Ramage was already settling down in the boat's sternsheets as Jackson began giving orders to the men at the oars when he saw the Calypso fill her backed foretopsail and start to run down towards the Emerald.
"Mr Wagstaffe's going to make it easy for us," he commented to Jackson. "He'll come across the Emerald's stern and heave-to to leeward of us."
"He's spoiling us, sir," the American coxswain replied. "It won't put muscle on these men's backs just letting them row down to leeward. They need a couple of miles to windward!"
"I don't, though," Ramage said. "I've just had a splendid dinner and I'm damned if I want to be soaked with spray. Nor does Mr Southwick - he's about ready to doze off."
As he spoke Ramage was looking round the horizon. He had not wasted time looking round while on the Emerald's deck because a distant sail would already have been closely inspected from the Calypso's masthead, and whatever the identity or intention of the stranger, he could do nothing about it until he was back on board the frigate.
Wagstaffe met him as he stepped through the Calypso's entryport and his quick salute was followed by: "Over to the southeast and well up to windward, sir: a frigate about five miles away and closing. She was steering north when we first spotted her. I think she was slow to see us, because it was a good ten minutes before she bore away to head for us. Her lookouts must have been dozing."
"Hmm. Ten minutes! Time enough for a good snooze. I trust you've assured yourself she is not enemy?" Ramage asked ironically.
"Yes, she's British-built, sir, and British-cut sails. As you see, she's not close enough yet for us to be able to read flags."
"Very well. Beat to quarters, Mr Wagstaffe."
The second lieutenant looked startled. "Standing orders, Mr Wagstaffe," Ramage said sharply. "We must meet every strange sail ready for action."
"Yes, I know sir, but . . ."
"Mr Wagstaffe," Ramage said patiently, "we captured the last two prizes without too much trouble just over a month ago when they assumed that because this ship is French-built she is still in Bonaparte's navy. That ship over there -" he nodded towards the approaching frigate, still little more than a faint smudge on the horizon, "- might have been built in an English yard, but since then she could have been captured by the French who intend playing the same trick on us that we've just played on them. Anyway, it's time that young drummer gave his goatskin another good thumping."
"Aye aye, sir," said an embarrassed Wagstaffe, who realized that the combination of escorting a convoy of merchant ships (which could hardly be less warlike than the mules they were called) and the fact that the destination was England had combined to dull his normal sharpness. On the way up to Barbados from Devil's Island, he recalled ruefully, any sail, be it even a wretched dugout canoe spreading some old cloth to help her to leeward, put him on his guard.
And that, he told himself, is why some men become admirals and others stay lieutenants. Not an invariable rule, admittedly, because in all too many cases influence and patronage helped, but to be a competent captain or admiral, then you had to react precisely as Mr Ramage had done. He recalled the exchange. Lieutenant Wagstaffe had said, in effect: "Ah, a British frigate has just hove in sight." But Mr Ramage had said: "Ah, a British-built frigate has just hove in sight. But is she British?"
The other thing, Wagstaffe thought to himself as he looked round for Orsini, was that Mr Ramage would not have wasted two or three minutes with his head full of idle thoughts. "Orsini!" he bellowed, "tell the drummer to beat to quarters! Step lively there and be thankful that's not a French fleet up there to windward!"
Ramage noticed that the little drummer was thumping away in only a matter of seconds, making up in volume what he lacked in skill. The drum was regarded by everyone on board the Calypso with a good deal of pride. Carefully painted on the front were the arms of Bonaparte's France (Revolutionary France, in other words) and below them the name L'ESPOIR.
Ever since they had captured the Calypso from the French, the men had been sent to quarters by bosun's mates shrilling their pipes and shouting. Yet nothing was more unmistakable (and more thrilling, getting the men into the right martial mood) than the beat of the drum. The Marine lieutenant, Rennick, had often bewailed the lack of a drum, claiming to have a lad who could beat out a tune, and Southwick had often sniffed and said that the song of a bunch of Spithead Nightingales was no way to send men into battle. Well, the bosun's calls deserved their nickname, but on the few occasions he had been in London Ramage had forgotten to buy a drum (he had to pay for it out of his own pocket because they were not issued to frigates).
So, when Sergeant Ferris found this drum in the prize and presented it to his senior officer, Rennick, the Marine lieutenant had brought it in triumph to Ramage, complete with a well-reasoned argument why they should ignore the sentence in the Articles of War about not removing any objects from a prize before "a proper inventory" had been taken. The Army, Rennick had pointed out, was very proud of itself when soldiers captured the colours of an enemy regiment, and always kept them - usually in some special place at their own headquarters, where they were displayed with pride. The Navy had no such mementoes. He had to agree with Ramage that soldiers did not get prize money and that, given the choice, soldiers and sailors alike would probably choose prize money in place of captured regimental colours.
For Ramage the choice was easy. He knew that although he did not want to see the arms of Revolutionary France so frequently, the drum itself was in good condition (and, as Sergeant Ferris had been quick to point out, there were five spare goatskins so they were well off for replacements when the drummer beat his way through the present one). Nor was Ramage concerned with the drum as the naval equivalent of regimental colours: to him a drum (any drum, even a tom-tom made out of goatskin stretched over a butter firkin, a favourite in the West Indies) was a more effective way of sending men to quarters, quite apart from the other orders that could be passed by the beat of a drum.
As Ramage turned to go down to his cabin and change out of his best uniform, he saw a grinning Rennick standing by Wagstaffe, and the Marine snapped to attention as he saw Ramage looking at him. "The drum, sir," he explained, "first time it's beat to quarters in earnest: it's always been daily routine up to now."
Ramage smiled and nodded and went below. It was startling to find out what gave the men pleasure, and what made them proud. Bashing away on an old French drum delighted the Marines - and probably the whole ship's company - so it was a good thing he had forgotten to buy one in London. The fact that this one was French, and had the French arms painted on it, and came from one of their prizes, was what mattered: it gave it a martial tone, Ramage realized, that could not be equalled (as far as the Calypsos were concerned) by any other drum. This was their drum, and whack it, lad!
The rat-a-dee-tat-a-dee-tat of the drum, Wagstaffe noted, had the same effect on the Calypso as scooping the top off an anthill: suddenly dozens of hitherto hidden bodies swarmed out, apparently running about aimlessly, but an experienced eye saw that every man knew exactly where he was going.
By now the cutter used for the captain's visit to the Emerald was towing astern - with the ship going to quarters there was no time to hoist it in and stow it on the booms amidships (where an enemy shot could shiver it into a thousand splinters which would be more lethal, because more numerous, than a keg of grapeshot).
The Calypso had already turned back to the southeastward, and her yards had been braced sharp up as she began to beat to windward to meet the frigate, now steering northwest.
Now Aitken came up on deck to relieve Wagstaffe so that he could go to the maindeck and stand by the division of guns that were his responsibility. Already he could see Kenton and Martin watching the men load and run out the guns in their divisions.
Aitken moved up to the quarterdeck rail, noting that Jackson had taken over as quartermaster and another two seamen had joined the two already at the wheel, not because four men were needed in this weather but they were usually the target for sharpshooters. Now Mr Ramage had come on deck, wearing a sun-bleached uniform, coat, white breeches that had long ago lost their shape, a hat which was getting decidedly floppy from a diet of spray and hot sun, and shoes that made up in comfort on the hot deck what they lacked in smartness. The uniform worn for social visits (especially where the hostess was such an elegant woman) was not the one most suitable for going into action. Except for the silk stockings - that was one of Mr Ramage's rules, and the surgeon Bowen reckoned it a very good one. Officers had to wear silk stockings in action, even if they had only one pair. The danger (and trouble for the surgeon) of wool in the wound was apparently very great.
Aitken admitted it was a damned nuisance at times, particularly if the ship was in a busy sea lane, where one might sight a dozen strange sail in an afternoon, but out here in the Western Ocean, where sighting a strange sail might happen only once a week, it did not matter. Unless, as now, one was replete with quite the most splendid dinner he had ever eaten.
"Deck there! Foretopmast here!"
Aitken snatched up the speaking trumpet and answered the hail.
"The frigate's hoisted a couple of signals, sir."
As Orsini hastily reported: "I can see them, sir!" Aitken told the man aloft to continue to keep a sharp lookout.
Orsini put down his telescope and flipped through the pages of the signal book.
"She's the Jason, sir," he reported to Ramage and added, a puzzled note in his voice: "But she's not making the right challenge."
"Is it last month's?" Ramage inquired.
That was a not infrequent mistake, or sometimes the ship concerned had been at sea so long she did not have the latest list. But it left the question of what reply did one make? A challenge was a challenge . . .
"You've got our pendant number and the correct challenge bent on?" Ramage asked.
"Yes, sir. And the correct reply bent on another halyard."
"Hoist our numbers and the challenge," Ramage ordered.
As Wagstaffe had already reported, the approaching ship was obviously a British frigate: her sheer and the cut of her sails were borne out by her using the Royal Navy's signal book (quite apart from the fact that one was most unlikely to meet an enemy ship so close to Barbados). Nevertheless, she had hoisted the wrong challenge, and it was now important to see what reply she made to the correct one.
Ramage watched the large flags flog and flap as seamen hauled down briskly on the other end of the halyard until the top of the uppermost flag reached the block.
Orsini was watching the frigate, balancing himself on the balls of his feet to compensate for the Calypso's roll, and the telescope seemed a part of his body.
"She's lowering her challenge, sir," he reported just as the lookout aloft reported the same thing. A few moments later Aitken reported to Ramage that the Calypso's guns were now loaded with roundshot, carronades with grape, "pistols, pikes and cutlasses issued".
"Very well, Mr Aitken."
The advantages of the "Captain's Standing Orders" were only too obvious at a time like this: the guns and carronades had been loaded with the correct type of shot; the small arms routinely issued without orders (which wasted time); and people like Bowen had made their own preparations. Bowen's surgical instruments would be ready, with bandages and dressings to hand, tarpaulins spread for wounded to lie on. Some captains liked to rig boarding nets, but Ramage considered they were for defence: they stopped (hindered, rather) an enemy trying to board, because like thick fish nets it took a minute or two for a cutlass to slash through it. More important, a net designed to stop the enemy from getting on board also prevented one's own men from swarming over the bulwarks and boarding the enemy.
Ramage looked across at the approaching frigate but knew that the sharp eyes of Orsini, Aitken and the masthead lookouts would keep him informed, so contented himself with an inspection of the Calypso. She was ready for battle, or for lining the bulwarks and giving a friendly ship a cheer.
All the guns were run out; half a dozen men were gathered round each breech, their different shirts making splashes of colour. Most of them had narrow bands of cloth tied round their heads, across their foreheads, to prevent salty perspiration running into their eyes. Cutlasses were stowed along the inside of the bulwarks where they could be snatched up in an emergency; pikes and pistols were all placed near at hand. The muskets were still in the arms lockers, thanks to Ramage's long-held view that a musket was a clumsy and bulky weapon in an open boat or a frigate, and useless (except as a heavy object to hurl at the enemy) after firing one shot.
The 12-pounder guns were shiny black cylinders: the last job for the ship's company before the Calypso left Carlisle Bay was to give all the guns another coat of blacking. Curious how every ship's gunner kept secret his particular recipe, but they were all much the same, depending on soot, although he recalled one gunner who swore by rust which was pounded into a fine dust and bound together by lacquer. Anyway, most of the shot the Calypso would need if she went into action had just been scaled of rust by men tapping away with chipping hammers. It was hard to prevent them hammering too hard and pitting the roundshot with tiny dents. Almost more important, each shot had been passed several times through a shot gauge, a brass ring with an inside diameter precisely the correct size for a 12-pounder shot, just under four and a half inches. If there were any tiny hummocks of rust, or flakes of scale, the shot would stick in the gauge and the gunner would reject it, returning it to the men for more chipping.
Now those shot were ready for use, sitting in the racks round the hatch coamings in scooped-out recesses, so that they looked like large black oranges. More shot were close to the guns held in small pyramids by shot garlands, small rings of thick rope put flat on the deck and preventing the shot in the lower tier from rolling away as more tiers were added to form a pyramid. This time they would not be needed and would have to be stowed away again as soon as the Calypso stood down from general quarters, but Ramage noted that each garland was full; each pyramid was finished off with a single shot at the top, so the men were not saving themselves work.
From up here on the quarterdeck the flintlocks, carefully oiled small rectangular blocks of steel which could be fitted to the breech of each gun by wing nuts in a matter of seconds, glinted in the sunlight. The lock was the most important part of each gun, holding the flint in what looked like a cockerel's head and beak. At the breech end the firing lanyard was secured to a ring so that a steady pull by the gun captain (standing behind the gun and beyond the recoil) released the powerful spring and, in effect, made the flint peck against steel, showering sparks which ignited the powder in the pan and sent a flash down the vent into the breech of the gun, firing the charge. Until the flintlock was brought into use fifty years ago, Ramage reflected, guns were fired by slowmatch (in effect a burning cord) wound round a linstock, a method little better than jabbing with a red-hot poker.
Yet flintlocks did not always work - heavy rain or a shower of spray as a ship punched to windward could put them out of action until they were carefully wiped dry, and in action there was usually no time for that. As an insurance, a couple of feet of slowmatch for each gun was kept alight, fitted into notches round a tub of water so that the glowing end hung over the inside, ensuring that sparks should not ignite any stray grains of gunpowder.
Sparks were not the only risk: the trucks, the wide wooden wheels on which the gun carriages recoiled, caused a good deal of friction. The metal-shod handspikes, the heavy wooden levers like massive broom handles and used to shift over the breech end of the carriage to traverse the gun, could make a spark. So the deck, drying fast although the sun was getting low on the horizon, was sluiced down with buckets of water, with sand scattered on top so that the bare-footed gunners should not slip.
All these preparations, Ramage mused, because of the approach of another frigate which had almost certainly left Barbados a couple of days after the convoy, probably calling in on her way to England for routine despatches from Rear-Admiral Tewtin after visiting English Harbour, Antigua, braving the mosquitoes and general unpleasantness there to collect letters to the Admiralty and Navy Board, letters of absolutely no consequence. English Harbour had never been anything but an expense to the Royal Navy: even Rodney, after the Battle of the Saints (fought within seventy miles of English Harbour), had scorned the place and taken all his prizes (including the Ville de Paris, then the largest ship of war afloat) to Port Royal, Jamaica, seven or eight hundred miles away, giving Jamaica a sight still remembered, the largest fleet of ships of war ever assembled.
Ramage suddenly became aware that Aitken was talking to him and he quickly emerged from his reverie.
"That ship hasn't answered the challenge, sir."
Yet she had hoisted her numbers and a challenge. Probably some muddled lieutenant with the wrong edition of the private signals (they were changed monthly), having made the wrong challenge (therefore receiving what seemed the wrong reply), would now be scrabbling about trying to find the current signal book, being harassed by an alarmed captain.
In turn the captain would be angry because his lieutenant had made a fool of him over the challenge - and at the same time would know the seriousness of approaching a convoy and its escort without having made the correct reply to her challenge. Ramage was thankful not to be the lieutenant - though the fault was ultimately the captain's because the particular book of private signals with the daily challenge and reply was in his care and he should know them in case a strange sail came into sight.
He sighed: it was always the damned captain's responsibility, just as now he had to decide what to do about this approaching idiot . . .
He reached for his telescope, pulled out the tube and lined up the focusing ring. He balanced himself against the roll and was able to ignore the pitch. The view now brought closer by the telescope lenses showed a lower semicircle of dark-blue, almost purplish sea with an upper semicircle of duck-egg-blue sky, and right in the middle was the foreshortened frigate running down towards them. In a hurry, it seemed: she was still running under all plain sail, though surely a prudent captain would be clewing up the courses by now, if not actually furling, and certainly furling the royals, leaving the ship under topsails, ready to heave-to close to the Calypso.
Ramage studied her carefully. Sails - a few patches but everything in good condition. Paintwork - the black paint of the hull was still black (mottled with dried spray) but did not have that purple tinge which showed age, too much sun and too much sea. And the copper sheathing on the bottom, showing frequently as the ship pitched heavily in the following seas, was bright and seemingly new, as though she was not long out of drydock.
Ramage turned to Aitken. "She doesn't look French, from her condition. Sails and sheathing look almost new."
"That's what I thought, sir; but ploughing down under all plain sail and not making the correct reply to the challenge ..."
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Well, we're at general quarters so there's nothing more we can do until she gets closer."
Aitken nodded. "That's one thing about her, sir; she's steering directly for us and not trying to dodge round to get at the convoy."
That had been the first thing that Ramage had considered: to him a natural reaction on first sighting a strange sail was, did she menace the convoy?
"I think we'll accept that the Jason - if that's who she is - doesn't have such efficient officers as the Calypso."
"Probably has a less tyrannical captain," Aitken said in one of his rare flashes of dry humour.
Certainly a more erratic one, Ramage thought: the Jason was leaving herself with less than a mile in which to clew up courses, furl royals, round up and then back the foretopsail ready for the Calypso's approach, and unless she had a full ship's company (which was unlikely: if she had 150 men out of an establishment of 210 she would be lucky) the next few minutes could provide an object lesson in how not to handle a ship. A lesson which would not be lost on Aitken, Wagstaffe, Kenton and Martin, he noted grimly.
He was always thankful when some other ship, friendly or enemy, made mistakes which provided lessons for them: he had taught them just about all he knew; they had reached the stage where they were eager and well prepared to work things out for themselves. In effect he had taught them to add. multiply and. subtract; now they had to tackle the various sums that sea life threw at them. So far, each one (and Orsini, too, of course) had come up with the right answers.
Suddenly his mind slipped back several years and he saw himself through Southwick's eyes, a green young lieutenant put in command of the Kathleen cutter, knowing how to sail the damned ship but with precious little idea how to command her. That was the hardest part of teaching leadership - making young men realize that being able to tack a frigate in a high wind through a crowded anchorage proved only that they could sail a frigate, not necessarily lead men into battle. Yet going into battle and winning was their ultimate task.
And all that, he told himself crossly, is how Captain Ramage spends valuable seconds daydreaming instead of displaying the leadership he is always talking about.
But that damned Jason was showing no sign of getting ready to heave-to; she was surging along like a runaway horse tearing down a lane dragging a laden haywain.
Ramage walked over to the compass and glanced at the quartermaster, Jackson. There was no need to ask the question.
"She's just steering straight for us, sir: her bearing hasn't changed from the time we went to quarters."
So the Jason was approaching with the wind on her starboard quarter. To pass the Calypso or to round up at the last moment without the risk of a collision, she would almost certainly turn to starboard and then back a topsail. By the same token the Calypso, beating up to her on the larboard tack, with the wind on the larboard bow, would have to come round only a point or two to larboard to back her foretopsail, or bear away to starboard if there was any risk of a collision.
Southwick came up to the quarterdeck, obviously expecting that there would have to be some smart sail handling in the next few minutes and knowing he would be needed.
"Hope the captain of this frigate isn't senior to you, sir," he muttered.
"That thought just crossed my mind, too," Ramage said. He was sufficiently young and his name was low enough on the Post List that the odds were that the captain of the Jason was senior to him, and therefore safe from anything Ramage could say about the way he handled his ship. But should he be junior . . . Ramage would take perhaps two minutes and never raise his voice, but the Jason's captain would not act so stupidly again.
"From her pendant numbers she's the Jason," Ramage said.
"Aye, one of those three Thames-built frigates launched just before they signed that peace."
Southwick's comment was followed by one of his famous contemptuous sniffs which were a language of their own. Ramage recognized this one as referring to the peace treaty: a comment.on the stupidity of Addington in falling for Bonaparte's carefully baited agreement which gave him breathing space to restock his empty armouries, granaries and shipyards. The peace had lasted eighteen months, and the politicians were congratulating themselves instead of being impeached. Ramage dare not think of the Navy's condition if the First Lord had snatched that brief period of peace to carry out the threatened reforms. They were laudable and long overdue, aimed at rooting out corruption in high places and low, but not something to start in the middle of a war. Except, of course, St Vincent and Addington had been too shortsighted to realize that Bonaparte's Treaty of Amiens was simply an eighteen-month pause between campaigns.
And still the Jason came on. He lifted his telescope again and examined her carefully. She was getting too close in view of her odd behaviour. Her guns were run out on both sides, tiny, jutting black fingers. Her ensign was British, but she had lowered her pendant numbers. Ah ... they were beginning to clew up the courses, but slowly, as though the ship was manned by cripples or the old and infirm. No, he was not being fair because the Calypso's ship's company had served together for years and as far as sail handling was concerned it mattered not at all whether it was blowing a gale or the ship was becalmed, whether tropical sun dazzled or it was a dark night.
"Took long enough," Southwick commented. "Perhaps half the ship's company's down with black vomit - could be," he added. Ramage wondered - sickness usually hit a newly arrived ship, and the Jason did not look as though she had been very long in the West Indies. A ship serving in the Tropics somehow acquired a bleached look; the sails would be faded, the paint on the hull would show it, even though recently applied . . . Somehow the frigate looked as though she was fresh from England. It was a feeling that Ramage could not have explained, and when he mentioned it to Southwick the master nodded. "Not a sheet of copper sheathing missing, as far as I can see. That alone rules out much service in the West Indies!"
Ramage looked astern at the convoy. The great mass of ships was now far enough away that they merged into a narrow band on the horizon, a band which now took on the colour of the sails like a faintly reddish blur of smoke. Yet the Jason's lookouts would have spotted it; her officers must have examined it with their telescopes. It must be obvious to the captain of the Jason that the Calypso was one of the convoy's escorts, so why all this prancing about?
Ramage lifted his telescope once more. Yes, the other frigates had obeyed his instructions: L'Espoir had moved out to starboard, up to windward of the convoy and able to cover the front by running down to leeward. La Robuste had moved across from the leeward side to take the Calypso's place astern and to windward. So the convoy was still covered: until they were all well away from the islands there was always a chance of French privateers attacking from Guadeloupe. That butterfly-shaped island had plenty of bays providing perfect bases for privateers. They could sail westward to intercept ships bound from Barbados to the more important islands to the northwest, like Tortola; or eastwards to intercept the Europe traffic. These privateers should be kept under control by the Royal Navy ships based in Antigua, but these days few people placed much reliance on English Harbour, which seemed to have an enervating effect on anyone based there.
Meanwhile what the devil was the Jason up to? Now half a mile away and steering an opposite course to the Calypso, she was perhaps five hundred yards over to larboard, which meant she would pass too far off to hail. She had no signals hoisted; nor would there be time to answer if she hoisted one now. And Ramage had no idea who commanded her. . . someone senior, or some young fool at the bottom of the Post List who wanted to cut a dash?
The Calypso was slicing her way up to windward but unable to close the five-hundred-yard gap. Considering she had not been careened, her bottom must be cleaner than he thought. But what the deuce was he to do with this Jason idiot? Just bear away as she passed and run back with her to the convoy? Why the devil did he not hoist a signal?
Probably, Ramage decided, her captain was a man sufficiently high on the Post List who had identified the Calypso and guessed who commanded her and now wanted to catch him out in some silly game - like hoisting a signal at the last moment and demanding an instant answer. The price of a little hard-earned fame in the Navy, Ramage had discovered, was to be the object of envy (jealousy was perhaps too strong a word) of all the failures who were senior on the Post List. They wanted, it seemed, to prove that he had feet of clay, and Ramage could almost hear the refrain - "There, that shows him he's not as clever as he thinks he is!" It was tiresome, boring even, for someone quietly doing his job . . .
"Watch out!" Southwick bawled just as Ramage saw the Jason suddenly turning to larboard to cross the Calypso's bow. But was there room? Not if the Calypso continued slicing her way up to windward: there would be an almighty collision in a minute or two, with the Jason's starboard bow slamming into the Calypso's larboard bow.
"Back the foretopsail!" Ramage shouted at Aitken and turning to Jackson snapped: "Hold her steady as she goes; the moment we get the foretopsail backed I don't want her to make a ship's length of headway."
A ship's length would make all the difference whether the Calypso's jibboom missed or touched the Jason's shrouds and that in turn would decide whether the Jason tore out the Calypso's foremast by ripping away the jibboom and bowsprit, or the Calypso sent the Jason's masts by the board as her jibboom scraped along her shrouds like a small boy running a stick along a fence.
Seamen raced from the guns to the foretopsail sheets and the braces to haul round the foretopsail yard by brute force. Ramage had already seen that he could not help them by turning the Calypso into the wind because that could carry the frigate those few yards extra which could bring the Jason crashing into him.
But a quick look at the other frigate showed that she was making an attempt now to avoid a collision: it seemed that she was just determined to shave across the Calypso's bow and if there was any risk of a collision it was up to the Calypso to make the appropriate move.
Ramage was aware that Jackson was cursing the Jason's captain with a monotonous fluency but his words were drowned as the Calypso's foretopsail slatted and banged when the yard was braced round, and a glance over the side showed the frigate slowing down, as though she was sliding on to a sandbank. And there was the Jason running obliquely down towards them from only a hundred yards away. Ramage could now see patches stitched into her sails; her bow had grey patches of dried salt on the black paint. Her figurehead, brightly painted, was probably a representation of Jason himself. Although the guns were run out, black and menacing, there was not a man in sight: no seamen's faces at the gunports, no one on the fo'c'sle waving a cheery greeting (perhaps after thinking the captain had run things rather close), no one shouting a message through a speaking trumpet.
Suddenly the gun poking out of the first port gave an obscene red-eyed wink and then gouted smoke and, as the thunder of the explosion reached the Calypso the second gun fired, then the third and fourth in a ripple of flame, smoke and noise . . .
The Calypso was being raked by a British frigate, Ramage realized in a shocked rage and the shots were passing over with a noise like ripping calico: raked at a few yards' range and both ships had British colours hoisted.
The French poltroons who had captured the Jason were using a perfectly legitimate ruse de guerre when approaching under false colours, but the rules of war required that she lowered them and hoisted her own proper colours before opening fire . . .
And there was not a damned thing that he could do about avoiding the rest of the broadside because by now the Calypso was stopped hove-to, dead in the water and a sitting target as the Jason raced by.
But the Jason would pass in a few more moments and as Ramage listened for the crash of the Jason's shot tearing through the Calypso's hull and the screams of his men torn apart by shot or splinters, he shouted at Aitken to brace up the foretopsail yard and get the frigate under way again, otherwise if the Jason was quick she could wear round and pass across the Calypso's stern, raking her again with the other broadside.
Ramage saw, however, that if he was quick enough he could turn the Calypso away to starboard in an attempt to follow the Jason, preventing her from passing astern. Everything depended on whether or not the Jason's captain had anticipated him heaving-to, suddenly stopping the ship. Ramage thought not: anyone foolish enough to pass so close ahead, risking a collision but (more important in the light of the raking) making it harder for his gunners, who had to fire at a sudden blur passing the port instead of having a good look at the target fifty yards away, anticipated nothing.
The last of the Jason's guns fired and out of the corner of his eye Ramage could see the Jason's transom as she continued on the same course as before. Both Southwick and Aitken now joined him, the master bellowing through the speaking trumpet from time to time as the foretopsail began to draw. Jackson gave hurried orders to the men at the wheel to meet her as the bow began to pay off in the moments before the frigate came alive, moving through the water so that her rudder could get a bite.
"Damage, casualties?" Ramage demanded of Aitken and was startled by the puzzled look on the Scotsman's face.
"No casualties, sir, but a few sails torn and some rigging cut - nothing important."
Southwick saw the unbelieving look on Ramage's face. "That's quite right, sir: those gunners were all aiming high."
Oh yes, an old French trick: dismantling shot to tear sails and rigging to pieces but leaving the hull and spars undamaged so that when they boarded the helpless ship they need only hoist up some spare sails and bend them on, and knot the parted standing, and splice the running rigging, and they had a ship they could use.
But what were the French doing? They were not racing for the convoy, nor were they tacking or wearing round to attack the Calypso again. What was their target? Their objective? The attack on the Calypso had been more like a flippant gesture than an act of war . . .
"You'd think they were just passing on their way to Guadeloupe!" Aitken exclaimed wrathfully, "and they didn't even bother to wave . . ."
"Follow in her wake," Ramage instructed Jackson, and Aitken began giving the orders to trim the sheets and brace the yards.
Ramage found himself tapping his cupped right hand with the barrel of the telescope, which he was still holding in his left hand. His brain had apparently stopped working: the shock of what had just happened had, in its unexpectedness, numbed him.
"Well," he asked Aitken, "we've a few minutes before we catch up with that scoundrel. Any ideas?"
"Absolutely none sir!" Aitken admitted. "Why, I was waving at her when you ordered me to back the foretopsail, and that - well, that woke me up as I watched to see how close we were to a collision. Thirty yards, I reckon. Then the broadside started."
Ramage turned to Southwick, who shook his head as a woman might spin a mop after it had dried. "Same with me, sir. I was waving to the scoundrels when they began firing. I thought her captain was being very silly and showing off by passing so close across our bow. She looked like the Jason, though."
"She was the Jason all right," Ramage said. "I recognized her and remember her figurehead, and she had it carved on her transom and nicely picked out with real gold leaf ..."
"So why did she open fire on us?" Southwick asked. "Must have been captured by the French. But those damned French gunners were drunk or something to have aimed so high."
"After our sails and rigging," Aitken said.
"Don't believe it," Southwick exclaimed. "They were firing roundshot. The Jason probably doesn't have dismantling shot in her locker, since few British ships carry it, but if you're after sails and rigging you use grape or case. A keg of case or grape through a sail shreds it well enough. A roundshot - well, you can see -" he gestured aloft, "- just a hole punched through the cloth; nothing that can't be patched or stitched."
"Very well," Ramage said, watching the Jason as the Calypso finally turned into her wake, "all that's over. What's she going to do now?"
"Beats me," Southwick admitted. "She's not even heading for the convoy. I'd understand her raking us in the hopes of sending one of our masts by the board, and then carrying on to attack the convoy - she's nicely placed to windward for that."
Aitken took his hat off and scratched his head, a signal which Ramage interpreted as meaning he had a suggestion about which he was doubtful. Ramage looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"I was wondering, sir, if whoever commands the Jason is puzzled because the convoy is surrounded by three French-built frigates? If he's a Frenchman, could he have thought three French frigates had captured the convoy and he was coming down to join us to drink a toast to Bonaparte? Then suddenly at the last moment he saw we had British colours and bore up to rake us? That would account for her captain staying on the same course now and not making for the convoy."
Before Ramage had time to answer, Southwick had seized on the same flaw that Ramage had spotted. "Why was she flying the Jason's pendant numbers and British colours, then? If she thought the Calypso was also French, surely she'd have been waving a Tricolour and some French signal or other? But approaching another French frigate under British colours - that'd be asking for trouble, apart from being quite unnecessary."
Aitken nodded. "Yes, you're quite right: I didn't think long enough before I spoke."
"We haven't much time," Ramage said, "so let's hear thoughts when they arrive!"
"What do you reckon, sir?" Southwick asked.
The more Ramage thought about it, the more puzzled he became. He acknowledged Jackson's report of the Jason's course. "I'm certain of only one thing: we aren't going to find any answers by following her so far astern: let fall the courses, Mr Aitken. Out with your quadrant, Mr Southwick, and let's have some angles on the Jason's masts: I want to know the minute we start overhauling her."
As Aitken turned away, calling out orders, Paolo, obviously annoyed at having no role to play so far, asked: "No signals for La Robuste or L'Espoir, sir?"
"No, they know that they have to stay with the convoy. This is just the moment that a privateer lurking on the horizon would be praying for."
As Southwick left the quarterdeck to get his quadrant and seamen swarmed up the ratlines and out on to the great lower yards to untie the gaskets securing the lowest and largest sails, Ramage relived the few brief minutes when the Jason raced across the Calypso's bow and her guns started firing.
There had been something he had noticed, something which, even while he was shocked by being raked by what everyone thought was a British ship, seemed odd. Something discordant, something which did not fit into the picture either of the French attacking under a ruse de guerre, or a - a what? Anyway, he'd noticed it in those split seconds but now he was damned if he could remember what it was. If he could remember, would it provide an answer? He was not even sure of that. It was in fact little more than a nagging thought, as though he had forgotten something but could not remember whether it concerned a button missing from a coat or to remind the butler that the dining room clock had stopped and needed winding.
The maincourse dropped from the yard with the gracelessness of a fat woman flopping into a low chair, but Aitken's staccato orders snapping across the deck from the mouth of the speaking trumpet sent some men forward hauling on the mainbrace and others aft, hardening in the sheets. A few moments later the forecourse came tumbling down, freed of the gaskets, and the yard was braced as the sail was sheeted home and trimmed.
Southwick bustled up with his quadrant, cursing that the courses would now get in the way, spoiling his view of the Jason.
"Not if you come over here," Ramage said from the starboard side of the quarterdeck.
The master stood, legs wide apart to balance himself against the rolling, and carefully adjusted the quadrant until it showed him the angle between the Jason's mizenmasthead and her waterline. He scribbled the figure down on the slate kept in the binnacle box drawer.
"Timed that nicely," he commented. "Just as our courses started to draw. We'll soon see what effect they're having."
Ramage nodded. "But we'll have to get up the stunsails unless ..." He did not finish the sentence for a few moments. "We have to keep the convoy in sight. If we haven't caught up with her by the time the convoy's drawing astern, we'll have to let her go"
"Then we'll never know what the devil's going on, sir," Southwick grumbled.
"Maybe not, but our job is to protect the convoy, and anyway, I'm anxious to get home!"
Southwick nodded in agreement about the convoy. "I can see that, sir: we don't want a long beat back. You can bet the wind'll die on us."
"Or La Robuste won't be tough enough on the stragglers, so that at dawn we'd find the convoy spread right over the horizon."
Southwick sighed as he lifted the quadrant once again. "They're like a crowd of schoolchildren, those mules," he grumbled. "Turn your back for a moment and they're up to all sorts o' mischief."
Then he gave a more contented sigh after looking at the scale. "Well, that's good news, sir: we're catching up fast!" He lowered the quadrant, yet Ramage could see that the old man was puzzled. "We're catching up faster than setting the courses can account for - at least, by my reckoning."
"Those Frenchmen may have only just captured the ship," Ramage said. "It'd take a few days for them to get the best out of her."
"Not if her officers are proper seamen," Southwick said contemptuously.
"Come on, be fair," Ramage chided. "The poor beggars spend most of their time swinging round an anchor in places like Brest. Our blockade doesn't give them much chance of getting experience at sea."
"My heart," Southwick said, giving his chest a thump, "it fairly bleeds for them."
"And well it might, right now," Ramage said teasingly. "Just put yourself in their place on board the Jason. They nearly collided with an enemy they were trying to rake, failed to send even one mast by the board or cut any important piece of rigging, or destroy a sail. Now, as if that wasn't enough, their target is not only chasing them but catching up. And there isn't a damned thing that they can do - that they know how to do - to make their ship go faster."
Southwick sniffed as he lifted the quadrant. "Don't go on, sir, you'll have me in tears . . . Ah!" he exclaimed as he looked at the curved scale and read off the angle. He then looked up at the frigate ahead, took another reading and then said: "If they weren't French, sir, I'd say they were deliberately dawdling, trying to trap us into coming alongside."
"They're not actually going any slower, surely?" Ramage asked. "I get the impression that they're still making about the same speed as when they crossed our bow, and that once we bore away and followed in her wake we didn't start overhauling her until we let fall the courses."
"Yes, sir," Southwick agreed. "I just meant that with the same canvas set, we're overhauling her."
Aitken had just joined them and, hearing Southwick's remark commented: "Perhaps the difference is that the Calypso's hull was designed by the French and the Jason's by the English."
"Aye," Southwick said sourly, "and I notice the Scots never seem to design anything - except new shapes for haggises."
Aitken did not answer, knowing he had made his point.
"Stunsails, sir?" he asked Ramage.
"Not for the moment: we're overhauling her nicely, and I want to have a leisurely look with the glass."
He thought a moment and then told Aitken: "Jackson has the Jason's course. Look at the chart and see if you can work out where she's bound. She's not changing course. Too far south for Guadeloupe, I think, but she is not steering for the convoy."
"She might yet," Southwick said grimly. "She might be trying to pluck up enough courage. If Aitken's guess is right, she had as big a shock as us, only she got hers a few minutes earlier!"
"How are we doing?" Ramage asked pointedly, not wanting to start the inquest over again.
Southwick raised the quadrant, adjusted the arm and looked at the scale. "Overhauling her fast, sir. Do you want distances? I have a table of mast heights of most British and French ships o' war."
Ramage shook his head. "We need only get within gunshot, and we can judge that by eye!"