by Dudley Pope
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Towing at two knots, you wouldn't get a rowing boat past them."
"No, sir, " Southwick said lamely. "I was just pointing it out."
"How high would you guess the walls of the fort?"
"Forty or fifty feet, sir."
"I think you'll find that guns mounted that high in either fort would clear the hills . . ."
"Yes, sir, " Southwick admitted, flushing. "I was going on the plan drawn here. Of course, that'd be ground level. Sorry, sir."
"No, you may be right anyway. I'm only going by the fact Summers didn't mention it when I talked to him. He had sharp eyes, that man; considering he drew his chart from memory, he didn't miss much."
He sat down at the desk and motioned the two men to sit down. "Southwick, have a couple of copies made of this chart. It will be a good job for young Orsini. Clean, accurate copies."
"Yes, sir. You have anything in particular in mind?"
Again Ramage smiled. "Some brilliant idea snatched from a passing cloud? No, our only hope is something unexpected, so we may as well be prepared. We might have Aitken row in one night disguised as a fisherman - he can bring us back a nice mackerel or two and report on the town."
"I wouldn't trust him in Santa Cruz with all those beautiful Spanish ladies, sir. Wouldn't trust myself, come to that, " the old Master said, giving a lewd wink.
"What are your night orders, sir?" Aitken said hurriedly. "Anything special?"
"No, we'll reverse our course at sunset and hope we'll be lucky tomorrow. Now, how are these Invincibles settling in?"
"Very well, sir. Another week and you won't be able to distinguish them from the others."
"And Kenton?"
"He's young, sir - and I don't mean that he's only just past twenty. He's supposed to have had good marks when he took his examination for lieutenant, but - well, I wish the Admiral had sent us someone else."
"Don't be too hard on him, " Southwick said mildly. "He's got plenty of spirit! You were a fourth lieutenant once! "
"Aye, " Aitken admitted. "But this Kenton - he hasn't half the head of young Orsini. I can hardly believe that boy has been at sea only a few months."
"Sunset, " Ramage said, "we reverse course at sunset - and hope for some luck by the time we've had our breakfast."
CHAPTER TEN
At the first sight of dawn - the black eastern night sky softening to grey, dimming the stars low on the horizon - the diminutive Marine drummer boy began beating a ruffle as bosun's mates went through the ship, following the shrilling of their calls with bellows of: "General quarters - all hands to general quarters! "
There was no wild rush: sleepy-eyed men stumbled up ladders and went to their guns, to the headpumps and to the magazine. Every ship of the Royal Navy at sea in wartime met the dawn ready for action, guns loaded and run out, in case daylight showed an enemy close by.
The Calypso's six lookouts were still on deck, one on each bow and quarter and two amidships; lookouts did not go aloft until the first daylight would let them see at least two hundred yards round the ship.
Aitken was officer of the deck and Ramage joined him as Rennick mustered his Marines aft. The wind was little more than a stiff breeze and as the Calypso reached to the south-west her bow occasionally sliced the top off a wave and sent a shower of spray across the fo'c'sle.
The dim candle in the binnacle, lighting the compass card, was growing yellower as dawn spread higher in the sky; soon Ramage could distinguish the wavetops dancing grey and menacing as they swept under the ship, hurried westwards by the Trade wind. He shivered and pulled at his cloak: this was the most miserable part of the day - the grey light washed out colours and the sea always seemed more menacing, and the almost inevitable line of low cloud to windward was stark and black, as though heralding bad weather.
He knew the colours would soon come, the sea lose its threat and the line of cloud would probably disappear once the sun had some warmth in it; but it was the time of day when he had little strength to fight off the doubts and fears which, this morning of all mornings, seemed to wriggle into his soul like silent snakes; the serpents that ate away a man's confidence but which were driven back whence they came once the sun lifted over the horizon. One of the advantages of living on land was you could sleep through the hours of grey doubts.
He looked astern at the Calypso's wake, a smooth swathe through the waves. At that moment Aitken shouted: "Lookouts to the masthead! "
The two men standing amidships on each side ran to the shrouds: one started up the ratlines of the foremast, the second went hand over hand up the main. The other four men went to their stations for action. By the time the two lookouts were aloft and had taken a good look all round the horizon, visibility would be two hundred yards. Aitken had timed it well - but he had several years' experience, Ramage thought to himself and, the way the war was going, had several more years ahead of him.
How he hated the smell of damp wool. His cloak had a fair share of salt on it from the spray and it soaked up the damp of the night. It was chilly and he was hungry: he would be glad when the ship stood down from general quarters and the galley fire could be lit. He stared round the horizon, expanding quickly now, and suddenly there was a hail from high overhead:
Deck there! Sail ho! "
"Where away?" Aitken shouted.
"Dead ahead, sir, two miles or less, an' crossing our bow to the westward! "
It would be another neutral; Ramage was sure of that. Another Jonathan bound for one of the Spanish ports along this stretch of the Main with a cargo of salt cod and 'notions'. She'd have made a landfall at Punta Penas - probably passing the Calypso to windward in the darkness - and was now running westward for her destination. And, arriving there, she would report seeing an English frigate in the area, thus raising the alarm . . .
"Deck there! " This was the lookout at the foremast. "She's a small brig."
"Aye, aye, " Aitken acknowledged.
Brig? Still, Ramage thought, she could be an American, though most of them were schooners. She was unlikely to be Spanish this far to the east: Santa Cruz was still about seventy-five miles farther along the coast. It was the nearest Main port to the Atlantic for any ships trying to break the blockade, having slipped out of Cadiz in a gale of wind on a dark night and dodged the patrolling frigates, but such ships were rare.
"I can see her, sir, " Aitken said, and told the quartermaster to bear away a point to starboard. "Fine on our starboard bow."
Ramage was more interested in having a cup of hot tea, a pleasure which had now been put off for at least an hour by the appearance of this brig. "Very well, " he said, and began walking up and down along the starboard side. There was no way of stopping the wretched American raising the alarm: he would have seen the Calypso by now. Damn all neutrals!
All round the ship the men were standing at the guns; along the centre line the ship's boys squatted on the cylindrical wooden cartridge cases they had carried up from the magazine. The sand sprinkled on the dampened deck grated underfoot, but the light was at last bringing out the colours. He went over to the binnacle drawer and took up his telescope. He pulled out the extension tube to the mark filed in the metal to show the correct focus for him and, balancing against the aftermost gun, looked at the brig. She was small, she was pierced for eight guns - and she was Spanish: that was clear from the cut of her sails.
"Mr Aitken, " he called and, as soon as the First Lieutenant was standing beside him, said quietly: "Take a good look at her - she's a typical Spanish guarda costa. She's looking for smugglers."
The Scot put the telescope to his eye. "I can see now that her sails have that high roach the Spanish like, sir. But couldn't she be American?"
"No - she's Mediterranean-built. Just look at that sheer and stern ... Ah! She's spotted us - see the men grouping by the guns? Run up our colours - and make the challenge, just in case she's a prize put into service from Jamaica."
Two minutes later three flags
streamed out from the Calypso's mainmast: three numbers which were the challenge and changed daily. Any British ship of war would have the diagram which also showed the correct numbers which were the reply.
The Calypso was approaching fast and, as though she was bringing the daylight with her, Ramage could see more details. Black hull with a bright red strake; four guns a side, and they were now run out. Men scrambling aloft - going to let fall her topsails, no doubt, though little good they would do her with a frigate approaching. No answer to the challenge ... if she was a former Spaniard now commissioned into the Royal Navy, the flags for both challenge and reply would have been bent on to the halyards, ready for just such a situation as this.
The familiar sound of a contemptuous sniff told Ramage that Southwick was now standing beside him. "These Dons - they never learn, do they? Can't trim their sails, not even with an enemy frigate bearing down on 'em."
"Come now, " Ramage said mildly, "you forget we're a French-built ship! They can see that, and are probably going to quarters as a matter of routine and waiting to cadge a case of French wine."
"They'll soon distinguish our colours, " the Master commented, "even though they have the light in their eyes."
Ramage shut the telescope with an impatient snap. He must have been half asleep, because the idea he had just snatched at had been floating round his head, waiting to be hauled on board, from the moment he first recognized the ship as a guarda costa. It was not an idea that started him singing like a lark, but almost any idea was welcome at this time of the morning, and if it seemed practical at dawn the chances were better than even that it would be worthy of praise by noon.
Southwick followed as he walked to the quarterdeck rail, and he gestured to Aitken and Rennick to join him. Quickly he gave them their orders and then sent for Wagstaffe, who was standing by a division of guns on the main deck. Finally he walked aft, where Jackson was waiting for him with his sword and a message from his steward that if the Captain wanted breakfast, cold cuts of meat could be served in a moment. The prospect of slices of cold mutton - a sheep had been killed and roasted yesterday - effectively stopped Ramage's hunger pains.
Half an hour later, with the sun a great reddish-gold ball resting on the low band of cloud across the eastern horizon, the Calypso was sailing a hundred yards to windward of the Spanish brig and on the same course, rolling slightly. The brig had finally hoisted Spanish colours and Ramage was hard put to avoid laughing as he looked through his telescope. There was a little comedy being played out on the brig's quarterdeck.
Her captain had watched the Calypso approach; then, as they came abreast each other, Ramage had given the order to clew up the courses so that the Calypso's speed under topsails alone matched the Spaniard's. That had been five minutes ago. For five minutes the Spanish captain had alternately stared at Ramage on the Calypso's quarterdeck and turned to make comments to his officers - judging from his gestures he was both puzzled and agitated.
Ramage looked at his watch and commented to Southwick: "We'll give him another five minutes."
"Aye - he should be done to a turn by then. Do you think he's thrown over his papers?"
"I haven't seen any sign, and I've been watching closely. I think he's forgotten them."
"It'd make sense, sir: first he thought we were French, then it went clean out of his mind when he saw British colours."
"That's why we're going through this pantomime. The more nervous he becomes the easier it is. Fear is not knowing: he doesn't know what's going to happen next. He expected us to range close alongside and fire a few broadsides into him - and instead we are sailing along like his shadow. No guns, no hails, no signals . . ."
"I'd be feeling jumpy if I was him, " Southwick admitted, removing his hat and running his fingers through a mop of white hair. "They've been generous with the paint, for once. And not many patches in the sails - though whoever cut them must have used army tents for a pattern."
Ramage, the telescope to his eye once again, began laughing: "He's shaking a fist at us! "
Again Southwick sniffed. "Trying to frighten us, no doubt. Er, what had you in mind after -"
"Let's take her first, " Ramage said, looking once again at his watch. The fact was that the first single idea had brought others in its train; now he was mulling over various alternatives, each of which seemed excellent at the moment of birth and absurd the next.
Southwick stared through his telescope and then turned to Ramage: "You know, sir, I'm beginning to feel sorry for that fellow over there."
"I've been sorry for him since I started this, " Ramage said. "Still, if you're in a brig with a 36-gun frigate a cable to windward it's better to be stared at than fired at."
He could hear his men at the guns on the main deck laughing and joking: they could see the antics of the Spanish captain, and several of them knew from experience what it was like to have the positions reversed.
"Mr Southwick, " Ramage said with mock formality, "I'll trouble you to pass the word that number one gun on the larboard side should fire a shot across the enemy's bow."
"It will be my pleasure, sir, " Southwick said with a bow, and replaced his hat with a flourish.
Ramage turned aft and watched the Marines getting ready. The sergeant with six men was standing by at one of the quarter boats with Aitken who, with a cutlass slung over his shoulder and a pistol clipped to his belt, waited with ill-concealed impatience. Wagstaffe was inspecting the men who would be accompanying him in the other quarter boat.
Ramage gave a violent start as the gun fired, and then heard Southwick's bellow of laughter.
"You should have seen him, sir - jumped a foot off the deck! "
"So did I, blast it, " Ramage growled.
"There! " Southwick bellowed triumphantly, his shout almost drowning the thud of a gun firing from the guarda costa's larboard side - a gun fired in the opposite direction from the Calypso. A moment later the Spanish flag came down at the run, the brig's captain having gone through the ritual which protected him against an accusation of surrendering without firing a shot. Then seamen climbed up into the yards and began furling the topsails.
It took an hour to ferry the guarda costa's crew across to the Calypso, and Aitken brought her captain and officers back in the first boat. The captain, a plump little man with an amiable face and an excited manner, obviously wanted to talk to the Calypso's captain, but Ramage was far more interested in what papers, if any, Aitken had managed to find.
The Spanish captain and his two lieutenants were taken below to Southwick's cabin by two stolid Marines, and Ramage, after assuring himself that the Calypso was lying comfortably hove-to, gestured to Aitken to follow him down the companion-way. He sat down at his desk and eyed the canvas pouch in Aitken's hand. "Had he thrown the books overboard?"
"No, sir - here." The First Lieutenant took a second canvas pouch from the one he was carrying. "This is weighted and has a signal book in it. But I found all these -" he fished out a handful of letters "- in his drawer. I can't read Spanish, but they might be important. I think they are, from the fuss he made when I found them. She's called the Santa Barbara."
Ramage flicked through the signal book. It was well-thumbed and likely to be up-to-date. "Where did you find this?"
"In the binnacle box drawer, sir. When I took it out he - the Spanish captain - waved at our challenge and pointed at the book and shook his head."
"He saw the challenge before he could make out our colours, probably, " Ramage said as he began looking through the letters. The first contained orders for the Santa Barbara to patrol for two weeks between Punta Penas and the eastern end of Isla de Margarita, returning to Santa Cruz by nightfall on 24 June - tomorrow, Ramage noted. Any ships suspected of smuggling were to be boarded and sent into Santa Cruz. Care must be taken to avoid any enemy ships of war but, with the exception of one English frigate, none had been sighted off the coast for many weeks. The orders were signed by the Governor of the Province of Caracas.
/> The remaining letters concerned stores, the supply of seamen and complaints that various reports had not been sent in to the Port Captain and Mayor of Santa Cruz. The brig carried stores and water for three weeks, a small enough margin when sending a ship out on a two-week patrol. Ramage put the letters down and realized that Aitken was obviously keen to know what he had found.
"Just his orders - the rest are routine."
"But you read them all so quickly, sir. I didn't know you spoke Spanish."
"It comes in useful sometimes. Now we'll have that captain up here with his officers, and see what we can find out. Perhaps you'd fetch them. We don't need Marines - you've a pistol, and I don't think there's any fight left in them."
"I don't think they were issued with any to start with, sir, " Aitken said dryly as he made for the door.
Ramage put the letters and signal book in a drawer and pitched the canvas pouches into a locker: it would do no harm to let the Dons think that no one was very interested in papers.
Aitken came back, leading the fat little captain and two young men, obviously his lieutenants but, from the foppish way they wore their clothes, probably owing their appointments more to the influence of their families than to their knowledge of seamanship.
"This, er, this gentleman is the captain of the brig, sir, " Aitken said, "I didn't catch his name."
"You speak English?" Ramage asked pleasantly.
The Spaniard pointed to the elder of the two lieutenants, who stepped forward and bowed. "I speak some English, " he said truculently.
"Then introduce your captain and tell him I am Captain Ramage."
The fat Spaniard's name was Lopez. Ramage, speaking slow and precise English, introduced Aitken and then waved for the three Spaniards to sit on the settee.
"I have some questions to ask your captain, " he told the lieutenant, watched by a puzzled Aitken. "You will translate. First, what are his orders, and who gave them?"
The lieutenant translated, and Lopez, his eyes on Ramage, said with relief: "Ah - he hasn't read the letters. Tell him I was patrolling the coast - on the orders of the Governor of the province. Looking for smugglers."
