It was a few minutes past nine in the morning when the surgeon's mate sitting beside Ramage's cot saw that his eyes were open and called to the Marine sentry: 'Pass the word for Mr Bowen an' tell him the captain's awake.'
Bowen arrived almost immediately, and grinned when he saw Ramage watching him.
'How's the patient feeling?'
'My arm hurts like hell, I feel dizzy, and I can still taste that dam' soup you made me drink. It was too hot and it burned my tongue.'
'Your recovery has obviously started, sir,' Bowen announced, feeling under Ramage's armpit. 'Ha, no swelling there. No more than the pain you'd expect in the arm. No throbbing?'
'No, it just aches,' Ramage said grudgingly. 'The pain of those stitches has gone.'
'An excellent piece of embroidery, if I may be allowed to boast. Two weeks and I'll be taking them out and you'll be admiring a handsome scar which will impress the ladies.'
'Yes, I shall parade through the drawing rooms in a ruffled shirt with the sleeve rolled up. Now, call Silkin: I'm going to wash, he can shave me and help me dress, and then you can rig up a sling.'
Bowen shook his head. 'You must stay in your cot for at least three days. You've lost a lot of blood, which the body must make up. Exsanguinated, that's what you are, sir, and it means -'
'I can work it out, and I hate your medical terms. Pass the word for Silkin, please and -'
'Sir, I must insist that you -'
Ramage's eyes narrowed and Bowen stopped talking; one did not insist when the captain was in this mood.
'Bowen,' he said, 'I appreciate your concern, but let us keep a sense of proportion. I have a minor flesh wound and have lost some blood and feel a trifling dizziness. Spurgeon is dead. That's the very small price we have paid so far to rescue forty men, women and children hostages. We have two dozen privateersmen under guard in the four prizes we have captured. There is a fifth prize but she has no passengers - only two or three privateersmen on board as shipkeepers.'
Ramage struggled and sat up in the cot, making it swing with the effort, and holding his bandaged left arm with his right hand.
'However, all we've done up to now is grab the animal's tail. The head, with a mouthful of sharp teeth, is still there at anchor. The Lynx still has enough men and boats to recapture the prizes the moment she realizes we've taken them.'
Bowen nodded. 'I understand that, sir. We have to deal with the Lynx.'
'Exactly. And this morning. Any moment now they might discover what we've done.'
'I appreciate that, sir, but surely Wagstaffe and Southwick -'
'Bowen! Can you picture me lying here while all that's going on?'
'Well, sir ... I'm only advising...'
'For my own good. Yes, thank you. Very well, now, pass the word for Silkin!'
It took half an hour to get Ramage washed, shaved and dressed, and Bowen then spent fifteen minutes with squares of nankeen cut off from the roll kept by the purser, making a sling for the wounded arm. While an impatient and cursing Ramage tried to hurry the surgeon, Silkin bobbed between them, trying to make his captain drink hot tea and eat a softboiled egg which had been spread on a piece of ship's biscuit.
Finally Ramage sat at his desk, his arm resting on the flat surface and his face pale and wet with perspiration, his hand shaky and his knees only doubtfully reliable.
'So the survey boats and the one doing the soundings went off as usual?' he asked Wagstaffe.
'Yes, sir. One of the young seamen wore a hat and jacket of Martin's, and that painter fellow Wilkins wore one of my coats and hats today and went on shore with the surveyors.'
'Wilkins? What on earth for?'
'He mentioned something about the Lynx being so close to the beach. He took notebooks and sticks of charcoal with him.'
'Does he want to sketch the Lynx then?'
Wagstaffe looked away and said noncommittally: 'I think he had in mind that - well, he wants to do a painting of the Calypso capturing the Lynx, and he'd get the best view from the beach: the Lynx is barely a hundred yards out.'
Ramage thought for a moment and then realized that almost the last place for an artist to be would be on board the Calypso.
'How many men are we short?'
'Twenty-two are away in the prizes (Orsini, Jackson and Rossi came back with you last night, sir: Bowen needed help to hold the chair upright across the thwarts). Twenty-four in the survey and sounding boats: forty-six men, and Aitken, Kenton and Martin. I didn't send Orsini off in the soundings boat this morning.'
'Why?'
'He was rather concerned about you, sir, and until you woke . . .'
'Orsini is simply another member of the ship's company. Remember that, Mr Wagstaffe.'
'Aye aye, sir,' the second lieutenant said, thankful that it had passed off so easily. The boy was sure the captain was going to die, and that combined with the knowledge that both men were very worried about the Marchesa had made him agree that Orsini could stay on board. But the way things were going, the Calypso was not going to be the best place to spend the day . . .
'Now listen carefully,' Ramage said. 'First things first. The captain must be comfortable. I want that armchair from the Earl of Dodsworth put down on the larboard side of the binnacle box, where I can sight the compass.'
Both Southwick and Wagstaffe laughed with him, and the lieutenant said: 'I knew that chair would come in useful! The bosun was proposing to heave it overboard!'
'Now,' Ramage continued, his voice becoming serious. 'Guns on both sides loaded with grape but not run out, of course. Decks wetted and sanded, but make sure no one from the Lynx can guess what's going on by seeing water pouring out of the scuppers or spot the washdeck pump rigged ... I want the lashing on the bitter end of the anchor cable untied down in the cabletier, so that we can let it all run out: I don't want to lose time and make a noise cutting the cable with an axe -'
'Can I buoy it, sir?' asked Southwick. 'Seems a pity to lose an anchor and a new cable.'
'Yes, by all means. Men to have arms listed for them in the Watch, Station and Quarters bill, but again, make sure no one is seen from the Lynx marching round wearing a cutlass. Leave the grindstone down below! But make sure the topmen have sharp knives - I want those gaskets cut: don't waste time untying them. The sails must be let fall and sheeted home and the yards braced in moments, not minutes.'
He paused as a wave of dizziness made the cabin tilt, and for a few moments he could not understand why both Wagstaffe and Southwick were sitting horizontally, but after a few deep breaths it passed.
Southwick then took a deep breath, as though he was going to dive over the side. 'That chair, sir. Supposing we put it right aft, on the larboard side against the taffrail, then you'd -'
'- be out of the way of the quartermaster and not such a target for sharpshooters in the Lynx,' Ramage said.
'Well, sir, that's quite true; a sitting target, if there ever was one,' the master said, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was offended.
'What time do we start, sir?' Wagstaffe asked tactfully.
'We can start as though we intend airing sails. Send four or five topmen aloft to let fall the foretopsail, untying the gaskets; but make sure the maintopsail and mizentopsail gaskets are cut. That'll save us a few minutes.'
'The Marines, sir?'
'Is Renwick on board?'
'Yes, sir: I stopped him going on shore with the surveyors. All the Marines are on board.'
'Very well, they will be sharpshooters, but must dress as seamen. That man Hart will suspect something if he sees groups of Marines in uniform.'
'And the prisoners we take, sir: there may be several British. I suppose they'd be different from prisoners of war?'
'There's no war,' Ramage said deliberately. 'All the Lynxes are pirates. The British - well, that'll be for the Crown lawyers to decide, but they're probably traitors as well. The matter won't arise unless we have prisoners, of course.'
'No, sir,' Wagstaffe answered, and then stared at Ramage as he realized the real significance of what his captain had just said. The lieutenant leaned forward as Ramage said quietly: 'Those brave fellows were prepared to murder women and children, and I'm afraid that if we take them to England some clever man of law may charm a judge...'
'Aye, charm, bribe, call it what you will,' Southwick said. 'No matter what happens, no one in England is going to believe what we've seen and heard out here. Pity we can't try 'em on board.'
'Well, we'll see,' Ramage said judicially. 'Let's see how many prisoners we take.'
Sarah stood on the afterdeck of the Earl of Dodsworth with the other women, the six Calypsos still pretending to guard them. Since the rescue, Mrs Donaldson seemed rarely to be more than a yard away, prattling, questioning or grumbling.
'This Lord Ramage,' she said. 'Why doesn't he take his ship and sink these wretched pirates? After all, his ship is bigger.'
'He was far from well last night,' Sarah said mildly.
'Oh, a mere cut on the arm, so my husband said, and he saw him when he carried a chair up. What they wanted a chair for, I don't know. With arms, too!'
Sarah could see that the Calypso was built for speed and for fighting: she had never before compared a frigate with a merchant ship, but the Heliotrope, for example, was a positive box while the Calypso was lean, seeming to contain power, like a coiled spring. Like Nicholas, she thought, like Nicholas when he was not wounded.
'You saw that Lord Ramage last night,' Mrs Donaldson said.' Was he badly wounded? They fetched the surgeon from that frigate, so my husband said.'
'No, a mere cut on the arm, just as your husband said.'
'Then why all the fuss? Why isn't he doing something? After all, his father's an admiral and a peer of the realm, so you'd think the young fellow would have - well, some sort of tradition.'
'It isn't tradition he needs,' Sarah said quietly. 'It's blood.'
'Blood? My dear, do you mean he lacks breeding? Isn't he really the Earl's son? So the Countess was faithless, eh? Well, one can never be sure, my husband always says.'
'Blood,' Sarah said, even more quietly, 'that flows through the body. He lost most of it in the sea between here and the Heliotrope. He might have died and then,' she added, hating the woman's vulgar and crude mind, 'the pirates would have come back and probably taken you to the Lynx.'
'Oh la!' Mrs Donaldson squealed, and fainted like a tent collapsing, and Sarah walked away to the taffrail, angry that she had let herself be provoked by the woman.
She looked across at the Calypso again. Which was Nicholas's cabin? She could picture Bowen with his medicine chest, and Southwick, too: they would have seen him already this morning; might even be with him now. He could have had her cabin, then she could have sat with him, and helped Bowen.
Obviously nothing was being done about the Lynx today, which was hardly surprising, except to a woman like Mrs Donaldson. The important thing was that all the hostages had been freed, the privateersmen guarding them locked up, and their place taken by British seamen. This pretence that they were all still hostages had to be kept up until Nicholas was ready to deal with the Lynx, but today all the Calypsos deserved a rest, and as soon as he was strong enough Nicholas would be giving orders to his officers. In the meantime the Calypso's boats were going about their usual business, two taking the surveyors to the shore, and one finding out the depths in the bay by dropping a lead weight on a rope into the water. Nicholas had been droll when describing that, but she could not now remember which was correct, 'swinging the lead' or 'heaving the lead'. One meant malingering, and she thought it was 'swinging', but she noticed that the sailor in the boat swung it before he let it go. Yet that was 'heaving' too. It was very puzzling.
He commanded more than two hundred men in the Calypso: the sailor who told her that said there were four lieutenants and the master - that was the white-haired old man she had seen last night. It was a good thing the sailor had explained, because the man who commanded the Earl of Dodsworth was called 'the master' although referred to as 'the captain'. It was very different in the Royal Navy, apparently, where the man commanding the ship was a lieutenant or a captain, depending on the size, but, like the Earl of Dodsworth's master, was referred to as 'the captain'. And a master in the Royal Navy by no means commanded the ship (unless he was something called 'master and commander' but she did not understand that and it applied only to small ships). Indeed, 'the master' was not even a commission officer like the lieutenants; he was only a warrant officer, like a sergeant major in the army.
The waiting and the not knowing... On the one hand she was relieved that he was not attacking the Lynx today; on the other it meant another day and night - of worrying without being able to say a word to anyone, without confiding: just having this secret which she could share with no one. Hardly a secret, even; more the type of thing - so she imagined - that a young Catholic girl might confess to her priest. Yet it was all so hopeless (and so innocent, really) that it was doubtful if a young girl would find it worth mentioning, and certainly a priest would not be interested.
So hopeless and so innocent - yet it was tearing her apart: she could not sleep because of it; she wondered how she was going to get through a day - let alone every day from now on - without screaming or having hysterics. She went down the companionway to her cabin: tears were very close, and if that Donaldson woman continued prattling after her friends had helped her over this latest attack of the vapours, Sarah knew she would scream at her.
Love you could not admit to, love that was not returned, love for a person already in love with someone else - was there any worse instrument of torture? The rack? The ducking stool? The garotte? Childish toys, mere irritants. She shut her cabin door and sat on the bed. Nicholas Ramage. He had returned her kiss when she said goodbye. But was that because he knew that once the Lynx was captured all the ships would sail from Trinidade, a farewell as the ball came to an end, or... she forced herself to think of it, although she squeezed her eyes tight shut, as though at the same time trying to keep it out. Or did he know, or have a presentiment, that he would be killed while capturing the Lynx?
The more she thought about it the more certain she became: he knew he was going to die. He loved another woman, so this farewell kiss was in the nature of a thank you to 'Miss for now' for cleaning his wound. If he knew he would survive the attack on the Lynx, why the farewell kiss? If he lived he would meet her again before the ships sailed; he must know, too, that now Papa had retired as Governor General of Bengal and was returning to England, they were bound to meet again in London society. It was curious how angry he had become over wearing the military uniform.
'Miss . . . miss!' Someone was banging on her door. 'Miss, quick, on deck, the Calypso's getting under way!'
'I'm coming - thank you.. .' She wanted to stay in her cabin and pretend nothing was happening, but instead she would have to go on deck and watch the Calypso carrying Nicholas to his death, and listen to people like Mrs Donaldson cheering, and repeating some banal remark of her husband's.
The sunlight sparkling off the sea was dazzling; the sky was an unbelievable blue and cloudless, the island seemed utterly peaceful, holding the bay in its arms. Even the Lynx seemed small and innocent. Then she turned to look at the Calypso.
She knew she would never forget the sight: the wind was making the sails curve, pressing out the creases in the canvas, and the Calypso moved through the water slowly but with infinite grace, a swan borne across a lake by a breeze.
Suddenly she saw the smooth black sides, with the white stripe (was that what they called a strake?) seem to move and grow red rectangles, and she realized that the portlids were being raised. A moment later she saw the guns themselves protruding like black fingers. But why was she stopping now, the sails flat and flapping?
Southwick did not often disagree with what the captain did, but he considered now was such a time. To be honest, it was what he thought the captain was going to do, since Mr Ramage had not said anything. It looked as if he was going to take the Calypso up to the Lynx, lay the frigate alongside the privateer and board. And the trouble with privateers was that they always had enormous crews. They did not need many men to handle the ship - the Lynx with her schooner rig could make do with fifteen men - but they needed plenty of seamen to send away in the prizes they took. Now was a good example: one privateer had five prizes, and would eventually need five prize crews, although admittedly in the case of the East Indiaman they would probably force some of the original ship's company to work at gunpoint. And the privateersmen would be desperate: they would realize that unless they escaped the Calypso they would end up on the gallows, and to them the sword would be preferable to the noose.
The old master looked ahead. The Calypso was at last gathering way, picking up a breeze after running into an unexpected almost windless patch in the lee of some hills. A windless patch like that, had it continued, could have wrecked everything.
After successfully letting the anchor cable run, bracing the foretopsail hard up after leaving it for half an hour 'to air' and letting fall the remaining topsails, sheeting them home and bracing them sharp up, the Calypso had moved off to windward like an old warhorse hearing gunfire in the distance. Then the wind had died.
Looking at Mr Ramage sitting in his armchair, the white cloth of the sling making it seem he was wearing some strange new uniform, one had to admire his calm: he glanced at the sails and at the windvanes and simply told the quartermaster to bear up a point. Sure enough the Calypso had enough way on to keep moving through the windless area, and when the wind picked up again it had backed a point, to north by west.
The course to the Lynx meant the Calypso would pass close to the stern of the Amethyst, with the Friesland also on the starboard side farther over towards the southern headland, and then even closer to the Heliotrope, while the Earl of Dodsworth was already on the larboard beam with the Commerce ahead of her.
The wind was settling down to north by west although the bows of all the ships headed more to the east, particularly the Lynx and Commerce, closer inshore. With a lighter wind they were more affected by the current sweeping round the headland and up into the bay, so they were partly wind rode and partly current rode.
Steering for the Lynx and slapping the Calypso alongside, though, seemed unnecessarily risky to Southwick for another reason: getting alongside with the privateer to windward or leeward and hooking on to her with grappling irons risked the Lynx cutting her cable so that both ships drifted as they fought, probably fouling the Heliotrope and ending up on shore.
Admittedly the captain must be worried about the chance of the Lynx escaping him: she might be able to cut her cable and set enough canvas to slip round between the Calypso and the shore - that was the main reason why the Calypso suddenly let fall her sails and cut her cable, to give the Lynx as little time as possible. But the privateer's fore and aft rig gave her an enormous advantage. The Calypso was like a bull trying to trap a calf in a corner of a field: not so much from the point of view of relative strength, but from size and clumsiness.
Still, the hinges of the Calypso's portlids squeaked as they swung up and Southwick felt more confident as he saw the men haul on the tackles that sent the guns rumbling out. The powder monkeys were already lined up along the centreline, each behind a pair of guns, and squatting on the wooden cylinder in which he carried the next flannel cartridge, the one needed for the second round.
The decks glistened wet in the sunshine; the sand sprinkled unevenly on the planking and soaking up the water made light patches and dark, and already the heat of the sun was drying it. Southwick felt the hilt of his sword. The captain always referred to it as his 'meat cleaver', and he hoped he would get a chance to use it in the next few minutes: they were fast approaching the Lynx.
Ramage found the sunshine dazzling. Normally it did not bother him, but he was still feeling dizzy from losing all that blood, and he had a headache. That was not surprising, but it did not help him concentrate.
The first few hundred yards had gone satisfactorily, anyway. The foretopsail let fall 'to air' had not aroused any interest in the Lynx: they would have seen the two survey boats landing at the beach as usual, and even now the boat doing the soundings was being rowed across the bay, seamen heaving their leads and the depths and course being written down.
He had been watching the Lynx as he gave the order to let the cable run and let fall the main and mizentopsails, sheet home all three sails and brace the yards sharp up. The sails were filling and the Calypso was already sliding through the water before he saw any response from the few figures moving about the Lynx's deck. Although in the glass they were only tiny, he could see first one and then another halt and then point: he could imagine the shouts, followed by Hart and Tomás hurrying up on deck and sizing up the situation. That was the moment the Calypso ran into the windless patch. He had seen it before they set any sails - a smooth area of water surrounded by tiny ripples - and knew the Calypso would carry her way through it.
Now she had picked up the wind again. It was infuriating having to sit here in an armchair, but he knew he had not the strength to stand. Wagstaffe was standing at the rail on the forward side of the quarterdeck, Southwick stood behind him, and Orsini was a couple of feet to one side of the chair, ready to run messages.
Glancing from one side to the other he saw that the Calypso was midway between the Amethyst to starboard and the Earl of Dodsworth to larboard. Was she watching? What was the significance of those two trunks full of uniforms and men's clothing? A man's clothing, he corrected himself: a man about his own build with slightly larger feet. Did she love him? Was he even alive?
Trinidade, a speck in the South Atlantic that few men knew about and even fewer visited, but here he had found a ship carrying out her own private war against everyone, and a woman he did not yet love in the deepest sense of the word (because he hardly knew her in the usual way) but who filled his thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else.
The Lynx was dead ahead and he could see the men rushing around on deck. He could imagine the pandemonium - the magazine was locked and where the devil was the key? Perhaps Tomás and Hart were arguing with each other: should they cut and run or stay and fight - or did they have the choice anyway? The privateersmen would be shouting in various languages - English, French, Spanish and Dutch for sure, and there would be others.
That night in the Earl of Dodsworth before he swam to the Heliotrope: sitting on the breech of the gun in the darkness before she came up to him, he had seen himself - his life, rather - with an almost frightening clarity: he had felt guilty that Gianna was fading in his memory, that he did not think of her nearly as frequently or in the same sort of way as before. Then he had realized that without either of them understanding it at the time, each had discovered that there was no choice. Each was drawn by a force that love could not overcome - or perhaps love showed them there was no happiness waiting for them even if the force was overcome. He saw how they had never had a choice, even had Gianna not decided to go back to Volterra at that time. It had an inevitability about it; the same inevitability that was taking the Calypso up to the Lynx.
He turned his head. 'Mr Southwick . . .' As soon as the master was standing beside him he gave him his instructions and the old man grinned. A relieved grin? It seemed so to Ramage, as though Southwick had expected him to do something else. Anyway, the master took the speaking-trumpet from its rack on the forward side of the binnacle box and walked over to Wagstaffe, telling him to report to the captain.
The second lieutenant looked cheerful: his hat was at a rakish angle, his silk stockings were obviously new (and worn because Bowen had told Ramage, who made it a standing order, that silk, not woollen, stockings should be worn in action: wool dragged into a wound made the surgeon's work ten times more difficult).
Ramage told him the orders just given to Southwick. 'Now, we'll be firing our starboard broadside first, unless something unforeseen happens, so get the extra men over on that side. After that, a certain amount depends on what the Lynx does, but seconds are going to matter. This is what I want to do.'
The lieutenant listened, nodding a couple of times. 'Aye aye, sir,' he said, and walked back to his position at the foreward side of the quarterdeck. He borrowed the speaking-trumpet from Southwick and shouted orders to the guns' crews.
No ship in the Royal Navy ever had enough men to 'fight both sides'. Usually there were enough to load and fire all the guns on one side, with only one or two men for each gun on the other side. If both broadsides had to be fired, then one was fired first and several men from each gun ran across to the corresponding gun on the other side to fire that while the men left behind began to sponge and reload.
The Heliotrope was now on the starboard beam (no wonder that had seemed a long swim from the Earl of Dodsworth) and the Commerce to larboard. Ahead, only her transom visible and her two masts in line, the Lynx. Once again he raised the telescope. Her gunports were still closed and beyond her, on the beach, he could see the Calypsos and the two surveying parties running towards their boats. The artist Wilkins would have to be left behind if he wanted to sketch the action from the shore.
He eased the sling slightly: his arm was beginning to throb, but at last he was coming to life; the chill which had seemed reluctant to go since they dragged him from the sea on board the East Indiaman was now being replaced by a warm glow; the sky was deep blue again, the hills of Trinidade fresh green, the sand of the small beach almost white, and the sea in the bay a patchwork of dark blue, pale green and brownish-green, warning of the depths.
The dark, mangrove green of the Lynx's hull, the buff of her masts and white of her topmasts, the black of her rigging - they showed up in the telescope as though she was fifty yards away instead of five hundred.
He hated sitting down: usually at this point before battle he would be free to pace along the deck beside the quarterdeck rail, but now he had to be in an armchair like some ancient dribbling admiral, hard of hearing and even harder of comprehension, bald of pate and watery of eye. He laughed at the picture and noticed Wagstaffe glance round and grin. Paolo began laughing and Ramage glanced up at him questioningly.
'You look very commodo, sir.'
'I'm comfortable enough, although I'd sooner be walking, my lad, but at least I'm not missing anything!'
He gave Paolo the telescope to replace in the binnacle box drawer: there was no need for it now. Four hundred yards - and he could see five or six men looking over the Lynx's taffrail. 'Can you see any men on her fo'c'sle?'
'No, sir, but it's partly hidden from here by the masts.'
The chances were that they had not begun cutting their cable. No men were casting off the gaskets of her sails. Had they all panicked? Frozen with fear as they saw the frigate beating up to them, guns run out on both sides? He pictured Tomás and Hart and knew they were not men likely to panic. Then he glanced at his watch. He tried to guess how long had passed since those two or three privateersmen had pointed and raised the alarm. Two or three minutes, he saw; not enough time for Tomás and Hart to do anything - yet.
Three hundred yards and the privateer was dead ahead: they must be wondering which side the Calypso was going to grapple. The colours of the Lynx were bright now and he could distinguish a thin man from a fat one. Judging distance was the hardest job of all.
'Wagstaffe, warn your men to be ready as the target bears. Southwick -' he paused. Two hundred yards. His eyes followed an imaginary curve round to larboard which would be the Calypso's course as she tacked. It had to be done slowly to give the gunners a good chance, but not so slowly that she got into irons and drifted helplessly. One hundred yards. That popping was from the muskets of a few privateersmen at the taffrail. In the moment before he shouted the order to Southwick he realized that the privateersmen were still trying to guess which side to defend against the Calypso!
'- put her about, Mr Southwick, slowly now!'
The master bellowed a few words at the quartermaster, Jackson, who snapped at the men on each side of the wheel. Slowly, it seemed so slowly that for a few moments he thought he had left it too late, the Calypso began to turn. For a long time it looked as though her bowsprit and jibboom would ride up over the Lynx's stern as she rammed the schooner, then the speed of her turn increased as the rudder started to get grip on the water. Southwick held the foretopsail backed just as the frigate swung north, with the Lynx's stern appearing to move slowly along her starboard side.
Ramage heard a thud from forward and saw a puff of smoke beginning to drift down the Calypso's side. Then another as the second gun fired in the frigate's raking broadside. More popping - loud from the muskets of Renwick's Marines, soft from the privateersmen; then the thumping of the frigate's remaining guns formed a deep background to the descant of flapping sails, squealing ropes and Southwick's shouted orders as slowly the Calypso went about on the other tack, swinging past northeast and heading west-north-west before she picked up enough way for the rudder to act.
The wind was so light that the smoke of the Calypso's guns did not disperse and in a few moments the quarterdeck was covered in a thin, acrid fog which set Ramage coughing and clutching his wounded arm as the spasms shot pain through his whole body. In a moment Paolo was bent over him, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth to filter out the smoke, but almost as suddenly as it appeared the smoke vanished and the sun was glaring down again on the quarterdeck.
Still coughing, Ramage twisted round in the chair. The Lynx was on the starboard quarter, dust hanging over her stern, and beginning to slide under the Calypso's taffrail as the frigate continued her turn.
It was working! 'Mr Wagstaffe - are your men ready at the larboard side guns?'
The second lieutenant waved, a confident gesture to reassure the captain.
Still the Calypso continued turning: having fired all her starboard guns into the Lynx while tacking northwards across her stern she was turning to pass southward across the Lynx's stern again and fire all her larboard guns, loaded with grapeshot, into the unprotected stern, yet another raking broadside which every ship feared.
'Mamma mia!'Paolo exclaimed. 'We've smashed half her transom with the first broadside!'
'Only half? All those 12-pounders loaded with grapeshot should have done more than that!'
Grapeshot: they sounded innocent enough to a landman, but even for a 12-pounder they were formidable. Nine small iron balls, each weighing a pound (and the size of a duck's egg) comprised a single round. Each of the Calypso's guns on the starboard side had blasted nine one-pound shot into the Lynx; one after another, like a funeral bell tolling, until eighteen rounds had been fired - a total of 162 grapeshot.
Now the frigate was almost round again, bracing the yards and trimming the sails as the eye of the wind passed across her stern. Now she was steering southeast on the larboard tack to cross the Lynx's stern again.
'They're opening her ports, sir! I can see a gun run out!'
'They have only half ports,' Ramage shouted above the thumping of the sails and squeaking of rope rendering through blocks. 'Only one gun?'
'She's rolling, sir. I can see a second gun on this side. But - well, both have been run in. Now they're running them out again!'
Ramage realized what was happening. 'The grapeshot have cut the breechings. The guns are running in and out as she rolls. But why the rolling? Has she cut her cable?'
Paolo snatched the telescope from the binnacle drawer and adjusted the focus. 'Yes, sir! She's drifting! Some men are cutting the gaskets on her mainsail!'
Southwick was standing beside the chair. 'I took us too close that time, sir,' he said apologetically. 'The gun captains complain we passed the Lynx too fast. They want us about fifty yards off.'
'You'll have to bear away: they've cut their cable and are drifting.'
Southwick peered ahead and gave a helm order to Jackson and at almost the same moment Ramage heard the groan of the tiller ropes rendering round the barrel of the wheel as the helmsmen pulled at the spokes.
'She's not drifting fast,' the master commented. 'Half a knot; perhaps a little more.'
The trouble was, every yard of drift to leeward took the privateer towards the cliffs which ran in a curve round to the headland to the southwest. That section of the bay had not been surveyed yet. The Calypso could very easily slam into a reef, or even a single rock, that the Lynx with her much shallower draught could pass over without noticing it.
'You'd better have a man ready with the lead,' Ramage said to Southwick, who sniffed.
'He's standing by, sir, but the muzzle blast from the guns could bowl him over.'
Ramage bit off a sarcastic retort: the Lynx was turning slightly to starboard as she drifted. In a few moments she would be in the sights of the first gun on the larboard side.
'Orsini! Tell Mr Wagstaffe to load the guns on the starboard side with roundshot. Use roundshot in all guns after the larboard guns have fired.'
Southwick looked round, having heard the instruction. 'Aye, sir, the grapeshot is just pecking at her!'
But the master was wrong. 'Don't judge it by what you see on the transom!' Just imagine all that grape sweeping through the ship from stern to bow. Cutting the beggars down in swathes!'
The second and third guns fired almost simultaneously, followed by the fourth, fifth and sixth. The longer range - fifty yards, perhaps a little more - gave the gun captains more time to adjust the elevation. The training would stay the same, about at right-angles to the Calypso's centreline, and each gun captain would tug on his trigger line, attached to the flintlock, as the Lynx slid from forward aft across his field of view.
Now the smoke was pouring aft and rising over the quarterdeck. He held his breath, then tried to breathe shallowly, but in a few moments he was gasping and then coughing and once again it felt as though his left arm would burst under the jabs of a sharp knife.
A heavy double thud almost beside him warned that the last two guns had fired and Southwick, yelling 'That's it; round we go again!', began shouting into the speaking-trumpet to wear the frigate. Ramage saw a pall of dust lying over the privateer, the surest sign that the shot were tearing into the wood and slowly ripping the ship apart.
Again sails slatted; the yards creaked and rope rattled the sheaves of the blocks as the Calypso seemed to spin and back almost in her original wake, only this time with her starboard guns slowly coming to bear. The first half dozen had fired when suddenly Ramage saw a huge ball of flame and felt, rather than heard, a roaring blast, and everything went black.