Ramage At Trafalgar

by Dudley Pope

  Orsini began reading off the names – the Scipion, San Francisco de Asis and the Fougueux. Then they came out almost as fast as he could make out the names. The Montañes, the Spanish Admiral Gravina’s flagship the Principe de Asturias, Pluton, Aigle, Villeneuve’s flagship the Bucentaure, the San Justo…and then, preceded by an excited shout from Orsini, they saw the Santissima Trinidad coming out under topsails and forecourse.

  “Just look at her!” murmured Aitken. “Twice as big as a cathedral!”

  “I wonder how she handles,” Southwick said. “Probably needs a gale of wind to tack her…”

  “Just think of her broadside,” Orsini muttered. “Sixty-five guns a side… Mamma mia!”

  How long would the French admiral allow a British frigate to sail back and forth in the lee of the Castillo de San Sebastián? But a moment later a hail from the masthead was drowned by a shout from Orsini: “One of them is turning towards us!”

  Ramage looked across to the entrance to Cadiz and saw that a 74-gun ship was turning to larboard and either heading for the Calypso or making a bolt for the open sea. Which? Anyway it did not matter: she was a mile and a half away now and even if heading for the open sea (why? none of the others was) would pass within half a mile of the Calypso, which would be trapped against the land if she too did not make a bolt seaward.

  “We’ll get under way, go about and then steer west, if you please Mr Aitken,” Ramage snapped. “Mr Orsini – go to the guns and make sure all the crews are ready; wet and sand the decks; make sure they’re all loaded with roundshot.”

  He watched Aitken bellowing orders using the speaking trumpet and slowly, sails flapping, the thick rope of the sheets flogging like snakes held by the tail, the frigate turned, the yards were braced sharp up and the sails were sheeted home.

  Ramage looked astern at the 74. French. Plum-coloured hull with two black strakes in way of the gunports. And in addition to topsails and courses she was now letting fall her topgallants…she was after the Calypso, not making a bolt for it: there was no one to stop her going off into the Atlantic; reaching out there, courses and topsails would be enough. But topgallants if you were in a hurry…

  A 74 – and Villeneuve probably gave the order to a fast one. Eighteen- and 24-pounders. Thirty-seven of them on a broadside, quite apart from carronades, which were not counted. Against them, sixteen 12-pounders. Might as well pelt her with oranges, Ramage thought.

  “She’s moving fast,” Southwick commented. “Just her wind, from the look of it, sir.” He gave one of his gigantic sniffs. “She’ll overhaul us.”

  Ramage turned to Aitken. “We’ll have topgallants and royals, Mr Aitken. Then go below and change into silk stockings: those woollen ones are no good for going into action: more work for the surgeon with wool fluff if you get a leg wound.”

  He turned to Southwick, his eyes flickering to the Calypso’s wake. Already the frigate was heeling as she came clear of the lee formed by the headland on which stood the castillo.

  “We can’t outrun him, that’s for sure, so we’ve got to outmanoeuvre him, Mr Southwick.”

  “We could turn north and try stunsails,” Southwick offered.

  “And so could the Frenchman,” Ramage said. “We have only one advantage over him, and we’d better make the best of it.”

  Southwick took off his hat and scratched his head. “Blessed if I can see what it is,” the master admitted.

  “Tacking,” Ramage said cryptically and since Aitken had hurried below he picked up the speaking trumpet and shouted: “I’ll have another swig on those topsail sheets, and stand by headsail sheets: once we’re abreast this headland we’ll be hard on the wind.”

  Southwick sniffed again. “Once he’s finished with us he’ll go after the Euryalus and then the Sirius,” Southwick said gloomily. “This damned French admiral wants to stop Lord Nelson finding out what’s going on.”

  “He’s left it too late,” Ramage commented. “His Lordship already knows the Combined Fleet is putting to sea, and that’s what really matters.”

  By now the Calypso was rolling and pitching her way round the headland, seeming excited at the idea of a hard flog to windward after days spent hove-to or just jogging along while officers and lookouts eyed the Combined Fleet at anchor. “Don’t forget that isolated rock off this headland, sir,” Southwick cautioned.

  “Laja del Norte, you mean? It’s a couple of hundred yards south-west of the end of the headland, isn’t it?”

  Southwick nodded. “Couple of fathoms of water over it. Enough to hole us but too deep for the sea to break on it.”

  Again Ramage looked astern: he could just see the trucks of the French ship’s masts as she reached along the other side of the headland. She would be tacking in two or three minutes, just as the Calypso came into sight tacking southwards along the coast.

  The idea was bold enough – maybe even stupid enough. He had thought of it several days ago while shaving, anticipating that the French admiral would try to drive the frigates off. The only mistake so far was that Villeneuve should have done it several days ago, before the Combined Fleet started to sail.

  He had taken Southwick’s chart (the one passed on by the Victory’s master) and carefully taken off the bearings of the Fuerte de La Cortadura, and then measured the distances. There was a ten-foot rise of water at the top of the springs, so if the French admiral sent out a couple of frigates and the wind was south and it was the top of the tide and they were Spanish and knew this coast well, then the plan would fail. But a French ship of the line at low water (which it was now) and the wind south and her captain not knowing this stretch of the coast…well, it was all a gamble and he always reckoned he was not a gambling man. Not standing or sitting round a table watching the roll of a dice or turn of a card, anyway. But losing at dice or cards did not lead to the risk of a roundshot lopping off your head, which was what this particular gamble had as a stake…

  “We’re clear of the Laja del Norte now,” he said to Southwick and then, seeing Aitken hurry back on deck, said to him: “I want you to get us due south of the point: I want to pass a point exactly two miles west of the fort at the end of the city.”

  He pointed to the slate “Write down this bearing and distance. I want you to tack exactly there.”

  Southwick was frowning and shaking his head, puzzled by Ramage’s instructions.

  “Bajos de León,” Ramage said cryptically, and turned to look astern.

  “Here she comes,” he said, taking a telescope from the binnacle box drawer. “Pitching just nicely. Yes, fairly clean bottom. She’s one of the ships that joined Villeneuve from Brest; that copper sheathing hasn’t spent weeks in the Mediterranean and then crossed the Atlantic twice. Going to be a race, gentlemen.”

  “If she catches us, she’ll slap our ’and,” Stafford declared. He had been leaning out of the port, looking at the 74 astern. “Clean bottom – almost got a shine on the copper, she ’as. Everything set to the royals, and fairly ’urtling along.”

  “Well, we’ve got everything set to the royals and we’re hurtling along, too,” Jackson said.

  Stafford spat through the port. “I ain’t never,” he said portentously, “’eard of a frigate escaping a 74 with this wind and sea.”

  “The Calypso has never been chased by a 74 before,” Rossi said.

  “Na, only ’appens once,” Stafford said. “Ain’t nothin’ left ter chase the second time!”

  “Staff,” Jackson said, “either cheer up or shut up; we don’t need to hear you ticking away like a deathwatch beetle.”

  “Well, all I can say,” Stafford said defiantly, “Mr Ramage is goin’ to ’ave ter try somefing reely desperate this time.”

  “You sound as tho’ you’ve never sailed with him before,” Jackson said. “He’s kept you alive so far.”

  “Si, and I don’t know why,” Rossi said. “Is a waste.”

  “You lot ’ave no ’magination,” Stafford grumbled. “’Ere, just look frew the po
rt. We’re being chased by a 74, not a porpoise. A plum-coloured 74,” he added.

  Jackson walked over and leaned out of the port. He inspected the French ship and then came and sat down on the breech of the gun. “As close-winded as we are, I reckon,” he said. “She’s just about sailing in our wake.”

  “I just told you that!” Stafford exclaimed.

  “Yes, so you did,” Jackson said. “Well, there’s one thing about it, I don’t reckon any judge’ll be sending you to the Bridewell or the Marshalsea now, and you’ve picked your last lock. You’re dragging your anchors for the next world, Staff; I can’t see you living to watch the sun set.”

  “Cheer up, Staff,” Gilbert said. “If you go, probably we’ll all come with you, so you won’t be lonely.”

  ‘‘I’m not ready to go yet!” Stafford said defiantly.

  “Well, it was you who decided you were going,” Jackson said unsympathetically. “We were thinking of staying – with Mr Ramage.”

  “We’ll see,” Stafford said darkly, and lapsed into a sulky silence.

  “What happens now, Jacko?” Gilbert asked.

  The American shrugged his shoulders. “Damned if I know. We’re just heading south along a straight coast with a 74 chasing us, and if the Euryalus and the Sirius have any sense they’ll be making a dash for it. Frigates don’t fight 74s – not unless they’re trapped.”

  At that moment Orsini arrived. “The captain wants you on the quarterdeck, Jackson. So you, Stafford, become gun captain and you, Rossi, are second captain. The rest of you move up one. D’you know what you’re supposed to be doing?” he asked Gilbert.

  “Yes, sir,” he said confidently, kicking a handspike.

  Orsini patted the breech of the gun. “A 12-pounder shot may not go right through a 74,” he said with a grin, “but the bang is very heartening!”

  As soon as he saw Jackson come on deck, Ramage said: “You take over as quartermaster. When I say tack, you tack as though the admiral’s on board, and if you’ve thought you’ve sailed this ship close to the wind before now, I can tell you it wasn’t good enough…”

  Jackson, recognizing the tone of Ramage’s voice grinned and said: “Aye, aye, sir, we’ll show those Frenchmen how to doit.”

  Now, as the Calypso plunged south, spray beginning to sweep across the deck (Ramage noticed gun captains fitting the canvas aprons over the flintlocks to protect them) the frigate on this tack was steering straight for the San José church, the wind now brisk on her starboard side as she heeled under the press of canvas.

  Ramage stared ahead over the frigate’s bow. Yes, she was steering straight for the church, a mile ahead. The water shallowed half a mile out from the beach, so they would tack there. He walked over to the binnacle. And as soon as they tacked they would be steering…well, just right.

  Now he looked astern at the French 74. She too was shouldering up the spray – but was she catching up fast enough? Ramage thought not.

  “Ease the topsail and t’gallant sheets a little – I want to lose a knot or two,” Ramage told Aitken.

  The Scotsman did not question the order but Ramage saw him give Southwick a puzzled glance.

  The frigate slowed and Jackson had to let her pay off a little to keep the sails drawing. The best he could steer was slightly to the north of the San José church.

  Ramage looked astern at the Frenchman and nodded. The 74 was now steering exactly in the Calypso’s wake. He would have to tack the Calypso along the four-fathom line, otherwise the Frenchman might lose his nerve and tack too soon.

  “Have the leadsman start singing out the moment it starts shoaling from four fathoms,” he told Aitken, “and we tack immediately.”

  Aitken was going to protest that they could go on to the three fathom line because the beach shoaled gently, but the look of concentration on Ramage’s face made him stay silent.

  The leadsman’s chant was monotonous: five fathoms…five fathoms…five fathoms…four and a half…four and a half…four…

  Ramage looked at Aitken, who snapped an order to Jackson and started shouting sail orders through his speaking trumpet.

  As soon as the flapping of canvas stopped, Ramage reminded Aitken: “Sou’west by south, Mr Aitken, and make a note of the time.”

  Yes, a cast of the log would be useful, but he was dealing with a mile and a half, and by the time the log was reeled in…

  He turned and watched the Frenchman. No, the luffs of his sails were not shivering yet. The Frenchman, too, was relying on his leadsman. On he went, until he was almost directly astern of the frigate and in line with the San José church. Then the 74 tacked – tacked smartly, Ramage had to admit. And now she was exactly in the Calypso’s wake and…yes, she was beginning to overhaul the frigate. Ramage imagined himself on the quarterdeck of the 74. Yes, overhaul her noticeably: they must be confident that in three or four more tacks they would be ranging up alongside the English frigate…yes, the French would reckon to finish the job in a couple of broadsides, although one should be enough.

  “Hard to know on which side they’ll overhaul us,” Southwick said, his voice flat.

  A criticism in his tone? Ramage thought so. The old master was expecting some miracle which would stop the 74 ranging alongside, guns squirting roundshot and smoke, and so far he could see no sign of the miracle happening. So he was getting testy. And the “which side” remark was intended to draw Ramage into revealing what the miracle was and when it would happen.

  Well, there is not going to be a miracle, thought Ramage, and it will not do any harm to let everyone on board think that a 74s broadside will soon be rattling round their ears. They have been lucky far too long: no frigate is going to sail through life (given the sea time that the Calypso has logged up to now) without running into a enemy 74 at some time or another, and for the Calypso the “some time” is now.

  Again he looked astern: the 74 was a fine sight, even if a lethal one: guns run out on both sides, like stubby fingers, the open gunports spoiling the smoothness of the tumblehome. At each of the guns, he thought, excited Frenchmen are waiting, decks wetted and sanded, trigger lines secured to flintlocks, flintlocks firmly bolted to the breech of the guns, flints long since checked for the spark. Are the guns’ crews singing patriotic songs like Ça Ira as they prepare to go into action against such incredible odds? Incredible, Ramage thought sourly, if you are French!

  A dull, grey sky; a dull grey sea. Even the spray thrown up by the Frenchman’s bow seems washed with grey. And a plum-coloured hull! This light makes it look bruised; even at this distance the salt drying on it makes it seem diseased, fruit that will be thrown away.

  In line astern of the 74 is the San José church. The men at the wheel of the 74 are not doing a very good job: not just the surging of the seas, when one leaves the wheel alone, knowing that the ship will come back on course by herself. No, the Frenchmen are sawing the wheel from one side to the other so that she shoots off half a point one way, then swings back half the other. The 74s wake must look like a demented snake.

  But for all that she is overhauling the Calypso, which is what matters. The French captain must be well satisfied: he has the Englishman at his mercy. Whichever way he tries to escape (and he is cut off by the land from going east or north) the 74 has the advantage of speed: one needs patience, mes braves.

  Ramage walked to the binnacle, glanced down at the weather-side compass, and then at the Cortadura fort. Yes, one and a half miles away. And the bearing was correct. But that damned 74 was making faster time than he anticipated. A lot faster time.

  He felt the skin on his face and arms covered with goose pimples; there was a hollowness in his stomach. Yes, the 74 was going much faster in this wind (which was strengthening all the time: the royals would have to come in very soon before they blew themselves out). Yes, he had made a mistake. He thought the Frenchman would have a foul bottom and be badly sailed. In fact she had a relatively clean bottom and apart from sloppy steering she was being sailed well:
even though her wake was wavy, she was being kept close to the wind.

  They say a man is allowed one mistake. It was beginning to look, he thought grimly, as though his mistake was going to be his last.

  “Harden in topsail and topgallant sheets,” he snapped to Aitken. “A foot or two on the courses, too.”

  Southwick had his quadrant, taking vertical sextant angles on the 74s foremast.

  “She’s gaining fast,” the master said. “She has two or three knots more than us.”

  Ramage nodded. “That’s what I’d expect in this wind: she can stand up to her canvas – and look at that copper sheathing when she rolls.”

  “She’s fast to windward: perhaps she doesn’t reach or run so well,” Southwick said hopefully.

  “Going to windward is our fastest point of sailing,” Ramage reminded him. “She’s French-built, just like us…”

  “True, true,” Southwick admitted, lifting his quadrant again and balancing himself against the Calypso’s roll.

  Ramage looked again at the compass and then at the Cortadura Fort. He caught Jackson’s eye. “Steer small,” he said sharply.

  Jackson nodded obediently but thought to himself: steer small? One more tack (at the most!) and that Frenchman will be so close alongside they’ll be able to pelt us with cloves of garlic. When he had first come on deck and relieved Kinnock as coxswain, he had thought the captain had (as usual) some unusual plan to let them escape. But ten minutes had been enough to convince himself there could be no plan: they were trapped, and that was that. When a frigate is caught by a 7-gun ship with a clean bottom and a good captain, that is that. Not Mr Ramage’s fault: just that a well-sailed 74 is a good deal faster to windward than a frigate: you didn’t have to be a master of tactics to know that.

  Now Jackson saw Mr Ramage talking to Mr Southwick, who turned and stared at that fort on the edge of the town. Yes, he is staring at the fort as though any minute he expected a hoist of signal flags to go up its flagpole. Now he is looking at the French ship.

  Jackson glanced astern and immediately wished he had not: five hundred yards away? No more. Close enough that they would soon fire a round or two from their bowchasers, trying the range. And it would be just their luck that a round from a bowchaser would bring down the mizen– or skitter across the quarterdeck and smash the wheel.