Ramage & the Rebels

by Dudley Pope

  Ramage turned forward towards Aitken. “Are those men with axes standing by on the foredeck?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It would take them at least two minutes to chop through the towing cable. Looking over the Calypso’s bow he could see the sheer had taken her well out on La Creole’s larboard quarter. Let’s hope Lacey has the wit to bear away, otherwise the Calypso’s weight will haul his stern round (like someone hanging on to a dog’s tail) and get the schooner in stays.

  By the time Ramage looked aft again La Perle’s topsails were fluttering slightly—the Calypso’s sudden movement had, not surprisingly, caught the French First Lieutenant unawares, and now he was trying to luff up to obey the order to turn to larboard.

  Lieutenant Bazin had been watching the transom of the Calypso grow larger as they approached. Her sternlights seemed occasionally to wink as the rippling surface of the sea reflected the sun from the glass. With the telescope he could see that the old nameboard had been replaced with a new one: the paint and gilt making up the name Calypso was much fresher than the rest of the design on the scroll.

  There were very few people on board the Calypso—two or three officers on the quarterdeck (Duroc presumably among them), and a dozen or so men along the gangways. Ah, and a few seamen waiting on the fo’c’s’le. So he could reckon on some help from the Calypso with that damned cable.

  By approaching in the Calypso’s wake, Bazin wanted to be absolutely sure that Captain Duroc realized what he was doing. He was sure it was what the Captain would want—Duroc was always interfering, never considering anyone could do anything properly without detailed instructions and constant overseeing. So by steering straight for the Calypso’s stern and then bearing away to starboard at the last moment, ranging to windward close along her starboard side, he could listen to Duroc’s shouts. Probably Duroc’s drunken ravings in fact, because he couldn’t imagine Duroc still sober and letting pass such an opportunity to show a senior officer how clever he was and how stupid everyone else. He had to admit he hated Duroc.

  The Calypso is a handsome ship: one can tell by that graceful sheer that she is designed by a Frenchman because the British can never achieve that elegance. But what is wrong with her that she has to be towed? It can only be damage to the rudder because her masts, yards, bowsprit and jib-boom are all right. She is not leaking—there are no spurts of water streaming over the side, showing her pumps at work. And, oddly enough, no battle damage. At least, none that can be seen from astern. No shotholes in the hull, no fished yards. Not even a pane missing from the sternlights. Can that schooner towing her have actually captured her? It seems unlikely; there is some other explanation. Most likely another ship captured her and ordered the schooner to tow her to port. Yes, that is what happened!

  He swore at the two men at the wheel as La Perle yawed in a momentary wind shift. They were nicely lined up now; he could even see the smooth trail, a path across the sea, which was the Calypso’s wake. Another half a dozen ships’ lengths or so, and he’d begin the turn to starboard which would let him pass alongside. Already the Calypso was being hidden by La Perle’s bow; he’d have to perch on the breech of a gun and peer over the bulwark, or rely on seeing her masts.

  Actually it isn’t as difficult as one might think, commanding a frigate. Duroc makes a great performance of it, cursing everyone, clutching his brow, stamping a foot, shaking his fist, spitting to show his contempt, but it is only necessary to keep calm. Keep calm and make sure orders are obeyed promptly. One needs a dozen eyes, of course, but Duroc makes hard work of it by all the drama.

  What is that fluttering in line with the Calypso’s mizen? He lifted his telescope. Merde! Another signal, and at this stage! Number eight. Hurriedly he mentally skimmed the first page of the signal book.

  “Deck there!”

  Now a blasted lookout aloft is hailing.

  “Deck here!”

  “Foremast here—she’s hoisted a signal!”

  “I know. Keep a sharp lookout.” He looked round and spotted the Second Lieutenant. “Where’s the signal book, crétin?”

  When the Lieutenant handed it to him he snatched it and began flicking through the pages.

  “It’s number eight,” the Second Lieutenant said.

  “I know that!” Bazin snarled.

  “It means to turn to larboard.”

  “Why the devil didn’t you say so, then, instead of giving me the book?”

  “You asked me for it. The book.”

  Now there was shouting from the bow.

  “What goes on there?” Bazin shouted back.

  “The frigate’s hoisted a signal!”

  “I know. Just keep a sharp lookout.”

  “We’ll ram her in a minute,” the Second Lieutenant said lugubriously. “Captain Duroc will have you court-martialled.”

  “And I’ll tell him how you fooled around with the signal book,” Bazin said hotly, and then looked ahead again.

  The Calypso was no longer ahead: suddenly she was way over to larboard.

  “Crétins!” Bazin screamed at the men at the wheel. “What are you doing? Who told you to turn to starboard?”

  “We didn’t. The Calypso suddenly turned to larboard.”

  And Bazin saw she had: the schooner was still some way to starboard, but the Calypso was so far over to larboard it was now doubtful if he could get La Perle to point high enough to pass her to larboard.

  Snatching up the speaking-trumpet that he had been expecting to use as an ear-trumpet, he began bellowing orders to get the yards braced sharp-up, and a moment later gave more orders to the men at the wheel.

  The Calypso seemed glued on La Perle’s larboard bow; then slowly, almost reluctantly, she began to move slightly to starboard. Or, Bazin corrected himself, she appears to, although of course it is La Perle turning to larboard at last. But now the wind is increasing—that helps her up to windward but it is also increasing her speed, and she is approaching the Calypso’s larboard quarter crabwise.

  Then Bazin glanced up and saw the luffs of the sails fluttering, beginning to be starved of wind.

  “Bear away, you fools!” he bawled at the men at the wheel, but even before they could haul down on the spokes he realized that bearing away, turning to starboard, would inevitably bring La Perle’s starboard bow crashing into the Calypso’s larboard quarter.

  “No, no! Luff up, luff up!”

  “Merde!” screamed one of the men, stepping back from the wheel, “make up your mind—sir!”

  Bazin saw that the name Calypso was painted in blue on a gilt background, and edged with red. The colours were bright. The studding-sail boom irons on the outer ends of the Calypso’s yards were newly painted in black, in contrast to La Perle’s, which were stained with rust.

  This is a funny time for the Calypso to be hauling down the Tricolour. They have the Tricolour on one halyard and the British flag on another, so they can haul down one independently of the other. Perhaps the halyard has chafed through. Anyway, there is only a British flag now. And it is going to be a dreadful collision.

  Southwick gave yet another of his prodigious sniffs, a sniff that contained a lifetime’s contempt as well as a lungful of air. “That Frog Lieutenant couldn’t be trusted with a bumboat full of whores,” he said crossly. “Just look at those luffs fluttering. Ah—now he’s having the yards braced up, but that isn’t going to help him. And—the fool, he’s paying off so much he’s making more leeway than headway!”

  La Perle was now coming crabwise down on to the Calypso’s quarter. Two ships’ lengths, Ramage reckoned.

  “General quarters,” he snapped at Aitken. “Guns run out, boarding party to stand by.”

  The flapping of flags overhead reminded him. “Orsini! Get that Tricolour down! Leave our own colours flying.”

  “She’ll stave in our larboard quarter, spring a dozen planks and carry away the mizen,” Southwick said matter of factly, drawing the great sword he had been wearing slung round his waist. “
But if she damages us too much we can all shift on board her …”

  Seamen were streaming up from below. Some were tricing up the gun ports while others ran out the guns. Men grabbed boarding-pikes from the racks round the masts, others took up pistols from wherever they had stowed them. Marines scrambled on to the hammocks stowed in nettings round the quarterdeck, muskets loaded and waiting for orders from Lieutenant Rennick who suddenly appeared on the quarterdeck and posted himself near Ramage, ready for instructions.

  Aitken, having passed all his orders, was now steadily and fluently cursing La Perle’s First Lieutenant, his Scots accent becoming more pronounced as he pictured the damage that would soon have to be repaired along the Calypso’s quarter. None of them thought to look at Ramage; none except the quartermaster, who was Thomas Jackson. The American watched him from habit. He was not sure quite what the Captain intended, but there must not be the slightest delay in passing a helm order. Jackson knew the men at the wheel were reliable, quite competent to watch the wind-vanes and the luffs of the topsails, and for the moment had to admit he could not see how the Captain was going to get out of this situation. He heard the grumbles of the First Lieutenant and the contemptuous snorts of Mr Southwick, and he noted that oddly enough the only person who was not worrying about any damage to the ship was the one man who would be held entirely responsible for it, the Captain, and from long experience Jackson knew that if the Captain was not worrying, then the odds were that there was nothing to worry about.

  Personally, he had to admit that if he was the Captain he would be—well, worried: that French frigate was not only sagging down on them but moving faster than the Calypso. Now she looked as if her bow would hit amidships: she’d shove her jib-boom and bowsprit through the mainshrouds and the wrench would probably carry away the mainmast.

  Ramage, rubbing the scar over his eyebrow and then snatching his hand away as he realized what he was doing, took one last look at La Perle and then briskly said to Aitken: “Cut the cable!”

  He walked over to an open gun port and looked over the side. The Calypso was still making more than a couple of knots; she had steerage-way. The Frenchman was making a good four but slowing fast. And she would not hit the Calypso’s quarter for two reasons—first, that foolish French Lieutenant was still trying to luff her up, but was losing speed and control instead, and second, the sheer which turned the Calypso towards her could, with the wheel turned back, swing her away; swing her just enough that instead of La Perle’s bow ramming the Calypso amid-ships she would crash her whole starboard side against the Calypso, as though she was intending to board. And the moment that happened … He gestured to Jackson and gave the order which began the Calypso’s sheer to starboard, swinging her stern away from La Perle, but agonizingly slowly.

  He glanced back at La Perle: already her towering jib-boom was abreast the Calypso’s quarterdeck but passing it. Now the bow, and he could see the black paint peeling, rust weeps from iron fittings, stains where garbage was thrown carelessly over the side. Now the foremast … French seamen just standing there or peering over hammock nettings, astonishment or fear showing on their faces, but none wielding a cutlass or aiming a musket.

  Now La Perle’s sails flogging overhead, not drawing, and the sloshing of water as waves rebounded between the two hulls. But, Ramage realized, no orders being shouted across the French ship’s deck.

  La Perle’s mainmast passing now. She is slowing down appreciably, her sails not drawing, and she is very close: you could lob a grapeshot on to her deck. The sheer to starboard is working well: the two ships are now on almost identical courses but just slightly converging, and both are slowing down: La Perle because a desperate First Lieutenant has braced up the yards too much and starved the sails of wind, the Calypso because the cable has been cut and La Créole has let the rest go and is already wearing round, determined not to miss the next few minutes.

  Then the crash. For a moment Ramage, nearly flung off his feet, thought they had hit a rock, but the rending of wood as La Perle’s hull scraped along the Calypso’s told the story.

  Crisp shouts along the Calypso’s decks showed the junior lieutenants had their men in control. Grapnels flew through the air to hook into La Perle’s rigging and hold the two ships together, and then there was no more movement of the ships: La Perle was stopped alongside, her transom level with the Calypso’s quarter-deck rail so that Ramage could see her three officers, one of them no doubt the First Lieutenant, standing rigid on the quarterdeck, looking more like statues. They were all watching the Calypso’s quarterdeck, as though expecting the devil to appear.

  Ramage held the speaking-trumpet to his mouth and shouted forward: “Away boarders!”

  “Sir!” Southwick said pleadingly, and Ramage nodded, and the Master ran down the quarterdeck ladder to join the boarding parties streaming over the bulwarks.

  In the meantime the two ships began swinging to starboard: La Perle had more way on when she hit and she was slowly turning the Calypso to starboard, away from the beach. And that, Ramage realized, was what he wanted: the Calypso would end up to leeward of the French ship and, by letting fall her sails and cutting the lines to the grapnels, could get clear.

  The shouting on board La Perle was unbelievable but, Ramage noted thankfully, there had been no pistol shots so far. The metallic clang of cutlass against cutlass was dying out—he’d heard only a few, less than a dozen. And all along the larboard side of the Calypso the guns’ crews waited in their respective positions trying to see what was going on, and no doubt frustrated at not being allowed to fire even one broadside before the boarders were ordered away.

  Ramage now aimed the speaking-trumpet at La Perle’s quarterdeck and shouted in French: “Do you surrender?”

  The French First Lieutenant must be the tall, thin man, and he looked dazed. He had heard Ramage and turned to stare at him, jaw slack and puzzled. But he was giving no orders. In fact, Ramage suddenly realized, the poor fellow probably had not noticed the Calypso’s Tricolour coming down at the run several minutes earlier, and at the very moment the Calypso’s boarding party streamed over the bulwarks he had been expecting to hear a stream of abuse from Captain Duroc …

  Jackson called to him, pointing almost overhead. Ramage looked up to see La Perle’s Tricolour coming down, and hauling at one end of the halyard was one of the officers. The man he thought was the First Lieutenant was watching; not with interest but with the same fascinated stare of a rabbit facing a ferret.

  “What,” Southwick grumbled, “are we going to do with three hundred French prisoners?”

  The two frigates, still alongside each other, were slowly drifting westward off the coast of Curaçao with La Créole circling them like an anxious mother hen worrying over her chicks that were now fully grown.

  “First we attend to the ceremonial,” Ramage said, nodding to where Lieutenant Rennick, a sergeant and six Marines were climbing back on board the Calypso with three French officers in their midst. The officers were wearing their swords and once they were on the Calypso’s deck, with Rennick leading and shouting brisk orders and the Marines stamping their feet as they marched in time, they walked along nervously in the centre, trying to get into step.

  Rennick and his Marines were enjoying themselves, and Ramage waited until the three French officers were standing to attention in front of him on the quarterdeck, covered by the Marines, and Rennick was reporting in a stentorian voice the presence of French officers who wished formally to surrender. At least, he added in an outburst of honesty, he did not speak French but he thought that was what they meant.

  But for the fact that the Marines rarely had a chance to show off their drill, Ramage would have cut short the ceremony: La Perle had been taken without a shot being fired from a pistol or one of the great guns, and she had been handled like a bumboat coming alongside with vegetables to sell. The French officers deserved to be bundled below without so much as a nod.

  “Please introduce yourselves,�
� Ramage said in French. “I am Nicholas Ramage, capitaine de vaisseau, and commanding His Britannic Majesty’s ship the Calypso.”

  At the mention of his name two of the lieutenants glanced nervously at the third, the tall and thin man Ramage had seen earlier on La Perle’s quarterdeck and who still seemed to have a fixed stare.

  “Jean-Pierre Bazin, lieutenant de vaisseau, formerly second in command of the French national ship La Perle!” He drew his sword, making his movements very deliberate, obviously worried in case the gesture might be misunderstood by the Marines. He held the sword hilt-first towards Ramage. “I surrender my sword.”

  “And the ship,” Ramage reminded him.

  “Yes, and the ship, milord,” Bazin said hurriedly.

  Ramage was puzzled by the “milord” but turned to the next Frenchman as he handed Bazin’s sword to Aitken. The Second Lieutenant gave his name, surrendered his sword and was followed by the Third Lieutenant. The Fourth Lieutenant, Bazin hastily explained, had died of yellow fever two weeks earlier. “Do you speak English?” Ramage asked Bazin casually, and when the Frenchman shook his head signalled to Rennick to take them below.

  As soon as they were marched off, Ramage turned to Aitken and realized he was still holding the three swords.

  “Share them out,” he said. “Have one yourself. How about you, Southwick?”

  The Master shook his head. “I don’t need a memento,” he said. “But just think of it—a French frigate captured without a shot fired and not one man killed or wounded. On our side, I mean. You’ll get a Gazette for that, sir. Only ten lines, perhaps, but what a despatch! Three hundred men and a 34-gun frigate captured with a 100-fathom cable!”

  “Aye, just look at her.” Aitken gestured at the great bulk of La Perle with his free hand. “Not a sail to mend nor a bit o’ rigging to knot or splice. Not a shothole for the carpenter to plug. Aye, and not a man to be buried either … Just one or two Frenchmen for Bowen to stitch up.”