The Ramage Touch (30 page)

He shouted the order to Aitken and pointed at the quartermaster. An eight-point turn meant the men had to spin the great wheel several revolutions, and the quartermaster crouched ready over the binnacle, watching the compass and the dogvanes as well as glancing up at the luffs of the sails, which were beginning to flap as they lost the wind, although the yards were already being braced up.

‘Larboard guns to fire as soon as they bear on the target,’ Ramage said to Aitken, who again shouted the order through the speaking-trumpet, although from the sound of the Scotsman’s voice and the look on his face he probably thought his captain had suddenly gone mad because the
Furet
was still sailing on the same course with the
Calypso
astern of her.

Then the
Calypso
’s bow began to swing to starboard, the
Furet
seeming to slide away over to the larboard bow, like an ice-skater…Ramage had guessed wrongly. Already the
Calypso
’s sails were slatting overhead as seamen struggled with the sheets and tacks controlling the sails and braces which trimmed the yards, the stunsails tearing adrift and the stunsail booms breaking with a noise like fresh carrots snapping.

The guns’ crews, having raced from one side of the ship to the other, busied themselves with side tackles, train tackles and trigger lines. The gun captains stood ready with the trigger lines slack in their hands; second captains checked the powder in the pans and waited the order to cock the locks.

Ramage opened his mouth to give the order that would bring the
Calypso
back into the
Furet
’s wake when the French frigate’s transom disappeared, suddenly narrowing as gradually Ramage saw the whole length of the ship’s starboard side appear: gunports open, stunsails slatting like streamers from each yard, sails flattened and fluttering as the yards were hurriedly braced sharp up.

Now the two ships were racing along side by side, perhaps two hundred yards apart, both heading west, both with sails flogging as men struggled to trim them, and from forward in the
Calypso
came the first bronchitic coughs as three forward guns fired. A red eye winked once abreast the
Furet
’s foremast, followed by three more farther aft. Smoke began to stream from the ports and Ramage felt a heavy thump nearby as a roundshot crashed into the
Calypso
’s hull.

Rapidly, because the ship had turned fast and suddenly brought the enemy into view, the rest of the
Calypso
’s guns fired in a ripple of thunder, and the guns rumbled back in recoil, the men poised for them to stop so they could begin the ritual of sponging and reloading.

More of the French guns winked and smoked; behind him and to one side Ramage heard the crack-crack-crack of the Marines’ muskets as they tried to shoot down the officers and the men at the wheel on the
Furet
’s afterdeck.

He noted that the
Furet
’s stunsail booms had all carried away, snapped by the long strips of sail blowing forward and wrapping round the braces, which would jam in the blocks when they tried to trim the yards.

The
Calypso
’s fourth 12-pounder on the larboard side suddenly spun off its carriage, and a moment later Ramage heard a loud clang and a shriek of pain: a French roundshot had hit and dismounted it.

By now all the rest of the guns had been reloaded. Steadily each fired its second round at the
Furet
and Ramage, with nothing to do but await the outcome of the pounding, examined the French ship.

They were taking their time getting the sails trimmed; so much so that the
Calypso
was slowly drawing ahead. The
Furet
seemed to be heeled to larboard – but naturally, she was on the starboard tack. But – now she seemed to be heeled to starboard; in fact she was rolling, and rolling heavily enough to overcome the press of sails to leeward. They were rapidly clewing up the courses – but why reduce speed at a time like this? Now the topgallants were being furled. And the topsails.

Her gunports seemed to be nearer the water than one would expect, too. Then Ramage turned open-mouthed to Southwick, who was now standing beside him, and both men exclaimed simultaneously: ‘She’s sinking!’

‘Aye, we must have had a lucky shot,’ Aitken cried jubilantly but Ramage said: ‘No, they’ve had the chain pump going for the past ten minutes, but I didn’t realize what was happening.’

The
Calypso
had fired another broadside before Ramage noticed that several seconds had passed since the last French gun had been fired. He told Aitken to pass the order to cease fire.

‘Watch her colours,’ he told Southwick, and then snapped at Aitken: ‘Stand by to heave-to and be ready to hoist out boats. Renwick, stand by with your men. I’ll be calling away boarding parties in a few minutes.’

He turned to Aitken. ‘Clew up the courses – use men from the guns if you need ’em because the topgallants will be next.’

There was nothing more dangerous and unnecessary than fighting with too much sail set; topsails were quite enough, giving complete control of the ship, and keeping the canvas high enough above the guns so that the muzzle flash would not start fires. For the first time in his life, he realized, he had been forced to fight under all plain sail. At least, he had stunsails and all plain sail set to the topgallants when he had to fight, because the
Furet
suddenly bore up…Now the men were busy cutting away the torn stunsails and halyards and clearing the booms.

The French frigate was sinking all right: she had that slow, ponderous and ominous roll of a ship with many tons of water slopping around inside her, sluicing first to one side and then to the other. In a few minutes it would be too risky to put the
Calypso
alongside her in case she rolled so much that their yards locked together. Indeed, the way she was going, the whole ship might well capsize.

‘They’re trying to heave-to,’ Southwick said, ‘but I think the foretopsail braces have been cut. Ah, down they come! She’s struck her colours, sir!’

Ramage was almost numbed by the speed of events. What had started off as a regular battle was turning into a scrap-bag of different experiences. And Southwick was right, the
Furet
had been trying to heave-to – what in God’s name was going on now? He swung his telescope along her deck. Men were slashing at ropes with axes – several of them chopping with tomahawks as though frantically trying to drive home nails with hammers.

Suddenly the main yard slewed round drunkenly and the foretopsail yard, its halyard obviously let go at the run, the lifts parting, came crashing down across the foredeck. The rest of the sails and yards began to drop, swing, cant or flog as the men on deck slashed through sheets and braces, bowlines and tacks, halyards and lifts.

‘We’ll heave-to on the larboard tack, if you please, Mr Aitken,’ Ramage said, ‘and I want boats hoisted out.’ He looked at the
Furet
again. ‘Make sure the ship’s company have pistols or muskets; we’re going to have more than two hundred prisoners on board in an hour or so – less, probably. If she sinks, we’ll need to sling over hammocks for the survivors to hold on to until we can fish them out. Not a good day for hammocks,’ he added, gesturing to those used as bags to hold the roundshot. At that moment one of the masthead lookouts hailed that a xebec which he thought he had earlier seen leaving from the direction of Porto Ercole was now catching up fast and seemed to be flying a flag or pendant from the upper end of the yard.

Exactly fifteen minutes later Ramage leapt from the stern sheets of the
Calypso
’s red cutter to seize a rope trailing over the larboard quarter of the
Furet
and scramble up, while the bowman tried to hook on and the rest of the boarding party grabbed at other ropes and began climbing the sinking frigate’s side.

Ramage was unarmed; knowing that he would probably have to climb a rope he had taken off his cutlass belt and then, as an afterthought, remembering their presence when he bent over slightly, had taken the two pistols from the band of his breeches and put them down on deck.

The rope, hanging from the mizentopsail yard, was thick enough for climbing but worn smooth with use. Finally he reached the bulwark and swung himself inboard to land on the quarterdeck, where two officers were waiting for him, two rigid figures among a swirling crowd of men who were shouting with excitement and fear and obviously not far from panic.

‘Which of you is the captain?’ he demanded in French.

An officer with a bloodstained left leg unbuckled his sword and offered it with a bow. ‘I am…’ but in the chatter and yelling Ramage did not catch the name, hearing only the end of the sentence, ‘…and surrender the ship to your captain.’

‘I am the captain,’ Ramage said and asked abruptly as his boarding party came swarming over the bulwark: ‘You’ve scuttled the ship, eh?’

The officer looked startled. He was a grey-haired man of perhaps fifty years of age: his mouth was that of a man given to worrying. He wore trousers and a plain shirt, but he was freshly shaven, which was unusual, Ramage thought sourly. He seemed to be bleeding badly from the leg wound.

‘No, not scuttled! It was you!’ he said accusingly.

‘Nonsense,’ Ramage said angrily. ‘You were sinking before I opened fire! I warn you, if you’ve scuttled her I shall leave you all on board.’

‘That damnable mortar shell that burst in our wake as we left Porto Ercole,’ the man protested bitterly. ‘It seemed not to do any harm at the time, but suddenly – you saw our pump starting – we began leaking. It was just as you suddenly increased speed – how you did it we could not understand – and we knew you’d eventually overtake us. I think the explosion must have strained our planking. Anyway, the butts of several planks began to spring and our speed through the water was just opening them up more and more, beating the pumps.

‘We tried to stop the leaks but the more we jammed in hammocks to caulk them the more the planking opened. Finally we had to bear up, but slowing the ship did not slow the leaks: we were obviously doomed. You opened fire, we fired back…’ He held his hands out, palms upwards. ‘The rest you can see.’

Ramage saw Renwick scrambling over the rail and signalled to him to take charge of the two officers who, hatless, white-faced and frequently pushed aside by hurrying seamen, reminded Ramage of children lost in a country market among the bleating of sheep, the mooing of cows and the shouts of buyers and sellers.

‘That leg wound: go down to my cutter. My surgeon will soon be treating it. What happened to your surgeon?’

The man shrugged his shoulders and gestured towards his own men, who were still running about aimlessly.

Ramage beckoned to a couple of Calypsos and ran down to the captain’s cabin. It was a curious feeling because it was a replica of his own in the
Calypso
– except that it was far more comfortably furnished. Heavy blue velvet curtains were held back on each side of the stern lights; two large brass-covered mahogany trunks were secured against the bulkhead; the desk was of heavy and highly polished mahogany. The wine cooler was carved from a block of a heavy, dark wood but the lid had come off, exposing the metal lining.

Ramage went straight to the desk and began ransacking drawers. The three on the left were unlocked and contained various items usually kept in the drawer of a trunk. The lowest drawer on the right was locked.

‘Here, open this with your cutlass,’ he told one of the seamen excitedly. There was a chance, just a chance, that in the panic…The wood splintered and suddenly the drawer catapulted open, sending the seaman lurching across the top of the desk as he tried to recover his balance.

Ramage grabbed the drawer. It was heavy. Inside, fitting snugly as though made to rest there, was a plain wooden box which Ramage saw as he removed it had several holes drilled in the top and a sheet of lead riveted to the bottom. It was locked, and there was no sign of a key in the drawer. Now Renwick appeared at the door, and as he spoke Ramage realized that the whole movement of the ship was changing. She was beginning to wallow sluggishly, all life gone from her.

‘You’d best come up on deck, sir,’ Renwick said breathlessly. ‘I think she’s going to capsize any minute and more than half the Frenchmen have already jumped over the side.’

Ramage nodded to the two seamen, who hurried out through the door. Ramage gave Renwick the box to carry, warning him to conceal it as much as possible, and then followed him up the companionway. ‘What have you done with those two officers?’

‘Down in the red cutter, sir. The wounded one is in a lot of pain. I took the liberty of telling the cutter to stand off until I gave the signal: I’m afraid these Frenchies in the water will capsize it. The green cutter from the
Calypso
’s nearly here, and they’re hoisting out the jolly boat, but I can’t get any of these dam’ Frenchmen to do anything about hoisting out their own boats: they’ve got five sitting on the booms…And I bet not one in four of the dam’ fools can swim.’

As Ramage climbed the steps of the companionway, he tried to think what had struck him as odd about the cabin he had just left. There was something strange about it, but as he was thinking he felt the frigate roll to starboard with a terrifying slowness, stay there for what seemed to be minutes, and then begin the slow roll back to larboard. From beneath his feet the noise coming up from the lowerdeck was of water swirling and bubbling, sounding like a mill stream to a poacher leaning down to tickle trout.

Then he was in bright sunlight with Renwick standing on the hammock nettings, waving to the red cutter. There were few Frenchmen on the
Furet
’s decks now; most of them were in the water, clinging to hatch covers, yards, the greyish sausages of lashed-up hammocks, mess tables and forms, and other pieces of wood. Two men stood up in the bow of the cutter, beating back the Frenchmen trying to scramble on board, and as soon as it was alongside Ramage slid down the rope into it, following Renwick and the two seamen. He grinned; even in an emergency the regular routine must be followed: the seamen and Renwick had all gone down the rope before him without argument: a senior officer was always the last one into a boat and the first one out. Renwick had wrapped the box in a piece of torn sail; it looked more like a round object than a rectangular one and the Marine officer went down one-handed, the box tucked under his arm.