Ramage (4 page)

Apart from the signal book, and some charts, that was all he needed.

Ramage turned to Jackson. ‘Go to the Master’s cabin and collect all the western Mediterranean charts and sailing instructions you can lay your hands on, and the Master’s log. Bring them to me on the quarter-deck. Put them all in a seabag with a shot in the bottom, in case we have to dump them over the side in a hurry.’

He noticed a strange quietness beginning to settle over the ship and as he made his way out of the dark cabin, fumbling for the companionway leading to the quarter-deck, he realized wounded men had stopped moaning – or maybe they’d all been taken on deck out of earshot – and he could hear once again the familiar creak of the masts and yards, and the squeak of ropes rendering through blocks. And there was a less familiar noise – the slop of water down in the hold, and strange bumpings: presumably casks of meat, powder and various provisions floating around.

The ship herself felt sluggish beneath his feet: all the life, the normal quick reaction of the hull to the slightest movement of the rudder, the exhilarating surge forward as an extra strong gust of wind caught the sails, the lively pitch and roll as she rode the crests of the swell waves and plunged across the troughs – all that has gone. Instead, as if she has suffered some ghastly internal haemorrhage, the ton upon ton of water swilling and surging about down below as she rolls is exerting its weight first on one side and then on the other, constantly changing her centres of gravity and buoyancy, and playing fantastic juggling tricks with her stability.

The
Sibella
, he thought, shivering involuntarily, is dying, like some great animal lurching through the jungle, mortally wounded and capable of only a few more steps. If a sudden surge of water to one side or the other doesn’t capsize her first, then once the weight of the water pouring in through the ragged shot holes in her hull equals the weight of the ship herself, she will sink. That’s a scientific fact and only pumps, not prayers, can prevent it.

As Ramage climbed up to the quarter-deck he had a momentary impression of stepping into a cow shed: the stifled moans and gasps of the wounded men sounded like the lowing and snuffling of cattle. The Bosun was carrying out his orders quickly, and the last of the wounded were being brought up: Ramage stepped back a moment to let two limping men drag a third, who appeared to have a broken leg, to join the rest of them lying in rough rows at the forward end of the quarter-deck.

None of the
Sibella
’s guns had fired for several minutes and the wind blowing through the ports had dispersed the smoke; but the smell of burnt gunpowder lingered on, clinging to his clothes, like the curious odour that hangs about a house long after flames have gutted it.

Yes, the
Barras
was where he had expected to see her – just forward of the beam and perhaps five hundred yards away. He suddenly realized she had not fired for three or four minutes. She had no need to: the damage was done. It was hard to believe that less than ten minutes had passed since the
Barras
made that slight change of course; even harder to realize that she first came in sight over the horizon only an hour ago.

Ramage heard the mewing of some gulls which had returned after the gunfire and were now wheeling in the
Sibella
’s wake, waiting hopefully for the cook’s mate to throw some succulent rubbish over the side.

Over the larboard beam, the north-western end of the Argentario peninsula was beginning to fade in the darkness rapidly spreading across the dome of the sky from the eastward. Just here the land curved away and flattened out into the marshland and swamp forming the Maremma, which stretch southward for almost a hundred miles, to the gates of Rome. The next big port was Civita Vecchia, thirty-five miles to the south. That was shut, on the Pope’s orders, to both French and British ships.

To seaward, beyond and above the
Barras
– which was now, in the gathering night, little more than a silhouette – the Dog Star sparkled, a pale blue pinpoint of light like a diamond on dark velvet. The Dog Star, the chilly downdraught of wind from the maintopsail, the rattle of blocks, occasional hails from lookouts, and the creak of the masts and of the timbers in the ship’s hull – for many months they had been as much a part of his life as hunger and chill, heat and tiredness. And all of it reduced to a shattered ship manned by shattered seamen within a few minutes of the sails on the horizon being recognized as belonging to a French line-of-battle ship. There had been no time to escape, and as the
Barras
ran down towards them she had seemed a thing of great beauty, gently dipping and rising in elegant curtsies as the swell waves passed under her, every stitch of canvas set, including studding sails. Even as she ranged herself abeam to windward, her ports open, and the stubby black barrels of her guns poking out like threatening fingers, she had still been a thing of beauty.

Suddenly she had vomited spurts of greyish yellow smoke which, quickly merging into one great bank, had hidden her hull from view. Then she had sailed out of it, trailing thin wisps of smoke from her gun ports, while the
Sibella
appeared to lurch as she was hit by an invisible hail of shot: iron shot ranging in size from small melons to large oranges and which at that range cut through three feet of solid timber, sloughing up splinters as thick as a man’s thigh and as sharp as a sword blade.

The first broadside had seemed more than the
Sibella
could stand; but she had sailed on, while the French used grapeshot in several guns for their next broadside. Ramage had seen these egg-sized shot fling a man from one side of the ship to another, as if punched by an invisible fist; others had collapsed suddenly with a grunt or a scream, death heavy inside them. He had seen several of the
Sibella
’s 12-pounder cannon, each weighing more than a quarter of a ton, thrown aside by the
Barras’
round shot as though they were wooden dummies. Then he had been knocked unconscious.

After the little
Sibella
had been battered until she was a leaking wooden box full of smoke and flame, agonizing wounds, screams, defiant yells and death; after the majority of the eight score men who had made her a living thing and sailed her halfway round the world were at this moment lying dead or wounded, staining with their blood the decks they twice daily scrubbed, it now seemed incongruous – blasphemous almost – that the stars could begin to twinkle and the sea still chatter merrily round the
Sibella
’s cut-water and gurgle as it creamed away in the wake astern, showing for a few brief moments the path the frigate had sailed before smoothing away the memory that she had ever passed.

Ramage forced himself to turn away from the bulwark: day-dreaming again when all he intended to do was assure himself the
Barras
was still holding her course. He now had only ten minutes or so left in which to finish his plan, which would either save his men’s lives or kill them. These were, he supposed, the minutes for which eight years of life at sea should have trained him to meet.

The Bosun came up and said, ‘We’ve got most of ’em up now, sir: about another dozen left. An’ I reckon there’s less than fifty of us still on our pins.’

He saw the Carpenter’s Mate waiting.

‘Just under six feet, sir. It’s them new holes going under as she settles deeper.’

Ramage realized several dozen men near by, including many of the wounded, were listening.

‘Fine – the old bitch will swim a lot longer yet. There’ll be no need for anyone to get their feet wet.’

Brave talk; but these poor devils need some reassurance. He glanced across at the
Barras
. Does her captain realize the
Sibella
isn’t under control? With his telescope he can see the shattered wheel, and guess that if she could be manoeuvred her officers would have already tried to wear round in an attempt to escape.

‘Bosun, as soon as the last wounded man is on deck, muster the unwounded here. I want a couple of dozen axes as well. By the way, who was the signal midshipman?’

‘Mr Scott.’

‘Have some hands look for his body and find the signal book. None of us leaves the ship until it’s found, and you can tell the men that.’

The American cox’n, Jackson, came up to him, holding a canvas sea bag.

‘All the Master’s charts and sailing directions, the log book, and muster book, which I found in the Purser’s cabin, sir.’

Ramage gave him the documents from the cabin, with the exception of the Admiral’s orders. ‘Put these in the bag. Men are looking for the signal book. Take charge of it when it’s found. Now find me a cutlass.’

‘The signal book, sir,’ said a seaman, holding out a slim and blood-sodden volume.

‘I’ll take it,’ said Jackson, and put it in the bag.

Ramage glanced across once again at the
Barras
. There was not much time left.

‘Bosun! Those axes?’

‘Ready, sir.’

Jackson came back, a couple of cutlasses under one arm. ‘You’ll be needing this, sir,’ he said, handing him a speaking trumpet. The bloody man thought of everything. Ramage walked aft and scrambled up on to the hammocks along the top of the bulwark. Let’s hope the French don’t open fire now, he thought grimly. He put the speaking trumpet on his lips.

‘Listen carefully, you men, and don’t be afraid to ask about anything you don’t understand. If you carry out my orders to the letter we can get away in the boats. We can’t help the wounded: for their sakes we must leave them for the French surgeon to look after.

‘We’ve got four boats that can still swim. From the moment I give the word you’ll have only two or three minutes to get into those boats and pull like the devil.’

‘Excuse me, sir, but how can we stop the ship to get into the boats?’ asked the Bosun.

‘You’ll see in a moment. Now, the Frenchman out there.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘He’s converging on us. In eight or ten minutes he’ll be almost alongside, ready to board. And we can’t stop him.’

At that moment the ship gave a lurch, reminding him of the water still flooding in below.

‘If we haul down our flag, obviously we won’t get away in the boats. So we’ve got to fool him to gain time. If we wait until he’s almost alongside, then suddenly stop the ship, he’ll probably be taken by surprise and sail on past us. But we’ve got to do it so quickly he doesn’t get a chance to open fire. Before he has time to wear round again we’ve got away in the boats – after putting the ensign halyard in the hands of one of the wounded, so he can surrender the ship!’

‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but ’ow can we stop the ship?’ a Marine asked.

‘There’s only one way: drop something over the side so that it acts as an anchor. And to make absolutely certain the French don’t have time to fire we want to turn hard a’port at the same time. In soldiers’ language,’ he said to the Marine, ‘we “left wheel” while Johnny Frenchman marches on ahead.’

‘What do we drop over the side, sir?’ the same Marine asked gloomily, as though he’d heard it all before and knew it would not work. He sucked his teeth, as if they were all he had left to relish.

‘We stop the ship like this,’ said Ramage, restraining a sudden urge to shake the man and wishing he hadn’t given permission for them to ask questions. He spoke slowly and clearly: he wanted no mistakes. ‘The foremast is almost gone: nearly all the shrouds and backstays on the starboard side are cut. A dozen men with axes can cut the rest in a few moments and the mast will go by the board – over the larboard side. That’s our anchor. More than five tons of mast, yards and sails dumped in the water but still held by the larboard shrouds will suddenly drag the ship’s head to larboard – which is the way we want it to go.

‘And we help her by setting the mizentopsail and spanker the moment the foremast goes by the board. That’ll give the stern a shove just as the wreckage of the foremast is pulling the bow round.’

‘Aye, sir, but what about the Frenchman?’

It was another seaman and he genuinely wanted to know: he was not a professional Doubting Thomas like the toothsucker.

‘If she’s running almost alongside us and we suddenly turn away in not much more than our own length, she’ll have only a few seconds to fire. If she does fire,’ he remembered to add as a warning to the men there must be no delay, ‘then she’ll rake us. None of you’ll see Portsmouth Point again if we get even half a broadside coming in through the transom, so say your prayers and don’t make any mistakes.’

Only a few minutes to go. What else? Oh yes–

‘Now the boats: Bosun, you’ll command the red cutter; Carpenter’s Mate, the black cutter. You, the captain of the maintop – Wilson, isn’t it – you’ll have the gig. I’ll take the launch.

‘Now – final orders. You there’ – he gestured to a dozen men nearest the taffrail – ‘you are axemen. Get axes from the Bosun, then go forward and stand by the all remaining fore shrouds and back stays on the starboard side. Sort yourselves out and wait for the Bosun to give the order to start cutting: that’ll be the minute he hears me shouting in French.’

Ramage remembered to look across at the
Barras
. Still closing the gap. The sands of time…