Ramage & the Renegades (38 page)

Looking at Mr Ramage sitting in his armchair, the white cloth of the sling making it seem he was wearing some strange new uniform, one had to admire his calm: he glanced at the sails and at the wind-vanes and simply told the quartermaster to bear up a point. Sure enough the
Calypso
had enough way on to keep moving through the windless area, and when the wind picked up again it had backed a point, to north by west.

The course to the
Lynx
meant the
Calypso
would pass close to the stern of the
Amethyst,
with the
Friesland
also on the starboard side farther over towards the southern headland, and then even closer to the
Heliotrope,
while the
Earl of Dodsworth
was already on the larboard beam with the
Commerce
ahead of her.

The wind was settling down to north by west although the bows of all the ships headed more to the east, particularly the
Lynx
and
Commerce,
closer inshore. With a lighter wind they were more affected by the current sweeping round the headland and up into the bay, so they were partly wind-rode and partly current-rode.

Steering for the
Lynx
and slapping the
Calypso
alongside, though, seemed unnecessarily risky to Southwick for another reason: getting alongside with the privateer to windward or leeward and hooking on to her with grappling irons risked the
Lynx
cutting her cable so that both ships drifted as they fought, probably fouling the
Heliotrope
and ending up on shore.

Admittedly the Captain must be worried about the chance of the
Lynx
escaping him: she might be able to cut her cable and set enough canvas to slip round between the
Calypso
and the shore—that was the main reason why the
Calypso
suddenly let fall her sails and cut her cable, to give the
Lynx
as little time as possible. But the privateer's fore and aft rig gave her an enormous advantage. The
Calypso
was like a bull trying to trap a calf in a corner of a field: not so much from the point of view of relative strength, but from size and clumsiness.

Still, the hinges of the
Calypso
's port-lids squeaked as they swung up and Southwick felt more confident as he saw the men haul on the tackles that sent the guns rumbling out. The powder monkeys were already lined up along the centreline, each behind a pair of guns, and squatting on the wooden cylinder in which he carried the next flannel cartridge, the one needed for the second round.

The decks glistened wet in the sunshine; the sand sprinkled unevenly on the planking and soaking up the water made light patches and dark, and already the heat of the sun was drying it. Southwick felt the hilt of his sword. The Captain always referred to it as his “meat cleaver,” and he hoped he would get a chance to use it in the next few minutes: they were fast approaching the
Lynx.

Ramage found the sunshine dazzling. Normally it did not bother him, but he was still feeling dizzy from losing all that blood, and he had a headache. That was not surprising, but it did not help him concentrate.

The first few hundred yards had gone satisfactorily, anyway. The fore-topsail let fall “to air” had not aroused any interest in the
Lynx:
they would have seen the two survey boats landing at the beach as usual, and even now the boat doing the soundings was being rowed across the bay, seamen heaving their leads and the depths and course being written down.

He had been watching the
Lynx
as he gave the order to let the cable run and let fall the main and mizen topsails, sheet home all three sails and brace the yards sharp up. The sails were filling and the
Calypso
was already sliding through the water before he saw any response from the few figures moving about the
Lynx
's deck. Although in the glass they were only tiny, he could see first one and then another halt and then point: he could imagine the shouts, followed by Hart and Tomás hurrying up on deck and sizing up the situation. That was the moment the
Calypso
ran into the windless patch. He had seen it before they set any sails—a smooth area of water surrounded by tiny ripples—and knew the
Calypso
would carry her way through it.

Now she had picked up the wind again. It was infuriating having to sit here in an armchair, but he knew he had not the strength to stand. Wagstaffe was standing at the rail on the forward side of the quarterdeck, Southwick stood behind him, and Orsini was a couple of feet to one side of the chair, ready to run messages.

Glancing from one side to the other he saw that the
Calypso
was midway between the
Amethyst
to starboard and the
Earl of Dodsworth
to larboard. Was she watching? What was the significance of those two trunks full of uniforms and men's clothing? A man's clothing, he corrected himself: a man about his own build with slightly larger feet. Did she love him? Was he even alive?

Trinidade, a speck in the South Atlantic that few men knew about and even fewer visited, but here he had found a ship carrying out her own private war against everyone, and a woman he did not yet love in the deepest sense of the word (because he hardly knew her in the usual way) but who filled his thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else.

The
Lynx
was dead ahead and he could see the men rushing around on deck. He could imagine the pandemonium—the magazine was locked and where the devil was the key? Perhaps Tomás and Hart were arguing with each other: should they cut and run or stay and fight—or did they have the choice anyway? The privateersmen would be shouting in various languages—English, French, Spanish and Dutch for sure, and there would be others.

That night in the
Earl of Dodsworth
before he swam to the
Heliotrope:
sitting on the breech of the gun in the darkness before she came up to him, he had seen himself—his life, rather—with an almost frightening clarity: he had felt guilty that Gianna was fading in his memory, that he did not think of her nearly as frequently or in the same sort of way as before. Then he had realized that without either of them understanding it at the time, each had discovered that there was no choice. Each was drawn by a force that love could not overcome—or perhaps love showed them there was no happiness waiting for them even if the force was overcome. He saw how they had never had a choice, even had Gianna not decided to go back to Volterra at that time. It had an inevitability about it; the same inevitability that was taking the
Calypso
up to the
Lynx.

He turned his head. “Mr Southwick …” As soon as the Master was standing beside him he gave him his instructions and the old man grinned. A relieved grin? It seemed so to Ramage, as though Southwick had expected him to do something else. Anyway, the Master took the speaking-trumpet from its rack on the forward side of the binnacle box and walked over to Wagstaffe, telling him to report to the Captain.

The Second Lieutenant looked cheerful: his hat was at a rakish angle, his silk stockings were obviously new (and worn because Bowen had told Ramage, who made it a standing order, that silk, not woollen, stockings should be worn in action: wool dragged into a wound made the surgeon's work ten times more difficult).

Ramage told him the orders just given to Southwick. “Now, we'll be firing our starboard broadside first, unless something unforeseen happens, so get the extra men over on that side. After that, a certain amount depends on what the
Lynx
does, but seconds are going to matter. This is what I
want
to do.”

The Lieutenant listened, nodding a couple of times. “Aye aye, sir,” he said, and walked back to his position at the forward side of the quarterdeck. He borrowed the speaking-trumpet from Southwick and shouted orders to the guns' crews.

No ship in the Royal Navy ever had enough men to “fight both sides.” Usually there were enough to load and fire all the guns on one side, with only one or two men for each gun on the other side. If both broadsides had to be fired, then one was fired first and several men from each gun ran across to the corresponding gun on the other side to fire that while the men left behind began to sponge and reload.

The
Heliotrope
was now on the starboard beam (no wonder that had seemed a long swim from the
Earl of Dodsworth
) and the
Commerce
to larboard. Ahead, only her transom visible and her two masts in line, the
Lynx.
Once again he raised the telescope. Her gun ports were still closed and beyond her, on the beach, he could see the Calypsos and the two surveying parties running towards their boats. The artist Wilkins would have to be left behind if he wanted to sketch the action from the shore.

He eased the sling slightly: his arm was beginning to throb, but at last he was coming to life; the chill which had seemed reluctant to go since they dragged him from the sea on board the East Indiaman was now being replaced by a warm glow; the sky was deep blue again, the hills of Trinidade fresh green, the sand of the small beach almost white, and the sea in the bay a patchwork of dark blue, pale green and brownish-green, warning of the depths.

The dark, mangrove green of the
Lynx
's hull, the buff of her masts and white of her topmasts, the black of her rigging—they showed up in the telescope as though she was fifty yards away instead of five hundred.

He hated sitting down: usually at this point before battle he would be free to pace along the deck beside the quarterdeck rail, but now he had to be in an armchair like some ancient dribbling admiral, hard of hearing and even harder of comprehension, bald of pate and watery of eye. He laughed at the picture and noticed Wagstaffe glance round and grin. Paolo began laughing and Ramage glanced up at him questioningly.

“You look very
commodo,
sir.”

“I'm comfortable enough, although I'd sooner be walking, my lad, but at least I'm not missing anything!”

He gave Paolo the telescope to replace in the binnacle box drawer: there was no need for it now. Four hundred yards—and he could see five or six men looking over the
Lynx
's taffrail. “Can you see any men on her fo'c's'le?”

“No, sir, but it's partly hidden from here by the masts.”

The chances were that they had not begun cutting their cable. No men were casting off the gaskets of her sails. Had they all panicked? Frozen with fear as they saw the frigate beating up to them, guns run out on both sides? He pictured Tomás and Hart and knew they were not men likely to panic. Then he glanced at his watch. He tried to guess how long had passed since those two or three privateersmen had pointed and raised the alarm. Two or three minutes, he saw; not enough time for Tomás and Hart to do anything—yet.

Three hundred yards and the privateer was dead ahead: they must be wondering which side the
Calypso
was going to grapple. The colours of the
Lynx
were bright now and he could distinguish a thin man from a fat one. Judging distance was the hardest job of all.

“Wagstaffe, warn your men to be ready as the target bears. Southwick—” he paused. Two hundred yards. His eyes followed an imaginary curve round to larboard which would be the
Calypso
's course as she tacked. It had to be done slowly to give the gunners a good chance, but not so slowly that she got into irons and drifted helplessly. One hundred yards. That popping was from the muskets of a few privateersmen at the taffrail. In the moment before he shouted the order to Southwick he realized that the privateersmen were still trying to guess which side to defend against the
Calypso!

“—put her about, Mr Southwick, slowly now!”

The Master bellowed a few words at the quartermaster, Jackson, who snapped at the men on each side of the wheel. Slowly, it seemed so slowly that for a few moments he thought he had left it too late, the
Calypso
began to turn. For a long time it looked as though her bowsprit and jib-boom would ride up over the
Lynx
's stern as she rammed the schooner, then the speed of her turn increased as the rudder started to get grip on the water. Southwick held the fore-topsail backed just as the frigate swung north, with the
Lynx
's stern appearing to move slowly along her starboard side.

Ramage heard a thud from forward and saw a puff of smoke beginning to drift down the
Calypso
's side. Then another as the second gun fired in the frigate's raking broadside. More popping—loud from the muskets of Rennick's Marines, soft from the privateersmen; then the thumping of the frigate's remaining guns formed a deep background to the descant of flapping sails, squealing ropes and Southwick's shouted orders as slowly the
Calypso
went about on the other tack, swinging past north-east and heading west-north-west before she picked up enough way for the rudder to act.

The wind was so light that the smoke of the
Calypso
's guns did not disperse and in a few moments the quarterdeck was covered in a thin, acrid fog which set Ramage coughing and clutching his wounded arm as the spasms shot pain through his whole body. In a moment Paolo was bent over him, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth to filter out the smoke, but almost as suddenly as it appeared the smoke vanished and the sun was glaring down again on the quarterdeck.

Still coughing, Ramage twisted round in the chair. The
Lynx
was on the starboard quarter, dust hanging over her stern, and beginning to slide under the
Calypso
's taffrail as the frigate continued her turn.

It was working! “Mr Wagstaffe—are your men ready at the larboard side guns?”

The Second Lieutenant waved, a confident gesture to reassure the Captain.

Still the
Calypso
continued turning: having fired all her starboard guns into the
Lynx
while tacking northwards across her stern she was turning to pass southward across the
Lynx
's stern again and fire all her larboard guns, loaded with grapeshot, into the unprotected stern, yet another raking broadside which every ship feared.