Ramage and the Dido (27 page)

The darkness seemed to emphasise the noise. Obviously the guns were making no more noise than usual, but the darkness seemed to concentrate it, as though the thunder could not escape.

He heard Orsini shouting orders to his guns’ crews: the lad was excited but controlled, and the guns crashed out yet again. Firing caseshot, they would be sweeping the Frenchman’s decks, cutting down men and slashing rigging and sails.

‘Look at that!’ shouted Southwick, pointing aloft. ‘They’re either firing wild or trying to dismast us!’

In the light of the flashes Ramage could see the main topgallant yard was hanging down at a crazy angle and in two pieces, obviously hit squarely by a roundshot. There will be plenty of work for the carpenter and his mates before this night’s over, Ramage thought.

Now the thunder of the guns from both ships was continuous, like thunder exaggerated a hundred times, and the flicker of the guns firing was like summer lightning. It seemed to Ramage that there was an air of unreality over the whole scene. He was too used to fighting in bright daylight to feel comfortable in the darkness.

But, he realised, it must be the same for the French. Not only that but they were probably suffering from harbour rot, his phrase for the strange malaise that came over a ship’s company when they did not go to sea. Ships and seamen rot in harbour: a glib phrase but a true one. And when had the
Achille
last fired her guns in anger? Probably months, if not years ago, and Ramage could not see the ship sailing from Fort Royal to exercise the guns’ crews at sea.

Just then one of the men at the wheel screamed and collapsed, and in the darkness Ramage could see a dark stain spreading across the deck. As Aitken shouted for another seaman to take his place, there was a crash and another roundshot hit the mainmast and whined aft in ricochet across the gratings to bury itself in the bulkhead on the forward side of Ramage’s pantry, at the larboard forward corner of the coach.

Suddenly Ramage realised Southwick was tugging at his arm and pointing over the starboard bow.

‘Pointe des Nègres – it’s very close: you can just see the cliffs in the flashes of our broadsides.’

And there they were, eerily grey and menacing, and their course – the one being steered by both the
Achille
and the
Dido –
was converging on it; in half a mile or less they would be up on the rocks.

But, Ramage realised, the French had not noticed their danger – either the lookouts had been killed or they were below serving at the guns. Anyway, whatever their fate they were not keeping a lookout.

And this was the
Dido
’s
chance: Ramage guessed he had only a couple of minutes to seize it. ‘Quick, slap us alongside! Turn right into her!’

This was the chance of surprising the enemy: surprise was the secret of all success, and it was the hardest thing to achieve. But if the
Achille
suddenly found the
Dido
coming at her out of the darkness, apparently intending to board, her obvious move was to turn away to starboard – a turn which should take her on to the rocks, because by then if the French saw the cliffs they would not have enough room to turn back again.

The men spun the wheel, helped by Jackson, and Ramage heard as if for the first time the popping of the muskets of the Marines. ‘Boarders stand by,’ he shouted at Aitken, ‘and warn Rennick that we might be boarding!’

The
Dido
’s
broadside became more ragged as the ship’s turn meant the guns had to be trained round more, but they soon picked up and the ship seemed to tremble as the guns fired and rumbled back in recoil.

‘We’re firing faster than they are,’ Southwick said.

‘I should hope so, after all that training.’

‘And the French still seem to be firing high.’

‘So much the better: they don’t seem to be doing much damage and it means we aren’t losing so many men.’

Just then a grapeshot crashed into the corner of the binnacle and ricocheted into the bulwark after showering both Ramage and Southwick with splinters, none of which wounded them. Southwick brushed them off his coat. ‘Lucky that didn’t hit the compass.’

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the calico tearing sound of another shot seemed to pass between them, close enough for both men to duck involuntarily.

‘Hot work,’ grumbled Southwick. ‘Too hot to last.’

‘They seem determined to knock our heads off,’ Ramage said.

Now he could see that the
Dido
was easing over on to the
Achille
but the flashes of the guns were too dazzling for him to be able to distinguish the cliffs. Was the
Achille
turning to starboard to avoid the
Dido
crashing alongside or were they just getting ready to repel boarders?

The side of the French ship rippled with the flashes of her guns, and Ramage could feel rather than hear the thud as roundshot bit into the
Dido
’s
side. He heard an occasional scream as a man was hit; otherwise there was just the hollow rumble of the guns firing and recoiling and the cork popping sound of the Marines’ muskets. The smoke was now thick on the quarterdeck, eddying and twisting as it was caught by random wind currents.

Ramage stared hard at the
Achille,
trying to decide whether she was turning away. He finally decided she was not. Which would mean the
Dido
must crash alongside in about three minutes – a manoeuvre he had not intended: he did not want to try to take the French ship by boarding, although he was prepared. Apart from anything else, the French ship was probably carrying a hundred or so extra troops – the easiest way they had of reinforcing the ship in anticipation of meeting the
Dido.
There were always soldiers available in Fort Royal.

Orsini was keeping up a high rate of fire with his carronades: the new design of slides certainly speeded up loading. Providing the aiming was as good as the rate of fire, they should be clearing the
Achille
’s
decks methodically – carronades firing caseshot at close range were lethal, and the spread of the shot at this range was just about ideal.

‘She’s holding her course,’ Southwick grumbled. ‘We’re going to run aboard her.’

‘I’m afraid so: I just hope she hasn’t taken on a lot of extra troops,’ Ramage said.

‘We can always hold off and keep this range.’

‘No, our only hope of avoiding a battering match is to get her to run ashore. Maybe they’ll take fright after we get alongside.’

Southwick hitched his sword round a bit, as if reassuring himself that he was still wearing it. ‘It’ll make a change for me to board someone,’ he said, intending to forestall Ramage from telling him that he could not join the boarding parties. There was little he enjoyed more than swinging his big two-handed sword as he swept into the midst of a group of Frenchmen. Yet with his flowing white hair and cheery red face he looked like the peaceful parson of a country parish, more used to writing out his sermons than wielding a sword. Southwick was, Ramage considered, the most deceptive-looking man in the
Dido
’s
ship’s company.

The gap between the two ships was closing faster now: the outline of tbe
Achille
was becoming more definite, even though she still had a ghostly quality as the flickering from her own guns and the
Dido
’s
lit her up, throwing weird shadows across her sails and making her hull seem to tremble.

The range was down to less than a hundred yards when Southwick exclaimed: ‘She’s turning!’

At almost the same moment Ramage noticed that her bowsprit was diverging slightly to starboard. Not much – maybe a point. But no, the swing was continuing. The captain of the
Achille
had suddenly decided to sheer off rather than risk being boarded. But was he watching the
Dido
and not looking to starboard?

Ramage willed his guns to fire faster, so that the French captain concentrated on the
Dido.
He tried to put himself in the Frenchman’s place. Yes, he could imagine himself being obsessed with watching the enemy: it was the obvious thing to do, particularly when he seemed to be moving into a position to run alongside and board.

Again he looked forward at the
Achille
’s
bowsprit, and in the gun flashes he was sure she had turned another point to starboard. Two points. Three should be enough. Four would make it certain. As he watched, feeling almost dizzy as the flashes nagged at his eyes, he was sure the French ship was still turning. The only reference point was the
Dido
’s
own bowsprit, which was also turning to starboard but at a slower rate.

He gave Aitken the order to bring the wheel amidships, to stop the turn. Every yard the
Dido
made to starboard brought her that much nearer to Pointe des Nègres, apart from making it harder to distinguish how much the
Achille
was turning. The French captain had it in mind that the
Dido
was trying to come alongside to board, and that was all that mattered: he probably would not notice that she had in fact stopped her turn: the gunfire and darkness would obscure that. Or at least he hoped it would.

With the
Dido
’s
helm amidships he could not distinguish for certain that the
Achille
was continuing the turn to starboard – turning increasingly faster as her rudder got a bite on the water. How long would it be now?

Another roundshot ripped overhead, only a couple of feet clear of Ramage and Southwick as they stood together on the quarterdeck. This time neither man moved; both were trying to see beyond the
Achille
’s
bow, for a sight of the cliffs. Suddenly a ripple of fire from the
Dido
’s
guns made a concentrated flash which showed Ramage the cliffs: not where he had been looking, across the French ship’s fo’c’sle, but just ahead of her.

‘Larboard your helm!’ he bellowed at Aitken. ‘We’ll be on the rocks ourselves in a few moments.’

Even as he shouted the
Achille
seemed to stop in the water and then appeared to draw astern as the
Dido
forged ahead and began to turn to seaward away from the cliffs and away from the
Achille.

Slowly the gunfire died down as the gun captains realised there was no target, and the night became black. Black with blotches of grey as the eyes tried to recover from the dazzling effect of the muzzle flashes.

‘We’ve done it!’ Southwick shouted triumphantly. ‘She’s gone up on the rocks!’

‘I’m not sure we’re going to get clear in time,’ Ramage said cautiously. ‘I can’t see a damned thing.’

‘I’m blinded too,’ Southwick admitted. ‘All those flashes were too much. But God, how black it is now.’

Ramage waited anxiously as the
Dido
turned and Aitken shouted orders for trimming the sails and bracing the yards. Would that sickening crunch come as the
Dido
’s
bow rode up on the small reef of rocks extending seaward from the Pointe des Nègres or would she turn in time?

Just at that moment cloud cleared away and let starlight down on to the cliff, giving Ramage a sense of direction and letting him see that the
Dido
would pass clear. But as he looked over the
Dido
’s
quarter he could see the black hump of the
Achille,
seemingly hunched up at the foot of the cliff, her shape hard to identify.

Suddenly Southwick gave a bellow of alarm, followed up by an apologetic report that the
Scourge
was fine on the larboard bow. ‘In the darkness she looked bigger than a brig,’ he said. ‘I thought we were in for more trouble.’

Ramage said, ‘Stand by to anchor. We want to put a few more broadsides into the
Achille
at first light, apart from making sure she doesn’t refloat tonight.’

‘She must have been making six knots or more when she hit,’ Southwick said. ‘I don’t think she’s going to get off tonight.’

‘What’s the rise and fall of tide here?’ Ramage asked.

‘It’s only a couple of feet at springs, and it’s neaps now, so a foot o’ water isn’t going to do her much good.’

‘Let’s have a cast of the lead and put an anchor down,’ Ramage said impatiently. ‘I don’t want to move too far away from that Frenchman, just in case he manages to get off.’

Southwick bustled off to the fo’c’sle, shouting orders for the anchor party, as Aitken called for topmen ready to furl the topsails.

Dawn came with painful slowness. The ship’s company went to general quarters, to meet the first hint of daybreak with the guns loaded and run out. During the night the cloud had come and gone, so that one minute the starlight showed the cliff and the
Achille
and the next minute they were blotted out by a bank of cloud drifting across the sky from the east. There was no sign of movement from the French ship of the line; Southwick, watching with the nightglass, swore that the French had not rowed round taking soundings.

‘That could mean they are holed so badly it doesn’t matter what the depths are,’ Ramage pointed out.

‘True,’ Southwick admitted, but added: ‘If they’re holed that badly, they’ll never get off without help.’

Now, as the blackness slowly turned to grey, Ramage watched the ship through his telescope. No, she did not seem to be floating low in the water. But yes, perhaps she was up a bit by the bow. It was hard to be sure in the half-light, but Ramage found himself impatient to know.

Where was the convoy – when and where was the
Achille
due to meet it? He could not wait around too long off Fort Royal and Pointe des Nègres because he had to get down to the south to wait off Cabrit Island for the merchant ships to arrive. Why the devil was it that so often one was supposed to be in two places at once?

The
Scourge
passed close and Ramage grasped the speaking trumpet and shouted to Bennett. ‘Thanks – that was a good job of shadowing. You can see the result. Now get down to Cabrit Island and keep a watch there.’