by Dudley Pope
‘No, she doesn’t know we’re out here and is probably wondering why the Scourge keeps on burning false fires. She could understand the rockets, thinking we are somewhere off Cap Salomon,’ Ramage said, ‘but her captain must be wondering why there are no more rockets.’
Just then another false fire started burning, and Ramage could see that the Achille was still on the same course and less than half a mile away. In the blue light he could see the curve of her sails and the black blur which was her hull. What could they see from the Achille? Would they be able to spot the Dido against the blacker northern horizon?
Suddenly Southwick exclaimed: ‘I can see her very well with the nightglass. All plain sail set. She’ll pass about a quarter of a mile ahead of us. She’s probably making five knots: no more, I can just make out the phosphorescence at the bow.’
‘Warn them to stand by at the guns,’ Ramage told Aitken. ‘It won’t be long now.’
A night action against another seventy-four: the fact was he did not know what to expect. Apart from the thunder of the guns, there would be a mass of flashes which would make it hard to see anything. But at least the flashes would give the gunners an aiming point: they would not be hampered by darkness.
‘She’s coming up quite fast,’ Southwick said, the nightglass to his eye. ‘I think I can just make out a black speck that is the Scourge in the distance. It’s damned difficult, what with this nightglass showing everything upside down.’
Ramage cursed that there was only one nightglass on board the Dido, but it belonged to Southwick and he did not feel he could demand the use of it at this particular moment.
‘How far now?’
‘Under five hundred yards, sir. I reckon she might spot us any minute.’
Then, Ramage mused, what would she do? She could turn to larboard and head out to sea – in which case the Dido would follow her – or she could turn slightly to starboard, trying to give the Dido a wide berth but getting close to Pointe des Nègres, or else she could stay on her present course and engage the Dido, exchanging broadside for broadside.
Just at that moment the Scourge set off another false fire, which lit up the Achille perfectly: she was large on the starboard beam and Ramage with the naked eye could make out the tracery of her rigging.
‘Let the foretopsail draw, turn to larboard on to the same course,’ he snapped at Aitken. He should have turned the ship sooner so that she presented a smaller object for the Achille’s lookouts to spot.
Slowly the Dido began to move ahead and turn so that the cliffs of Pointe des Nègres moved round from being dead ahead to broad on the beam. Before she finished the turn the false fire died down and Ramage, who had closed his right eye, cautiously opened it, and found he had kept his night vision in that eye. Not only that, but he could now just make out the Achille’s position as she approached. He had to go to the ship’s side and look astern out of a gunport on the starboard side.
‘Three hundred yards,’ Southwick said. ‘She’s holding the same course and making perhaps five knots.’
And then Ramage could make out the big black shape of the ship with a ghostly phosphorescent bow wave which flickered a pale green. She was about two or three hundred yards nearer Pointe des Nègres but, as the Dido finished her turn, on the same course.
‘They must have seen us by now,’ Southwick commented. ‘I wonder why they haven’t opened up with bowchasers.’
‘Probably learned their lesson from using the sternchasers against the Scourge: they found the flashes blinded them,’ Ramage said.
‘Well, he’s not trying to dodge us: he’s not afraid of engaging us broadside to broadside,’ said Aitken.
‘He hasn’t had much time to think about it,’ Ramage said mildly.
‘Well, he hasn’t much choice now!’
The Achille was approaching fast. She had not increased speed: Ramage knew it was just a trick of the light, or the dark. But he decided to close the range.
‘A point to starboard, Mr Aitken.’
As the Dido turned slightly, the Achille seemed to slide closer.
As far as Ramage could make out, she had not reduced sail. But even as he watched he saw the courses being clewed up: an indication that she had only just sighted the Dido. Now the French were at a slight disadvantage – being forced to fight with too much canvas set.
The range was closing fast now in the darkness: Ramage could see the ship quite clearly: she was two hundred yards away, broad on the Dido’s quarter and overhauling her. Another three minutes and she would be abeam, and the fighting would start.
Ramage found himself timing the approach as he watched. Two minutes. He turned to Aitken. ‘Tell the guns to be ready for the order to fire in about a minute.’
The first lieutenant snatched up the speaking trumpet and Ramage did not take his eyes off the Achille. Now the tip of her jib-boom was abreast the Dido’s taffrail. Now her foremast, bulbous with the clewed up course, was level with the poop.
‘Stand by,’ Ramage muttered at Aitken, who lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips.
There were several bright flashes as the Achille’s forward guns opened fire, and Ramage was thankful that he had been watching the ship long enough to know exactly where she was: otherwise he would have been dazzled by the muzzle flash.
More of the French ship’s guns fired and Ramage heard the tearing calico noise of the shot passing overhead. The French were aiming too high. Was this because the gunners were not used to firing in the dark or were they deliberately firing high to disable rigging?
Now, after firing her guns as they bore, the Achille was almost abreast the Dido and Ramage said: ‘Fire!’
It was as though there was a huge clap of thunder and a prodigious flash of lightning as the Dido’s broadside fired, every gun going off within a second.
Ramage had been a moment too late in closing his eyes and the combined flash of all the Dido’s broadsides had dazzled him. He found it hard to see the Achille, although she was a bare hundred yards away, with the Dido still on a slightly converging course.
‘A point to larboard should bring us on to the same course,’ he told Aitken just as the Achille’s forward guns fired again. It was curious how guns firing individually were never so terrifying as a broadside. Ramage just had time to decide that the French, firing a few guns at a time, had dazzled themselves, when a shot whined between him and Southwick after ricocheting off the mainmast.
Suddenly Orsini’s carronades on the poop barked out again: they could be loaded quicker than the carriage guns, and Ramage could imagine the youth’s excitement as he spurred on his men.
Then the Dido’s second broadside crashed out: slightly ragged this time as the men took slightly different times to load their guns. Now the smoke was streaming across the quarterdeck, making them all cough and spreading through the ship like fog. It blurred the flash of the guns firing, softening the harshness until it was like lightning in a thick cloud.
So this is what a night action between ships of the line is like, Ramage thought to himself. The only startling thing was the flash of the guns: it turned night into what seemed to be the entrance to Hell. The rigging threw weird shadows on the sails; the sails themselves were lit up spasmodically and threw more shadows, apparently distorting the masts.
The darkness seemed to emphasise the noise. Obviously the guns were making no more noise than usual, but the darkness seemed to concentrate it, as though the thunder could not escape.
He heard Orsini shouting orders to his guns’ crews: the lad was excited but controlled, and the guns crashed out yet again. Firing caseshot, they would be sweeping the Frenchman’s decks, cutting down men and slashing rigging and sails.
‘Look at that!’ shouted Southwick, pointing aloft. ‘They’re either firing wild or trying to dismast us!’
In the light of the flashes Ramage could see the main topgallant yard was hanging down at a crazy angle and in two pieces, obviously hit squarely by a roundshot. There wil
l be plenty of work for the carpenter and his mates before this night’s over, Ramage thought.
Now the thunder of the guns from both ships was continuous, like thunder exaggerated a hundred times, and the flicker of the guns firing was like summer lightning. It seemed to Ramage that there was an air of unreality over the whole scene. He was too used to fighting in bright daylight to feel comfortable in the darkness.
But, he realised, it must be the same for the French. Not only that but they were probably suffering from harbour rot, his phrase for the strange malaise that came over a ship’s company when they did not go to sea. Ships and seamen rot in harbour: a glib phrase but a true one. And when had the Achille last fired her guns in anger? Probably months, if not years ago, and Ramage could not see the ship sailing from Fort Royal to exercise the guns’ crews at sea.
Just then one of the men at the wheel screamed and collapsed, and in the darkness Ramage could see a dark stain spreading across the deck. As Aitken shouted for another seaman to take his place, there was a crash and another roundshot hit the mainmast and whined aft in ricochet across the gratings to bury itself in the bulkhead on the forward side of Ramage’s pantry, at the larboard forward corner of the coach.
Suddenly Ramage realised Southwick was tugging at his arm and pointing over the starboard bow.
‘Pointe des Nègres – it’s very close: you can just see the cliffs in the flashes of our broadsides.’
And there they were, eerily grey and menacing, and their course – the one being steered by both the Achille and the Dido – was converging on it; in half a mile or less they would be up on the rocks.
But, Ramage realised, the French had not noticed their danger – either the lookouts had been killed or they were below serving at the guns. Anyway, whatever their fate they were not keeping a lookout.
And this was the Dido’s chance: Ramage guessed he had only a couple of minutes to seize it. ‘Quick, slap us alongside! Turn right into her!’
This was the chance of surprising the enemy: surprise was the secret of all success, and it was the hardest thing to achieve. But if the Achille suddenly found the Dido coming at her out of the darkness, apparently intending to board, her obvious move was to turn away to starboard – a turn which should take her on to the rocks, because by then if the French saw the cliffs they would not have enough room to turn back again.
The men spun the wheel, helped by Jackson, and Ramage heard as if for the first time the popping of the muskets of the Marines. ‘Boarders stand by,’ he shouted at Aitken, ‘and warn Rennick that we might be boarding!’
The Dido’s broadside became more ragged as the ship’s turn meant the guns had to be trained round more, but they soon picked up and the ship seemed to tremble as the guns fired and rumbled back in recoil.
‘We’re firing faster than they are,’ Southwick said.
‘I should hope so, after all that training.’
‘And the French still seem to be firing high.’
‘So much the better: they don’t seem to be doing much damage and it means we aren’t losing so many men.’
Just then a grapeshot crashed into the corner of the binnacle and ricocheted into the bulwark after showering both Ramage and Southwick with splinters, none of which wounded them. Southwick brushed them off his coat. ‘Lucky that didn’t hit the compass.’
The words were hardly out of his mouth before the calico tearing sound of another shot seemed to pass between them, close enough for both men to duck involuntarily.
‘Hot work,’ grumbled Southwick. ‘Too hot to last.’
‘They seem determined to knock our heads off,’ Ramage said.
Now he could see that the Dido was easing over on to the Achille but the flashes of the guns were too dazzling for him to be able to distinguish the cliffs. Was the Achille turning to starboard to avoid the Dido crashing alongside or were they just getting ready to repel boarders?
The side of the French ship rippled with the flashes of her guns, and Ramage could feel rather than hear the thud as roundshot bit into the Dido’s side. He heard an occasional scream as a man was hit; otherwise there was just the hollow rumble of the guns firing and recoiling and the cork popping sound of the Marines’ muskets. The smoke was now thick on the quarterdeck, eddying and twisting as it was caught by random wind currents.
Ramage stared hard at the Achille, trying to decide whether she was turning away. He finally decided she was not. Which would mean the Dido must crash alongside in about three minutes – a manoeuvre he had not intended: he did not want to try to take the French ship by boarding, although he was prepared. Apart from anything else, the French ship was probably carrying a hundred or so extra troops – the easiest way they had of reinforcing the ship in anticipation of meeting the Dido. There were always soldiers available in Fort Royal.
Orsini was keeping up a high rate of fire with his carronades: the new design of slides certainly speeded up loading. Providing the aiming was as good as the rate of fire, they should be clearing the Achille’s decks methodically – carronades firing caseshot at close range were lethal, and the spread of the shot at this range was just about ideal.
‘She’s holding her course,’ Southwick grumbled. ‘We’re going to run aboard her.’
‘I’m afraid so: I just hope she hasn’t taken on a lot of extra troops,’ Ramage said.
‘We can always hold off and keep this range.’
‘No, our only hope of avoiding a battering match is to get her to run ashore. Maybe they’ll take fright after we get alongside.’
Southwick hitched his sword round a bit, as if reassuring himself that he was still wearing it. ‘It’ll make a change for me to board someone,’ he said, intending to forestall Ramage from telling him that he could not join the boarding parties. There was little he enjoyed more than swinging his big two-handed sword as he swept into the midst of a group of Frenchmen. Yet with his flowing white hair and cheery red face he looked like the peaceful parson of a country parish, more used to writing out his sermons than wielding a sword. Southwick was, Ramage considered, the most deceptive-looking man in the Dido’s ship’s company.
The gap between the two ships was closing faster now: the outline of tbe Achille was becoming more definite, even though she still had a ghostly quality as the flickering from her own guns and the Dido’s lit her up, throwing weird shadows across her sails and making her hull seem to tremble.
The range was down to less than a hundred yards when Southwick exclaimed: ‘She’s turning!’
At almost the same moment Ramage noticed that her bowsprit was diverging slightly to starboard. Not much – maybe a point. But no, the swing was continuing. The captain of the Achille had suddenly decided to sheer off rather than risk being boarded. But was he watching the Dido and not looking to starboard?
Ramage willed his guns to fire faster, so that the French captain concentrated on the Dido. He tried to put himself in the Frenchman’s place. Yes, he could imagine himself being obsessed with watching the enemy: it was the obvious thing to do, particularly when he seemed to be moving into a position to run alongside and board.
Again he looked forward at the Achille’s bowsprit, and in the gun flashes he was sure she had turned another point to starboard. Two points. Three should be enough. Four would make it certain. As he watched, feeling almost dizzy as the flashes nagged at his eyes, he was sure the French ship was still turning. The only reference point was the Dido’s own bowsprit, which was also turning to starboard but at a slower rate.
He gave Aitken the order to bring the wheel amidships, to stop the turn. Every yard the Dido made to starboard brought her that much nearer to Pointe des Nègres, apart from making it harder to distinguish how much the Achille was turning. The French captain had it in mind that the Dido was trying to come alongside to board, and that was all that mattered: he probably would not notice that she had in fact stopped her turn: the gunfire and darkness would obscure that. Or at least he hoped it would.
; With the Dido’s helm amidships he could not distinguish for certain that the Achille was continuing the turn to starboard – turning increasingly faster as her rudder got a bite on the water. How long would it be now?
Another roundshot ripped overhead, only a couple of feet clear of Ramage and Southwick as they stood together on the quarterdeck. This time neither man moved; both were trying to see beyond the Achille’s bow, for a sight of the cliffs. Suddenly a ripple of fire from the Dido’s guns made a concentrated flash which showed Ramage the cliffs: not where he had been looking, across the French ship’s fo’c’sle, but just ahead of her.
‘Larboard your helm!’ he bellowed at Aitken. ‘We’ll be on the rocks ourselves in a few moments.’
Even as he shouted the Achille seemed to stop in the water and then appeared to draw astern as the Dido forged ahead and began to turn to seaward away from the cliffs and away from the Achille.
Slowly the gunfire died down as the gun captains realised there was no target, and the night became black. Black with blotches of grey as the eyes tried to recover from the dazzling effect of the muzzle flashes.
‘We’ve done it!’ Southwick shouted triumphantly. ‘She’s gone up on the rocks!’
‘I’m not sure we’re going to get clear in time,’ Ramage said cautiously. ‘I can’t see a damned thing.’
‘I’m blinded too,’ Southwick admitted. ‘All those flashes were too much. But God, how black it is now.’
Ramage waited anxiously as the Dido turned and Aitken shouted orders for trimming the sails and bracing the yards. Would that sickening crunch come as the Dido’s bow rode up on the small reef of rocks extending seaward from the Pointe des Nègres or would she turn in time?
Just at that moment cloud cleared away and let starlight down on to the cliff, giving Ramage a sense of direction and letting him see that the Dido would pass clear. But as he looked over the Dido’s quarter he could see the black hump of the Achille, seemingly hunched up at the foot of the cliff, her shape hard to identify.