Ramage's Signal r-11

by Dudley Pope

  By now the gunner was becoming very nervous, his fear of authority overcoming his meanness with the Board of Ordnance's powder and shot, and before dismissing him Ramage said: 'You will report to the first lieutenant every Monday, in the forenoon, with a copy of your Instructions, and he will check with you that you have done your duty the preceding week. In the meantime every man in this ship, watchkeeper, idler or waister, must be proficient with a musket. That is one of your responsibilities.'

  Ramage cursed to himself for wasting his time now thinking black thoughts about the gunner, and concentrated on Southwick's chart. The Calypso still had her six boats, a dozen Marines under a corporal, and plenty of seamen. All she lacked, Ramage thought crossly, were commission and petty officers.

  Eight merchant ships left, and about a hundred men in them who had to be captured and dumped on shore to follow their fellow countrymen along the dusty road to Cagliari. Should he wait for nightfall, in case one of the ships became suspicious? He almost laughed aloud at the idea: the Calypso could sail through the anchorage sinking a ship with each broadside; likewise any two of her boats with boarding parties could seize a ship. The whole need for secrecy was now gone because, as he looked westward, the Sarazine was leading her convoy out to sea: six fine and undamaged prizes taken without the expenditure of a single musket shot or a human life - unless one counted the Algerines.

  No, two boats could go to each ship and remove the crew. If they went to a ship at one side of the anchorage first, and after the French seamen were landed went to a vessel at the opposite side of the gulf, the chances were that no one would notice anything and the task could be accomplished quickly.

  Ramage wrote a number against each of the ships on Southwick's chart.

  'Jackson, six Marines and six seamen as boarders and eight men to row the gig; Stafford, the corporal and the other six Marines, six seamen and eight to row the launch...'

  He thought a moment, and then added: 'We'll have eighty men standing by, armed: they can go off in the cutters, pinnace and jolly boat, if there's an emergency.'

  'Don't forget our men in the Passe Partout, sir.'

  'No, we're keeping her as our tender. She's one of the few in the convoy that could keep up with us going to windward!'

  'Pity we couldn't have kept young Orsini in command of her.'

  'I thought about that, but he'll learn a great deal more by going to Gibraltar.'

  Southwick stumped from one side of the quarterdeck to the other, after putting his telescope on the chart to hold it down, and then said bitterly: 'It's enough to make a saintly man swear.'

  He was talking to himself but a curious Ramage asked: 'Has your rheumatism started again?'

  'No, sir, it's just painful to look at eight prizes without being able to do anything about them.'

  'Well, our lads will only be losing the value of the hulls; most of them are laden with powder and shot. If they weren't bound for so many different ports, I'd think the French are planning a new campaign somewhere, but they're obviously just re-equipping garrisons.'

  'Aye, but it's a pity the Admiralty pay so poorly for French powder.'

  'Be fair! It's such poor quality you remember we changed it when we captured the Calypso.'

  'Oh, I know all that, sir', Southwick said. 'And it's not the money either - thanks to you most of us have plenty of prize money in the Funds now. It just seems a waste of ships.'

  'You would have sunk them all if you'd found the convoy at sea', Ramage pointed out, 'and been very pleased with yourself.'

  'I suppose so, but we didn't find them at sea', Southwick said morosely, 'we sent for them, using the Frogs' own semaphore!'

  By nightfall Ramage was bored. Perhaps bored was the wrong word, because he was rarely bored. Unsettled would be more accurate, the jumpy feeling which always came when he had to stay on board while some of his men went off to meet the enemy. This time it really was 'meeting', almost a social occasion, because with the Frenchmen from seven of the ships already taken on shore, there had been no shooting.

  The moon would be rising in the next ten minutes; already the sky to the eastward had a golden tinge. Ah, there were the boats leaving the fifth ship and heading for the shore.

  'We've been lucky with the weather', Southwick said as the two men stood at the quarterdeck rail. 'With anything of a wind or sea, it'd take all night to get those men ashore. I wonder if the first of them have reached Cagliari yet.'

  'Not unless they ran all the way: it must be sixty miles or more, whether they go south round the coast or north to Iglésias and then across to Cagliari. They'll keep to the tracks; I can't see any of them climbing rows and rows of hills.'

  The boats were leaving the beach and at this distance, now the moon was over the hills and lighting the gulf, they looked like water beetles as they headed for the sixth ship, anchored close to Sant' Antioco. Ramage glanced over towards her and as he did so his eye caught sight of a dark patch to seaward.

  Was it Isolotto la Vacca, the little rock just south of Sant' Antioco? No, he could see that, and this patch was small and much farther out to sea. A ship - perhaps one of Aitken's convoy returning?

  'There's something out there, just south of Vacca', Ramage said to Southwick as he hurried aft to the binnacle box drawer to get the nightglass. He was back in a moment and resting his elbows on the capping of the rail to steady the glass.

  'It's a ship...'

  'What's her course, sir?'

  'I think she's heading for the gulf... Blast this glass; it's hard to work out everything upside down ... Yes, she's on the starboard tack, the moon is lighting up her sails well. Not much wind out there... Yes, I have the line of her masts now ... she's probably heading for Cala Piombo. That's about twelve miles from here at the south end of the gulf, isn't it?'

  'Yes', Southwick said. 'An easy anchorage to make for on a moonlit night 'cos you can pick up that tower.'

  Ramage concentrated for another minute or two, knowing it was very easy to make mistakes with the nightglass because, apart from showing ships upside-down, it also made them appear to be on the opposite tack.

  'Our lads will have a long row down there with boats', Southwick said. 'Still, if she sights us all anchored this end of the gulf, perhaps she'll change her mind and join us.'

  'That might be a mixed blessing', Ramage said grimly. 'She's a French ship of the line.'

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  While Southwick sent away the two cutters and pinnace to take off the French from the three remaining merchant ships and the jolly boat rowed over to recall the gig and launch when they left the beach, the bosun's mates hurried through the Calypso sending the men to quarters.

  Quickly and quietly they wetted and sanded the decks, put match tubs between the guns, half filling them with water, and set out larger tubs in which the sponges could be soaked when sponging out the guns. The gunner took the large, bronze magazine key from Ramage and went below to begin issuing flintlocks, lanyards, prickers and powder horns to each of the gun captains and be ready to issue cartridges to the powder boys.

  Southwick was looking at his watch and cursing.

  'We're lucky the dam' French 74 isn't steering for us; I've never known the men to take so long!'

  'You must be patient', Ramage murmured, knowing his own reputation as the most impatient man in the ship. 'Don't forget we hardly have a gun captain left on board: nearly all the men are doing someone else's job, and they're not used to it.'

  'Aye', Southwick admitted, 'but they've been exercised enough at exchanging jobs.'

  'It's not the same. Telling every fourth man he's a casualty and making the rest move round is no good because each replacement sees what the previous man was doing.'

  'I hadn't thought of that', Southwick said, and Ramage admitted the thought had only just come to him. In future - if there was a future, with a ship of the line coming into the gulf like the door of a trap closing - he would start all exercise at the great guns by jumbling the m
en's numbers. Or perhaps just subtracting three, so everyone had to change.

  He swung the glass back to the French ship. She was still well outside the gulf and clewing up her main and forecourse, so she would enter the gulf in a leisurely fashion under topsails alone. In this light breeze! If her bottom had the usual crop of barnacles and she was in fact making for Cala Piombo, or even the one to the north of it, she had at least fifteen miles to sail, and she must be making only three or four knots.

  All that made sense. If the French captain had never been into the gulf before, he was coming in under the worst possible conditions (barring a gale, of course): running in at night before a west wind meant he was coming up to a lee shore and sailing straight towards a full moon still low on the horizon, so that all the hills and cliffs were shadowy, making it very difficult to judge distances. The land at six miles would look as though it was only three miles away.

  In fact, Ramage realized, almost giving an audible sigh of relief, the Calypso herself would be indistinguishable against the shadow of the cliffs and hills behind her, which from the Frenchman's position were higher than her masts. The French 74 would spot some of the merchant ships anchored much farther out, but they would be easily identifiable; just the coasting vessels she would expect to find anchored for the night in a place like the Golfo di Palmas.

  With the nightglass Ramage could see the jolly boat, gig and launch returning to the Calypso from the beach and, a moment later, spotted one of the cutters leaving a merchantman. Only one? Then he detected movement beside another merchantman and saw the second cutter leave her and head for the shore. Either the men commanding the cutters were confident or disobedient, because both cutters were supposed to tackle a ship together ... Well, as long as there were no flares or flashes of musketry to attract the attention of the 74, it did not matter. It was, he thought, the sort of thing young Orsini would do - or Martin. Or, he admitted, himself when he was a midshipman or lieutenant.

  Southwick now went through what Ramage knew only too well as his disapproving ritual. First he took off his hat and scratched his head; then he ran his fingers through his flowing white hair to straighten it out; then he jammed his hat back on again, rubbed his stomach with a circular motion, as though trying to assist his digestion, and then gave a sharp sniff.

  'We cut and run, eh, sir, as soon as she's anchored?'

  It was, of course, the only sensible thing to do: they would be able to see the 74 anchoring down at the other end of the gulf and the moment she had an anchor down and was busy furling sails the Calypso would cut her cable - indeed, they could start weighing now if they wanted to avoid losing both anchor and cable - let fall her topsails and courses, and beat out of the gulf, staying as far to the north as possible: shaving between the south end of Sant' Antioco and Isolotto la Vacca. The Frenchman, eight or ten miles to the south, would never catch them...

  'Seems a pity, doesn't it?' Ramage said casually, trying to remember the details in Orsini's list of the main cargoes carried by the remaining merchant ships. Aitken had gone off with the six ships carrying the most valuable cargoes; those left here at anchor, and which he had been intending to burn tomorrow, were stowed with mundane things like the poor-quality powder, whose prize value Southwick had just been bemoaning.

  Half an hour later Ramage and Southwick finally reached a compromise in the quiet of the cabin, and Ramage admitted that it improved the chances of success. Ramage had first intended using one ship, which he would command, leaving Southwick on board the Calypso.

  This had brought an immediate and explosive protest from the master.

  'Sir, I'm beginning to think you reckon me too old, or getting too stupid; this job is one for a lieutenant or master, not a post captain. I'm the only officer you have, but...'

  'Nonsense', Ramage said, and to smooth Southwick's pride, freely admitted: 'It's not lack of faith in you; I'm just being greedy.'

  Southwick had guessed that from the start, but he also knew that a display of injured pride represented his only chance of seeing any action tonight.

  'Let me look at the list of cargoes again', Ramage said.

  Orsini's writing, never very clear, had been little more than a scribble, done standing up as he talked to each master at Foix.

  Most of the eight ships were carrying powder, but only two, the brigs Muscade and the Merle, carried any substantial quantity. The first had more than seventy-five tons on board, the second more than 150.

  Ramage tried to picture one of them exploding. Unlike powder in a gun, where the only way the explosive force could go was up the barrel, powder stored in a ship's hold would explode in every direction; there was no way of aiming or channelling it.

  It was like prize fighting: if your opponent swayed back when you punched him on his jaw, much of the force of your blow was lost. But if you managed to hold his head with your left hand and then hit him with your right, you might not kill him but would certainly knock him out, because the full force of the blow would be concentrated on a small area. The crowd betting on him might well set about you with stools, bricks and walking canes, but you would have the satisfaction of winning the fight.

  He needed exactly that for the attack on the French 74 - a hand holding one side to avoid losing most of the effect of a merchantman exploding on the other.

  The answer was, of course, to have a merchant ship exploding on each side at the same moment. And that was how the compromise came about.

  'Who will you leave in command of the Calypso, sir?' Southwick asked.

  'I've no choice: under the regulations it must be the next senior officer after you, which means the gunner.'

  Southwick gave a rumbling laugh that lasted a full minute.

  The gunner!' he finally gasped unbelievingly. 'He wouldn't even take responsibility for eight men and a jolly boat, let alone command of one of the prizes in Aitken's convoy. Now he's going to be stuck with the Calypso. Sir', he asked pleadingly, 'may I be the one to tell him?'

  'Yes - and you'd better warn him that if neither of us comes back, he'll have to take the Calypso to Gibraltar.'

  'I think Bowen had better be standing by with some medicinal brandy!'

  'You know, Bowen wouldn't even blink if I told him that he had to get the Calypso to Gibraltar.'

  'He certainly wouldn't', Southwick agreed, 'but he's an unusual surgeon.' 'Yes, and he can play chess.'

  Southwick grinned ruefully. 'I'm getting the average down, sir; I doubt if I lose two games out of five to him these days.'

  'I'm glad of that, but we'd better start preparing those two ships. The Frenchman won't be inside the gulf for another half an hour, but it's going to take time for us to get the Muscade and the Merle down to Cala Piombo, if that's where she anchors.'

  'These blasted French names', Southwick grumbled, 'what do they mean?'

  'Muscade is nutmeg -1 expect she was sailing to the spice islands of the West Indies before the war. Merle is simply "blackbird".'

  Southwick nodded and picked up his hat. 'I'll go up on deck and see where our French friend has got to. I expect you'll want to pick our men.'

  After the master had gone, Ramage took a pencil. He did not need the muster book to choose the men. From what he could remember of the Muscade and the Merle, both were brigs of similar size, about 250 tons. He had not considered them for Gibraltar because he guessed the admiral would refuse to buy in French powder.

  He and Southwick needed the minimum number of men for the operation to keep the boats light. Escaping afterwards would mean rowing like madmen for several minutes. The fastest boat was the gig, so Southwick should have it for the Muscade. He would take one of the cutters with the Merle.

  There would be no seconds-in-command; it would be a brief voyage for both brigs. A man at the wheel, eight topmen, three men to handle grapnels, three more for sheets and braces, and then light fuses, and a boatkeeper, and that would be all. That made sixteen, seventeen adding in himself or Southwick. The gig carried sixte
en, with eight at the oars, so each boat would be only two-thirds full. The same for the cutter. The totals did not allow for casualties, but that could not be helped.

  Small arms? A few pistols and cutlasses, but there should be no fighting. They would need several axes, plenty of slowmatch, flint and steel, and some lanterns to light the fuses.

  Southwick came down the companionway and into the cabin as the sentry announced him.

  'She's still about a mile or more outside the gulf beyond Sant' Antioco. She's not making more than a couple of knots under topsails.'

  'The captain's nervous of the gulf all right, but he may not have a decent chart.'

  Ramage quickly outlined his plans and his orders for Southwick, who protested at being given the gig. 'That's the captain's boat', he said. 'You should have her, sir.'

  'I prefer a cutter, and anyway the boat carrying your weight has to be light.'

  Southwick grinned and patted his stomach. 'Have you chosen your men yet, sir?'

  'No - I'd like to have Jackson and Stafford, but I suggest you muster the topmen and divide them up. Some Marines for the slowmatch, seamen for the grapnels. Oh yes, and boatkeepers: as we're towing our boats they might get painters tangled ...' There was no need to elaborate on that risk.

  'Can I go and tell the gunner now, sir?'

  Ramage grinned and nodded. 'Then we'd better get over to our ships. At least we won't have to bother to weigh or buoy the anchor cables!'

  Southwick paused a moment. 'Ten minutes for the slowmatch - isn't that rather long, sir?'

  'Ten minutes is not a very long time to get everyone down into the boats and row a hundred yards.'

  'I suppose not, sir, but I was thinking of the French boarding and putting 'em out.'

  'They won't know where to look; they'll be taken by surprise and will assume the Merle and Muscade are fireships, so they'll be expecting flames.'

  Ramage scrambled up the side of the Merle, a pistol butt grinding into his ribs, and followed by Jackson and the rest of the men in the red cutter, leaving behind only the boatkeeper. He kept the painter clear of the chainwhales and portlids as another of the men let the boat drift aft and then made up the rope on a convenient cleat with a cheery: 'You'll be best off if we make any mistake wiv the powder!'