The Ramage Touch

by Dudley Pope

  The Calypso was gliding along in an almost flat sea under only a maintopsail; the foretopsail had been furled half an hour ago, ‘Otherwise we’ll dishearten those two lads,’ Ramage had told Aitken, gesturing at the Brutus and the Fructidor. They were once again abeam, with every square foot of working canvas set and, in the case of the Fructidor, an awning or a large tarpaulin hoisted out on a boom as a rudimentary stunsail in the hope of coaxing a little more speed from a hull designed to carry cargo.

  Southwick had given yet another sniff, this time one which Ramage recognized as indicating either disapproval or disagreement. He raised an eyebrow and looked round at the master, who said: ‘I doubt if those dam’ bomb ketches have ever before been sailed so fast in a wind like this: but for all that, if Wagstaffe and Kenton think they’ll get a broadside from you if they’re left behind, I guarantee they’d find another half a knot from somewhere.’

  It was then that Ramage noticed both ships were trimmed down by the bow. He had seen their waterlines when they were at anchor – the bow high because one of the anchors was on the sea bottom. He had forgotten to look again when they weighed anchor, adding the weight of the anchor, and perhaps the cable too, if it was stowed well forward which it probably was, to leave as much space as possible for the original task of carrying cargo.

  ‘Let’s pass within hail,’ Ramage said sourly, irritated with himself. ‘I’ll give them an extra half a knot with only one shout.’

  While a puzzled Southwick gave the orders to the quartermaster, Ramage looked round. Along the whole larboard side, from north to south, stretched the mainland of Italy, with Punta Ala now on the Calypso’s quarter. Argentario was jutting out like a mountain which, complete with its surrounding foothills, had been pushed out into the sea. It was fine on the larboard bow, seven or eight miles away, just too far for the long and sandy causeways joining it to the mainland to be visible to the naked eye. Because the nearest one was still below the curve of the horizon only the tips of the pine trees could be seen; the sand in which they grew was out of sight.

  The small island topped by a fortress and now on the starboard bow was Giglio. He remembered once trying to teach Stafford how to pronounce the name. He had been the junior lieutenant of a frigate at the time, so it seemed like a century ago. It was impossible to teach the Cockney to say the soft liquid ‘g’ which was spoken with the teeth almost together. He had finally compromised with the first ‘g’ sounding like the ‘j’ in ‘jelly’ so that Stafford had produced ‘jeel-yoh!’, which was certainly an improvement on Giggly-oh. Now Giglio was on the starboard bow, the even tinier island of Giannutri beyond, fine on the starboard bow.

  On Argentario was the little town and port at the northern end, Santo Stefano, which would be hidden from sight until the last moment and protected from attackers by the great fortress built on a hill overlooking it.

  The first time he had seen it he had been the fifth-lieutenant of a frigate which had just been sunk by a French ship of the line. Now he had more experience and certainly he was a post captain, but somehow, apart from the different uniform he now wore (with the single epaulet showing he was a post captain with less than three years’ seniority) and the fact that he commanded this frigate, did he really feel any different?

  He thought about it and decided that the difference was slight. Perhaps there was a sameness (despite the passing of the years) because still serving with him were some of the men who had shared those few desperate hours spent rescuing Gianna. A young lieutenant, a few seamen and an open boat to do the job for which the admiral had originally sent a frigate…And most of those seamen were at this very moment over in the Fructidor serving with her nephew. ‘Yes, Mr Orsini,’ they all said respectfully, as the law and custom of the Navy required, but there must be many times when they thought not of the fourteen-year-old boy but of his twenty-four-year-old aunt. None of them had ever seen her kingdom of Volterra, but they knew it was not far to the north-east, just over a few hills and now ruled by the French. But they all knew its heir at present was Paolo, and it must cross their minds that many young men heir to such a kingdom would take good care to stay alive, living comfortably, luxuriously, in some place like London, certainly not serving in a British frigate and always finding his way into any boarding party that seemed likely to cross swords with the French.

  ‘Speaking-trumpet, sir,’ Southwick said, and Ramage saw that the master had brought the Calypso close along the lee side of the Fructidor and, like starlings on the bough of a tree, Kenton, Paolo and several others were lining the bulwark and looking up at him as he stood at the quarterdeck rail. Ramage remembered his days as a young lieutenant. No doubt they were very worried: usually when a senior officer brought his frigate close alongside in circumstances like these it meant trouble.

  He lifted the speaking-trumpet to his lips, hating the smell of the brass, polished that morning with brick dust but already corroding again from the salt air. Why the makers did not japan the whole trumpet, mouthpiece as well as the bell, he would never know.

  ‘Kenton – ahoy there, Kenton!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You’re trimmed down by the bow – at least a foot. Shift some weight right aft. Have some men carry shells from the forward locker and stow ’em aft.’ An empty shell weighed about eighty-five pounds. ‘Try a dozen and see if you increase speed. If you don’t, try half a dozen more. Is she griping?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’ve been trying to trim the sails to check it.’

  ‘Well, it’s probably because you’re down by the head. Check the helm now and then again later to see if it improves.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Ramage nodded towards Southwick. ‘Let’s give the glad news to the Brutus, although Wagstaffe should have worked it out for himself. It’s obvious he didn’t check the draught forward and after before he weighed this morning and enter it in the log.’

  ‘I should have thought of it myself,’ Southwick said ruefully.

  ‘Me, too,’ Aitken added as the master called a new course to the quartermaster.

  Fifteen minutes later Wagstaffe listened as his captain’s voice came across the water, distorted by the speaking-trumpet, but hitting him like ricocheting musket shot. He waved shamefacedly and shouted back, ‘Aye aye, sir.’ Cursing under his breath, he turned to Martin. ‘She’s griping, she sails like a haystack, we can’t get the sails settling to balance her properly…And we never thought we might be trimmed down by the bow! It’s so obvious now. You take the helm so that we can be sure whether or not shifting those shells aft helps us. We’ll start off with a cast of the log to see our present speed.’

  Over in the Fructidor pairs of seamen with carrying-bars resting across their shoulders staggered aft with shells knee-high, hooked on to the ropes. Weighing less than a hundredweight, an empty shell was not heavy for two men to carry with a bar, but it was awkward: as they walked it swung like a pendulum because the ketch was rolling slightly with the following wind, and while one man was looking at the shell, trying to avoid it swinging into the back of his knees, he would stub his toe on a ringbolt or walk into a cask or a hencoop lashed down on the deck, stumbling and causing the shell to hit his mate.

  Jackson and Stafford stood by the taffrail with a long rope, one end of which they had already secured to an eyebolt on one side of the ship. As the carriers, perspiring and cursing, arrived with a shell, Stafford lifted it while Jackson unhitched the two hooks from the carrying handles on each side of the fuse hole and together they swung it over to the pile they were building. As Stafford steadied it, Jackson threaded the line through both handles and they waited for the next shell to arrive.

  Rossi and Gutteridge staggered over. ‘You look like a couple of drunken milkmaids carrying a pail of curdled milk,’ Stafford jeered.

  Both men twisted the beam so that the shell swung at Stafford, who had to leap back a couple of paces to avoid it cracking him across the shins. They had to wait a few moments for it to stop swing
ing, so that Stafford could lift it and enable Jackson to release the hooks.

  Kenton was sitting astride the bulwark on the larboard side abreast the mainmast, staring down into the water. ‘How many is that?’ he shouted to Jackson.

  ‘Eight, sir.’ Then, knowing that Kenton was concentrating on the water surging by so that he could estimate if the ship was sailing any faster, he added: ‘’Bout 650 pounds, sir, nearly a third of a ton.’

  Kenton watched the water passing the ship like a mill race. A third of a ton taken from forward and put aft. That made a difference of two-thirds of a ton in the trim – didn’t it? He was never very good at these sorts of calculations, and tried to picture the ship: right, there’s a third of a ton up there in the bow. I pick it up. The bow is now a third of a ton lighter. I put it down on the stern – and the stern is a third of a ton heavier. So the total effect is that the bow has a third less and the stern a third more, which makes two-thirds. It sounds right, but it’s too easy. To change the trim by two-thirds of a ton by carrying only one-third?

  ‘Well, helmsman?’

  ‘She’s a lot easier already, sir,’ the seaman replied. ‘She b’aint be griping now. Afore we shifted them shells aft her bow was wandering like a sheep trying to find which ’ole in the ’edge she strayed through.’

  By now Kenton was sure the ship was sailing faster. She was forging ahead of the Brutus, and from the way the other bomb’s sails were filled it was not just a lucky fluke of the wind. He swung his leg back over the bulwark and picked up his telescope to examine the Brutus.

  Wagstaffe’s men were just reeling in the line after taking a cast of the log. There was the first pair of men carrying a shell, with four others – six or eight, in fact – waiting impatiently for more to be handed up from the shot-locker. The Fructidor had put on perhaps a knot by just doing as Mr Ramage said.

  ‘A pity, sir,’ Paolo said, shaking his head with a sadness more befitting a priest talking to his errant flock, ‘a pity we didn’t think of it ourselves, then we would have gone ahead of the Brutus without Mr Wagstaffe realizing what was happening. Now he does it and he’ll catch up.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t think of it, and we are going faster,’ Kenton said crossly, annoyed with himself. ‘And you can practise your navigation. Get out your quadrant and put our position on the chart. You can fix it in two different ways – vertical sextant angles and bearings on the highest peak of Monte Argentario, and the mountain on Elba – you can just see it, but don’t place too much reliance on it because of the distance – and the one on Giglio. Then horizontal angles of each end of Giglio and the westernmost edge of Argentario.’

  Paolo groaned and then brightened up. ‘I haven’t the heights of the peaks, sir.’

  ‘I’ve written them in on the chart,’ Kenton said coldly, remembering his own ingenuity with excuses when he had been a midshipman not so long ago. ‘Argentario’s 2,000 feet, Giglio’s 1,600 and the highest peak on Elba is 3,300. All nice round numbers. You didn’t leave your quadrant on board the Calypso, did you?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘No, sir,’ Paolo said miserably.

  Kenton stopped, wondering if the boy was depressed at the thought that Volterra was only fifteen miles away to the north of them, halfway between Siena and the sea. It must be strange for a boy to think that so close was not only his home but the kingdom he might eventually rule if the Marchesa never had a son and if Paolo survived, though this seemed unlikely the way the lad pitched into action. Still, Volterra might be only fifty miles from the Fructidor but, Kenton began to suspect, the only thing making the boy unhappy at the moment was the prospect of working out some vertical sextant angles. They would be passing Argentario and preparing to round up for Porto Ercole before he had finished…Hmm, at last he was coming up on deck with his quadrant, slate and piece of chalk.

  As Stafford held the twelfth shell and Jackson slipped the line through the handles he said: ‘Wiv a bit o’ luck we’ll use these termorrer, so we’d ’ave ’ad ter carry ’em up anyway.’

  ‘We haven’t carried them at all, and we’ll probably use the forward mortar anyway if we do open fire,’ Jackson said, ‘so you may get landed with carrying them forward.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ Stafford muttered. ‘I didn’t get landed with it this time, no more did you.’

  Stafford suddenly nudged Jackson and whispered: ‘Just watch Mr Orsini. ’E’s gettin’ in such a muddle ’e’ll soon be trying to take a sight wiv the slate and chewing the chalk…’

  ‘He’s covered the slate with figures. He’ll soon have to start using the other side.’

  The two men then saw that the third-lieutenant was watching the Brutus with his telescope and the other bomb was no longer falling astern. Stafford nudged Jackson again and murmured: ‘I think Mr Wagstaffe’s now got ’is dozen shells stowed aft…’

  At that moment the lookout aloft hailed excitedly: ‘Deck there!’ and when Kenton answered he called down: ‘There’s a sail just coming clear of Giggley-oh, sir. Looks like a frigate. Ooh! There’s another…and another!’

  Kenton waited but the lookout finally concluded: ‘That’s the lot, sir: three frigates.’

  Kenton could just make out three specks on the horizon, but the hulls of the ships were still hidden below the curvature of the earth, although just visible to the lookout aloft. He lifted his speaking-trumpet.

  ‘What course? Report the course, blast you, without me having to ask!’

  ‘Sorry, sir: I think they’re steering for the south end of this Mount Argent place.’

  Kenton called to Paolo. ‘Here’s the French signal book. Find the signals for sighting three strange sails, and steering south, and then make both to the Calypso, using the French flags, since we don’t have a set of British.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On board the Calypso, Ramage was already listening to a slightly breathless report from Aitken, who when the lookout hailed had run aloft with a telescope, examined the ships and then come down again to give Ramage a fuller report.

  ‘They’re frigates all right, sir, and they look a similar design to us. And they’re steering for the south end of Argentario with a quartering wind.’

  ‘They look like us, eh? You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Built from the same draught, I’m sure,’ Aitken said confidently. ‘Sister ships.’

  ‘Three of them, though,’ Southwick grumbled. ‘There’s only supposed to be two.’

  ‘Don’t complain,’ Ramage said, ‘because it means that some French admiral has changed his mind.’

  ‘I don’t see how that helps us, sir.’

  Ramage shook his head sadly. There were times when Southwick was remarkably obtuse. ‘The senior officer of those three French frigates knows the two bombs are expecting to meet only two frigates in Porto Ercole, so he knows that the bomb captains – Renouf anyway – will be surprised to see three. Very well, when he sights the two bombs in company with yet another French frigate – and don’t forget we are French-built and rigged – he’s going to assume the admiral has changed his mind yet again or, more likely, forgotten to tell him an extra frigate has already joined the bombs. Or,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘we could just be passing them at this very moment…’

  The explanation seemed to satisfy both Aitken and Southwick, and Ramage listened as the lookout at the mainmasthead shouted down that the Fructidor had hoisted a signal.

  Ramage reached for the French signal book, looked up the signal for sighting a strange sail, with the additions indicating the bearing and how many ships there were. Taking the speaking-trumpet from Southwick, he called up to the lookout, asking him to describe the flags.

  The signals were correct and Ramage ordered the French answering pendant to be hoisted.

  ‘Remind me to tell Kenton to commend that lookout, because the Fructidor’s masthead is so low,’ Ramage told Aitken. ‘The Brutus should have seen them.’

  He turned away and began pacing the windward sid
e of the quarterdeck. Aitken, Southwick, the quartermaster and the two seamen moved to leeward to leave him a clear space between the breeches of the guns and the skylight and companionway.

  If the three frigates continued making for the south end of Argentario and rounded it, then they could only be making for Porto Ercole to pick up the troops, cavalry and artillery. They would have seen the bomb ketches coming down from the north and noted that they were well ahead of schedule, which was probably a fairly unusual situation for the French to meet. Would they go in to port and pick up the troops and artillery, or anchor and wait for the bombs to provision and water first, as originally ordered?

  Three frigates instead of two…that probably meant that the French were sending more troops and artillery to wherever it was with the bomb ketches than they had first intended. Porto Ercole was small, so would all three frigates try to berth in the harbour together? It should not be impossible if they used their boats to tow.

  He pictured the chart with the harbour showing very small. Three frigates with anchors out ahead could lie with sterns to the quay. Their bows would be to the east, which meant that with the wind from the north, west or south they could get out again just by making sail: they would not have to be towed out. If the wind was east, from ahead, it would depend on the strength. If it was light, their boats could tow out the frigates one at a time just far enough so that as they let fall their sails, each would clear the headland forming the southern entrance and then the tiny island just south of it – little more than a huge rock called Isolotto – as they tacked. If the wind had any strength, then the frigates would be trapped in Porto Ercole until it changed, and it would have to be a change of several points.

  Was there any chance that this present northerly breeze would freshen and veer to, say, east-north-east, even if it would not veer the whole eight points and set in from the east? Forecasting the weather in the Mediterranean was only slightly easier than in the West Indies, and less certain than throwing dice. There was a chance – but no more than that.