by Dudley Pope
He began to fill in his journal. The first column headed “H” was a series of numbers from one to twelve—the time. The next two columns were headed “K” and “F,” the knots and fathoms run, entries that land people rarely understood because in the log a knot could mean speed, one nautical mile an hour, or a distance (one nautical mile) with any extra distance measured in fathoms, or units of six feet. “Courses” and “Winds” headed the next two columns, while “Remarks” occupied the right-hand half of the page, and recorded such mundane matters as the opening of a cask of salt beef, and the number of pieces it contained, compared with the number stencilled on the side by the contractor, which was the Navy Board’s figure.
Now for the course, distance, longitude and latitude, recorded at the bottom of—surely that was a lookout hailing? He wiped his pen and listened. Yes, young Martin was answering.
“Deck here!”
Then, from high above: “Sail ho, dead ahead, approaching fast!”
“What do you make of her?” demanded Martin.
“Need a bring-’em-near, sir, but reckon she’s got everything set to her royals.”
“Very well, I’ll send someone up with a telescope.”
Ramage thankfully jammed the lid back on the inkwell, slid the books and papers into the top right-hand drawer of his desk and, out of habit, locked it. Royals set almost certainly meant a ship-of-war—except, he corrected himself, the world is at peace now. But no merchant ship, not even one of the Honourable East India Company, would be bowling along with royals set in this breeze. Only a ship-of-war had enough men to handle a cloud of sail in an emergency. The approaching ship could be British, French, Dutch, perhaps even Danish. Unlikely to be Swedish and definitely not Russian—both because few were still at sea and because they were handled in an unbelievably lubberly way.
By now Ramage had collected his telescope from its rack on the bulkhead beside the door and his hat from the hook just below it. He arrived on deck in the weak sunlight to find the western edge of the Bay of Biscay still reasonably calm despite the freshening wind.
Most likely a French ship of the line making for Brest or Rochefort, although, come to think of it, very few French ships of the line had been at sea in the last few days of the war.
“I was just going to send down Mr Orsini, sir,” Martin said. He knew the Captain could hear hails through his skylight, but overhearing had no official existence, and Martin added: “Foremast lookout reports a sail dead ahead steering towards us, and he thinks he can see the royals over the horizon.” Martin pointed at Jackson going hand over hand up the shrouds. The American was reckoned to have the best eye for identifying ships—not just the rig but often the name as well.
Martin was excited and so was Orsini, but both youngsters, the frigate’s Fourth Lieutenant and the Midshipman, had forgotten one thing: there was no war on. Three months ago, such a sighting would have meant sending the men to quarters, opening the magazine, wetting the decks and scattering sand over them, loading the guns, the surgeon setting out his instruments and the galley fire being doused. Now, it was peacetime. But Ramage saw Aitken and Southwick coming up to the quarterdeck, both aware there would be no action but both unable to break a habit—of a lifetime for Aitken, of many years for Southwick.
Ramage pulled out the brass eyepiece tube of his telescope, slid it back a fraction of an inch so that the focusing mark was against the end of the larger tube, and looked ahead, where by now he could see an occasional fleck of a sail as the Calypso rose on a swell wave. The other ship was not quite on an opposite course because the masts were not in line: she was steering to pass along the Calypso’s starboard side and, at a guess, pass perhaps a mile off.
No new private signals or challenges had been issued as a result of the Treaty; the only flags now to be routinely hoisted, apart from the colours, were the three from the numerary code giving the Calypso’s number in the List of the Navy. And they would be hoisted only to another British ship-of-war. Ramage saw that Orsini had the flags ready.
Ramage felt curiously naked and unprepared: never before had he sailed towards a ship of the line—he was fairly sure that was what she was—with no more preparation needed than making sure three flags were bent on to a halyard. He knew from the aimless way they were walking round the quarterdeck that Southwick and Aitken were having similar feelings.
“Deck there—Jackson here, sir.”
Martin glanced at Ramage, who nodded to emphasize that the youngster was officer of the deck.
“Deck here—what d’you see?”
“Ship of the line, sir; British, may be the Invincible, and probably a private ship.”
A private ship: Jackson could not make out an admiral’s flag. With luck, the ship being so near home, she would pass with just a cheery signal, instead of heaving-to and her captain ordering Ramage to report on board with his orders, and generally making the most of many years of seniority but knowing that, with Ramage sailing under Admiralty orders, he could not interfere in any way.
“Fetch Jackson down,” Ramage murmured to Martin. The reason was mundane enough—the binnacle drawer had opened and slid out a couple of days ago and both telescopes in it had landed on the deck and cracked their object glasses. There were now only three working telescopes left on board—Ramage’s own, the second that Martin had been using but had sent aloft with Jackson, and the third being used by Aitken.
When the American was down on deck again he said to Ramage: “She’s been at sea a long time, sir; I had one last look as I came down and she and us lifted to waves together so I could see her hull as she rolled. Plenty of copper sheathing missing and her bottom green with weed. Topsides need work on them and her sails have more patches than original cloth.”
“Probably coming home from India, and only had time to call at the Cape for water.”
That remark, directed at Southwick, brought a knowing nod. “She won’t want to delay us, then!”
There was nothing more irritating than having to heave-to and launch a boat at the whim of a captain whose name was higher on the post list—particularly when the boats had been well secured for a long voyage.
The two ships were approaching quickly: Ramage guessed that the Invincible—if that was who she was—must be making ten knots, with a soldier’s wind, and the Calypso a good seven. He looked again with his glass. Yes, he could make out the patched sails now and, as both ships rose on swell waves, saw what Jackson meant about the weed. She must be three or four miles away. Her masts were coming in line now—she was altering course to close with the Calypso. Perhaps she intended just asking for news. Ramage suddenly realized that if he had to board her he could take Robert Smith, landman, with him. The report to the Admiralty about the “chaplain” was already written; the letter needed only dating and sealing.
There was something very impressive about a ship of the line running dead before the wind: ahead of her the waves swept on in regular formation while she, her sails straining in elegant curves, seemed to curtsy as her stern lifted to a swell wave, her stem sliced up a sparkling bow wave and the whole ship seemed to rise with a massive eagerness until, the swell wave passing under her, she slowed and the whole process began again with the next wave.
And she was hoisting a lot of flags!
“Hoist our pendant numbers,” Ramage snapped, “and stand by to answer some signals!”
Orsini now had Martin’s telescope because he was responsible for signals.
“Well?” Ramage asked impatiently.
“I—I’m not sure, sir. Do we have the old signal book, sir?”
“Of course not. Why?”
“I think she’s making an old challenge!”
“Rubbish! You’ll say she’s hoisted the private signal in a moment!”
“I think she has, sir,” Orsini turned to Ramage. “My memory is not good, sir, but I’m sure that’s one of the challenges for last July, and one of the sequence of private signals also for July. If she—”
<
br /> Aitken interrupted, a note of urgency in his voice: “Sir, if you don’t have the latest challenges and private signals, you use—in wartime—the ones for the same day but two months earlier!”
“We don’t have the replies,” Ramage said, thinking aloud. “All the books were returned to the Admiralty when the Treaty was signed.”
Suddenly he felt chilled and swung his telescope to his eye again.
The Invincible was furling her royals and courses; in a few moments she would be sailing under topsails alone, the canvas for fighting. At that moment the Invincible’s starboard side, which he could see most clearly, had changed: the curving black tumblehome with its single white strake, greyed with dried salt, now had two gashes running parallel above and below the white strake: two dull red gashes where her gun ports had suddenly been opened. And now, like ragged black fingers, her guns were being run out.
“She doesn’t know the war is over!” Ramage exclaimed.
“And as far as she’s concerned, we’re a French frigate flying false colours and not answering the challenge,” Aitken said.
“Senta,” Orsini murmured, “siamo amici; listen, we are friends.”
For a moment Ramage stared at the approaching ship. Impressive, terrifying, majestic, irresistible … she was all of these things; he had the same view of her that a frog in a pond would have of an approaching swan. The Calypso’s magazine was still locked, the port-lids still down, Bowen’s surgical instruments stored in their chest—there was no war on, and the Invincible was British. In the Invincible, though, all her guns—thirty-two-pounders on the lower-deck, twenty-four-pounders on the main-deck, and twelve-pounders and carronades on the upper-deck—were loaded and run out; the locks were fitted, the gun captains would be holding the trigger lanyards, crouched beyond the reach of the recoil, and the second captains would be waiting the word to cock the locks; the Invincible’s decks would be wet and covered with sand to prevent men slipping and soak up any spilled powder. The Captain at this very moment must be preparing to luff up or bear away to bring one or other broadside to bear. And he must be surprised that the Captain of the apparent French frigate had a strong enough nerve to trust his bluff with the false colours. One broadside from the Invincible, well aimed (as it must be, in such a comparatively calm sea, and the first broadside was usually the decisive one), would destroy the Calypso.
How, then, to prevent the Invincible from firing it?
Surprise … surprise … surprise… The word, which he had so often dinned into his officers, echoed like a flat note repeated on a pianoforte. How on earth did one surprise a 74-gun ship which was bearing down from to windward of an unprepared frigate, guns loaded and run out?
She was now barely half a mile away: as she rolled he could see black rectangles below the waterline where twenty or thirty sheets of copper sheathing were missing; the boats stowed on the booms were newly painted. The stitching of a seam was just beginning to go in the fore-topsail; in ten minutes they would have to furl the sail for repairs—but ten minutes would be too late for the Calypso as she stretched along on the starboard tack. In a few minutes there would be round shot as well as wind coming over the starboard side.
A glance forward showed the Calypso and the Calypsos utterly unprepared: forty or fifty men were standing by the bulwark, watching the ship of the line bearing down on them, but in the last moment or two they had realized the significance of the opened gun ports. Aitken, Wagstaffe, Kenton, Southwick, Orsini, the Marine Rennick and even the surgeon Bowen, on the quarterdeck to watch the Invincible pass, and Martin on watch, stood as though paralysed: in a few minutes not one would be left alive; they would all be cut down by a hail of round and grapeshot.
Surprise: the unexpected: what could stop the Invincible’s broadsides? A sudden threat—but to what? Her masts and rigging … her bowsprit and jib-boom?
“Ready ho, Mr Martin,” Ramage suddenly bellowed, his voice carrying across the ship and turning every seaman’s face up to the quarterdeck eagerly awaiting the order that might save their lives. “Orsini, a white sheet!” There would be no time to do anything with it, but … He continued the sail orders. “Put the helm down! … Quartermaster, the helm’s a’lee, eh? Right, now men, raise tacks and sheets!”
To a stranger, the Calypso’s decks were chaos, with men running, hauling on ropes, glancing up at the trim of a sail, easing a sheet, hauling on a tack, hardening in a brace.
Ramage saw the Invincible appear to slide across from the Calypso’s starboard bow to her larboard; overhead canvas flogged as sails lost the wind. The frigate steadied as the quartermaster repeated a helm order from Martin.
The after sails had lifted, then he could see the wind was out of them. “Maintop bowline—haul it well taut …” Now the bow had passed through the eye of the wind. “Mainsail haul! Step lively men!” Ramage’s throat was already sore and Southwick handed him the speaking-trumpet.
Already, crashing and bumping as the wind filled the sails with a bang on the new tack, jerking yards and making ropes whiplash, the Calypso was beginning to pay off.
“Foretacks and head bowlines … haul taut!”
The Calypso was coming alive in the water again; he could hear the spilling water sound of her bow wave. The Invincible was—damnation, she was just abaft the Calypso’s beam and although still racing along she was simply turning a few degrees to bring her larboard broadside to bear, instead of her starboard. The Calypso had tacked too quickly. Very well!
“Ready ho!” Ramage bawled into the speaking-trumpet. “Put the helm down!”
He saw the men spinning the wheel the other way again, ready to turn the Calypso back in the direction from which she had just come.
“The helm’s a’lee! Keep the fore-topsail backed, men!”
The frigate swung back through the wind’s eye so that the Invincible was almost ahead again.
“Put the helm up!” Ramage roared. “That’s it, hold her there hove-to!”
Hurriedly he trimmed the main and mizen sails. The fore-topsail had the wind blowing on its forward side, pressing sail and yard against the mast and trying to push the Calypso’s bow round to larboard, but the after sails, trimmed normally, were trying to push the bow to starboard.
Ramage gave a few more orders—bracing the fore-topsail yard until it was sharp up, easing the helm slightly, letting fly one of the jibs—until the thrust trying to force the Calypso’s bow to larboard exactly equalled the thrust on the after sails trying to push it to starboard. Then the frigate was stopped, balanced on the water like a gull, all her sails set but none of them moving her.
Then he prepared to look round at the Invincible. Southwick, Aitken, and all the others in the ship not busy with heaving-to the frigate were already staring at her, and Ramage knew he had probably failed: first he had tacked the Calypso too quickly, giving the ship of the line plenty of time to bring her other broadside to bear; then he had taken too long to heave-to the frigate on the other tack: instead of stopping the Calypso a few ship’s lengths in front of the Invincible, forcing the great ship into some violent manoeuvre to avoid ramming the frigate and probably sending at least her foremast by the board, it seemed he had left her just room to dodge and fire a raking broadside as she passed.
The distant rolling like thunder finally spurred Ramage to look: he was sure it was the rumble of broadsides but he could not believe that the Invincible could be so far away.
Not guns, he realized, but flogging canvas: faced with the Calypso suddenly heaving-to, the only way the Invincible could avoid a collision was to put her helm hard over and now, as she swung round, not fifty yards from the Calypso’s bow, every sail in the ship was flogging, the fore-topsail ripping from head to foot.
And the muzzle of every gun in the Invincible’s starboard broadside was pointing right at the Calypso. The Invincible was swinging fast and Ramage saw a group of officers on her quarterdeck staring across at the frigate. Then he saw they were in fact staring at Orsini,
who was standing on the hammock nettings slowly waving a white sheet.
Suddenly and quite unaccountably angry at the group of men, Ramage ran to the bulwark and climbed up on to the nettings to windward of Orsini. He put the speaking-trumpet to his mouth and screamed: “British ship! The war’s over, you numskulls!”
He swung the speaking-trumpet forward. “Come on, men, sing! ‘Black-eyed Susan!’”
A moment later he was leading two hundred men as they bellowed the words which echoed across the sea to the Invincible, gradually bearing away now as she cleared the Calypso and slowly trimmed her sails.
“You can stow that sheet now,” he said to Paolo. “Where on earth did you manage to find it so quickly?”
Paolo grinned as he folded it. “Your cabin was nearest, sir; it’s from your cot! I’m afraid I tore it as I climbed upon the nettings—”
“Did you, by Jove,” Ramage said, for the moment finding his knees weak. Knowing that the strain was easing he wanted to giggle, and Paolo’s apology, coming moments after the boy’s signals had probably done more than anything to save the ship, could be enough to start him off.
CHAPTER NINE
“LOOK HERE, RAMAGE, I distinctly heard you call me ‘numskull,’” Captain William Hamilton protested querulously in a broad Scots voice. “‘Numskull,’ you shouted, and every one of my officers heard you, too.”
