Ramage and the Dido

by Dudley Pope

  ‘He did that,’ Southwick said ruefully. ‘But perhaps we’ll get our own back by fooling him.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Ramage said. ‘Though we haven’t a lot of room to tackle both escorts and convoy.’

  ‘But if we manage to destroy the pilot, perhaps a lot of the French merchantmen will run aground through not weathering Pointe du Diamant. It’s a big gulf, and a lot of them might go aground on the north shore.’

  ‘Not too many,’ Ramage said jokingly. ‘I want to send most of them into Barbados as prizes.’

  ‘Well, the former Calypsos don’t need the money, but the new Didos will be thankful. The prize and head money from the Alerte will have just whetted their appetites!’

  At that moment Aitken came on to the quarterdeck, and Ramage asked: ‘How did the gunnery exercise go? I was busy writing the Achille report for the admiral, otherwise I would have been down there with my watch, timing them.’

  ‘I gave my watch an airing,’ Aitken said, ‘and their times are much better. That action against the Achille seems to have woken them up.’

  ‘Well, they’d better be wide awake when we meet the convoy: they’re going to have to do a lot of shooting in a very short time.’

  Ramage thought a moment. ‘If we’re likely to meet the convoy at night it might be a good idea to train the men to work in darkness. Blindfold them, so that they get used to moving round the guns instinctively.’

  Aitken looked doubtful and Ramage said: ‘You don’t seem very keen on the idea.’

  ‘No sir, to be quite honest I’m not. It’s never quite that dark: the flashes of the guns going off – except for the first broadside they never fire at the same time – gives light enough for the men to move about.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Ramage agreed. ‘All right, let them exercise in daylight, but tell the officers to remind them what it’s like at night, with smoke as well as the darkness.’

  Chapter Twenty

  All that night and the following day the Dido tacked and wore to the north-west of Cabrit Island, but there was no sign of the convoy. Ramage would have worried that the ships had come in round the north of the island but for the fact that the Scourge was still off Fort Royal and would come south immediately to warn if any ships arrived.

  The fine weather continued but the wind fell light. The sea was almost flat calm, with just a slight swell from the east, and overhead there was the scattering of balls of cotton as Trade wind clouds made their way westward in even lines, like marching soldiers. Flying fish flashed up from the depths, skimmed above the waves and then vanished as effortlessly as they came. Gulls mewed pitifully in the Dido’s wake, as if pleading to be thrown scraps, and the black and menacing frigate birds curved and dived gracefully, swooping down almost faster than the eye could follow to pursue a flying fish or snatch up a piece of rubbish from the sea, careful never to get their feathers wet.

  The ship’s company had spent the morning exercising at the guns. It was tedious for the former Calypsos, Ramage realised, but the new Didos had to reach their standard, and only constant exercise would do that. And all the time Ramage was waiting for a hail from the lookout aloft, reporting sail rounding Cabrit. There were times when it was as much as he could do not to seize the speaking trumpet and hail the lookouts. He cursed the fact that he had been born impatient: he wanted the action to start.

  Southwick took his hat off and ran his fingers through his flowing white hair. ‘This light wind must be delaying them,’ he said. ‘I can just imagine the trouble those French frigates are having with the mules. I’ll bet they’re the same as our merchantmen – reefing right down at night, falling astern, and not getting back into position until noon.’

  ‘You sound as though you have unhappy memories of convoys,’ Ramage said jokingly.

  Southwick sighed. ‘Is there any naval officer alive, British or French, that remembers convoy work with affection? D’you remember that convoy we took to England from Barbados, when we met that frigate commanded by a madman?’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget it, since it led to me being courtmartialled. I remember it because of the trial; I suppose you remember it for other reasons.’

  ‘Well, of course I remember the trial, sir, but it was the last time those mules had a chance of driving me mad!’

  ‘You’ll recover in time,’ Ramage said consolingly. ‘Just think of other things – like flogging to windward down the Channel with snow flurries and leaking oilskins…’

  ‘That’s done it,’ Southwick said, laughing. ‘I could just feel the cold water trickling down my neck, and my eyebrows begin to freeze up.’

  ‘It’s amazing how thinking about that can cheer you up,’ Ramage said. ‘It’s one of the worst experiences I can think of.’

  ‘It’s worse for the topmen having to handle frozen ropes and sails. I get sorry for them, too!’

  ‘Well, don’t waste sympathy on Frenchmen jogging along comfortably in the Trades with reefed sails at night,’ Ramage said. ‘They’re not only upsetting the French frigates, but they’re annoying me!’

  The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, with the men aloft exercising at sail handling, this time sending down a topsail and hoisting it again, all against Ramage’s watch. It was hot work in the Tropical sun but the men, naked to the waist and now well tanned, enjoyed it.

  ‘Next time we’ll send down the yard as well,’ Ramage told Aitken. ‘If these Frenchmen don’t arrive soon, we’ll have them sending down the yard at night. I want the men as used to doing things in darkness as in daylight. We were lucky in the action against the Achille. Next time we might not be so lucky.’

  At dusk the lookouts were brought down from aloft and, with more men, stationed round the ship. At the same time the drums beat to quarters, so that the Dido met the night ready for action.

  When the time came to stand down, Ramage gave orders that the guns were to be left loaded and run out. The big disadvantage of a seventy-four, he reckoned, was that it took a quarter of an hour for the men to get to quarters and be ready for action, against the five minutes it took a frigate. If the French suddenly turned up in the darkness he could ill afford to waste fifteen minutes while the men went to quarters. They would have to sleep by their guns.

  A new moon cast a watery light, and it was setting fast. The sky was clear and Ramage knew he could look for some starlight. The wind was still light – the Dido was making a bare five knots off the wind – and there was very little sea, the earlier swell having subsided. It was, he thought bitterly, a night more suited to lovers than war.

  As the Dido headed north-west, the wind on her starboard quarter, there was a downdraught from her mainsail which made the night almost chilly as Ramage stood on the quarterdeck. The sails gave an occasional desultory flap as the wind faltered and then picked up again. The masts occasionally creaked as the ship gave a lazy roll, and the beams groaned in sympathy. Apart from the downdraught, the air was warm and damp and several of the men on watch were not wearing shirts.

  Kenton was the officer of the deck and every fifteen minutes he called to the lookouts to make sure they were still wide awake. As a midshipman he had learned to doze off standing up, and he knew it was a skill that most seamen possessed. Thinking of dozing reminded him of the seaman’s slang for having a sleep, ‘taking a caulk’. Sleeping on the bare deck in a warm climate, when the caulking in the seams between the planks was soft, usually meant that the sleeper woke with lines of pitch marking his shirt and trousers – a sure sign that he had been ‘taking a caulk’. Indeed, the expression for ‘Do you want to talk or sleep’ was ‘Yarn or caulk?’ On a night like this the pitch was warm enough to mark a man’s shirt; indeed it was warm enough to settle in the seams and make sure they did not leak if there was a sudden downpour. And downpour was the right word, Kenton thought. Frequently the tropical rain was so heavy that it was impossible to see the fo’c’sle from the quarterdeck, and it would stop as suddenly as it started, and in a few minutes t
he sun would be shining, hot enough to send the water back up again as steam. Men out on deck during the rain did not bother to change their clothes: the sun and breeze dried them in minutes.

  How unlike the Channel, he thought. Such a downpour usually came after hours of heavy cloud and cold winds: men soaked to the skin would be shivering uncontrollably – and the officer of the deck would give them permission to go below and change into dry clothes, if they had any left. Usually they had not, and they just shivered for the rest of their watch.

  Yes, the Tropics had many advantages, including – in some ships – quick promotion, as officers died off from yellow fever, or some other vile disease. Mr Ramage’s ships stayed healthy, so there was no promotion – and, Kenton thought, no risk of getting the black vomit, which killed as surely as a roundshot knocking your head off. Kenton knew of frigates that had been hit so badly by the black vomit that there were barely enough men left alive to bring the ship back to port.

  What caused it? When a ship was first hit it was usual, if possible, to sail: there was some talk that the fresh sea air helped stop the disease spreading. What truth there was in that Kenton did not know; about the only advantage that he could see was that the mosquitoes would not bite as hard.

  That, as well as the disease, was another thing he did not like about the Tropics: in port – especially in unhealthy and swampy spots like English Harbour, Antigua – the mosquitoes swarmed on board and bit, turning one’s wrists and ankles into itching masses. And at night it was hard to sleep as they buzzed round one’s head, ready to swoop and bite.

  Mosquitoes, and the things the local people called sandflies, which were hard to see and which bit like red-hot needles at dusk and dawn, were the curse of the Caribbean. There were no poisonous snakes, except in St Lucia, and only a few scorpions and centipedes, which would give a nasty bite if you were not careful. But they usually lived under rocks or in dark places; they were not (like mosquitoes and sandflies) a problem in a ship.

  Kenton’s eyes swept the coastline: he could just make out the black line of the land. Then he glanced up at the sails, which seemed almost luminous in the last of the moonlight. In fifteen minutes the new moon would have set, leaving the stars bright and the Milky Way a thick swathe across the sky.

  There were many stars that could not be seen from more northern latitudes. The Southern Cross would not be rising yet, and he had to admit that his first sight of the Southern Cross had been one of the disappointments of his life. He had expected stars which were very bright in the sky, stars that one would know at once, as bright as Mars or Sirius. Instead, the Southern Cross had to be pointed out, a diamond shape of four stars – well, five, but it was hard to see the fifth in this latitude – low on the southern horizon. Perhaps they became more startling if one sailed into the southern hemisphere, but from the latitude of the West Indies they were a sad disappointment.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the thudding of feet, and a moment later a breathless sailor stood in front of him. ‘Brewer, sir: lookout on the larboard quarter. Me and Jarvis – he’s on the starboard side – can see a ship just rounded the island, and there may be more: hard to see at the moment.’

  ‘Very well, go back to your post and keep a sharp lookout.’ Kenton looked round for a midshipman and told him: ‘Quickly, go down to the captain and report a ship in sight near Cabrit.’

  He looked for another midshipman and ordered him: ‘Find the drummer of the watch and tell him to beat to quarters.’

  What else? Kenton could think of nothing: helm orders would await the captain’s arrival on deck. With only the topsails set they were already down to fighting canvas; the guns were already loaded and run out, and any moment the drummer would be striking up. Why did he feel more excited when the Dido went to quarters than he ever did in the Calypso? Perhaps the sheer vastness of the ship. Perhaps the knowledge that there were so many more guns – thirty-seven on a broadside.

  He picked up the nightglass and went to the ship’s side to peer astern. The nightglass was a mixed blessing because it gave an upside-down picture. He could see the land of Martinique running down to the south but it was inverted, looking like dark clouds. And yes, floating upside down, there was the vague blur of a ship. Damnation, those lookouts had sharp eyes. He moved the glass a fraction and thought he could distinguish other vague blurs astern of it, but he could not be certain.

  The captain arrived on the quarterdeck just as the drum started chattering out its urgent order, and Kenton made his report, handing over the nightglass. Ramage snatched it up and went to the ship’s side for a clear look astern. It took only a few moments for him to distinguish the ship and be almost certain that others were following her.

  ‘Wear ship and head for her, if you please, Mr Kenton,’ he snapped. The outline was familiar enough: the ship was a frigate, and as he had expected, she was leading the convoy round to Fort Royal. She would be burning two or three sternlights and the convoy would be following like ducklings after their mother. Where were the other frigates? Was there a ship of the line? How many merchantmen were there? What did the French make of the non-arrival of the Achille and the Alerte? It obviously had not affected their plans.

  Slowly, with sails flogging until they were sheeted in and the yards braced, the Dido turned, with Kenton calling helm orders to the quartermaster. By now Ramage had been joined by Aitken and Southwick, both buckling on swords.

  Ramage asked Aitken: ‘Are you sure that plan for boarders is going to work?’

  ‘Rennick was confident, sir, and our seamen seemed to understand.’

  Ramage was worried about the prize crews they had selected during the afternoon. In anticipation of capturing several merchant ships, Ramage had selected a midshipman, five Marines and ten seamen for each of ten prizes he hoped they would capture: the midshipmen had orders to make for Barbados, and all the parties were numbered. Although in theory the cry of a particular boarding party should bring the men running, in the excitement and the darkness Ramage had his doubts, but he knew speed was important.

  Southwick, who had the nightglass, said: ‘That’s a frigate all right, and I can make out four ships astern of her, but there may be more rounding the island.’

  A midshipman came up and reported something to Aitken, who turned to Ramage and said: ‘The ship’s at general quarters, sir: all the guns are manned, the gunner’s at the magazine, and the fire engine is manned.’

  The fire engine was the result of Ramage’s last orders of the afternoon: he was determined to set fire to any merchantmen he could not take as prizes, and he did not want the risk of flying sparks causing a fire on board the Dido. Seamen feared fire more than leaks, which was hardly surprising when one realised how much gunpowder was stowed in the magazine – more than twenty tons of it, enough to blow half a dozen Didos to pieces.

  ‘Five ships,’ Southwick said suddenly. ‘I can see five ships as well as the frigate. Can’t make out what they are, though.’

  Well, Ramage thought to himself, there’s no doubt that this is the convoy, the only question mark is how big is the escort. They would most likely be following astern, which suited him very well. But how long would it be before the frigate spotted him against the dark outline of the land to the north? More to the point, the frigate would probably assume the Dido was the Achille. She was expecting the Achille, and what more likely than to find her coming down from the north, admittedly late but arriving at last? Very well, that would all help the Dido achieve surprise. In the darkness both ships would look similar. The Frenchmen would be very relieved to see the Achille and, no doubt, only too willing to hand over the job of piloting the merchantmen to her, since she would know these waters well.

  The wind was freshening, and a few small clouds were coming off the land. The Dido was rolling slightly and occasionally a startled gull flew by, screaming as though protesting at being disturbed. By now the moon had set and they had to rely on the starlight.

  Now he could just
distinguish the frigate with the naked eye: not a ship but a small dark blob on the southern horizon, dead ahead, and only visible to one side of the jib-boom and bowsprit when the Dido yawed. Ramage waited for the group of lights hoisted in the frigate which would be the challenge – probably a pattern of three lights, lanterns hoisted on a triangular frame. But for the moment there was nothing; the two ships were approaching each other darkly and anonymously. Every minute, Ramage knew, was to his advantage: it increased the margin of surprise.

  But time was passing quickly. The Dido was making five to six knots in this light breeze, so the two ships were approaching each other at a combined speed of ten to twelve knots. The frigate’s bottom was probably foul – not probably but certainly – after the Atlantic crossing, encumbered with goose barnacles and weed, but no more than the Dido’s, so the fouling just about evened out. Weed and barnacles wait for no man, he thought grimly, slowing up the best of ships, despite the copper sheathing on the bottom.

  Southwick was still searching the southern horizon with the nightglass. ‘The frigate and six ships so far,’ he announced. ‘I reckon all seven are merchantmen, but I can’t be sure yet. It’s a pity we haven’t got a moon.’

  Ramage looked again at the frigate and found he could now distinguish her outline. Still no challenge, still no sign – since she must have spotted them by now – that the frigate suspected she was anything but the Achille sailing down to help shepherd them all in to Fort Royal.

  ‘They seem to be playing follow-my-leader,’ Southwick reported. ‘One following the frigate – she’ll be burning a stern lantern – and the rest strung out astern. Like fruit on a bough, ready for plucking. The only trouble is they’ll disperse the moment we start firing at the frigate.’

  ‘They won’t get very far,’ Aitken said. ‘The wind is too light to move these mules very far. And they’re probably reefed down, too; you know what merchantmen are like at night.’