by Dudley Pope
He told Aitken the name, but the Scotsman merely said: “She’ll get a new name in the British service!”
Half a mile, and one point on the starboard bow.
At that moment Aitken pointed astern. The look on the first lieutenant’s face made Ramage turn quickly.
The French Neptune, ship of the line, had turned to the north and was now getting into the Calypso’s wake, perhaps three quarters of a mile astern. Was it a coincidence or was she coming after the Calypso?
That did not matter much, Ramage realized immediately: the moment the Calypso opened fire on the frigate, the Neptune would come up on the other side and pour in broadsides: that was unavoidable. Something, as Nelson had written, must be left to chance – and he had left the ship of the line astern to chance…
Well, he could forget all about the attack and sneak back through the line of battle and take up the position he should never have left. He could, but having made all these preparations he was not going to.
Or he could try to race the Neptune and get alongside Le Hasard, perhaps overwhelming her before the Neptune could catch up. But even if he took the Hasard, the Neptune would be alongside moments later, and a ship of the line’s broadside… He had avoided Le Brave’s broadsides by guile; there was no way of avoiding the Neptune’s.
He realized that he could keep the bluff he was going to use on the Hasard and try it on the Neptune. But it was only bluff; it was not a magic suit of armour that would keep out the Neptune’s roundshot. But, he shrugged his shoulders, it was the only trick he could play.
Five hundred yards to the Hasard “Stand by guns’ crews and grapnel men,” he said to Aitken, raising his voice against the rumbling broadsides. It was annoying to have to use the Scotsman to relay every order, but Ramage had long since realized that his voice did not carry.
The Calypso’s guns would fire once, then most of the men would snatch up weapons and board. Should he have ordered two broadsides? Even three? Damnation, he told himself crossly, the boarders are the ones who will carry the enemy; one broadside of the Calypso’s roundshot battering into planking will only make a lot of noise and smoke.
Four hundred yards…and the Neptune is closing up fast. Does her captain realize what is happening or is it just a coincidence? Might he not guess until the Calypso, guns firing, crashes alongside the Hasard? Or has he realized and is even now stalking the Calypso, waiting for the moment he can range alongside?
Three hundred yards. He could picture the Calypso’s gun captains, down on their right knees, left legs flung out to the side, squinting along the sights of their guns, giving last-minute elevation orders to the handspike-men. The second captains would be waiting impatiently to cock the flintlocks and leap to one side, clear of the recoil; the gun captains would already be holding the trigger lines, ready to give the tug that would send the flint down to make the critical spark.
Two hundred yards – and yes, through his glass he could see that the French officers on the Hasard’s quarterdeck were now alert. One was running towards the quarterdeck ladder; another was snatching up a speaking trumpet. A third was waving his arms, and a fourth was wrenching a pistol from his belt.
One hundred yards. He looked round at Southwick and raised his hand. Stafford and his shipmates began to bob and weave among the braziers.
Ramage looked across at the coxswain. There would be one more helm order – the one that would bring the Calypso crashing alongside the Hasard and, the rudder hard over, hold her there while the grapnels flew. If only Sarah could see this. And his father. Frigates did not stand in the line of battle – well, if only father would (in his splendid French) tell that to the Neptune.
Fifty yards – a frigate’s length…now the first few guns of the Calypso’s broadside are firing…a shout to the quartermaster… Aitken is bellowing at the grapnel men to throw high and hard… More guns firing…the officer on the Hasard’s quarterdeck is firing his pistol, obviously overexcited… Astern the Neptune is getting very close, the wineglass curve of her tumblehome and her masts nearly in line showing that she is almost in the Calypso’s wake.
“Mr Southwick!” Ramage shouted, and almost immediately there was a faint crackling and then smoke billowed up from braziers on the quarterdeck, to be carried by the breeze over the starboard side.
“It works!” bawled an excited Aitken. “Just look at it!”
At the root of the billowing smoke cloud Ramage could see Rossi and Stafford and the Frenchmen tossing handsful of what seemed like wet dust on to the flickering braziers.
Ramage hurried to the larboard side to look astern at the Neptune, which had been hidden by the tumbling smoke. How would the clouds of smoke appear to her?
Several sharp crashes showed that the Hasard’s gunners were firing. Thank goodness – fire from her would make it seem more likely from the deck of the Neptune that the British ship was ablaze…
“Most of the grapnels are secured, sir!” Aitken shouted. “We’re right alongside!”
“Away boarders!” Ramage yelled over his shoulder, still trying to watch the Neptune. She had not altered course: she was steering to come close alongside the Calypso. In perhaps four minutes they’d all be blown to pieces.
But anyway, Southwick’s trick certainly produced smoke: the breeze was blowing it right across the Hasard’s deck: Ramage could imagine the Frenchmen coughing and spluttering, gasping for breath. Thank God the breeze was from the west, from the Calypso to the Hasard.
And it was time he boarded the Hasard as he had planned: to lead the seamen and Marines. But should he continue with the wet powder to make a smokescreen? What would the Neptune conclude if the smoke suddenly stopped? At the moment she must think the whole after-part of the Calypso was on fire. Would that be enough to make her keep her distance, for fear the Calypso’s magazine would go up, hurling blazing wreckage all over her?
“Keep that smoke coming, Mr Southwick!” he called. And this was a splendid breeze, blowing in just the right direction, even if he could not see across the Hasard’s deck. If only the wind had bulk, so that it would be a shield between the Calypso and the Neptune; a shield that would ward off that broadside that the French gunners were preparing.
If only he had attacked the starboard side of the Hasard: then he would have the Hasard as a shield between him and the Neptune’s broadsides… The French 74 would never risk hitting the Hasard…
But the wind is west! he almost screamed at himself, snatching a quick glance astern at the Neptune before shouting at Aitken: “Let fall the courses! Quartermaster, keep the wheel hard over! Southwick, more smoke! Jackson, look quickly and tell me how our boarders are getting on!”
Would those grapnels hold, though? They were on comparatively light lines – light so that they could be thrown easily, but not particularly strong because it was always assumed there would be several – as indeed there were. But would they be strong enough to withstand the wrenching? Strong enough to hold the Hasard alongside while the Calypso swung her round?
The devil take it, there was just a chance!
“Courses, Mr Aitken, and let fall the topgallants! Watch those sheets and braces!”
Now there was a defiant shouting and the popping of muskets from the Hasard: more than a hundred of the Calypso’s seamen and all her Marines were swarming across the Frenchman’s decks, fighting pike against cutlass, tomahawk against musket. Ramage could picture the bitter battle in the smoke drifting like banks of fog.
Overhead the great courses suddenly flopped down and as the yards were braced and the sheets hauled home the canvas took up the familiar curves. Then, higher up the masts, above the topsails, the topgallants spilled down and filled at once as men hauled on the halyards. The smoke seemed too thin as the sails bellied out, but Ramage realized it was a lucky fluke of wind.
For a few moments there was nothing for him to do, except look astern at the Neptune and wonder. Would the Calypso’s sails draw in time so that, secured alongside the Hasard
by the grapnels, she could pivot round, turning the Hasard and forcing the French frigate between her and the Neptune for long enough to act as a shield?
Would the grapnel lines hold the two ships close enough together? Anyway, at the moment the Calypso’s hull was pressed hard against the Hasard: open gunports in both frigates would be jamming against each other as they rolled in the swell; the two ships’ chainplates would probably lock; just long enough, Ramage prayed, for the Calypso to wrench the Frenchman round.
He stared ahead over the Calypso’s bow. Yes, the horizon was beginning to shift. The Santissima Trinidad and her attackers, which had been on the beam, were gradually drawing round on to the quarter. The Calypso’s sails were filling enough to lever round the Hasard.
But in time?
He looked astern at the Neptune. She was rolling heavily in a swell wave which shook the wind from her sails and then let them fill with a bang. Two hundred yards? Perhaps less.
But supposing this trick worked, what then? Would the Neptune heave-to and try to save the French frigate? Or (Ramage looked across the line of battle and through a gap saw more British ships coming into battle) would the Neptune make a bolt for the north, towards Cadiz and in the company of the van ships, which (so far, anyway) showed no sign of turning back to come to the help of the centre and rear?
Among thirty-three line-of-battle ships, one frigate more or less should make no difference – unless the captains were old friends: joined together by some revolutionary act in the past, or friends from the time that the Neptune’s captain also commanded a frigate?
Now the Calypso was turning the Hasard fast: topgallants, topsails and courses against the Frenchman’s topsails only: the two ships were fairly spinning! Now both frigates had their sterns pointing at the line of battle – and the Neptune was a ship’s length away: Ramage could make out the planking of her hull, interrupted by the black stubby fingers of her guns, run out ready. Her sails were patched; they were old, pulled out of shape by too much use. And he could almost distinguish the lay of the rope of her rigging. The foretopsail yard curved so much it looked as if it was sprung. Dun-coloured hull, mast hoops black.
Would she risk a raking broadside into the Calypso’s stern? Unless every gun was carefully aimed, there was a good chance that some of the shot would rake the Hasard too.
Ramage shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was nothing more to be done about the Neptune: the Calypso was doing her best to force round the Hasard as a shield, the smoke was now streaming forward over the Calypso’s quarterdeck as she turned in the wind.
“Belay that smoke, Mr Southwick! Have the men heave those braziers over the side. You’re now in command!”
With that Ramage unsheathed his Patriotic Fund sword with his right hand and hauled out a pistol with his left. “Come on!” he shouted at Jackson and made for the quarterdeck ladder, followed by Aitken.
The Hasard’s maindeck was crowded. The lines of the grapnels flung aboard the Frenchman from the Calypso’s deck were stretched tight, holding the two frigates together, and from the ends of the yards more grapnels were swung out and hooked into the Hasard’s rigging.
There were still pockets of smoke across the French ship’s deck and Ramage ducked through a gunport, leapt across the gap to one of the Hasard’s open ports – noting that the lids just caught each other, despite the tumblehome – and a moment later he was racing for the Hasard’s quarterdeck, shouting “Calypsos, to me Calypsos!”
A Frenchman lunged at him with a half-pike and Ramage slashed it to one side with his sword. Blurred in the corner of his eye he saw the muzzle of a musket pointing at him, but from behind there was a sharp crack: presumably Jackson’s pistol had taken care of it.
There were some of the Calypso’s Marines: Sergeant Ferris was holding the barrel of a musket and swinging the butt round his head like a flail as he ploughed through a group of Frenchmen, roaring curses and threats.
Ramage saw a screaming Frenchman running at him with a cutlass, flung his pistol left-handed into the man’s face and sliced upwards with his sword. As the man collapsed he leapt over the body and made for the quarterdeck ladder.
He was conscious that Jackson was beside him and Aitken, shouting threats in broad Scottish, was just behind. Grinning faces blurred as he ran but he just had time to register they were Calypsos.
Suddenly someone was tugging his shoulder and shouting. Aitken. “There she goes! By God we did it! There she goes!”
An excited Aitken was pointing over the larboard quarter and, across the Hasard’s quarterdeck, Ramage saw the enormous bulk of the Neptune sliding past. He registered that she was a fine sight – and that her guns were not firing: the Calypso was completely shielded by the Hasard though, judging by the slatting of canvas, Southwick and his men must be doing some hasty sail trimming.
Now he was almost at the top of the quarterdeck ladder, slashing at a Frenchman’s legs and hurriedly leaning to one side as the man fell. And there was the entire quarterdeck, a replica of the Calypso’s but full of men fighting desperately, cutlasses slashing and pikes jabbing.
“The wheel!” Ramage shouted, and with Jackson and Aitken they slashed and parried their way towards it. A French officer, dead from a gaping head wound, hung over the wheel, his coat caught in a spoke. Ramage had just reached the binnacle when a cursing, sword-slashing Rennick reached it from the other side.
“Steady!” Ramage bellowed, recognizing the bloodlust in the Marine officer’s face.
“Oh, it’s you, sir!” Rennick exclaimed, as though startled in the midst of the frenzy. With that he turned and rushed aft, to where Marines were still fighting it out with a group of French seamen.
From forward the popping of pistols and muskets and the clashing of cutlass blades showed that neither the waist nor the fo’c’sle had been secured, and then Ramage realized that most of the fighting on the quarterdeck had suddenly stopped and a Frenchman – Ramage recognized him as an officer – was shouting at the top of his voice that the ship surrendered. At that moment for Ramage everything went black.
Chapter Seventeen
Ramage came to knowing at first that he was lying on a hard deck, that his head rang as though inside a bell, and someone was pouring water over him from a bucket – salt water, which made his eyes sting.
As the red mist cleared from his eyes and with a great effort he managed to get them to focus, he found he was lying on the Hasard’s quarterdeck with Jackson dousing him and Aitken kneeling beside him while Rennick, musket at the ready, stood at his feet.
There was still the smell of the Calypso’s powder smoke and he could just distinguish a group of seamen – French seamen – being guarded by a party of the Calypso’s Marines.
“Are you all right now, sir?” Aitken said anxiously.
No bones were broken; only his head throbbed as though an enthusiast was whacking it with a caulker’s maul.
“Wha’ happened?”
“As that French officer shouted that he surrendered the ship, you stopped to listen and one of the French seamen fetched you a crack across the head with the butt of a musket.”
“Feels as though he dropped an 18-pounder on me,” Ramage muttered. “Have we secured the ship?”
“Yes, sir,” Aitken assured him. “The French officer,” he added, “is waiting to surrender his sword to you – and apologize.”
“The captain?”
“No, second lieutenant. The only surviving officer. Seems Rennick and his Marines did for the others.”
“Too bad,” Ramage growled, struggling to stand up. “Here, give me your shoulder.”
Then, as though the noise had been blocked out for awhile, he heard the rolling thunder of the battle to windward. “What happened to the Neptune?” he asked
“Went on. Never fired a shot. Afraid of hitting this ship.”
“I thought she might wear round on to our larboard side.”
“She seemed to be in too much of a hurry to get
up towards Cadiz,” Aitken said. “And from what I can see of the battle, I don’t blame her!”
By now Ramage was on his feet. There were twenty or thirty bodies sprawled in grotesque attitudes across the quarterdeck.
“What about the fo’c’sle and waist?”
“Hill, Kenton, Martin and Orsini are securing the prisoners.”
Ramage fought off a wave of dizziness. “Casualties?”
Aitken shook his head regretfully. “Seems we’ve lost at least eight men dead and thirteen wounded, one badly,” he said. “We’re getting the wounded across to the Calypso so that Bowen can get to work. The Frenchmen, too.”
Ramage, his vision still blurred, stared across at what had been the line of battle. Now it had become a ragged row of scattered groups of ships, many with masts gone by the board or topmasts canted like bent stalks. And every one of them coated with thick smoke: with some it was pouring from gunports as the breeze coming through the weather ports drove it out of the lee ones; with others, sails brought down on collapsed yards had caught fire, probably from the muzzle flash of the guns. Great ships now had less dignity than drunken men sprawled insensible in an alley outside a gin mill.
Ramage tried to put his thoughts together. Prisoners, wounded, and – he looked up at the wispy strands of clouds, mare’s-tails coming in from the west and the distant outriders of bad weather – now secure the prize.
Well, he was going to get no help from the other ships: each one had enough emergencies of its own. So first, prisoners – how many? Probably a couple of hundred. Very well, leave a hundred on board the Hasard and shift the rest over to the Calypso. Sergeant Ferris and half the Marines can stay on board the Hasard, with fifty seamen: that should deal with the prisoners.
Wounded? Well, Bowen will have started his grisly work: he and his loblolly man will have all the help they need sent down to them by Southwick.
