Ramage & the Renegades

by Dudley Pope

  That night in the Earl of Dodsworth before he swam to the Heliotrope: sitting on the breech of the gun in the darkness before she came up to him, he had seen himself—his life, rather—with an almost frightening clarity: he had felt guilty that Gianna was fading in his memory, that he did not think of her nearly as frequently or in the same sort of way as before. Then he had realized that without either of them understanding it at the time, each had discovered that there was no choice. Each was drawn by a force that love could not overcome—or perhaps love showed them there was no happiness waiting for them even if the force was overcome. He saw how they had never had a choice, even had Gianna not decided to go back to Volterra at that time. It had an inevitability about it; the same inevitability that was taking the Calypso up to the Lynx.

  He turned his head. “Mr Southwick …” As soon as the Master was standing beside him he gave him his instructions and the old man grinned. A relieved grin? It seemed so to Ramage, as though Southwick had expected him to do something else. Anyway, the Master took the speaking-trumpet from its rack on the forward side of the binnacle box and walked over to Wagstaffe, telling him to report to the Captain.

  The Second Lieutenant looked cheerful: his hat was at a rakish angle, his silk stockings were obviously new (and worn because Bowen had told Ramage, who made it a standing order, that silk, not woollen, stockings should be worn in action: wool dragged into a wound made the surgeon’s work ten times more difficult).

  Ramage told him the orders just given to Southwick. “Now, we’ll be firing our starboard broadside first, unless something unforeseen happens, so get the extra men over on that side. After that, a certain amount depends on what the Lynx does, but seconds are going to matter. This is what I want to do.”

  The Lieutenant listened, nodding a couple of times. “Aye aye, sir,” he said, and walked back to his position at the forward side of the quarterdeck. He borrowed the speaking-trumpet from Southwick and shouted orders to the guns’ crews.

  No ship in the Royal Navy ever had enough men to “fight both sides.” Usually there were enough to load and fire all the guns on one side, with only one or two men for each gun on the other side. If both broadsides had to be fired, then one was fired first and several men from each gun ran across to the corresponding gun on the other side to fire that while the men left behind began to sponge and reload.

  The Heliotrope was now on the starboard beam (no wonder that had seemed a long swim from the Earl of Dodsworth) and the Commerce to larboard. Ahead, only her transom visible and her two masts in line, the Lynx. Once again he raised the telescope. Her gun ports were still closed and beyond her, on the beach, he could see the Calypsos and the two surveying parties running towards their boats. The artist Wilkins would have to be left behind if he wanted to sketch the action from the shore.

  He eased the sling slightly: his arm was beginning to throb, but at last he was coming to life; the chill which had seemed reluctant to go since they dragged him from the sea on board the East Indiaman was now being replaced by a warm glow; the sky was deep blue again, the hills of Trinidade fresh green, the sand of the small beach almost white, and the sea in the bay a patchwork of dark blue, pale green and brownish-green, warning of the depths.

  The dark, mangrove green of the Lynx’s hull, the buff of her masts and white of her topmasts, the black of her rigging—they showed up in the telescope as though she was fifty yards away instead of five hundred.

  He hated sitting down: usually at this point before battle he would be free to pace along the deck beside the quarterdeck rail, but now he had to be in an armchair like some ancient dribbling admiral, hard of hearing and even harder of comprehension, bald of pate and watery of eye. He laughed at the picture and noticed Wagstaffe glance round and grin. Paolo began laughing and Ramage glanced up at him questioningly.

  “You look very commodo, sir.”

  “I’m comfortable enough, although I’d sooner be walking, my lad, but at least I’m not missing anything!”

  He gave Paolo the telescope to replace in the binnacle box drawer: there was no need for it now. Four hundred yards—and he could see five or six men looking over the Lynx’s taffrail. “Can you see any men on her fo’c’s’le?”

  “No, sir, but it’s partly hidden from here by the masts.”

  The chances were that they had not begun cutting their cable. No men were casting off the gaskets of her sails. Had they all panicked? Frozen with fear as they saw the frigate beating up to them, guns run out on both sides? He pictured Tomás and Hart and knew they were not men likely to panic. Then he glanced at his watch. He tried to guess how long had passed since those two or three privateersmen had pointed and raised the alarm. Two or three minutes, he saw; not enough time for Tomás and Hart to do anything—yet.

  Three hundred yards and the privateer was dead ahead: they must be wondering which side the Calypso was going to grapple. The colours of the Lynx were bright now and he could distinguish a thin man from a fat one. Judging distance was the hardest job of all.

  “Wagstaffe, warn your men to be ready as the target bears. Southwick—” he paused. Two hundred yards. His eyes followed an imaginary curve round to larboard which would be the Calypso’s course as she tacked. It had to be done slowly to give the gunners a good chance, but not so slowly that she got into irons and drifted helplessly. One hundred yards. That popping was from the muskets of a few privateersmen at the taffrail. In the moment before he shouted the order to Southwick he realized that the privateersmen were still trying to guess which side to defend against the Calypso!

  “—put her about, Mr Southwick, slowly now!”

  The Master bellowed a few words at the quartermaster, Jackson, who snapped at the men on each side of the wheel. Slowly, it seemed so slowly that for a few moments he thought he had left it too late, the Calypso began to turn. For a long time it looked as though her bowsprit and jib-boom would ride up over the Lynx’s stern as she rammed the schooner, then the speed of her turn increased as the rudder started to get grip on the water. Southwick held the fore-topsail backed just as the frigate swung north, with the Lynx’s stern appearing to move slowly along her starboard side.

  Ramage heard a thud from forward and saw a puff of smoke beginning to drift down the Calypso’s side. Then another as the second gun fired in the frigate’s raking broadside. More popping—loud from the muskets of Rennick’s Marines, soft from the privateersmen; then the thumping of the frigate’s remaining guns formed a deep background to the descant of flapping sails, squealing ropes and Southwick’s shouted orders as slowly the Calypso went about on the other tack, swinging past north-east and heading west-north-west before she picked up enough way for the rudder to act.

  The wind was so light that the smoke of the Calypso’s guns did not disperse and in a few moments the quarterdeck was covered in a thin, acrid fog which set Ramage coughing and clutching his wounded arm as the spasms shot pain through his whole body. In a moment Paolo was bent over him, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth to filter out the smoke, but almost as suddenly as it appeared the smoke vanished and the sun was glaring down again on the quarterdeck.

  Still coughing, Ramage twisted round in the chair. The Lynx was on the starboard quarter, dust hanging over her stern, and beginning to slide under the Calypso’s taffrail as the frigate continued her turn.

  It was working! “Mr Wagstaffe—are your men ready at the larboard side guns?”

  The Second Lieutenant waved, a confident gesture to reassure the Captain.

  Still the Calypso continued turning: having fired all her starboard guns into the Lynx while tacking northwards across her stern she was turning to pass southward across the Lynx’s stern again and fire all her larboard guns, loaded with grapeshot, into the unprotected stern, yet another raking broadside which every ship feared.

  “Mamma mia!” Paolo exclaimed. “We’ve smashed half her transom with the first broadside!”

  “Only half? All those twelve-pounders loa
ded with grapeshot should have done more than that!”

  Grapeshot: they sounded innocent enough to a landman, but even for a twelve-pounder they were formidable. Nine small iron balls, each weighing a pound (and the size of a duck’s egg) comprised a single round. Each of the Calypso’s guns on the starboard side had blasted nine 1-pound shot into the Lynx; one after another, like a funeral bell tolling, until eighteen rounds had been fired—a total of 162 grapeshot.

  Now the frigate was almost round again, bracing the yards and trimming the sails as the eye of the wind passed across her stern. Now she was steering south-east on the larboard tack to cross the Lynx’s stern again.

  “They’re opening her ports, sir! I can see a gun run out!”

  “They have only half ports,” Ramage shouted above the thumping of the sails and squeaking of rope rendering through blocks. “Only one gun?”

  “She’s rolling, sir. I can see a second gun on this side. But—well, both have been run in. Now they’re running them out again!”

  Ramage realized what was happening. “The grapeshot have cut the breechings. The guns are running in and out as she rolls. But why the rolling? Has she cut her cable?”

  Paolo snatched the telescope from the binnacle drawer and adjusted the focus. “Yes, sir! She’s drifting! Some men are cutting the gaskets on her mainsail!”

  Southwick was standing beside the chair. “I took us too close that time, sir,” he said apologetically. “The gun captains complain we passed the Lynx too fast. They want us about fifty yards off.”

  “You’ll have to bear away: they’ve cut their cable and are drifting.”

  Southwick peered ahead and gave a helm order to Jackson and at almost the same moment Ramage heard the groan of the tiller ropes rendering round the barrel of the wheel as the helmsmen pulled at the spokes.

  “She’s not drifting fast,” the Master commented. “Half a knot; perhaps a little more.”

  The trouble was, every yard of drift to leeward took the privateer towards the cliffs which ran in a curve round to the headland to the south-west. That section of the bay had not been surveyed yet. The Calypso could very easily slam into a reef, or even a single rock, that the Lynx with her much shallower draught could pass over without noticing it.

  “You’d better have a man ready with the lead,” Ramage said to Southwick, who sniffed.

  “He’s standing by, sir, but the muzzle blast from the guns could bowl him over.”

  Ramage bit off a sarcastic retort: the Lynx was turning slightly to starboard as she drifted. In a few moments she would be in the sights of the first gun on the larboard side.

  “Orsini! Tell Mr Wagstaffe to load the guns on the starboard side with round shot. Use round shot in all guns after the larboard guns have fired.”

  Southwick looked round, having heard the instruction. “Aye, sir, the grapeshot is just pecking at her!”

  But the Master was wrong. “Don’t judge it by what you see on the transom!” Just imagine all that grape sweeping through the ship from stern to bow. Cutting the beggars down in swathes!”

  The second and third guns fired almost simultaneously, followed by the fourth, fifth and sixth. The longer range—fifty yards, perhaps a little more—gave the gun captains more time to adjust the elevation. The training would stay the same, about at right angles to the Calypso’s centreline, and each gun captain would tug on his trigger line, attached to the flintlock, as the Lynx slid from forward aft across his field of view.

  Now the smoke was pouring aft and rising over the quarterdeck. He held his breath, then tried to breathe shallowly, but in a few moments he was gasping and then coughing and once again it felt as though his left arm would burst under the jabs of a sharp knife.

  A heavy double thud almost beside him warned that the last two guns had fired and Southwick, yelling “That’s it; round we go again!”, began shouting into the speaking-trumpet to wear the frigate. Ramage saw a pall of dust lying over the privateer, the surest sign that the shot were tearing into the wood and slowly ripping the ship apart.

  Again sails slatted; the yards creaked and rope rattled the sheaves of the blocks as the Calypso seemed to spin and back almost in her original wake, only this time with her starboard guns slowly coming to bear. The first half dozen had fired when suddenly Ramage saw a huge ball of flame and felt, rather than heard, a roaring blast, and everything went black.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SOUTHWICK was sitting in the chair by his cot. Ramage’s arm felt as though the point of a cutlass blade was still embedded in it. But his right leg—the lower part felt heavy. And painful—especially when he tried to move his foot.

  “Good evening, sir,” Southwick said and sniffed. A relieved sniff, Ramage noticed through a haze made up of dizziness, pain—and, he was surprised to discover, hunger.

  “Keep absolutely still, sir, while I pass the word for Bowen. He’s been very busy.”

  Busy—the word chilled Ramage. “Wait—” the word came out as a croak: his throat was sore. “Have we lost a lot of men? What happened? All that flame—”

  “Easy, sir,” Southwick said reassuringly, pushing Ramage back in the cot. “Only two men dead, but twenty or more wounded.”

  “Oh God.” So he had failed. It had looked so simple. It was so simple. Get the Calypso under way and tack and wear across the Lynx’s stern firing raking broadsides until she surrendered. They were firing the third when there was that dreadful flash.

  “Let me pass the word for Bowen, sir.” The Master went to the door and spoke to the Marine sentry, and when he came back he said, almost accusingly: “You’ve lost a lot more blood again. No one realized the quarterdeck had caught it.”

  “Why?” Ramage hardly recognized the noise that came out when he spoke.

  “Well, young Orsini and I were over the side in the sea, Jackson was unconscious and the two men at the wheel were dead.”

  “What were you doing … in the sea?” His head was spinning; he was spiralling down and down as though caught in a whirlpool, and night had fallen before he came round again, to find Southwick dozing in an armchair, the sleeping cabin lit by a lantern.

  His brain was muddled. He had dreamed that Southwick had been swimming in the sea with Orsini. Curiously enough the Master’s hair was plastered down on his head, as though still damp and sticky from salt water.

  Southwick saw that Ramage’s eyes were open and jumped up at once to kneel beside the cot.

  “Before you pass out again, sir, Bowen wants to know if you’re warm enough, thirsty or hungry.”

  “Thirsty,” Ramage said, and then repeated it, trying out his voice and finding it was still hoarse but nearer normal. “Hot soup.”

  Then he remembered something. Not only had he dreamed Southwick and Orsini were swimming together, but there was talk of him losing a lot of men. And what was he doing here in his cot anyway?

  “What happened?”

  Southwick sniffed—had he not just done that? “You get a warm drink inside you and some food, and I’ll tell you what I know. Mr Wagstaffe’s in no state to talk at the moment, no more is Jackson, and the other officers weren’t on board: they only saw it from the shore …”

  “But that terrible flash …”

  “Yes, yes, sir,” Southwick said soothingly, “all in good time. Bowen is most anxious you don’t get excited.”

  “Excited!” Ramage grumbled wearily. “How can I help it when you won’t tell me anything?”

  Southwick finally caught the despair in his Captain’s voice and as he walked to the door to talk to the sentry said over his shoulder: “Don’t you worry, sir. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  When the Master came back, having ordered hot soup, he found Ramage propped up on his right elbow, a wild look in his eye, his hair matted and filled with dust. “The Earl of Dodsworth,” he muttered, “something happened to her!”

  Southwick looked puzzled. “She’s all right, sir. The hostages were a bit startled, I expect, but
that’s all.”

  “And the rest of the hostages?”

  “They’re quite safe, sir. There’s nothing to worry about. Once you’ve a pint of hot soup inside you, I’ll tell you all I know. And Bowen will be here in a few minutes for a chat about that leg of yours.”

  Leg, for God’s sake. An arm and a leg. Anything, it seemed, to prevent him getting over to the Earl of Dodsworth. Not that he had any excuse to go over, he told himself. She would have seen the attack and whatever happened next. At the moment she probably knew more than he did.

  The sentry’s hail told him that Bowen was coming, and even by the dim light of the lantern Ramage could see that the surgeon was exhausted.

  “What happened?” Ramage asked. “Southwick won’t tell me a damn thing. Why did we have so many casualties? We oughtn’t to have lost a man. Was it because I was knocked out? Did—”

  He was running the words together, almost as though he was drunk, and Bowen knelt beside the cot and without answering motioned to Southwick to bring the lantern. Then he pushed up one of Ramage’s eyelids, inspected the eyeball for a few moments and then felt the pulse in his right wrist.

  “How do you feel, sir?”

  Ramage seemed to stir himself at the question. “I’m all right. The arm is better but why is my right leg so stiff? It doesn’t hurt much but I can’t use it!”

  “Don’t try to for a few days: it’s bandaged up. I don’t think you’ve broken a bone, but several muscles were wrenched and there’s considerable swelling.”

  “But what happened?” Ramage, his voice getting stronger, had clearly recovered enough to become angry. Recovered enough, Bowen guessed, to try to scramble out of his cot—and probably fall over as it swung slightly. The cot, being a rectangular box slung low in what was little more than a large hammock, was easily capsized by someone trying to get out to one side without distributing his weight evenly.

  A knock on the door and Silkin’s voice heralded the arrival of the soup, which Ramage drank from a large mug with ill grace as Southwick supported him. He swallowed it all, refused more, and said to Bowen: “Well, now tell me.”