Ramage slipped the watch back into his fob. "Send 'em off," he said, and Aitken snapped an order to two seamen, who hurried down the ladders to warn the lookouts amidships and forward. Aitken called over to the lookouts on each quarter, and Ramage saw the admiral stir as he heard the words above the howling wind.
There was no question now of being suspected of seeking Sir Henry's approval and, Ramage thought, not telling the old man at this stage might seem unnecessarily discourteous. He walked aft and Sir Henry slid off the breech of the carronade. "Expecting some action, eh?"
"I don't know what to expect, sir," Ramage said frankly. "I'm not sympathetic towards gamblers because usually a bit of thought lessens the odds considerably, but this time - well, I've got to stake everything on one throw of the dice."
"No second throw, then?"
Ramage shook his head, conscious of the minutes ticking away and listening: when the first shout came everything would happen with bewildering speed. "No, sir; we have to win the first time, or else we'll be done for. I'm sorry I've got you all into this situation."
"Not your fault," Sir Henry said gruffly. "Just bad luck that this damned frigate -" he gestured astern at the dim shape in the wake, "- should have arrived when she did."
"So I'm intending to do this," Ramage said, quickly explaining his plan. At the end of it Sir Henry turned slightly so that he could look straight into Ramage's face.
"You're quite mad, of course," he said quietly, "it's the craziest thing I've ever heard, and there's a good chance we'll all drown in the next few minutes."
Just as well I did not ask for his permission, Ramage thought to himself and, coming from Sir Henry, such a judgement was not very heartening - to say the least.
"No," Sir Henry said, drawing out the words as though he had carefully searched his memory for them, "I've never heard of anything quite so crazy." He slapped his thigh, and for a moment Ramage thought the admiral was going to give him direct orders, saying he was taking command of the Calypso. "It's so crazy that -" he paused, as though trying to construct some exquisitely insulting phrase, "- it'll probably succeed. From what I've seen and heard of you, young Ramage, you have three possible fates waiting for you: French roundshot lopping off your head; or you'll come a cropper and a court martial will make sure you end up in front of a firing squad like Admiral Byng; or you'll command your own fleet at an early age. I wouldn't wager a single guinea on which it'll be."
"Thank you, sir," said a relieved Ramage. "So keep your guinea waiting safe in your pocket, and please excuse me for a few minutes while I attend to the business on hand!"
He went back to the quarterdeck rail by way of the binnacle, where the flickering candle told him exactly five minutes remained. Aitken stood a yard to his left, holding the speaking trumpet but otherwise seeming no different from his usual stance during a normal night watch. Ramage sensed rather than saw that Jackson was watching the compass and the weather luffs of the sails with the same easy but acute attention of a hovering osprey. The third man, whose task was to turn the glass when the log was heaved, waited for his two mates to return from whatever they were doing running round the ship. The wooden reel on which the logline was wound suddenly began trundling across the deck, dislodged by a sudden and particularly violent roll, and the seaman hurriedly grabbed it.
Ramage finally counted to three hundred. The slow count, each number representing a second, meant that five minutes had passed. Now was the time - but nothing was happening. He began counting again, one-and-two-and-three-and-four ... Six minutes and seven, eight and nine . . .
He walked over to the binnacle again. He stared at the watch, not wanting to believe what the hands confirmed. Yes, several seconds more than ten minutes had elapsed. He went back to the rail. It was absurd to be so precise; the log was not that accurate, nor the wind that constant. Any estimate of the speed of the northgoing current was no more than a guess, with the prize going to any number between one knot and three. Had that fellow Hicks been keeping to the course as precisely as he claimed? And had Ramage himself made mistakes in working out the course and taking it off the chart? It was easy enough when working with the dim light from a lanthorn to read a course off the compass rose on the chart and make a mistake of a point: Southwick's writing was small, and SW x W¼W could easily be misread. And was the chart accurately drawn? After all, it was only a copy, with no indication who made the original survey. So the Calypso, followed by the Frenchman, could easily be sailing the wrong course at the wrong speed over the wrong estimated distance.
"Clew up the courses," he told Aitken. That would slow down the Calypso appreciably, and with luck the Frenchman would not notice: she would close with the Calypso, and probably put it down to a fluke of the wind.
Aitken's bellowed orders quickly resulted in the frigate's lowest and largest sails losing their bulging shape; quickly the clewlines hauled the corners of the rectangles of canvas up towards the middle; the buntlines hoisted the centres upwards, so that it looked as though a giant hand was squeezing the sails in the middle.
Almost at once the Calypso pitched and rolled less violently. Now the fore and maintopsails were doing all the work, but from astern, Ramage hoped, it would be difficult to see that the courses were not still drawing.
He took his telescope from the drawer and steadied himself. The Frenchman was ploughing on, showers of spray leaping away from her stem like a gull's wings. Even in the faint light she looked a fine sight: there was enough spray to outline her hull, as though the ship was a bird preening herself on a nest of light. And yes, she was beginning to close the distance. At least, she seemed to be, but Ramage knew that was what he wanted her to be doing. "Aitken," he said, "get the nightglass and see what you make of our friend."
Aitken braced himself against the roll, after checking that the focusing tube of the telescope was out far enough to suit his eye. He seemed to examine the ship for an age before shutting the telescope with a snap and reporting casually to Ramage: "She's made up a lot o' distance; I have my doubts if she's half a cable astern of us now.
"And she's not reducing her canvas - at least, she hasn't started yet," he added. "And with this sea, I have my doubts if we were getting a proper reading of our speed."
"Faster or slower?" Ramage demanded.
"Oh, I think we might well have been going ... well, quite a bit - perhaps half a knot -"
"Come on\" Ramage exclaimed impatiently.
"Half a knot slower," Aitken said, and Ramage realized that the Scotsman had deliberately taken his time, as a hint to Ramage that the tension was rising too high.
But damnation, Aitken did not have the responsibility for possibly drowning everyone. Still, Aitken would drown along with the rest, so it did not make a ha'porth of difference whose responsibility it was: death was always completely fair, carrying off the guilty and the innocent, the rascals and the good men.
The Calypso butted into three successive waves, her stem slicing off sheets of spray which flung aft like heavy rain-squalls. Suddenly Aitken pointed aloft and put the mouthpiece of the speaking trumpet to his ear, aiming the bell-mouthed open end at the foremasthead.
Ramage waited for Aitken to report whatever had been hailed. Instead the first lieutenant reversed the speaking trumpet and shouted: "Foremasthead: quarterdeck here. Repeat your hail."
Again the wind whipped the lookout's words away to leeward. Damnation, the lookout must have seen something, but in which direction?
Suddenly a man ran up the lee-side quarterdeck ladder. "Larboard forward lookout, sir - you can't hear us. Ship or rock dead ahead, maybe three cables, and also breakers five points to larboard, mebbe four cables!"
"Very well, back to the fo'c'sle! Make sure Mr Southwick knows."
Which was which? Was the rock ahead the northern one, Formica Maggiore, thirty-two feet high and whitish, with a bank of rocks extending southwards? Or the middle, eight cables to the south-east of it, blackish and with a bank extending northwest? Certainly it was not the southernmost because there was nothing southwards of it to cause breakers.
A thudding up the starboard side ladder made Ramage turn. "Lookout, starboard bow, sir. Mr Southwick says the middle rock is dead ahead - it's not high enough to be the northern one; and the southern one's five points to larboard."
"Very well, my compliments to Mr Southwick and tell him to stand by."
Damn, damn, damn . . . they had found the ants, but which one to choose? He had hoped they would come up to the northern, the Formica Maggiore, but they were lucky to spot any of them.
So is it to be the middle one, now dead ahead, or the smaller one to larboard? Well, altering course five points to larboard will alert the frigate astern. More important, with the Calypso steering direct for the middle rock and the Frenchman precisely in her wake, the Calypso's bulk will almost certainly be obscuring the rock, and anyway the French will hardly expect. . .
And there it was, dead ahead, a black smudge on what passed for the horizon. With the ship rolling and pitching it seemed to be bobbing up each side of the masts, the rigging frequently obscuring it as though a net was swinging in front. Distance? Two cables, perhaps less.
Aitken now had his nightglass. "Cable and a half distant, sir, judging from the seas breaking round it."
Ramage turned to look at the French frigate and was startled to see how much she had caught up. He snatched Aitken's nightglass and inspected her. "She's run her guns out!" he exclaimed. "She's decided we're British and is getting ready to run up alongside and give us a few broadsides!"
"Aye, that'd be likely," Aitken agreed. "She probably thinks that going to windward she has a knot or two's advantage over us."
"As long as everyone on her quarterdeck is concentrating on us! Hellfire, Aitken, quick, a cast of the lead!"
Ramage cursed his own inattention as Aitken shouted through the speaking trumpet, but almost instantly came back the cry: "By the deep nine, sir!"
Ramage told himself that if he lived he would promote that leadsman who had been sensible enough to take a cast the moment he heard the lookout's hail from the foretopmasthead - the hail which the quarterdeck had missed.
By the deep nine: fifty-four feet. Close. And the rock dead ahead, closing fast. And astern the Frenchman closing fast. Every damned thing closing fast.
"By the mark five!"
Again the leadsman's hail: five fathoms, which was thirty feet: the Calypso had a bare fifteen feet under her forefoot. He strained his eyes. The rock seemed to be racing towards them now like an approaching ship. Much less than a cable; perhaps only a hundred yards ahead, with the Frenchman a hundred yards astern and beginning to alter course a point, to run up on the starboard side? Damn her!
In an emergency, which way would that French captain turn - to larboard, which meant going about, with the danger in these seas of getting caught in stays, or would he bear away to starboard, bringing the wind round to three or four points on the quarter? That was the sure and safe thing to do, and Ramage guessed he would do it - when the time came!
And there was the rock. The Calypso was almost on top of it. No, make an allowance for darkness distorting distance.
"By the mark five!"
The leadsman was working fast; coiling up that much line between casts was hard work.
"Give me the speaking trumpet," he told Aitken, "but be ready: if we miss . . ."
Calling "Stand by" to Jackson, he jammed the mouthpiece against his mouth, took one more look at the rock, and shook his head: he had left it too late: the Calypso would hit the rock (or pile up on a shoal circling it) while making seven or eight knots!
"Mr Southwick - foredeck there! Let go!"
Almost simultaneously he felt rather than heard a series of thuds - the axes cutting the anchor adrift at the cathead; then, a few moments later he smelled burning. The anchor cable was now racing through the hawse and round the bitts, the hemp scorching with the friction against the wood.
"Larboard!" he yelled at Jackson and while the helmsmen spun the wheel with desperate urgency, Aitken snatched the proffered speaking trumpet and gave a stream of sail orders and then waited. Ramage could only imagine the anchor cable running out. Come on! he implored Southwick under his breath: snub the bloody cable and get that anchor biting home before we hit the rock! No, he decided, there is not room for the Calypso to swing round, like a running dog suddenly brought up all standing by its leash . . .
He pictured the men at the bitts struggling to loop over bights of heavy, stiff cable to slow it up and finally stop it running out. No, it was hopeless, the Calypso was sailing too fast: trying to stop six hundred tons of frigate like that - either the cable would break under the strain or the men would never hold it on the bitts.
But - yes! Yes, the rock was sliding to starboard - an illusion caused by the Calypso beginning to turn to larboard. And the blasted French frigate? There she was, topsails and courses in straining curves, and now on the Calypso's starboard quarter. And not changing course.
Aitken was shouting, sails slatting, the yards were being braced round: then suddenly the Calypso's stern seemed to slew to larboard, as though skidding on ice.
"The cable held, sir!" Aitken shouted jubilantly. He pointed down on the maindeck. "Sent the men at the sheets and braces sprawling. No ship ever tacked so fast! And look at the Frenchman!"
Within moments Ramage heard heavier thuds from forward and then, after a whiplash noise like a pistol shot in a valley, the Calypso leapt forward as Southwick's men chopped through the cable which had done its task of bringing round the Calypso's bow in - a minute? Perhaps two. "North-east by east," Ramage called to Jackson. That would put the wind on the starboard beam - and mean she was sailing back almost along her own wake.
Suddenly Aitken was banging him on the shoulder and screaming: "Look! Look for the love of God look!"
Ramage stared into the darkness in the direction Aitken was pointing. There, almost astern, was the rock and, just north of it, a bulky black shape. Shape? No, it was almost shapeless! Ramage strained his eyes, then grabbed a proffered nightglass.
Yes, as he had guessed, the French frigate had turned to starboard after suddenly sighting the rock revealed by the Calypso's unexpected turn to larboard. She had swung to starboard to miss ramming the rock but, as Ramage had intended, had run on to the hidden shoal stretching north-westward for a couple of hundred yards. Two hundred yards of innocent-looking sea - but only a few feet below the surface and like a monstrous lower jaw was the layer of jagged rocks of a shoal waiting to rip the bottom out of an unwary ship.
Then an excited Southwick was standing beside him, pumping his hand and bellowing: "It worked, by God! Snatched us round as though we were a bull with a ring in its nose. But," he added, his voice admonishing, "you ran it damned close, sir! By the time we had the cable snubbed and the ship began to swing, I could dam' near touch that rock with my hand. Did you hear the leadsman?"
"Don't tell me about it," Ramage said firmly. "We're still sailing and our pursuer isn't, and that's enough!"
The sudden impact, stopping the French ship as she was sailing at about nine knots, had sent all three masts by the board. And seldom, Ramage thought, had "by the board" been such an accurate description: the masts snapped at deck level ("by the board") as cleanly as trampled bluebell stalks and collapsed forward. The foremast went over the bow, tumbling down on the bowsprit and jibboom; the mainmast crashed down on to the stump of the foremast, and the mizen had followed. Spread over the wreckage, like a great fishing net tossed aside carelessly, the standing and running rigging softened the harsh line of broken masts and slewed yards. And beneath all that wreckage men must be trapped. Many would be dead. He turned away to face Sir Henry.
"You're a lucky gambler!" Sir Henry said, still almost shapeless in borrowed oilskins, and shook him by the hand. "How you judged when to let go the anchor so that it bit in time for us to swing and miss the rock, I don't know -"
"Better not ask, sir," Ramage said.
"Well, you did it, and in my letter to the Board I shall say it was fine judgement. And you, Mr Southwick. You must have been running about on the fo'c'sle, but you didn't even lose your hat!"
"It's well anchored down, sir," Southwick said, tugging locks of his flowing white hair.
"What now, Mr Ramage?" Sir Henry asked, and Ramage recognized the tone. That was the trouble with being lucky: everyone then started expecting miracles . ..