welshman was standing nearby.

  ‘Qu
ick – light a false-fire!’

  Seamen scrambling over the bulwarks from the jetty, white bands round their brows; pistols whiplashing as the Tritons at the taffrail fired along the jetty. Sparks close by, then suddenly Evans’ false-fire lit up the whole schooner in its ghostly blue light.

  ‘Grenade men – crouch down! The boats are coming alongside. When I give the word light your fuses from the false-fire and drop the grenades into the boats!’

  He was thankful the grenades had no more than five-second fuses. Two wounded men being lifted over the bulwark. Then Jackson standing in front of him, wild-eyed in the light of the false-fire.

  ‘Dupont’s got fifty men or more, sir. We lost two dead, and two wounded.’

  ‘Very well. Five boats approaching on the larboard side. Get your men ready but keep clear of the side until I give the word. We’ve cast off from the jetty.’

  He looked over the larboard side: damn, he’d left it late.

  ‘Grenade men: light and drop ’em in the boats – smartly now!’

  The men crouched round the false-fire with the grenades, holding them so the fuses, sticking out like wicks, were in the flame. As soon as the fuses sparked the men ran to the side, paused a moment – Ramage realized the bright light had dazzled them – and then dropped the grenades. Almost at once there were shouts from the boats and the crack of pistols fired upwards. One of the Tritons slowly toppled backwards without a sound, a dark stain on his headband.

  ‘Start bearing off!’ Ramage yelled. ‘Heave her off the jetty!’

  A great flash and a deep, sullen roar on the starboard side, then another. Screams of men in terrible pain, screams of men almost witless with fear. It was raining, and pieces of wood were falling on deck. Two more explosions, then a third. Ramage realized the grenades had not only blown up the boats but the explosions were showering water and wreckage over the schooner’s deck.

  Then Jackson was yelling something from the rail but Ramage couldn’t hear from where he was standing at the starboard side exhorting the men to shove harder at boathooks – some had even snatched up the hatch beams – to get the schooner away from the jetty.

  More yells from the taffrail. What the devil were they shouting about? Glancing back along the jetty it wasn’t hard to guess: a black mass, a giant caterpillar, was advancing slowly along it – Dupont’s men, and the Tritons at the taffrail were hurriedly reloading their pistols.

  ‘Jackson! Musketoon-men aft – sweep the jetty. Smartly now!’

  Conscious that Gorton was working feverishly at the bulwark, Ramage then heard Jackson’s wail that there’d been no time to reload the musketoons. Dupont’s men were twenty yards away. Although the Jorum was slowly moving along the jetty, its angle to the wind was too small to stop her bumping back against it. But every moment she was clear she was drifting farther towards the end.

  Flashes of musket-fire from Dupont’s men: very wary now, firing and reloading as they came; not realizing there wasn’t a loaded pistol or musketoon in the schooner. Maybe those terrible explosions had scared them.

  Again the Jorum was shoved away from the jetty, moving four or five yards and then beginning to drift back towards it as the Tritons hurriedly tried to push her off once more.

  Dupont’s men were almost level with the taffrail. Ramage turned to snatch up the false-fire but found Jackson crouched over it, a grenade in one hand. A moment later he stood up and Ramage could see the fuse spluttering.

  The American ran to the taffrail, stood for a few moments – again Ramage saw he was dazzled – and then with an ear-splitting shriek of ‘Tritons!’ tossed a grenade into the middle of the men on the jetty.

  Then he promptly dropped down below the level of the taffrail, shouting a warning to all the men near him.

  A flash, deep red against the blue light of the false-fire, and simultaneously a heavy explosion which merged into the sound of splintering wood and the yells and screams of men, and echoed round the hills.

  ‘I got the swivel ready, sir!’

  Ramage, startled as he pictured the grenade’s effect, jerked back to see Gorton standing a yard away, gesticulating at the small swivel gun fitted into the top of the bulwark and which he now had trained on the jetty.

  ‘Wait a moment – may not be necessary!’

  Beginning to feel a little more optimistic, Ramage peered along the jetty and saw there was still a black mass of men there. Not so many though, and none moving. Dupont had quit, leaving his dead and wounded behind. Quit to regroup, replan, give new orders.

  ‘Just stand by that swivel, Gorton, and get the others loaded! Now you men, put your backs into it and get us clear!’

  And once again the Jorum, pushed bodily away from the jetty, drifted a few yards and then bumped again as the wind pressed against her hull, masts and rigging.

  In the last of the light from the dying false-fire Ramage saw the end of the jetty was now abreast her foremast.

  ‘Come on lads, one good heave and we’re clear!’

  The wind backed a few degrees in a sudden gust, just enough to blow the schooner clear, then it dropped and veered again. Ramage watched the Jorum’s stern clear the end of the jetty and almost sighed in relief.

  Well, adrift in the bay they were safe from Dupont’s crowd for the moment. But now what? No point in trying to sail the schooner out – even if he could see where the devil the entrance was – because the privateers could sneak out and vanish if the Triton didn’t arrive in time to blockade them in. So he had to stay and try to destroy them. A forlorn hope.

  Now what? Time and again the question repeated itself, and the schooner slowly drifted towards the palm trees, which he realized were growing on a narrow sandspit. He was rubbing his brow as if some magic would make his brain work, and perhaps it did. Since he couldn’t sail the schooner out, there was no choice: he had to stay in the bay, and if he stayed he had to fight…

  He turned away from the bulwark. The first thing was to get the Jorum into some sort of fighting trim again – the two privateers were still there and Dupont had plenty of men on shore who’d be swarming on board the moment she ran aground on that sandspit.

  ‘Gorton! Are your swivels loaded yet? Jackson! Every musketoon reload, and pistols too. Aft there! Leave your pistols with Jackson and man the jib and foresail halyards!’

  Again he looked round. The schooner was barely moving – but he suddenly realized she was drifting into the arcs of fire of the privateers’ broadside guns and any minute would be in effective range of their swivels.

  He knew panic wasn’t far away and was surprised enough to try to guess why. He was even more surprised when he realized the answer. The high hills – mountains, in fact, covered with a thin layer of soil on which scrub bushes had a hard fight to survive – formed a complete amphitheatre with the water as the arena. The effect was heightened because he couldn’t see the entrance. He felt trapped, much as a Christian must have felt trapped in a Roman stadium when thrown to the lions…

  He shook his head to get rid of the thought and bellowed for the jib and foresail to be hoisted, moving aft to take the tiller himself. As the halyards creaked and the sails crept up the mast, showing themselves only as they hid the stars, the gentle gurgling of water under the stem increased and he leaned against the tiller, steering for the middle of the row of palms along the sandspit.

  The Jorum slowly swung to starboard: too slowly – she needed the mainsail, and he shouted for it to be hoisted. It was barely half-way up the mast when he felt the wind’s effect, pushing round the schooner’s stern and helping the rudder which, because of the ship’s slow speed, could hardly get a bite on the water.

  Flashes over the larboard quarter as the privateers opened fire with their swivels; the thumping of metal on wood – on the hull and spars of the Jorum. Five swivels a side in each privateer; twenty musket balls in each gun. Two hundred balls had been fired at the schooner; none had hit a man – there hadn’t been a shout – nor were the masts or sails
damaged, since everything was still up and drawing.

  A minute to reload. He leaned harder against the tiller. All very interesting. Plenty of steerage way, but where to steer?

  The palms stretched in a wide barrier ahead, a thick clump to starboard and another clump to leeward, and dead ahead they were evenly spaced. And – yes! Beyond them he could just see the twinkling of stars reflecting on the water, so that was probably the narrowest part of the sandspit blocking the way out.

  Yet he still couldn’t see how the devil the privateers got into the lagoon in the first place…

  Run her bow straight up on the sand? Or luff up and furl all the canvas, letting the Jorum drift broadside on to the sandspit? That way the swivels on one side could cover the sandspit and those on the other the privateers. But that way also meant Dupont and his cut-throats could board along the whole length of her side!

  That decided him – he’d run her stem up on to the sand so Dupont’s men could board only over the bow, where they would be crowded together and a good target for the swivels and musketoons.

  ‘Tritons!’ he yelled. ‘Hear this: I’m going to beach the ship bows on. Stand by for the shock and come aft – both masts might go by the board. As soon as we hit – not a moment before – let the halyards run. If we still have any masts standing!’

  Now he had made up his mind and there was plenty to do he felt the panic slipping away as quietly as it came. Jackson was helping him with the tiller – Ramage hadn’t noticed him moving in the darkness – and the American said: ‘How the hell did they get us in here, sir?’

  ‘I wish I knew! No sign of a channel. The chart shows a sandspit either side with a channel between.’

  ‘Gorton’s certain it’s Marigot Bay.’

  ‘So am I; but it doesn’t square up with the chart.’

  ‘Charts could be wrong, sir.’