by Dudley Pope
The Captain was just a few hundred yards away: he would be standing at the quarterdeck rail, his deepset brown eyes sunk even deeper, the skin of his face taut, almost tight over the high cheekbones, his nose like an eagle’s beak (though not so curved, of course) as though he was about to peck. His voice would be calm and he would be calm. He would tell Aunt Gianna what had happened – at least, as much as he knew of it.
Who would rule Volterra after Aunt Gianna died? Would she marry the Captain and have a son who would become the ruler? He hoped so. A boy who had Aunt Gianna for a mother and the Captain for a father would grow up a man among men and fit to rule.
He turned, intending to shake hands with the rest of the men, starting off with Kenton, but he stumbled over the thick rope of the spring. As he regained his balance he looked at the French frigate. Her masts now beginning to tower high so that all the mountains beyond were lower. Then he looked at the Calypso. Her masts were lower, too, which meant that she was just that much farther away. Not much in it – he knew that from his very recent experience of measuring the heights of masts with the quadrant.
‘Can’t be a hundred yards in it,’ Kenton murmured. ‘I think now is the time to say goodbye, so thanks, men, at least we took a French frigate with us. But we’ve run out of surprises…’
The spring. Paolo looked at the pile of rope. Twenty fathoms or more of it, more than a hundred feet. The spring was holding the Fructidor well over to the north-east of where her anchor was lying; holding her so that the wind, instead of blowing from the bow, was almost on the starboard beam.
He turned to Kenton, after a quick glance at the French frigate, which was now steering almost directly at them, making sure that, when she turned, her broadside would be fired at less than fifty yards’ range.
‘If we let the spring go, we’ll swing right across the Frenchman’s bow,’ Paolo said calmly, but louder than he had intended. ‘Either he’ll ram us or have to bear away suddenly. If he has to bear away his gunners are likely to miss because she’ll be swinging…’
But Kenton was no longer standing there: with a bellow of ‘Quick, men!’ he had leapt at the spring and begun flinging the turns off the kevel. Jackson was the first to react, and within moments the rope, like a coiled snake, was free and beginning to race out of the gunport, with Jackson bellowing at them to kick and pull out the kinks and bights in case it all twisted into a tangled mess and jammed in the port.
Paolo stood up and looked across at the Calypso and then at the Feniglia beyond her. For several moments the Fructidor’s bow remained steady, as though the ship had run aground; then he thought he detected a slight movement just as he heard a splash when the last of the spring slid into the water. It was too slight and too slow; he could already hear the thunder and hiss of the French frigate’s bow wave and the occasional thump as a sail flapped.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ramage knew that not only had he made a grave mistake but he had probably killed Paolo, Kenton, Jackson, Rossi and Stafford, and the rest of the men whose names he could not for the moment remember. He had probably killed them all because he must have measured the distance from the harbour entrance to the Feniglia and back wrongly. He was unlikely to have done that, he decided, so he must have relied too much on a chart which he knew couldn’t be accurate to a few hundred yards. Not accurate for longer distances like those, although it would be accurate enough in giving the width between the headlands forming the harbour, or the length of Isolotto…
He should have allowed for chart error of up to a cable. Two hundred yards would have been enough; two hundred yards would mean that at this moment the Calypso would be between that damned French frigate and the Fructidor. Not just between them, but forcing the Frenchman to turn away and fight, ship to ship. The fight would have been the fairest ever fought in the Mediterranean, or anywhere else for that matter, because they were identical ships.
He looked again at the French frigate, her mastheads beginning to tower high fine on the starboard bow, waiting for the tell-tale flap of the luffs and leeches of her sails or the rush of men to sheets and braces that would warn him the moment she began to turn away. Two hundred yards to go, one hundred and seventy-five, one hundred and fifty, one hundred and twenty-five…That was curious, it was still about one hundred and twenty-five…
‘The bomb’s swinging! She’s swinging!’ Southwick was bellowing. In his excitement he slapped his captain on the back. ‘Oh, just look at her, sir!’
‘She’s slipped her spring,’ said Aitken, matter-of-factly. ‘That’s surprised those Frenchmen!’
‘Aye, the Fructidor’s swinging right across her bow! Will they dare ram the bomb? One of her masts might whip one of their yards out! By God,’ Southwick shouted, ‘we’ll have them yet!’
Ramage snatched the speaking-trumpet from Aitken’s hand, put it to his lips and was startled when a roaring voice he did not recognize as his own hurled itself at the seamen at the guns below him.
‘Stand by down there!’ he bellowed. ‘There’s just a chance we’ll save ’em. Starboard guns, there: open fire as the target bears, and keep on firing until she strikes her colours!’
The men cheered and yelled in reply as he handed the speaking-trumpet back to Aitken, who said excitedly: ‘They’re beginning to turn away, sir–’
They could turn before they had intended and yet still give the Fructidor a broadside; that much was obvious. But although the race to interpose the Calypso between the frigate and the bomb ketch was over, there was time for a quick sidestep.
He snatched back the speaking-trumpet, yelled at the men at the wheel to turn four points to larboard and, speaking trumpet to his mouth, turned again to the men at the guns. ‘Listen down there!’ he roared. ‘You’re going to see that Frenchman for less than a minute, and the range will be about a hundred yards. Aim for the hull, otherwise the Fructidor will get their whole broadside!’
He turned away. Damnation, this was like the Mall with three horses bolting at once: to come round to larboard far enough for the Calypso’s starboard-side guns to bear meant that he would have to shave under the Fructidor’s stern the moment the guns had fired…Still, there was no choice!
The Frenchman was broad on the bow as the Calypso swung one way to bring her guns to bear and the Frenchman turned the other in a desperate last-moment attempt to dodge the broadside they now saw would hit them.
‘Here they come!’ Ramage found himself roaring into the speaking-trumpet and it seemed from all round him there was the popping of muskets as Renwick’s Marines fired at the Frenchman’s quarterdeck. The 12-pounders thundered in a rippling fire one after the other down the starboard side, but Ramage hardly heard them because of the blood beating in his ears. He saw puffs as the guns fired, and then thick clouds of oily-yellow smoke as the puffs merged and began to stream out of the ports…An enormous cough, another and then another as the carronades almost beside him fired, flinging the lemon-sized grapeshot into the French ship.
He glimpsed the Fructidor only a few yards away and almost dead ahead. ‘Hard a’ starboard,’ he bellowed at the men at the wheel.
Smoke and noise – the heavy thudding of roundshot hitting solid wood, the whine of splinters being thrown up in swathes, the bell-like clanging of roundshot ricocheting from metal…the Frenchmen had let go their broadside at the Calypso, tit for tat. Now the men were scurrying around reloading and – hellfire and damnation, any moment the Calypso will be so far round she would be taken a’back – no, the men were spinning the wheel, almost climbing up the spokes in their urgency – and Aitken was standing beside them, looking as calm as if he was just checking that the gillie’s gralloching knife was sharp enough before they cleaned the deer he had just shot.
Where was everyone? The French frigate was squaring her yards to run off before the wind, smoke streaming from the larboard gunports as though she was on fire, and the Fructidor was sliding past on the quarter. Every man in the Calypso who was not busy loadi
ng the guns or steering the ship was standing at gunports or even perched on the hammock nettings cheering as the frigate swept by.
‘I saw young Orsini,’ Southwick said gruffly. ‘And Kenton, and the rest of them. No damage to the ketch; I don’t think they had any casualties. The Frenchman was more concerned with firing at us.’
Ramage nodded and looked away because the old master seemed to want to have a good weep from sheer relief and Ramage felt like joining him. The French frigate was now five hundred yards ahead…the turn to bring the Calypso’s broadside guns to bear had cost her dearly in distance.
‘Mr Aitken,’ he said, ‘let fall the topgallants, and set the stunsails. Not the courses; I’m not fighting under courses. That Frenchman’s lucky they didn’t catch fire. We’ll cut the stunsails adrift when we get alongside him.’
Southwick pointed at the Brutus, which was setting sail. ‘What’s Wagstaffe up to, then?’
Ramage thought for a moment. ‘Going into Porto Ercole to see what he can find, I suspect, and Kenton will be close in his wake.’
Southwick lifted up his quadrant and carefully measured the angle made by the Frenchman’s mizentopmasthead. He then looked at his watch and, after putting the quadrant down carefully, noted the angle and the time on the slate. ‘It’ll depend on which of us has the cleanest bottom,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘So if he’s been growing barnacles in Toulon, we’ll beat him providing the Toulon barnacles are bigger than the ones we brought over from the West Indies.’
Ramage changed his mind, and to gain a knot or two gave the order to set the fore and main courses, the largest sails in the ship. While they were being let fall he reflected that a stern chase is a long chase…That had been dinned into him from the days when he was a young midshipman. The frigate’s name was Le Furet. The Ferret. He had forgotten to look until this moment, but it showed up well in the telescope. The letters were carefully painted in blue on a red background; indeed, the whole transom was carefully painted. Not at all like the usual French ship of war, especially of the size of a frigate. There was always a shortage of paint in any dockyard, but he knew that in French dockyards these days it was critical, and no French captain was going to spend his own money on the extra few tins of paint that brightened up a ship…To spend money on gold leaf would be an anti-Revolutionary act, he supposed. Anyway, the Furet looked a good deal smarter than most French frigates he had seen. Still, he had a feeling that by the time this day was over he was going to be heartily sick of the sight of the Furet’s transom; her captain obviously knew how to get the last quarter of a knot out of his ship.
Southwick picked up his quadrant, twiddled the vernier and, after consulting his watch, noted his findings down on the slate. He pondered for a minute or two and then looked up at Ramage with a cheerful grin. ‘We’ve gained a few yards, and we haven’t got the stunsails rigged out yet.’
By now the courses had been trimmed, the studdingsails (in effect long strips of canvas to be hoisted up alongside each of the squaresails to make them wider, the tops held out by the stunsail booms, which slid out to form extensions of the yards) had been brought up on deck from the sail room and the special halyards were ready.
Aitken took the speaking-trumpet while Southwick continued keeping a watch on the Furet.
‘Starboard stunsails ready, there!’
The first-lieutenant ran his eye over the three bundles now resting on the deck abreast each of the masts.
‘Hands aloft rig out the booms!’
The topmen streamed up the rigging and along the yards, sliding out the pole-like booms which they normally had to lift up while they were working on the sails. These booms, now poking out like fishing rods, seemed too flimsy for the job they had to do.
‘Haul taut the tacks, and belay!’
Ramage stopped listening to Aitken’s sequence of orders as he tried to guess the Furet’s destination. For the moment she was obviously intent on escaping, but where would she have gone with the other two frigates and the two bombs, had everything gone the way the French planned? To Crete, of course, but where after that?
What was the Furet’s captain intending to do? If he managed to stay ahead of the Calypso until nightfall, he would need to have a lead of a couple of miles or more to stand a chance of dodging in the darkness – unless there was thick cloud. But a clear night with stars meant the Furet’s sails would be easily seen by the Calypso’s lookouts. Supposing he did escape completely though – which obviously he was trying to do, escape without fighting – where would he go? The next couple of hours might show – by then he would be clear of any possible wind shadow from Argentario, and the Furet would either turn to the west-south-west if he intended going back to Toulon, planning to pass through the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, or carry on to the south if he intended rounding Sicily and turning eastward towards Crete. Of course, he might make a bolt for Civita Vecchia, now only a few miles to the south along the Italian mainland, hoping to find safety there, but a wily fox never bolted for its lair when the hounds were in really close pursuit…
By now the stunsails were set and trimmed, and as the Calypso seemed almost to surge along Southwick said: ‘The wind’s freshening sir. A cast of the log?’
Ramage shook his head. ‘It won’t make us go any faster. Our only concern is catching up with that blasted frigate – and the angle shown on your quadrant will tell us more exactly than the log.’
‘Well, we gained a little when you set the courses, but lost it when the Furet set her stunsails – she had them up and trimmed before we did. Now we might be gaining a little, I’m waiting a few minutes for our halyards to settle, and Mr Aitken’s busy with the sheets and braces: a foot here and a foot there makes a difference…
The Italian mainland, now flattening in the great plain and marsh that led to Rome, was sliding past as though the Calypso was a bird flying south to a warmer climate. The Torre di Buranaccio, where he had first met Gianna, had already dropped below the horizon on the larboard quarter; soon he would be able to see the hill towns of Montalto di Castro and then Tarquinia, standing behind their walls beside the via Aurelia like massive sentries from the days of the Caesars guarding the long road to Rome.
Ramage started as Southwick gave a cross between a bark and a chuckle as he put down his quadrant.
‘We’ve gained a little…perhaps a quarter of a ship’s length.’
‘We’re not exactly ready to range alongside and board her in the smoke,’ Ramage said irritably. ‘The wind hasn’t freshened; it’s easing if anything.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Southwick agreed soberly. ‘We both have the same sail set, but if that French captain doesn’t want to turn and fight, it could take us a couple of days to catch him.’
‘Obviously he doesn’t want to fight,’ Ramage snapped. ‘Can’t say I blame him: he just saw one of his squadron blow up almost alongside him, and the second ship is probably wrecked.’
‘But we’re still even, sir, ship against ship,’ Southwick pointed out reasonably.
‘Ship against ship,’ Ramage said sarcastically, ‘doesn’t mean very much unless they’re in range of each other.’
Southwick knew his captain’s temper was getting short because of the frustration of having the Furet out of reach and range ahead of him. He was not a man with enough patience to sail in another ship’s wake for very long.
‘We need something to surprise him,’ Southwick said complacently, being himself quite prepared to take a couple of days, gaining inch by inch, providing he could eventually get alongside, or at least within range. ‘He must have had a surprise when that mortar shell burst in his wake! Still, we need something else.’
‘Yes, we need Martin sitting on the end of the jib boom playing tunes with his flute,’ Ramage snarled. ‘A male siren on the rocks. Or perhaps you’d like to go and make nasty faces at him?’
‘Wind might drop, sir,’ Southwick said. ‘He might run into a calm patch while we still have
a breeze – that’d gain us a few ship’s lengths.’
‘And it might just as easily work the other way, with the wind dropping from astern, so we lose it first and he gains the distance.’
‘True, sir, very true,’ Southwick said hastily, recognizing warning symptoms. First the Captain would rub the upper and older of the two scars on his right eyebrow vigorously; then the skin of his nose would seem to get taut and bloodless, as though it was shrinking; then he would have trouble pronouncing the letter ‘r’, turning it into a ‘w’. After this, Southwick knew well, although he had seen it happen only a few times, and usually in frustrating circumstances like these, God help the poor fellow who fell across the Captain’s hawse. It was likely to be himself this time, he realized, and wished Aitken would come aft: the more live bait the better…
Ramage picked up his telescope and spent the next three or four minutes examining the Furet. Southwick measured the angle of the mizenmast once again and noted the angle and the time on the slate. The small island of Giannutri was fading away on the starboard quarter and already Argentario was beginning to shrink over the horizon astern as though shrivelling in the heat of the sun.
Finally Ramage put down the telescope and walked right aft to the stern-chase ports. Southwick was startled to see him kneeling down and, hands gripping the sides of the port, hang out, staring down at the Calypso’s wake. He stayed there for several minutes, hauled himself back in again, picked up his hat, which he had left to one side of the port, and jammed it on his head.
‘I want five hundred shot brought up on deck from the shot locker,’ he told Southwick abruptly. ‘See to it immediately.’
The master promptly passed the order to the bosun’s mates, and at once dozens of men left the guns and streamed below.
It might work, Ramage thought. He could, of course, start twenty or thirty tons of water from the casks and pump it over the side, so that the ship, lightened by that much weight, might be able to gain a few yards. If he still lost the race, however, he would run out of water weeks before the period his orders lasted, and he would have to go back to Gibraltar with his tail between his legs, defeated by thirst, not the enemy. He could equally well hoist a few guns over the side – each of the 12-pounders weighed a ton – but for every ton he gained he was weakened by a gun, and it still might not do the trick if the Frenchman copied him. There were dozens of other ways of lightening a ship; the trouble was that every one of them also weakened her fighting ability.